Sandymill-Related Questions about Real Railways

[velaro]

The development of Sandymill is far from over, and I'll get to work on it again when I get the chance. I might be somewhat less faithful to the original routes than I have been so far, and thus I need advice from people who know real-life UK railways better than I do.

PSR warnings boards: I understand that they are not required if the speed reduction is less than 30 mph and less than 1/3 of the previous speed limit. My question is: are they always omitted, or usually, or rarely?

Stopping boards: those little signs with the number of cars or just an S on them. The current version of the Sandymill lets all trains stop at the same board, whether they have two or ten coaches, and I want to change that. I'm not sure about the role of locomotives in this. If the board says 8, does that mean a locomotive with eight cars can stop there, or only locomotives with up to seven cars (7 + 1)?

High-speed approach to terminal station: in the current Sandymill, the approach to Invermay station features successive speed reductions to 60, 40, and 20 mph, and also block signals that are kept at YY and Y unless another train in front forces more restrictive aspects. Is that realistic? What kind of safety measures would normally be used if a 90 mph line ends in a terminal station?

Please keep in mind that the Sandymill is meant to represent Scotland, 1986-1993 (more loco-hauled trains, no TPWS, etc.).

 

[mbonwick]

PSR warning boards: AFAIK they aren't fitted unless they need to be.

Stopping boards: these apply to MUs mostly, so a loco+5 would draw up to the 6 car stop. In short, the loco is counted as a coach.

I'd say that the approach to Invermay is fairly realistic, but I'd drop the speed down sooner so you go 90>60, then AWS warning for 40 > 40 > AWS warning for 20 >20

 

[Pumbaa]

I was under the impression that PSR boards weren't fitted unless had to be. But the WCML seems to be the opposite. EG Kings Langley to Watford Junction, the speed goes from 90 > 75 > 90 > 60. Both are indicated by PSRs. Similarly coming through the other way, I think there is a 5mph difference, and again both are indicated by PSRs. Even through Wembley, when transferring to NLL, the change from 15 > 20 > 40 > 20 > 30 > 50 is PSR'd fully in both directions, on both lines as they are to a reasonable extent bi-directional.

The approach to Inv. is fairly realistic, although I agree with Michael that I would lower the approach, and probably cap it at 10; that seems to be fairly standard for terminal stations (although Glasgow Central I think is 15).

 

[mbonwick]

10mph is the network wide maximum speed when entering/leaving terminating (bay) platforms

 

[mumrar]

10mph is the network wide maximum speed when entering/leaving terminating (bay) platforms

I take it you don't mean ALL terminating platforms, just bays? Redditch used to be 20mph and has now been raised to 30mph.

 

[The Snap]

Hi velaro,

With regards to stopping markers; I think, as already mentioned, they are for MUs. Anything longer than 6 cars usually stops at the 'S' marker which is at the end of the platform. Loco-hauled trains usually stop at this marker too (unless shorter than 6 cars).

Out of interest, I read in the other thread that this is just for OpenBVE. That is a shame for me personally, as I only use BVE4. The route was always a favourite of mine back in BVE2 days and I always wanted to see it upgraded to BVE4 (having never had the time to do it myself!).
Do you plan to do a BVE4 version or are you sticking with OpenBVE? If not, how simple would it be for me to remove the new (and very unfamiliar to me) OpenBVE codes from the routefiles to make it BVE4-compatible for my personal use?

Thanks, and great work!

 

[MCR247]

I dont think velaro still uses BVE4

 

[velaro]

Thanks very much for the information, guys.

I notice nobody has commented directly on the block signals before Invermay, but perhaps they were included in the general assessment of the approach's being realistic. Right now, they are working as though there was a permanent red signal immediately beyond the station (which, incidentally, is exactly how the route is coded - you can find the red signal just beyond the station, buried in the ground). Part of me wants to make the block signals even more restrictive by putting an approach-controlled red signal just before all the pointwork at Invermay station (and possibly do the same thing at Balfearn). Any thoughts?

@Rich: I'm afraid it would be quite a bit of work to make the route useable for BVE 4. There isn't a whole lot of openBVE syntax, and the commands could easily be removed. However, there is another problem in the form of freeobjects outside the range that BVE 4 will accept.

