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| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 28/03/2022 at 20:04 #145902 | |
Anothersignalman
72 posts |
Attached is a concept for the Puffing Billy Railway in Melbourne, Victoria, circa 2005 (because those are the diagrams I have to hand). This sort of simulation would be more about taking a train control role than a signalling role, with the option of working any of the four mechanical frames or leaving that to the railway staff. There are also ten locations that can be switched in or out for following moves (including the fire patrols that follow all trains at least during summer), and the option of splitting some of the train staff and ticket sections by temporary train staffs. The timetable varies from three to six advertised return passenger services by season, plus event traffic and in the summer months all trains use Tickets and are followed by Trollies carrying the Train Staff giving up to 20 scheduled runs each way per day; the presence of the trollies also makes running around trains a more complex exercise. Earlier periods of the railway could be modelled including back to its origin as a branch line, including the Upper Fern Tree Gully to Belgrave section. The line started out quiet, mostly catering to local agricultural and timber traffic, but it happened to be within reasonable distance of Melbourne for tourism, picnic and excursion traffic leading to a varied history of safeworking types including train staff and ticket with temporary train staffs and intermediate special block posts, single line block instruments, an automatic crossing loop and train section orders. More recent periods would require adjusting the arrangement to account for the 40 lever power frame currently being built at Lakeside, and the potential 40 lever mechanical frame at Belgrave. A feature of this sort of simulation would be that opening or closing of intermediate special block posts or temporary train staff and ticket locations could take up to 30 minutes, with the start of the day being only Belgrave - Menzies Creek - Lakeside - Gembrook and intermediate locations being opened and closed by specific trains or else risk delays later in the schedule.  Incidentally, are there any Simsig maps with mechanical calling-on arms? How are they illustrated? The arrival homes at Menzies Creek have calling-on semaphores below them, while other locations are all lights. I also wasn't sure if I was showing the disc signals, light dwarf or marker lights correctly. Post has attachments. Log in to view them. Last edited: 28/03/2022 at 20:08 by Anothersignalman Reason: None given Log in to reply The following users said thank you: elltrain3, UKTrainMan |
| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 28/03/2022 at 21:02 #145903 | |
elltrain3
359 posts |
Anothersignalman in post 145902 said:Yes! Central Scotland has them, Stirling Middle SM79 & SM47 Both Have them and they are shown as a normal semaphore but appear white when cleared rather than the usual green, the same principle is applied to shunting arms (SM34 & SM9 a Examples) and see the same simulation for discs, which are effectively the same symbol as a banner repeater but appear red when "on" and white when "off" Love the idea though, looks amazing! Resident Mock Maker! / "The Out Of Control Host" Last edited: 28/03/2022 at 21:03 by elltrain3 Reason: Saying Thank you! Log in to reply The following user said thank you: Anothersignalman |
| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 29/03/2022 at 04:06 #145906 | |
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Anothersignalman
72 posts |
Further random thought: Is there a way Simsig could include an internal counter for number of available staff, such that the position of train controller could allocate no more than that many people across the various block posts shown above?
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| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 29/03/2022 at 15:00 #145910 | |
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clive
2738 posts |
Anothersignalman in post 145906 said:Further random thought: Is there a way Simsig could include an internal counter for number of available staff, such that the position of train controller could allocate no more than that many people across the various block posts shown above?It would certainly be possible for the sim developer to have the sim maintain a counter that decrements when a block post is opened and increments when it closes; a post couldn't be opened if the counter is zero. There are various ways they could initialize the counter, up to and including phone calls from people booking on and off. Log in to reply The following users said thank you: Newhampshires, Anothersignalman |
| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 04/04/2022 at 07:02 #146016 | |
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Anothersignalman
72 posts |
Could that system be adapted so that when booking people on to block posts, the instruction includes which train will deliver those crew members? i.e. "Travel by No.19 down pass from Belgrave to Emerald and switch in", with the impact being that the crew-counter immediately decrements, but the switch-in does not happen until say 5min after No.19 spends an additional few minutes at Emerald to swap the Menzies Creek - Lakeside staff for the Menzies Creek - Emerald and Emerald - Lakeside staffs? (I'm not sure whether the staff exchange box is/was kept at Emerald or Menzies Creek, this is just an example.) There might also need to be an instruction option to "Travel by car" or "Travel by Route 695 bus" with the latter schedule included in the background but not visible to the operator. Further concepts based on my working through the WTT- a) Provision of differences between advertised and scheduled departure times. The WTT has a number of cases where an earlier departure time is advertised publicly, but the schedule assumes departure up to 10 minutes later. b) Watching train capacity, and organising adding or detaching of carriages as required mid-service. The typical carriage on the line is 6 tons empty / 11 tons loaded, and different running times are provided for different combinations. For example, services may be scheduled to run with 16, 50, 70, 80, 90 or 160 tons single, or 32, 130 or 160 tons double-headed. In the event of a consist length being altered, the train speed should reflect that. Last edited: 04/04/2022 at 12:16 by Anothersignalman Reason: None given Log in to reply |
| Puffing Billy Railway, Melbourne, Victoria 24/04/2022 at 19:47 #146262 | |
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Anothersignalman
72 posts |
Attached - same as previous, plus a representation of the staff sections along the line and how the Train Staff and Ticket interface might work. In the scenario shown, both the Belgrave - Menzies Creek and Menzies Creek - Lakeside Train Staffs are available at Menzies Creek, and have been used to provide tickets (white for up, pink for down), while the Lakeside - Gembrook Train Staff is as Lakeside. As trains running on either Staff or Ticket depart, the mid-section indicator would flash then hold steady, and on arrival at the other end the green and red would swap. Multiple tickets may be issued, and trains may depart whether or not the previous train has arrived at the next block post / station, provided that they have the necessary authority. This is necessary for the working of fire patrols following all trains during summer operations, which follow all steam trains at a nominal five minute gap. Also, only trains carrying the Staff are able to work the points at Clematis and Nobelius Siding, so a (summer) train required to shunt there would have to wait for its fire patrol to catch up to it and lend the staff for shunting purposes. If multiple tickets are active in a section the middle light will change to a counter. There's almost no scenario in which more than seven consecutive tickets could be issued, so a single digit there is sufficient. I've also shown how many Safeworking Personnel are in use and available, for instance in this case the operator may direct their fourth person to open Emerald as a temporary Train Staff and Ticket location; if that person starts at Belgrave then an instruction would be issued by placing a call to the effect of, "Travel by next available train from Belgrave to open Emerald as a temporary Train Staff and Ticket station". They would be marked as in-transit until arrival at Emerald. The train would travel first on the Belgrave - Menzies Creek staff (or ticket), and on arrival at Menzies Creek the person would phone the operator to confirm use of both the Menzies Creek - Emerald and Emerald - Lakeside staffs/tickets, which would enable safeworking with those controls in lieu of the currently-highlighted one. Both staffs would then be carried to Emerald, the person would call again to confirm the station is open, and the train would proceed to Lakeside using only the Emerald - Lakeside staff. Closing of a temporary train staff and ticket station would be achieved by 'phoning that station, instructing the person to close and return equipment by the next available train, and return to Belgrave.  Post has attachments. Log in to view them. Log in to reply |