Westbury Summer 2011 release

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 31/03/2012 at 23:38 #31113
Underwood
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Hello all,

I have submitted my Westbury Summer 2011 Semi-Fictional TT to the admins for approval, should be up soon. This is Semi-Fictional as it is a diversions TT with times done myself.

This is 1 timetable of a few. Neighbouring sims of Exeter and Swindon are done, just Bristol is being tested, however it is unchainable with that sim at the moment anyway, but you can do a 3 way chain with the Swindid and Exeter TT's.

All trains have length and running numbers included, which was some mission to plan out but I did it, mainly for a challenge!

Anyway here is the blurb from the TT description box to see if it's something you'll like or not:

--------------------------------------
WESTBURY 2011 SUMMER (SEMI-FICTIONAL) V1.0


It's a Summer Saturday, and there are planned engineering works in the Uffington area today. So, all HST's are diverted via the Berks and Hants, with a reduced and altered service on some Bristol TM trains. Through Devon/Cornwall services usually booked via Bristol will run under 1Zxx as for today they will be diverted and re-timed to run via Castle Cary instead. Swansea services are diverted via Newbury and Melksham to Bristol Parkway via a reversal at Swindon.

Melksham local trains are running as normal with diversions worked around them, however any delays will knock it back!

However, there are unplanned diverions on too as there is a landslide between Highbridge & Burnham and Bridgwater that happened last night and unfortunately it will not be resolved today either, so most trains booked to run up to Bristol will be diverted via Westbury with no altered times. This means you'll have delayed CrossCountry trains entering at Bathampton Junction.

It's also Mazey Day too, and two railtours were originally booked to run direct from Bristol, but are diverted via Westbury and will thus be running late. It's up to you to slot them between services and not delay other passenger services at the same time...might be more fun with the delay sliders up some more!

Passenger times taken from the FGW TT's 2011. Freight is from the 2012 WTT data as I have no 2011 data.

Engineers trains to Uffington are fictional.

----------------------------------------------------------

It is just about easy for 1 player too, though more can be involved if there are delays set.

Any comments or issues would be welcome, note there are a couple of timing errors left intenionally in so I wouldn't report time errors, only if I've given a train a rather silly tight time to get from A-B (like Chippenham to Thingley in 30 seconds or something) however I have given it a test and it *should* be ok.

Anything else you think could be included, I would be interested to hear reasonable ideas too, especially to fill in any long time gaps.


Cheers,

James.

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Re: Westbury Summer 2011 release 02/04/2012 at 12:14 #31151
jc92
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" said:

This is 1 timetable of a few. Neighbouring sims of Exeter and Swindon are done, just Bristol is being tested, however it is unchainable with that sim at the moment anyway, but you can do a 3 way chain with the Swindid and Exeter TT's.
westbury can be chained to bristol, it creates an inconsistency warning, but it does work. unless im missing something ive seen it done recently

"We don't stop camborne wednesdays"
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Re: Westbury Summer 2011 release 02/04/2012 at 13:33 #31153
headshot119
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" said:
" said:

This is 1 timetable of a few. Neighbouring sims of Exeter and Swindon are done, just Bristol is being tested, however it is unchainable with that sim at the moment anyway, but you can do a 3 way chain with the Swindid and Exeter TT's.
westbury can be chained to bristol, it creates an inconsistency warning, but it does work. unless im missing something ive seen it done recently
All of the Western give chain, (Gloucester, Bristol, Westbury, Swindid, Exeter.) I've certainly had all five together and working.

You do however get chaining inconsistency messages between some of the sims. Exeter and Bristol being one.

"Passengers for New Lane, should be seated in the rear coach of the train " - Opinions are my own and not those of my employer
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Re: Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/04/2012 at 00:52 #31381
Underwood
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Sorry Karl you are right there, the problem I had before was with the older Westbury version that's what I was thinking of....don't mind me

For some reason, this and Exeter have not uploaded yet, I assume the team are on a 2 week Easter break too? I'd probably have an e-mail by now if something was wrong I guess..

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 07/10/2013 at 12:48 #49843
maxand
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I gave this a try after playing a couple of the standard Westbury TTs without diversions. This was my first attempt at a TT with diversions built in.

Quote:
It's a Summer Saturday, and there are planned engineering works in the Uffington area today. So, all HST's are diverted via the Berks and Hants, with a reduced and altered service on some Bristol TM trains. Through Devon/Cornwall services usually booked via Bristol will run under 1Zxx as for today they will be diverted and re-timed to run via Castle Cary instead. Swansea services are diverted via Newbury and Melksham to Bristol Parkway via a reversal at Swindon.

Melksham local trains are running as normal with diversions worked around them, however any delays will knock it back!

