West Kirby Circular - An Activity for TM Modern Era Route

[Lad491]

Ive just uploaded my latest, and certainly my last for the time being, activity for the Thames Mersey Modern Era. Its an out and back commuter run in a 507 EMU from West Kirby around the loop.

The player service is the 08:06 departure from West Kirby. All AI services are as the Summer 2004 timetable. Ive used 507's for the West Kirby and New Brighton Services, but for a bit of variety have used DMU's for the Rock Ferry services via the loop.

Its been a bit difficult getting it to work because of the shortness of timing interval and length of signal sections and even now the verify start position test in the activity editor fails as more than one train is placed in the same section at start. However in the game it seems to work ok and the AI services dont crash. You may find this causes problems though on your PC if AI traffic runs differently.

All stock used has come from the TM V3.2 CD. The EMU's are downloadable from UKTS separately (File ID 8985) but the downloaded versions will need eng and wag file modifications which are not needed on the CD versions. See this thread for further details :

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 78&start=0

My thanks go to Warship, whose similar service from New Brighton gave me the inspiration to try one myself.

I hope you like it. If you like commuter runs with tight timetables then this should appeal to you.

Any problems or bug reports to this thread please.

[ScouserUK]

Hi Lad,

Just ran this activity and enjoyed it, well done

Nice to see some more activities been created involving Merseyrail. Might finally get off my arse and finish one myself.

Anyways..

Not really a bug per se, but I noticed the player's West Kirby Circular consist is set out as following:

507Class_MR (eng), 507class_MR_car, 507class_MRear, 507class_MR_car, 507class_MRear, 507class_MRear

Which leaves a 3 car EMU attached to a 2 car EMU with a lost carriage in between

Easy enough to fix, did it myself, but just thought I'd point it out anyway.

Other than that, didn't have any problems with the activity.

Was good seeing regular other MR consists during the activity, though I did miss the 3car ones after a while It was a nice touch having the AI consist enter the tunnel for James Street platform 3 as you waited at platform 1 for departure.

The default Series2000 cab normally annoys me, but I was concentrating on the activity so much I barely noticed. That's a compliment btw

Which reminds me.. the notes for the activity state that you need to stop at 0.0 at Moorfields and Lime Street in order to unload, but on my machine at least I was able to unload at -0.03 no problems, but DID have to stop at 0.0 to unload at Hoylake. Weird huh?

Anyways, just my 2p there, keep up the good work Lad.

David

[Lad491]

Thanks for your comments David. I dont know how the consist bug crept in. Actually the second unit uses the rear unit reversed, but how it got out of position i dont know.

It should have been :

507Class_MR (eng), 507class_MR_car, 507class_MRear, 507class_MRear(R), 507class_MR_car, 507class_MRear

i'll have to check it again on mine - except its stored now so next time i have it out - but i didnt notice they were wrong

I did think about varying the consists between 3 and 6 car units - but it was just one more complication I decided i could live without

Which reminds me.. the notes for the activity state that you need to stop at 0.0 at Moorfields and Lime Street in order to unload, but on my machine at least I was able to unload at -0.03 no problems, but DID have to stop at 0.0 to unload at Hoylake. Weird huh?

Strange isn't it. Try as I may I couldn't get a stop to record at Moorfields or Lime Street unless i short stopped at exactly 0:00 The fact that you could seems to rule out the problem being with the platform markers, which is what i thought it was, but must be something peculiar to each PC again

Anyhow Im glad it worked out ok and you didnt get any AI collisions at the start. Its just a pity i couldn't get the timings exactly right. During the first test with only Kirby and New Brighton traffic I got stacks of cautions and reds which made it really hard to keep to time. Once i introduced the Chester services the activity wouldn't run at all and i had to smooth the timings out - which lost all the signal checks

Thanks for your feedback

[Lad491]

David was right, of course, and i did make a boo boo when i assembled the consist

Ive just uploaded a patch which should correct the problem. Just unzip the file to your consists folder and overwrite the original. Sorry 'bout that. I only ever drive from inside the cab so didnt spot the error.

