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Banking and Joining Locos in General

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Banking and Joining Locos in General 11/02/2012 at 15:34 #29294
lbriner
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5 posts
I am an experienced SimSig-er and never had any real problems but I have some problems joining locos in the Gloucs sim including my first attempt at the Lickey Banker, I can only guess it is related to locos that seem to have gone off timetable (not hitting one of the locations in the list?). What I can't work out is how to move a particular working to a specific place in its timetable so it catches up and joins properly. A couple of times, trains are late at Gloucester and I can't, for instance, get a loco into the spur and have to back it into platform 1 from up main so this would be really helpful.
Can someone guide me please!

Thanks

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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 11/02/2012 at 15:42 #29295
Steamer
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3913 posts
Try right-clicking the train in F2, and select 'edit timetable' in Timetable options. Select the location you think the train should be at, and click 'Set next/current location', then click OK. The train will now either 'think' it is at that location, or will move towards it.

If the Lickey Banker is causing problems, try this Wiki page.

"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)
Last edited: 11/02/2012 at 15:44 by Steamer
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 11/02/2012 at 15:46 #29296
lbriner
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Just tried it - works perfectly. Thanks.
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 13/02/2012 at 04:29 #29342
maxand
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1637 posts
While this method obviously works, how does it rate against (after abandoning timetable temporarily and directing train manually if necessary) "Run to another timetable", select the same timetable, then "Select next location"?

I'm not specifically thinking of the Banker here, just this problem in general, i.e., difficulty in joining trains that don't arrive on time or may be misdirected, etc. I'm wondering what the most realistic solution is, so I don't have to pretend I'm playing God.

Last edited: 13/02/2012 at 05:01 by maxand
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 13/02/2012 at 12:41 #29355
Josie
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310 posts
The outcome is exactly the same. The 'select next location' option when running to a new timetable is equivalent to the 'select current/next location' button when editing an existing one.

I don't see it as playing God. In real life there'd be all sorts of other people involved, including train crews, other signallers and Control staff, all of whom would know what's going on when you have to take a train off timetable or divert or delay it or whatever. Because this is a simulation, all of those people don't exist - it's just you and the computer. So the computer needs a way of knowing what your intention is for any unusual moves, and that's what this feature and many others simulate.

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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 13/02/2012 at 13:22 #29358
maxand
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Okay, thanks Josie, I don't feel so bad about editing a timetable now. It really did bother me a bit as you know.
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 13/02/2012 at 14:28 #29363
Josie
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It depends on what edits you're making, really. I will generally only edit timetables when something's gone wrong - just a few minutes ago I had an awkward points failure at Letchworth on the King's Cross sim, and I've been having to reverse trains in all manner of places they're not booked to reverse to get them round it. In that case, trains will end up in places they were never expected to be, and drivers will start complaining if you don't intervene and tell them where they are and where they're going.

Things like platform numbers I don't bother with. If something's blocking platform 10 and I have to use platform 8 instead, I just run the train in. The station staff will sort out announcing it to the passengers and I'll notch it up as something gone wrong (and try to avoid it next time if it was something I did wrong). It hits the score slightly as well for those who pay attention to it, but I'm not one of them.

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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 13/02/2012 at 15:34 #29368
AndyG
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1830 posts
Typically, if a train is booked Hay - Bee - Sea - Dee with a join, but for operation reasons isn't actually routed through Bee, it will be happily trundling from Hay looking for Bee all the time until it arrives at Dee whereupon it stops behind its other part but still looking for Bee only.

Once its TT is stepped up, it can then tick off Sea and Dee as it arrives at them, and so is expecting the join once it reaches Dee.

An example is on KX, where a train routed down the Hertford line will reach Stevenage looking for WGC...."it's behind you".

I can only help one person a day. Today's not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look too good either.
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 14/02/2012 at 01:26 #29407
maxand
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Thanks Andy. Well that's something certainly worth including in a tutorial on the Wiki. If I can paraphrase you:

"If a train reaches its destination after missing a previous waypoint, so that it still expects to be routed through it, the sim player should not be reluctant to edit its timetable to bypass the missing waypoints so that the train's current position matches its destination."

Actually, wouldn't it be smarter to edit the TT to step to Sea as soon as it becomes apparent that Bee will have to be bypassed? Or are things usually moving too fast for this to happen?

All this will be in a future tutorial, coming to a browser near you.

Last edited: 14/02/2012 at 01:26 by maxand
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Re: Banking and Joining Locos in General 14/02/2012 at 01:55 #29411
Josie
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That depends on the situation, surely. In Andy's example, if something fouled up the mainline through Welwyn Garden City and trains had to be diverted via Hertford, you'd need to catch anything currently between King's Cross and Alexandra Palace, and change its next location to Stevenage so it stops looking for any booked stops on the way. Any subsequent trains setting off from King's Cross can indeed then have their timetable stepped as soon as they depart. And if the problem is fixed before they get to the point of diversion, you can always step the timetable back again.

(There's a map of the KX sim on the wiki if you want to visualise where all these places are.)

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