However, there are unplanned diversions on too as there is a landslide between Highbridge & Burnham and Bridgwater that happened last night and unfortunately it will not be resolved today either, so most trains booked to run up to Bristol will be diverted via Westbury with no altered times. This means you'll have delayed CrossCountry trains entering at Bathampton Junction.

It's also Mazey Day too, and two railtours were originally booked to run direct from Bristol, but are diverted via Westbury and will thus be running late. It's up to you to slot them between services and not delay other passenger services at the same time...might be more fun with the delay sliders up some more!
After playing Westbury a few times I thought I knew the area reasonably well, but most of this lingo went right over my head as I lack the in-depth knowledge to make sense of it. This, I thought, was strictly a case of preaching to the already converted.

Quote:
all HST's are diverted via the Berks and Hants, with a reduced and altered service on some Bristol TM trains
What the heck???

I recall TC failures at Bedwyn, Newbury, and Clink Rd Jn. As crossovers between up and down lines are few and far between, I felt rather helpless when caught out. I tried reversing some trains onto the line signalled in the opposite direction, but they all crawled so slowly (15 mph) to get past the TC failure that in the end I decided to let them bank up until the fault was (hopefully) fixed in a few hours, rather than make them divert, one at a time, around the blockage in the face of all traffic heading the opposite way, which was steadily building up.

Once the TC failure was repaired, I told myself, I could get it all flowing again smoothly and get rid of the backlog. But new trains have a habit of, well, arriving, and as the old saying puts it, the hurrieder I went, the behinder I got. Not exactly my idea of fun.

The final straw was when SimSig somehow got it wrong and told me that train X couldn't proceed because train Y was in front of it, when in fact the reverse was true. There was no way to resolve this impasse except to remove both trains. Reality was taking a bit of a beating by now, so I quit.

Maybe there's more to diverting trains than I've been able to fathom. It would have been a nice TT had I been able to play it without any TC failures.

Last edited: 07/10/2013 at 12:57 by maxand
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 07/10/2013 at 15:24 #49844
Temple Meads
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" said:
It would have been a nice TT had I been able to play it without any TC failures.
Then start again, click F3, then "Failures", and move the slider for track circuit failures as far to the left as it will go. Sorted.

Username TIM in multiplayer
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 10:12 #49850
kbarber
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" said:
I gave this a try after playing a couple of the standard Westbury TTs without diversions. This was my first attempt at a TT with diversions built in.

[<snip> This, I thought, was strictly a case of preaching to the already converted.

Quote:
all HST's are diverted via the Berks and Hants, with a reduced and altered service on some Bristol TM trains
What the heck???

Berks & Hants is, I'm afraid, one of those colloquial railwaymens' names for a line. In this case it means the line from Reading towards Westbury, in paractical terms. But I suspect trains running this way only use a few yards of the actual Berks & Hants - I have a suspicion that, in reality, it refers to the line from Reading to Basingstoke, from which the Westbury line diverges at Southcote Junction (and goes nowhere near Hampshire)! Small wonder you're confused.

" said:
I recall TC failures at Bedwyn, Newbury, and Clink Rd Jn. As crossovers between up and down lines are few and far between, I felt rather helpless when caught out. I tried reversing some trains onto the line signalled in the opposite direction, but they all crawled so slowly (15 mph) to get past the TC failure that in the end I decided to let them bank up until the fault was (hopefully) fixed in a few hours, rather than make them divert, one at a time, around the blockage in the face of all traffic heading the opposite way, which was steadily building up.

The usual way of working would be to authorise trains to pass the protecting signal at danger. The first to be caught by a track failure should be used to examine the line (unless you can use a train in the opposite direction - the preferred option for obvious reasons). Following trains can then be talked past without need to examine. Of course you need to wait until each train has left the affected section before you authorise the next one in, so you need to be clear where each train actually is around a failure. A complete pain! (As it is in real life, I might add. A track failure, even on plain line, at a busy time was liable to result in some serious stress and a good deal of unparliamentary language, particularly as trains would be phoning in not only from the signal protecting the failure but from every d****d signal in rear of that as well, as the queues built up.)

To send traffic 'wrong road' would require Single Line Working. In my old (1972, reissued 1984) Rule Book that is Section N and takes 34 pages of instructions; it requires appointment of a Pilotman who must either be present at that end of the section and personally authorise every train to enter the section or ride with the driver (thus acting as a human train staff) and an awful lot of paperwork and general aggravation. Absolutely the very last of all the possible last resorts, I can assure you.

" said:
Once the TC failure was repaired, I told myself, I could get it all flowing again smoothly and get rid of the backlog. But new trains have a habit of, well, arriving, and as the old saying puts it, the hurrieder I went, the behinder I got. Not exactly my idea of fun.

