[Lindsayts]

The braking files will need a name change, these ones are set up for a line pressure of 70psi, where as US loco's are usually set up for a higher line pressure of 90psi.

So the file names will end something like "Brake_Westinghouse_engine_70psi.inc" etc.

Lindsay

[Genma Saotome]

Makes sense.

Question: Since locomotives and cars have brake equipment, what are reasonable names to use on the include files for each?

I was thinking in terms of AB and K type brake equipment, names that describe the equipment under each car. I imagine there might be another similar name for equipment used by passenger cars. But those names, AFAIK, don't apply to locomotives, nor do they (AFAIK) refer to the actual braking mechanism: Disc vs. composite shoe. Should I be using "AB_Brakes_Composite_Shoe.inc"? or is "AB_Brake.inc" sufficient? I think the later is good enough for North American freight cars for most of the 20th century but I really don't know what to say about modern equipment, 19th century, and/or passenger cars /and/or locomotive brakes.

Your example seems to refer to the train line rather than equipment for each car.

And then Locomotives do have their own brakes. And there are cab controllers for both the locomotive and train brakes. How should those be organized?

[Genma Saotome]

May I suggest as a standard that the first comment line -- required by the parser -- is the name of the include file? As in

	Comment ( H10-44_Engine_Specs.inc )

It would be more useful than a throw away line, especially when posting the contents in a forum, and is a little reminder one might need while working in a text editor.

===================

As I work thru the include files for the MILW 760-770 series of locomotives (downloaded from the ET file library) I'm finding myself calling the include files "H10-44_something-or-other.inc" because AFAIK none of them are really specific to the Milwaukee Road... they'd be true for any skinning of this model. Perhaps the better name is "H10-44_something-or-other_by_Allen_Norton.inc" but nevermind that... the point I'm trying to get to is all of these include files are correct for the Allen's mesh w/o regard to how that mesh is skinned. But the include files all sit in a directory for a skinned mesh -- for the Milwaukee Road.

I do think having a directory structure for the parameters of the mesh itself (i.e., Allan's H10-44 mesh) makes sense... meaning something else is needed to handle this instance is skinned for the MILW and that instance is skinned for the UP, etc., etc, where one of those something elses can be identified as for the MILW and the other for the UP. I like MILW_760.eng w/ several includes at \H10-44, with MILW skins plus UP505.eng w/ several includes at \H10-44, with UP skins. We need paths to do that.

[Lindsayts]

Genma Saotome, on 30 May 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

Makes sense.

Question: Since locomotives and cars have brake equipment, what are reasonable names to use on the include files for each?

I was thinking in terms of AB and K type brake equipment, names that describe the equipment under each car. I imagine there might be another similar name for equipment used by passenger cars. But those names, AFAIK, don't apply to locomotives, nor do they (AFAIK) refer to the actual braking mechanism: Disc vs. composite shoe. Should I be using "AB_Brakes_Composite_Shoe.inc"? or is "AB_Brake.inc" sufficient? I think the later is good enough for North American freight cars for most of the 20th century but I really don't know what to say about modern equipment, 19th century, and/or passenger cars /and/or locomotive brakes.

Your example seems to refer to the train line rather than equipment for each car.

And then Locomotives do have their own brakes. And there are cab controllers for both the locomotive and train brakes. How should those be organized?

The first line is a comment.
The first line of an include file HAS to be a comment, so a line saying its required is not really redundant.

Include file naming.
I try as much as possible to come up with name that is definitive and easily recognisable to the majority of users (One hopes anyway). The problem with naming like K , AB, ABD, W, Davies_Metcalf_ESR_500B or Knorr_KE_Bremse etc (the last two ,the Davies Metcalf and the Knorr are both EP distributors) Brake is that very few (No one?) will know what one is modelling. The advantage of something like "Brake_Westinghouse_twin_pipe" is that a good number will have some idea of what one is talking about.

A second a model with a particular name one assumes would need to be accurate so if one does an physics model of say a K, ABD or better still a Knorr_KE_Bremse then one would assume its accurate. Now I am a "Physics" nut and have done MUCH playing around with eng files and I would hesitate greatly to claim something even as simple as a model of the K brake system was dead accurate.

The majority of users would have some understanding of "twin_pipe" or single_pipe" brakes and the performance of a good physics model would not be far away from the real thing and would satisfy MOST people. That of course would not stop anyone from actually trying to model say an Davies Metcalfe Brake system.

Locomtives have there own brakes....
In fact most loco's have two systems one of them using a Distributor, most of the time both use the same brake cylinder (Note 1) so one would assume loco should have a set wagon brake parameters, But I have not experimented with this as yet.