Okay, I should explain this. The original Sandymill developers used a lot of creative ways to get around BVE 2's limit of no more than 256 freeobjects - I know, because each one gave me quite a bit of grief. One of their favorite tricks was to merge several objects into one, separated only by different y-coordinates. For instance, you might have an object that contains two different passing train carriages; one at normal y coordinates, the other one 300 meters up. The freeobj command in the route file would either subtract 300 from the usual y coordinate, which would give you one carriage on the track and another one deep underground; or the y coordinate would be normal, in which case you would get one carriage on the track and the other one floating in the air. Somehow, this was never a problem I noticed in BVE 2 - perhaps it's the resolution, or possibly BVE 2 does not even render stuff that far up. However, in BVE 4 or openBVE, it was quite noticeable to me.

Of course, both BVE 4 and openBVE easily accept more than 256 freeobjects, and so the correct way of dealing with the problem would have been to separate all the 'multi objects' into separate freeobjects and modifying all the freeobjects lists and freeobj calls in the route files. That would have been a LOT of work, and quite frankly, I just couldn't be bothered. Then, I had the insane idea of pushing all the objects another 2,000 meters outward. For instance, if a freeobj call in a route file had a y coordinate of 301, I would change it to 2301 - and I modified all the object files to match. That worked just fine in openBVE but not in BVE 4 (which I did not realize until much later because I did all my development work in openBVE). Therefore, if you want to convert my openBVE version for BVE 4, you would either have to undo my coordinate changes or start with the original BVE 2 files and put in the other changes I've made - and then you still wouldn't have dealt with the floating objects.

All this would be quite a bit of work, and I won't do it. I cannot spare much time for development, and I'd rather use it for further upgrades. I'm aware that there are some people who can run BVE 4 but not openBVE, and I feel bad about that, but from what I gather, there are few people in this position. (Others can't seem to be bothered to do a little work to make openBVE work properly on their systems, or they are acting as if using openBVE would go against their religion.)

I don't know how much work on this route you'd be willing to do. One thing you might do that wouldn't be incredibly tedious is to select some bits and pieces from my work and use them for a partial BVE 4 upgrade of the BVE 2 files. For instance, you could take the timetable images I made, you could copy over the modified grass textures, or you could take the brightness commands (all of them are placed at the very end of my modified route files) and copy them into the original route files.

 

[Pumbaa]

Re the absolute block signalling, that is realistic. You could include the counter red, it's certainly the case in Euston and King's Cross, it's something I didn't consider as I couldn't think of a BVE scenario that includes it. On retrospect, most NWM do, as do X-City South.

 

[The Snap]

Hi velaro,

Thanks for that.

I didn't realise you have changed the objects in the way you had. If you hadn't, and the objects we pretty normal (ie: BVE4 compatible), then I assume it would have been a relatively quick and straight forward BVE4 conversion. However, as you've said, it's not that straight forward because of the objects, which is a shame.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll have to try and use OpenBVE. Although, last time I tried, the cabs of all trains didn't fit the screen and were all over the place, so I gave up and went back to BVE4.

Cheers,

 

[velaro]

I do recommend that you give it another try, Rich. A lot of trains have already been adapted for openBVE, including every default train in my version of the Sandymill. If there's another train you like that hasn't been released in an openBVE version yet: the specific cab problem that you mention can usually be fixed by fiddling with the Resolution, Center, and Origin parameters in the first paragraph of the train's panel2.cfg.

 

[JustinStacey.x]

Hi velaro,

Thanks for that.

I didn't realise you have changed the objects in the way you had. If you hadn't, and the objects we pretty normal (ie: BVE4 compatible), then I assume it would have been a relatively quick and straight forward BVE4 conversion. However, as you've said, it's not that straight forward because of the objects, which is a shame.

Maybe, just maybe, I'll have to try and use OpenBVE. Although, last time I tried, the cabs of all trains didn't fit the screen and were all over the place, so I gave up and went back to BVE4.

Cheers,

I can't use OpenBVE because my computer's absolutely rubbish lol. In fact, BVE4 only works on one of my computers, on my main one i am on now all the graphics are messed up. Oh well :P