SPAD's

[tw001k1522]

Hi,
I'm trying to make an activity for the Yorkshire Coast Route. Basically the player starts at Kettleness and works its way to Rillington. I stop at Rillington Station and want to reverse the train into the up siding. The ground signal shows yellow/restriction but when the brakevan nears the signal I get a SPAD?? I've tried tabbing past but no joy. I changed the path and reverse into the down siding where I stop just past a ground signal, uncouple then wait for a passenger train to pass. The ground signal changes to go but when I get close to it I again get SPAD?? Has anybody else had this problem. This happens 1hr 40mins into the activity and I'm fed up with trying different things only for it to do the same and I can't run the activity in AE as I have to tab signals to do shunting. If I make the ground signal into a failed signal would that work and just ask for permission to pass.

Cheers,
Terry W

[tw001k1522]

Hi,
No takers on this then. Have made the ground signal in the down siding a "failed signal" and can now tab past it. Not tried the same in the up siding as running an activity for over 1hr 30mins only to find it won't work is no joy. Has anybody experienced any problem with the said signals or why this should be happening(may be John Kendrick) or is there a way to correct this without making them failed signals. I have done a search but can't find anything related to this. Shame really as that means you can't make an activity and pick-up/drop off in either of these sidings.

Terry W.

[JohnKendrick]

I guess no follow up as many are getting to grips with the new Kuju Sim! Sorry, I've no immediate answer (it is quite a good few months since that was built now!)

To save the preliminary 30 minutes of the activity, could you try a shortened version of the activity starting closer to Rillington? As I'm not an activity expert perhaps there are good reasons why you cannot do that, but if you can it sounds sensible to me!!

If that works OK but the full version doesn't the answer may lie in a limitation of MSTS. If that doesn't work either then perhaps it is something to do with the placement of the signals. In tight areas such as sidings sometimes the only place for the signal marker (not the visible signal) is very close to a switch section which seems to cause a problem in certain conditions. If I remember correctly, the signals here had to be close to the switches due to lack of space to put them anywhere else! Normally this doesn't seem to be an issue but can be problematic in complex shunting activities (hence these are best worked out in advance to see if what is wanted can be achieved.) I'm pretty sure all the signals work normally when approached forwards, but reversing over everyone of them as well may have escaped the testing.

If you could post a screenshot showing where the problems occur (both instances) it may just help identify the mystery even if it doesn't allow it to be solved.

John

[tw001k1522]

Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. What I've done but not had chance to try yet is make the consist 2 wagons longer so that the loco does'nt/can't fully pass the ground signal (can't move the reverse point forward as it's just past a set of points). If that works I'll leave it at that for now but I'll try what you suggest(just for curiousity) when I've finished the activty. As for posting screenshots I'll do a search .

Cheers,
Terry W.

[JohnKendrick]

Well if it helps, email any screenshots to me directly! To show them you'd either need to upload them to the Atomic Album here at UKTS or put them in any webspace you may have with your ISP and link to them there.

If you could do that, while I cannot promise to solve the issue, I would at least know which sidings are causing concern!

John

[tw001k1522]

Hi,
I've got some screenshots that I want to put into a post so that John Kendrick can see where I'm having the problem. I've put the shots in atomic album and following the instruction as to putting them in a post message:-
[ album 124909 test1.jpg thumblink ] (without the spaces after and before the brackets)
but in the preview the picture doesn't show. Can someone explain what I'm doing wrong.

Terry W.

[Easilyconfused]

Since the forum upgrade the pictures don't show in preview. Also you do not need the thumblink bit any more - the album tag automatically produces linkable pictures if the picture is bigger than 800 * 600.

[tw001k1522]

Hi John,
Thanks very much. Didn't want to submit then find out the pictures weren't showing
Will try again.

Terry W.

[tw001k1522]

Hi John(Kendrick),
Have made a test activity as suggested and tried what I've been trying to do in the activity but the only way I can get into the up siding and out of the down siding is by making the 2 said ground signals "failed signals"???

Reversing from Rillington Station into the up siding.

Reversing from Rillington Station into the up siding and out onto the down mainline.

Going forwards out of the down siding.
In all cases I get "SPAD" but with the signals "failed" I can tab past???

Cheers,
Terry W.

[tw001k1522]

Sorry but for some reason you cant see the track monitor display.

Terry W.

[tw001k1522]

Silly me you can if you click on the picture.

Terry W.