W S Gilbert got it almost right... '...a bobby's lot is not an 'appy one..."!!

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 12:47 #49852
AndyG
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Max,
Have a look at the WIKI page on TC failures, which explains how to work trains through a defective TC.

I can only help one person a day. Today's not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look too good either.
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 12:49 #49853
Underwood
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Sorry Maxand that you are not happy, it is the first time I've heard someone say they don't like it.

Some people like this sort of thing and if you don't like mayhem, it's not really for you. It was designed really for multiplayer, so at least everyone's workstation had something going on.

The Berks and Hants is a rail term yes, heard it referred so often I just use it myself. If you don't understand the information it doesn't matter, it's not really relative to how you play it, it's just some general info on what is happening (though you'd find out what will happen without reading the description anyway)

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 14:16 #49854
clive
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" said:

Berks & Hants is, I'm afraid, one of those colloquial railwaymens' names for a line. In this case it means the line from Reading towards Westbury, in paractical terms. But I suspect trains running this way only use a few yards of the actual Berks & Hants - I have a suspicion that, in reality, it refers to the line from Reading to Basingstoke, from which the Westbury line diverges at Southcote Junction (and goes nowhere near Hampshire)! Small wonder you're confused.
The Berks and Hants Railway ran from Reading to Basingstoke and to Hungerford. The Berks and Hants Extension Railway ran from Hungerford to Devizes. Both were wholly-owned satellites of the Grub Water and Relief. The present route to Westbury route branches off the original line to Devizes around the 45 milepost, just east of the A342 overbridge (it's very obvious on Google Maps).

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 14:20 #49855
clive
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" said:
" said:

I tried reversing some trains onto the line signalled in the opposite direction, but they all crawled so slowly (15 mph) to get past the TC failure that in the end I decided to let them bank up until the fault was (hopefully) fixed in a few hours, rather than make them divert, one at a time, around the blockage in the face of all traffic heading the opposite way, which was steadily building up.
To send traffic 'wrong road' would require Single Line Working.
I'm not familiar with the sim, but I assumed he meant there was bidi signalling in the area. If that's not the case then, yes, you need a pilotman.

There is some code in the core code for pilotmen, but the only sim that uses it is Cambridge and adding it to a loader sim will require me to do some significant changes in the core code.

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 08/10/2013 at 15:08 #49858
kbarber
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" said:
" said:
" said:

I tried reversing some trains onto the line signalled in the opposite direction, but they all crawled so slowly (15 mph) to get past the TC failure that in the end I decided to let them bank up until the fault was (hopefully) fixed in a few hours, rather than make them divert, one at a time, around the blockage in the face of all traffic heading the opposite way, which was steadily building up.
To send traffic 'wrong road' would require Single Line Working.
I'm not familiar with the sim, but I assumed he meant there was bidi signalling in the area. If that's not the case then, yes, you need a pilotman.

There is some code in the core code for pilotmen, but the only sim that uses it is Cambridge and adding it to a loader sim will require me to do some significant changes in the core code.

There isn't any BIDS in Westbury Clive, apart from a couple of reversing moves and the single lines and some moves to add flexibility in the Westbury station area and between Newbury and the Racecourse. A track failure just about anywhere means calling trains past signals or stopping the job!

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 13:32 #49873
DriverCurran
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Max

If you thought that was bad on my area of command I could get the following message....

'One off the ponderosa via the Barley for the Mad Kent and over the top vice the main and the splat to the smoke'

to understand and action accordingly.

Any body care to try and break the code as to what the train is doing (Noisey's excepted :p) No prizes for the winner lol

Paul

You have to get a red before you can get any other colour
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 14:21 #49875
Underwood
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Well I think the last bit means going to London...couldn't tell you what route is over the top, though suspicions means on the Kent Coast or something...perhaps :dry:
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 14:53 #49876
John
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Beckenham Jcn to Victoria via the Mid Kent and Lewisham? :huh:
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 16:13 #49878
DriverCurran
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John is right on the last bit about Beckenham Junction to Victoria or Blackfriars via the Mid Kent and Lewisham, now just the first bit to decode :lol:

Paul

You have to get a red before you can get any other colour
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 17:24 #49879
JamesN
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Barley is Maidstone East...
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 18:40 #49880
John
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" said:
Barley is Maidstone East...
Would that make Ponderosa Ashford, then? :huh:

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 09/10/2013 at 19:08 #49882
JamesN
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Something makes me think more Marshlink (AFK <> ORE)
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 01:35 #49890
maxand
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Thanks to everyone who responded to my post. I understand what to do about diversions a lot better now!

