problems with the NS Birmingham Route

Recently, I have started running the updated NS Birmingham (Alabama) Route (birminghamupdatev2.zip in the T-S library). While not as resource draining as the Horseshoe Curve route, the NS Birmingham route is heavily sceniced. In running a small activity that involves a three-way meet of the eastbound player train with two long intermodal freights, I encountered a few problems. Perhaps these rise to the level of a bug.

The first is the reoccurrence of a problem that I encountered (and reported on a few months ago) running the Horseshoe Curve route. Specifically, the wrong aspect is displayed when the player train is routed into a siding (see the attached screenshot “wrong aspect”). The signal should show red over yellow (diverging or restricting approach); however, as the screenshot shows, the signal is yellow over red (approach). The player train did move into the siding and stopped at the next signal.

The next issue (not really a problem) can be seen in the screenshot labeled “red bar.” This shot was taken just as we entered the siding and are heading toward a distant stop signal to await an eastbound intermodal train that was to run around us. Instead of the red circle in the track monitor telling of the upcoming signal, you can see a red bar across the track symbol 0.8 miles ahead. I’ve never seen that symbol before. It did become a red circle at some point before we stopped. Like I said, this posed no problem; however, I am wondering why the red bar symbol appeared and how it might differ from the typical circles that we see in the track monitor.

The final problem is much more troublesome. Not long after stopping, the eastbound player train encountered a 94-car westbound intermodal on the leftmost track. Before this train had cleared our view, the eastbound intermodal train that we had taken the siding for passed us (the stopped player train). For several minutes, all three trains could be observed without any problems, including missing textures, and frame rates held in the 30-45 range for the duration of the meet. However, before the eastbound train had departed our field of view well ahead of us (the first train was well past us by this time), OR froze and then crashed displaying the System.ArgumentNullException error that can be seen in the attached log.

I have absolutely no idea why OR crashed. Indeed, everything worked wonderfully up to this point. My initial reaction was that it may have had something to do with the AI trains. However, this seems at odds with the way the three-train meet came off.

Any thoughts on any of the above-mentioned issues would be helpful, especially the last one. I should mention that I was using version 1908 and RunActivityLAA.exe. Thanks for any help you can offer as well as all of the effort devoted to making OpenRails what it has become.

Gary