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Westbury Fictional Timetable

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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 11:17 #56717
lazzer
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600 posts
" said:
What does matter is that SimSig should adopt a consistent display approach to siding entries across all its sims.
I don't think it SHOULD. Simsig should replicate, where possible, the individual circumstances of each location as it is in real life. Now I know that most Sims are themselves IECC-like representations of other types of real-life panels (NX, AB signalbox etc.), but there are plenty of individual locations where operations are different to other similar locations.

The real-life railway is full of non-standard operational features, and I think it's good that Simsig does its best to mirror this chaos effectively.

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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 13:23 #56720
maxand
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1637 posts
Again, thank you very much Keith for telling it like it is (or was)!

lazzer wrote:
Quote:
The real-life railway is full of non-standard operational features, and I think it's good that Simsig does its best to mirror this chaos (emphasis mine) effectively.
OK, I give up. No wonder it can be so difficult for the average Joe to make the transition from one sim to another when there are so many exceptions to the rule. The answer must lie in adequate documentation for each sim rather than assume that just because a particular object behaved in one way in a previous sim, it will do the same in the next. Nothing new here, of course.

Take nothing for granted!

Something about this reminds me of Colin Kapp's short science fiction story, The Railways Up On Cannis (1959), now part of a collection titled Unorthodox Engineers.

Quote:
'Man! ' said Nash in a voice of awe and wonder. 'Did you ever see the railways up on Cannis? It's a shunter's nightmare, a plate-layer's conception of hell. From an engineer's point of view it's a complete and utter impossibility.'

' Somebody must have constructed it originally.'

'Yes, a myriad crazy, bug-brained innovators, each working on a separate part to an entirely different specification and for conflicting reasons. It's a completely lunatic system which breaks every known law of elementary railway technique.'
(added) OK then, just one more quote:
Quote:
'Tell me,' said Fritz testily, 'did they have remarkably small trains or is this multiple-rail stuff some sort of gimmick?'

'I asked about that. Seems that each branch line had its own gauge and some had several according to who built them. At a terminus like this you have to accommodate anything which comes, so you run one track inside another nice and tidily. One snag though—you should see what it does to the points.'

Fritz shuddered visibly despite the warm afternoon air. 'I'd better see the worst, I suppose.'

They walked out from the terminus to the huge switching grid which served to integrate the various branch lines entering the terminus. There was nearly a kilometre of patchwork mechanical desolation, liberally coated with rust and complex beyond belief. Gantries and galleries were solid with cranks and levers, bars and linkages, rods, and handwound helical springs. Cloth-covered cables and solenoids had dropped their sickly bitumen under the coercion of many summers' suns, and now lay bleached white and ugly across the rotting spans like the bones of some alien skeleton.
PM me for a link if you are interested.

Last edited: 08/03/2014 at 13:35 by maxand
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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 16:20 #56730
Stephen Fulcher
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2007 posts
Firstly, I think it may be worth pointing out that SimSig is a simulation not a game. If it were a game then it would be sensible for developers to "bodge" the way things work to maintain a certain level of conformity between different games. However, as a simulation, it is more important to keep things as they are in reality. This inevitably with British (and most likely everyone elses) signalling practices means that there will be differences between each simulation, and in many cases there would also likely be subtle differences contained within each simulation as well as quite often power signal boxes reached their total route mileage over a period of many years, and the installations would be to differing standards.

Westbury Ground Frames are a good example of what I am referring to above. The frames controlled by Westbury Panel (1980s installation) operate slightly differently to those controlled by Reading Panel (1970s for the Berks and Hants?), despite both being designed to Western Region E10000 interlocking standards.

For those with access to the issue tracker, Mantis 9896 explains how Woodborough GF should work. For those who do not, I will attempt to explain it in simple terms here.

There is a very slight inconsistency between the real Reading Panel (and by extension TVSC because I do not believe any significant interlocking changes were made to the B&H when Reading was recontrolled) and the Westbury Simulation. This is the track circuit indications through the ground frame connection to the siding, which are shown on the real panel but not on SimSig. This is a mere technicality which would not affect the operation in real terms.

There are TWO ways the Signaller at Reading can release the Ground Frame. He can either turn the individual release switch, which is the one right by arrow 2 which has been drawn on the panel photograph, or set a route from R500 ground signal to the siding (arrow 1).

Once released by the individual switch, the right hand GF indication light will flash white. When the annetts key is removed from the instrument on the ground, the points will then flash out of correspondence, and the released light on the panel will turn steady red.