[king125]

Well done Laurie on another brilliant activity, completed with no problems,so it look's like a few more will be coming your way when we meet at the SVR gala .
Terry

[ScouserUK]

David was right, of course, and i did make a boo boo when i assembled the consist

Ive just uploaded a patch which should correct the problem. Just unzip the file to your consists folder and overwrite the original. Sorry 'bout that. I only ever drive from inside the cab so didnt spot the error.

Don't worry about it Laurie, t'was a minor thing, glad to be of help

[Lad491]

Thanks Terry - Glad you enjoyed it too.

I think its my round for the next time - you got the last one in

See you at SVR.

Laurie

[Warship]

Hi Laurie,

A very pleasing activity to run, but it took me two attempts to get it to work.

No fault of the activity I’m sure, but the first run I had some very curious and weird things happening …………………

Approaching Birkenhead North I had an “Overspeedâ€

[Lad491]

Hi Greg - I suspect your problem may be related to the fact that at the start position more than one train is occupying one section. I couldn't get the real timetable to work exactly as MSTS couldn't place all the services, but I found by tweaking the timings a touch I could place two trains into the same section as long as they were far enough apart.

Obviously all my tests were on my machine and AI traffic does run differently on other machines. It is likely therefore that the spacing at setup on your PC is slightly different than mine and could cause problems. I fully expected this Strange how it ran ok second time around

I didnt have the 15 mph speed limit at Birkenhead, but again speed limits do "bleed" across tracks sometimes. Again i think its down to the actual PC, but im no route expert.

I currently now have TM stored as Im working on some activities for another CD Release, but please feel free to e mail me and i'll see what I can do to help

[Lad491]

Actually after i typed the above i think i can explain the signal weird ohs.
It sounds to me like you were a few seconds ahead of my timings (which is all it takes to throw things out) and you had picked up the path of the DMU ahead. That would explain the green signal on the track monitor, its actually the green for the DMU. It correctly changes to red after the DMU has passed, but now you are actually off path since you are running on the DMU path - so the signal will never change. I have experience this problem on other routes too. This is actually a common problem if stock placing are too close together - which they definitely are on this activity at the start.

When you ran it a second time you were probably a few seconds later and the DMU ahead had cleared the section. You should get two cautions, but a green by the time you reach Hamilton Sq.

[Warship]

Oh Good
I'm glad there is a reason - it was quite a surprise to find the DMU only yards ahead when I came round the corner
Just as well Rail Track don't/didn't use Micro$hit Software for their signalling - lol

[Warship]

To get back to the activity itself, I've since run it twice more, and very enjoyable it is

One thing I've noticed .......... in your Activity Briefing you wrote:-

The time table is tight in places but there is some recovery time built into the timetable so you should have no trouble getting back on time if you fall behind schedule.

I'm of the mind that MR, and a lot of TOC's write their timetables with a bit of "Artistic Licence" ie if it states a train may depart at 10:30 this can actually mean anytime between 10:29:30 and 10:30:30 and sometime with even more latitude than just ± 30 secs. As you have adhered to the pubished timetable there are sections where it's not only tight, but damn near imposible to acheive the times between Station Stops, then the next Station you arrive a good minute early and so make up any lost time - (not a critisism, merely an observation as how timetables seem to work).

(hopefully you can expect an e-mail in the next few days re my act)

Greg.

[Lad491]

You're probably right Greg - but in the absence of a working timetable I can only go by the published timetable In any event, I expect rush hour travel services will always run late - they do here in the south, as the allowed 30 second boarding time is never possible with a large number of commuters boarding and alighting at each stop

One reason that you can make up time is, of course, that there is a station missing - i forget which one now. So you save at least a minute there not slowing stopping and accelerating again

[welshdragon]

Laurie,

I have just completed the activity without any problems occurring from install to completion.

Another excellent activity.

Regards

Alan

[Lad491]

Thanks for the feedback Alan, glad you liked it - im reassurred to see that it seems to be working ok on most peoples PC's