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"must wait time" rule

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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 20:40 #82089
KymriskaDraken
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Is it possible to add a rule that says "Train X must not leave Y until its booked time"? This would make life a lot easier for timetable writers if, for example, they have a train that stables for several hours. At the moment a rule "Train X must not leave Y until Z minutes..." is needed to stop the train running several hours early.


Kev

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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:00 #82091
LMK
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I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait
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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:20 #82092
arabianights
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" said:
I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait :)
Good thing frieght trains always stop at stations, isn't it

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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:29 #82093
Steamer
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" said:
I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait :)
Freight trains sometimes depart early. Provided there's a controlled signal at the location they're stopped at and you hold it at red, the train will ring in and you can tell it not to wait and not ring again until the booked departure time.

"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:31 #82094
jc92
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" said:
I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait :)
only class 1 and 5 trains. a class 3 or 4 parcels for instance MAY depart early even though instructions for them IRL are to use full booked time. the same applies to freights which are booked to stop. sometimes they will wait, sometimes they don't.

can I add to this thread (I think I've requested it before) an option for a train to always depart early at a location. it would handy where a stop is only for regulation purposes for instance, as it would allow you to get a train out early if he isn't booked a PNB, crew change, vehicle inspection etc..

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:38 #82096
KymriskaDraken
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" said:
I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait :)
Passenger trains will always wait time; it's the others that are the problem.


Kev

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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 21:39 #82097
KymriskaDraken
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" said:
" said:
I am currently writing a timetable for Brighton, and when testing it, I found that trains will always wait for their booked times before departing (even if they arrive extremely early). Don't think you need a rule to make trains keep to their booked departure times. Just make sure you enter them correctly and the trains should wait :)
Freight trains sometimes depart early. Provided there's a controlled signal at the location they're stopped at and you hold it at red, the train will ring in and you can tell it not to wait and not ring again until the booked departure time.
Yes, I know that, but in real life the train wouldn't ring up three or four hours early! :)


Kev

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"must wait time" rule 01/05/2016 at 23:42 #82100
postal
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Already on Mantis as #0015152
“In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe
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"must wait time" rule 02/05/2016 at 20:11 #82108
thickmike
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Hi Postal, not having access to Mantis I'm not sure what's been reported. I believe I have seen the general question asked about trains departing early and as per this thread understood that classes 1 and 5 waited time; so why doesn't class 2 wait time as this is also a passenger class and from my observation of the sims they seem to behave the same as class 1?

I also believe I remember it was stated that the behaviour of the other classes was not predictable - is that still the case? I have seen a number of occasions where early running class 6's have stubbornly sat in the platform at Finsbury Park happily stopping the job until their allotted time arrived whereas others happily clear off early. I cannot see any difference in the timetable entries.

So, a clear explanation of what to expect for each class of train would be very helpful for me at least!

Best wishes,

Mike

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"must wait time" rule 02/05/2016 at 20:28 #82109
Steamer
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" said:
Hi Postal, not having access to Mantis I'm not sure what's been reported. I believe I have seen the general question asked about trains departing early and as per this thread understood that classes 1 and 5 waited time; so why doesn't class 2 wait time as this is also a passenger class and from my observation of the sims they seem to behave the same as class 1?
Class 2 does wait time- I think there was a typo further up in the thread.

Quote:
I also believe I remember it was stated that the behaviour of the other classes was not predictable - is that still the case? I have seen a number of occasions where early running class 6's have stubbornly sat in the platform at Finsbury Park happily stopping the job until their allotted time arrived whereas others happily clear off early. I cannot see any difference in the timetable entries.
Freight trains are allowed to depart early- whether they do or not is decided randomly by the simulation. This is to represent things like crew changes/breaks- sometimes the driver will be there early and happily take the train away early, other times he/she won't be and the train won't leave until the booked time.

"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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"must wait time" rule 02/05/2016 at 23:22 #82113
thickmike
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Thanks for this - maybe I am looking for the perfect world but it would be helpful to know before I get myself in a mess whether a freight (which I assume is anything but class 1,2 or 5) is going to wait time or not - if I can't be sure then I have to regulate defensively by putting early running freights away somewhere until they are close to or on time - that doesn't really seem right but maybe that's the compromise we need to live with.

