Stationary Widing Engines

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 4:31 pm

Is it possible to build a route using Stationary Engines. I know you can get away with Inclined Planes as there is a US route which uses them.

The Reason is I am considering building the Canterbury - Whitstable Rly as it was in the 1830's. It's only a single track 5 3/4 mile line but so far it is causing me Migranes!!!

thenudehamster · Post by **thenudehamster** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:15 pm

Basically, I think what you might have to do is fudge the idea with an invisible engine on the front (or rear) of the train. MST does like a moving engine somewhere, I'm afraid...

Unless, of course, someone has a better idea....

salopiangrowler · Post by **salopiangrowler** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 2:09 am

dont the Mine engines on the foxfield rotate

andrewgadd · Post by **andrewgadd** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:22 am

I'm not sure that I understand the question correctly, but

Any piece of scenery can be animated in a loop and this scenery can have any number of frames up to about 10,000. These frames can be played as fast or as slowly as needed.
For example; I an currently building a canal side scene all as one shape, with canal, locks, wharf, buildings, towpath and narrow boats included. Having gone that far, I then animated the shape so that now there are four boats, three locks with working gates, rising/falling water and boats locking up, down and passing each other in the pounds!

I hope that this helps.
Andrew.

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 8:17 am

I think the Funicular railway on the Australian Steam4me site might be closest to what you are trying to do.

http://steam4me.railpage.org.au/trainsi ... cline.html

dkightley · Post by **dkightley** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:27 am

...which is the funicular on the London & Port Stanley route...which is superb!

And I think Adam's right. The nearest you'll be able to get is to have a track like on the L&PS funicular with a train made up of wagons and "rope" wagons. If there's a drum in view, the best you;ll be able to do is to animate it as a scenery object..but it'll still rotate when you stop the "train"

andrewgadd · Post by **andrewgadd** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:42 am

Sorry for being a bit dense here but, are we on about a funicular railway as an extra (scenery) to the route.
If we are then what I wrote earlier still holds true. You make the funicular railway as one shape complete with coaches then animate them moving up and down the line (with a little bit of buggering about, the ropes could work to) the export the whole piece of scenery to your route.
Whole animated scenes are possible in MSTS provided that you do not need them to interact with the trains. This is not entirely true as road crossing can be introduced into the scenario.

Andrew.

dkightley · Post by **dkightley** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:41 am

Andrew

No...the funicular is actually a driveable route! You can go up and down at your heart's content!

I seriously recommend the L&PS route. It has a fantastic level of detail...and the funicular thrown in as a novelty.

Can't remember where its available from...but do a search on the foum to find it...

Doug

andrewgadd · Post by **andrewgadd** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:54 am

Okay, thanks Doug, now I understand.

Although all this speculation has given me another idea!!!

Andrew,

AdamsRadial · Post by **AdamsRadial** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:30 pm

I hope that Darren10000 does go ahead and model the C&W, it would be wonderful to see some of the very early lines. MSTS has a lot of potential for historical visualisations, and as yet very little use has been made of this potential. It would be a real challenge for someone to try and model the atmospheric railways as well as the winding house lines.

The Australian funicular should be an example to us of just how far a determined modeller can push the 'limits' of MSTS, and each time I see a new route come out, I realise that we still haven't got the best out of the program yet.

curate · Post by **curate** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:38 am

I've been trying to do this as a scenery item, but having looked at the tutorial, my on-going problem is that I want the tracks to slope at more than the allowable MSTS gradient (some N Wales slate quarries had inclines at rather more than 45degrees) and I know that there's a way to do this, but I've never quite found out how - the pointers I've found are always to archived pages that never show up when I click on the link(s).

David
[Edit: If this post appears a little mangled, it's because it originally pointed to Steam4Me/../incline as help for use on a drivable route, so:
I promise I will find all the posts in each thread I reply to...
I promise I will find all the posts in each thread I reply to...
I promise I will find all the posts in each thread I reply to... [x100]
Sorry, missed the pointer to the Steam4Me tutorial that had already been posted. And I hate asking for help without offering help to others, so just ignore me and I'll go away.]

andrewgadd · Post by **andrewgadd** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:04 am

David, there are two ways to achieve the 45degrees incline with MSTS.

First, (and I can't quite remember) I think you hold down the "T" key while altering the grad of the track section, this can be done repeatedly with the same track section. This method is a bit hit and miss!!!

Second, (my preferred favourite) is to manually edit the world file after laying a section of track; this is far more predictive, as you can calculate the correct gradient and just enter the number!!!
The only draw back with this method is you can only edit one track section at a time after having laid it in RE, the track data base going â€œnutsâ€

andrewgadd · Post by **andrewgadd** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:55 am

Using method one..............

The next noticeable problem is of course the terrain; the obvious solution to this is building your own in a 3d program and adding it under the track section in RE. Again editing the world file will ensure perfect alignment.

Andrew.

dkightley · Post by **dkightley** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:42 am

Straights are easy-peasy. Try tilting points up to greater than the default amount.....you have to turn them round and round and round!

darren10000 · Post by **darren10000** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:11 pm

Thanks for all the input, sorry I havent got back to anyone as I have been away this weekend.

The steepest Gradient on the C&W was 1:28; and the winding engines worked bi-directionally except on the the 1 in 28 stretch at bogshole bank, where Invicta Took over for the level section, and also the stretch from Tyler Hill summit down through the tunnel into what is now the farmers market on the Canterbury West site.

This is going to be a challenge I know but I've got next week off, so with any luck I'll get started properly. Any suggestions or help please feel free to PM me.