When a route is set over the ground frame reverse, the route lights will set ONLY into the siding, not along the goods loop, and the ground frame points will flash out of correspondence. Setting this route will automatically release the ground frame. Once the slot lever on the frame is pulled, the points will show detected reverse in the panel and the signal will clear.

At no point will either the route lights flood. This would not be desirable, especially as the route locking would cascade track circuit by track circuit down both routes until a signal is reached if it did - not hugely relevant here as there is only one track circuit involved anyway, but in other instances you could have routes cascaded in error locking up points that do not need to be locked and therefore preventing other movements.

For trains going into either the siding or the loop from R500, there would be no flooding of the track circuit either as they are both legitimate signalled routes from R500 signal, locked and detected in the interlocking as such.

Coming out of the siding would flood the track circuit as no signal is provided to exit the siding, only a stop board which the shunter will authorise the train to pass once the frame is correcly set. The track circuit would also flood in the event of a track circuit failure. I should point out that with the layout as drawn in SimSig this is irrelevant as the track circuit is not shown over the points into the siding.

I hope this goes some of the way to clearing up (or making worse possibly) any confusion.

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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 17:29 #56737
Steamer
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3913 posts
" said:

OK, I give up. No wonder it can be so difficult for the average Joe to make the transition from one sim to another when there are so many exceptions to the rule. The answer must lie in adequate documentation for each sim rather than assume that just because a particular object behaved in one way in a previous sim, it will do the same in the next. Nothing new here, of course.

Take nothing for granted!
You say the answer is to drill down everything (spoon-feed) in the manuals. Why? As I've said before, the chances of someone wading through a massive manual (and remembering it) are very slim. Also, the human brain is very good at adapting. Take driving: no two roads are the same. There's plenty of quirks and variation, based on a single set of rules. Do we document each and every road? No, because people see the situation, work out that it's analogous to something they've seen before and react, adapting to take into account the differences. It's not identical, but there's enough information to react to it.

If a newbie opens the Wiki and sees pages and pages documenting each little thing, they're likely to either not read it or decide it's too complicated and play something else. When playing, they might notice a slight difference, but then who's saying they expect consistency? The real world isn't consistent. For example, how much has computing evolved in the last 20 years?

As a final point, if I took someone who used Microsoft Word and introduced them to another word processor, they'd still be able to use it. The buttons are in roughly the same place, do roughly the same thing, and a bit of clicking around soon 90% of problems. The 10% that is significantly different (eg. the slot control to Yeovil) is where the Wiki is useful.

Alternatively, you could sum it all up with this cartoon:



(From xkcd)

"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: 09/03/2014 at 00:31 by Steamer
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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 17:57 #56739
kbarber
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1708 posts
" said:

OK, I give up. No wonder it can be so difficult for the average Joe to make the transition from one sim to another when there are so many exceptions to the rule. The answer must lie in adequate documentation for each sim rather than assume that just because a particular object behaved in one way in a previous sim, it will do the same in the next. Nothing new here, of course.

Take nothing for granted!

Something about this reminds me of Colin Kapp's short science fiction story, The Railways Up On Cannis (1959), now part of a collection titled Unorthodox Engineers.

Quote:
'Man! ' said Nash in a voice of awe and wonder. 'Did you ever see the railways up on Cannis? It's a shunter's nightmare, a plate-layer's conception of hell. From an engineer's point of view it's a complete and utter impossibility.'

<snip>
'I asked about that. Seems that each branch line had its own gauge and some had several according to who built them. At a terminus like this you have to accommodate anything which comes, so you run one track inside another nice and tidily. One snag though—you should see what it does to the points.'

Fritz shuddered visibly despite the warm afternoon air. 'I'd better see the worst, I suppose.'

They walked out from the terminus to the huge switching grid which served to integrate the various branch lines entering the terminus. There was nearly a kilometre of patchwork mechanical desolation, liberally coated with rust and complex beyond belief. Gantries and galleries were solid with cranks and levers, bars and linkages, rods, and handwound helical springs. Cloth-covered cables and solenoids had dropped their sickly bitumen under the coercion of many summers' suns, and now lay bleached white and ugly across the rotting spans like the bones of some alien skeleton.
PM me for a link if you are interested.

Like this?

That's two gauges (standard & metre gauge).
Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme, Picardy, France, 10th july 2005.

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Westbury Fictional Timetable 08/03/2014 at 19:20 #56744
Peter Bennet
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5354 posts
Maybe we need to take some deep breaths, count to 10 and move on.

Peter

I identify as half man half biscuit - crumbs!
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