Mike

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"must wait time" rule 04/05/2016 at 02:03 #82132
Hawk777
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You have the alternative of shoving the freight into a convenient place and then treating the “I am waiting at a red signal” phone call as the “I am willing to leave early” message.
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"must wait time" rule 04/05/2016 at 05:35 #82133
flabberdacks
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" said:
You have the alternative of shoving the freight into a convenient place and then treating the “I am waiting at a red signal” phone call as the “I am willing to leave early” message.
I do this. If they call, they will take the road when it is given.

You also tend to learn a lot about bi-directional and permissive freight working on goods roads, and exactly how much each road can hold :lol:

Mind you, none of that will help on Wembley Mainline for example, if a long freighter charges up to the relieving point and then decides to wait time. It is definitely realistic that the relief crew may or may not be present on arrival.

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"must wait time" rule 04/05/2016 at 11:55 #82140
KymriskaDraken
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" said:
You have the alternative of shoving the freight into a convenient place and then treating the “I am waiting at a red signal” phone call as the “I am willing to leave early” message.
Perhaps, but in the real world the driver of a train won't ring up seven hours before the train is booked to leave.


Kev

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"must wait time" rule 04/05/2016 at 16:16 #82143
Finger
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" said:
" said:
You have the alternative of shoving the freight into a convenient place and then treating the “I am waiting at a red signal” phone call as the “I am willing to leave early” message.
Perhaps, but in the real world the driver of a train won't ring up seven hours before the train is booked to leave.
Won't they, really? And if you object that about 3 hours early isn't 7 hours early, bear in mind that in your previous posts, you were talking about 3-4 hours early. Hope you don't expand that to more than 24 hrs in the course of the discussion.

Anyway, to add to the gist of the matter, I'd rather like the option to specify the time for which I hold a train at a signal, other than 2, 5, 15 minutes. Eg. you could tell them you've got other traffic and the next window to get them out is in 50 minutes (or at xx:yy). This should also cover the possibility to leave them standing if you think their running would be inappropriate. Adding more synthetic constraints isn't really needed IMHO.

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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 08:33 #82148
kbarber
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" said:
" said:
You have the alternative of shoving the freight into a convenient place and then treating the “I am waiting at a red signal” phone call as the “I am willing to leave early” message.
I do this. If they call, they will take the road when it is given.

You also tend to learn a lot about bi-directional and permissive freight working on goods roads, and exactly how much each road can hold :lol:

Mind you, none of that will help on Wembley Mainline for example, if a long freighter charges up to the relieving point and then decides to wait time. It is definitely realistic that the relief crew may or may not be present on arrival.

I have an idea crew changes would be dealt with a bit differently to a common-or-garden pause for other purposes. Back when the Wembley area was worked from Willesden PSB, someone in the box (probably the box supervisor AKA Regulator) would have a document showing which trains were due to change crews at Stonebridge Park. When the description struck in from Watford (earlier once they got VDU screens you could use to see Watford's describer map), he would phone Stonebridge Park Traincrew Supervisor, both to alert him and to check that the forward crew was available. If the forward crew wasn't around, he would have the train put away somewhere (the favourite in the early '80s would've been Sudbury Hump (now rebuilt as Wembley Yard or WEFOC), which was no longer used for marshalling but available for recessing trains. In that situation, the crew could walk to the train and the next thing the box knew would be when it rang out for departure. But if it had to be recessed further away, the TCS would ring the box when the forward crew were on-hand, giving a time they would be available (they might need a PNB after arriving of an inward working, or just be signing on).

So for crew changes we need several possible steps/features.

  1. A 'Stops for crew change' activity in the timetable.

  2. A phone call option to ask about availability of the forward crew, with 2 response options from the sim:

      [li]'Crew available' (which would interact with 'Crew change' activity in the timetable so the train departed after a relatively short - user configurable? - pause)
    • Crew will be available at xx:xx (which would likewise interact with the timetable to insert a 'must not depart before xx:xx + y' condition.)