In response to my wish to playing this sim without any TC failures, Temple Meads suggested

Quote:
Then start again, click F3, then "Failures", and move the slider for track circuit failures as far to the left as it will go. Sorted.
So I restarted the sim and pressed F3 without moving any sliders. This screen came up:



This suggests that the TC failures built into this TT somehow bypass the controls in the sim. Maybe someone can shed further light on this.

Also thanks to AndyG for recommending the WIKI page on TC failures, which I did not know about. Very helpful.

One thing has always bothered me. There are 3 similar signalling options (F2):

Quote:
Authorise train to pass signal at danger
Tell driver to examine the line
Tell driver to examine the line and pass signal at danger
The only one I have ever needed is Authorise train to pass signal at danger, on the basis that the only failures I've encountered so far have been signal or TC failures. Obviously the second and third are good protocol and would be used in real life. But would I need to use them in SimSig? If I am told (on the Messages screen) that there is a TC failure at a certain location and I can see it on my screen and I am certain it's not a broken-down train, why do I need to ask the driver to examine the line? Will SimSig give me an error message if I don't? Are there any special circumstances in SimSig when it tells me I cannot authorise a train to pass a signal at danger unless I also tell the driver to examine the line ahead? What do others do?

Thanks again for your comments.

Last edited: 10/10/2013 at 01:38 by maxand
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 04:18 #49892
Hawk777
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What I remember hearing about those phone call options is this: you might want to use Examine Line and Pass Signal for the first train going through a TC failure. The reason is because, even though the message in SimSig says it’s a TC failure, in reality, you don’t actually know that—it could be a broken rail or a broken coupler on an earlier train. So, you should tell the first train to check the track slowly, but if it reports everything’s OK, you could probably let the subsequent ones through at higher speed (someone from real-world signalling correct me if I’m wrong on this part). Alternatively, even if the rules say every train must be ordered to examine the line through a TC failure, perhaps the pass-signal-without-examining-the-line option would be used to get a train past a signal that’s red because of a TC failure in its overlap—no need to examine the line up to the next signal because the line is proven clear, but the order to proceed would presumably put the driver on the alert that something might be wrong in the overlap and to be extra careful about not SPADing the next signal?

On the other hand, the part about examining the line but not authorizing to pass at danger, I don’t know for sure, but could you use that if someone has phoned in from a crossing and not reported clear yet? You could hold the train at the signal, order the driver to examine the line, and then clear the signal by setting a route, thus maybe saving some time (as compared to holding the train at the signal until the crossing clears) but not presenting a danger to the crossing user? I say this since, in real life, as I understand it, actually authorizing a driver to pass a signal at danger is a big deal, so if you can clear the signal instead, that would be preferable?

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 04:43 #49893
maxand
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Thanks Hawk777. I don't know of any way to clear a signal other than by cancelling a route through it. In my experience, once there is a TC failure, one cannot set a route through it, therefore cannot clear it. Is this correct?

If I ask a driver to examine the line, do I receive a phone call in reply from him?

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 05:19 #49894
Hawk777
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When I said order the driver to examine the line but then clear the signal by setting a route, I meant in response to slow vehicles at road crossings. Those don’t occupy track circuits, so they have no effect on the signalling system.

Technically you can set a route when a track circuit is occupied; the signal just stays red until the TC clears. That’s useful if the TC occupancy is due to a train, as it lets you set a route when convenient before the preceding train has exited the block (it’s called “route oversetting”). You shouldn’t do it across a TC failure though, because when an electrical failure takes place, in real life, the TC might randomly oscillate between occupied and clear, which would mean the protecting signal would oscillate between red and green and confuse the approaching driver. Proper procedure in the face of a TC failure is to position each set of points over which the train will pass directly instead.

Yes, if you order a driver to examine the line, (s)he will stop at the next signal and phone back reporting the state of the line. You can then order to continue examining or to proceed normally.

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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 07:33 #49896
AndyG
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" said:
On the other hand, the part about examining the line but not authorizing to pass at danger, I don’t know for sure, but could you use that if someone has phoned in from a crossing and not reported clear yet?
A requirement on the real railway is for adjacent lines to an un-examined TCF need to checked (in case of anything lying foul of, or damage to, the adjacent line) in the same way as the actual failure. In this case, the driver can be stopped at a signal in rear, asked to examine the line, then allowed to proceed by clearing the signal. In SimSig, the train will then proceed at 20mph to the next signal and report back.

I can only help one person a day. Today's not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look too good either.
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Westbury Summer 2011 release 10/10/2013 at 08:22 #49897
John
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The section of the Rule Book concerning examining of the line can be viewed here
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