[JohnKendrick]

OK got those. Can't think of anything obviously causing it from what I can see. Suggestions:

1. Does it play through OK in the Activity Editor?

2. Are you using the original trainsim exe or the modified bin version? If the bin version, try it with the original exe as the bin version didn't exist back in 2004/5 when the YCR was built. I've no idea if there have been any incompatibility issues.

3. Try it with a shorter consist in case the points are not being fully cleared. (My own testing tended to be with the railcar and the signalling seemed to work OK with that )

Otherwise it might just be that the signalling logic is not up to handling what you are attempting.

My own MSTS installation suffered from the constant swapping of stock and routes etc. during the testing of YCR and having had enough of the MSTS at that stage for the then time being, have never got it fully restored and working again as I had had it before! (I'd had quite enough of MSTS after all that!) So am not in the best position to try testing your activity for you. I'd first need to reinstall MSTS back as I had it and not as it became for testing with many changes to the stock I normally had used previously, and after nearly three years it is now all becoming a bit of a distant memory! Perhaps someone who understands activity creation would volunteer to look at it for you?


John

[tw001k1522]

Hi John,
1. No. It seems that the signals change from go to stop so the player stops?? and you don't have time to tab when running it in the sim.
2. Yes I have the modified bin version of trainsim.exe which hasn't caused any problems that I've noticed.
3. The consist I tried the test with is only a class31 with 3 wagons but I'll try it with the railcar.
4. It's only a straight forward movement so I can't see it being too complicated for the signalling.
If it was only a short activity I would ask someone to test it for me to see if it works for them but you have to run it for 1hr.30mins to get to that point. Saying that, I haven't finished it yet because I can't get past Rillington unless I make the signals "failed".

No worries though. Considering no-one else has reported having this problem it's obviously it's only me having it. I'll just keep messing about to see if I can find what's causing it but I'm no wizard with MSTS. Looks like I'll have bin it and have a re-think.

Thanks anyway,
Terry W.

[JohnKendrick]

I've checked that the signal markers are clear of the switch sections so can eliminate that possibility. Wonder, perhaps, if the activity path is conflicting with itself somehow and throwing the signalling logic into a tizzy. I also wondered if you were trying to route the shunting operation in a manner that wasn't intended on the real thing as the signals placed in the YCR are as those shown on contemporary track plans. As I understand it, signals were set up to achieve protecting certain paths and other possible paths (but not regularly used) are not protected at all and required manual flagging should they be needed in exceptional circumstances.

Remember that the real thing did not have computer controlled signalling, it was down to the chaps in the signal boxes! So the situation running with computer signalling on a 1920ish rail network is somewhat contrived.

Other (non railway) computer issues I frequently encounter nowadays that never used to be a problem, ask for a particular product that you know is in stock in another branch of a supermarket down the road because you cannot find it... they say the computer doesn't allocate us any!!

Phone up a large company and try to find a real person to speak to. Sometimes virtually impossible (in more ways than one!)

Much of the real railway was simplified with sidings and crossings removed to allow computer controlled signalling along the whole line. So perhaps the only real solution to your signalling problem maybe to hire a real signalman to operate the Rillington box for you!!! How you'd install him in your PC though I'm uncertain.

I'm not at all sure MSTS was devised to have such complex routing and signalling as some routes have used. The default routes were somewhat simplified when compared to the real thing whereas the YCR was not so compromised. Perhaps we are fortunate that the signalling in MSTS generally operates as well as it does as the early reports of signalling in the new Rail Sim sound less encouraging so far from what I have read in that section of the forums here.

John

[tw001k1522]

Hi John,
Thanks for another reply. It would help me alot if someone with the route installed would make a test activity like I've done using a class 31 with 2 cattle wagons and a brake for the player consist with just a player path from Rillington Station reversing into the up siding and then try another player path reversing into the down siding, uncoupling from the wagons and then go forward into the station to see if they have any problem with the 2 said ground signals.
I've tried uninstalling the MSTSbin patch (using the uninstaller) to see if thats causing the problem but find that none of my activities will work so I had to re-install it and they work again so I can't try to see if it was that.
I've just come on the forums to ask about that and might as well post it here as it's really a question for anybody but probably should be in th MSTSbin section.
After running the uninstaller and tried any activity I got the message "Error in loading screen widget file: activity.dat". Luckily I had a copy of the GUI\Widgets folder so copied that back and noticed also that the Soundcfg.dat file was missing so I copied that back. Now I'm getting the message "Failed to initialize Activity Manager". I've done a search on my other computer with MSTS installed and the MSTSbin patch but can't find anything to do with the Activity Manager. Can someone tell me where I can find this and how come the MSTSbin un-installer removed these files???

Thank you very much,
Terry W