    [li]Where the recess would be a yard with signalled routes through, it would need to be coded as a valid route/location so the timetable could reference it in the same way as the running lines at that location.
    [li]Where the train needs to recess in an unsignalled yard, it would also need to be coded as a valid route/location so the train would take the entry signal without further ado. There would also need to be some way of preserving the train in the sim memory and triggering its re-entry at xx:xx + y + z, where y is the time taken to actually change crews and z is the time needed for the forward crew to check round, blow up the brake and draw forward to the outlet signal.


I fear option 4 might requre some rather major surgery on the timetable system. But I wonder if option 2 might be impemented more easily?

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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 10:29 #82149
flabberdacks
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Fascinating.

I guess then, without drastic changes maybe the best way to simulate a controller like that would be to implement the "I have 4Xxx running early can you take it" with enough information in that call to determine whether the train is booked to the relieving point.

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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 14:46 #82154
Steamer
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Wasn't an attempt made to use phone calls for Lawley Street relieving point on Saltley at some point in its development, but abandoned due to complexity?
"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 15:53 #82155
GeoffM
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I have recently worked on waiting for time and crew changes. Firstly, on the crew changes, a tick box was in the Activity editor but was hitherto unused - the idea was that people could start populating the field in preparation for the code change. Unfortunately it shouldn't have been in an activity, but should have been in a location (ie where you enter arrival/departure times and platform/line/path codes for a location). Fortunately I've made it backwards compatible so if an activity has "crew change" ticked then the field is transferred to the location instead.

Note that this is not a full implementation of Crew Change but an intermediate step to improve the current situation of trains setting off far too early. If a non-passenger train stops somewhere with a crew change, it will now report the approximate time the new crew will be available, which will be up to half an hour before the scheduled departure time. As others have noted, a more complete solution has lots of issues that need to be nailed down first.

"Wait for time" is a new tick box, again on the timetable location editor form. Non-passenger trains will request departure up to 2 minutes early if this is ticked. If there is a TRTS indicator that it can activate, this may be activated up to 3 minutes before departure (since the sim is programmed to activate TRTS up to 1 minute before the train is ready to move).

The above, and other fixes, will be released in the next day or two.

SimSig Boss
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 16:05 #82156
Class 92
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Would it not be possible to have a feature where ECS could leave early? As I've noticed at a few places that if they have the crew and the signal then they will leave early, this also means it can clear a platform if one is needed.
Last edited: 05/05/2016 at 16:05 by Class 92
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 16:07 #82157
58050
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I often wondered when the 'Crew Change' tick box could be used subject to the coding being updated to take in account when the box was ticked. Now I know. Thanks for that Geoff.
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 16:23 #82158
GeoffM
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" said:
Would it not be possible to have a feature where ECS could leave early? As I've noticed at a few places that if they have the crew and the signal then they will leave early, this also means it can clear a platform if one is needed.
ECS have always belled out up to a few minutes early.

SimSig Boss
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 20:04 #82162
Steamer
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" said:
" said:
Would it not be possible to have a feature where ECS could leave early? As I've noticed at a few places that if they have the crew and the signal then they will leave early, this also means it can clear a platform if one is needed.
ECS have always belled out up to a few minutes early.
Additionally, if the TT developer sets the departure time of the ECS to set-down only, the train may depart as soon as it's ready.

"Don't stress/ relax/ let life roll off your backs./ Except for death and paying taxes/ everything in life.../ is only for now." (Avenue Q)
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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 23:01 #82164
flabberdacks
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" said:
" said:
" said:
Would it not be possible to have a feature where ECS could leave early? As I've noticed at a few places that if they have the crew and the signal then they will leave early, this also means it can clear a platform if one is needed.
ECS have always belled out up to a few minutes early.
Additionally, if the TT developer sets the departure time of the ECS to set-down only, the train may depart as soon as it's ready.
This also includes loco shunts which is extremely handy when going between platforms at stations.

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"must wait time" rule 05/05/2016 at 23:21 #82166
thickmike
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Thanks to you all for the various updates. Just off to check the lengths of various places I can hide non-passenger trains if they turn up early. Need to re-read the GeoffM post a couple of times to make sure I really understand it but another one of those areas where SimSig continues to develop the way it models the mad world out there.

Cheers,

Mike

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