Note 1: Some modern DMU's have a brake cylinder for each system,the Sptinter DMU's in use in Victoria, Australia being one example.

Lindsay

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 30 May 2014 - 08:48 PM, said:

May I suggest as a standard that the first comment line -- required by the parser -- is the name of the include file? As in

	Comment ( H10-44_Engine_Specs.inc )

It would be more useful than a throw away line, especially when posting the contents in a forum, and is a little reminder one might need while working in a text editor.

I'd just like say that the parser really "requires" the SIMIS header, i.e.:

SIMISA@@@@@@@@@@JINX0D0t______

However, our parser is so terribly lax that it just reads 1 line and ignores the contents. It is also a bug that it expects this header in included files IMHO - so I strongly agree with this pattern of putting a Comment(...) on the first line (if you put anything there - a blank line does work fine but is easy to lose). This will prevent any problems if we fix the bug and actually make use of the first line of included files. :oldstry:

[Genma Saotome]

Lindsay, upon reflection I've come to understand why we are thinking of different terms WRT brakes in .wags: You apparently are thinking of trains, 100cm to the m. My background is model railroading, specifically assembling resin kits. For me, when I open the box and look at the parts and instructions (or alternatively, when I examine a mechanical drawing) I will eventually discover "oh, this one uses AB brakes". The brake line is a constant that is practically invisible. So my frame of reference is what am I adding to the car, something that might vary from one car to another, something that is visually distinctive on the model.

That's not to say my initial idea of calling brake include files "AB_Brakes.inc" is correct... just why I chose that string.

So what is it exactly that would set apart one brake.inc file from another? You noted rated air pressure as one consideration. Are there others that matter? It's the list of differences that we should be looking at to determine a good naming convention.

[Lindsayts]

Genma Saotome, on 01 June 2014 - 08:33 AM, said:

Lindsay, upon reflection I've come to understand why we are thinking of different terms WRT brakes in .wags: You apparently are thinking of trains, 100cm to the m. My background is model railroading, specifically assembling resin kits. For me, when I open the box and look at the parts and instructions (or alternatively, when I examine a mechanical drawing) I will eventually discover "oh, this one uses AB brakes". The brake line is a constant that is practically invisible. So my frame of reference is what am I adding to the car, something that might vary from one car to another, something that is visually distinctive on the model.

You are correct, when I am thinking of trains its 100cm to the m models. I have spent many enjoyable hours working both in a workshop rebuilding steamers and rebuilding track including bridges on a local railway.
Another aspect to this is that I spent 30 years as a complex systems technician and it came clear to me in the later years that a lot of people using technical terms (including some experts) did not have clear understanding of some of these terms. Therefore they could not give a good simple clear explanation.
So in any documentation I like to use the simplest explanations of any phenomenon as its more likely that a greater percentage of the readers will understand what one is trying to say.

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That's not to say my initial idea of calling brake include files "AB_Brakes.inc" is correct... just why I chose that string.

There's no correct or incorrect namimg, what we are after is to be able to identify the major systems so that such an identity will be understood by most people interested in constructing good models (ie they have to put in some effort).

Quote

So what is it exactly that would set apart one brake.inc file from another? You noted rated air pressure as one consideration. Are there others that matter? It's the list of differences that we should be looking at to determine a good naming convention.

For braking there are three major systems, Air_Single_Pipe, Air_twin_pipe and electric over air, better known as EP braking. So for basic use the terms used in MSTS will do most of the job nicely, ie Air_Single_pipe, Air_twin_pipe and EP. As previously stated if anyone wants to do the modelling for a more complete system there is nothing stopping them.

Lindsay

[Genma Saotome]

Lindsayts, on 01 June 2014 - 02:19 PM, said:

For braking there are three major systems, Air_Single_Pipe, Air_twin_pipe and electric over air, better known as EP braking. So for basic use the terms used in MSTS will do most of the job nicely, ie Air_Single_pipe, Air_twin_pipe and EP. As previously stated if anyone wants to do the modelling for a more complete system there is nothing stopping them.

Lindsay

Those are for > atmospheric air pressure, right? What about systems that are < atmospheric air pressure (vacuum) based?

And AFAIK, this is all about the train line... are there disk brakes in use? If so, where do they come in to this topic?

I wonder if it might make more sense to have 1 include file that properly describes the attributes of the trainline and a different one for how the braking force is applied at the wheel. At least two files in theory. We might see that on a national fleet level 1 file is good enough; Or other aspects for car (or locomotive) brakes that warrant different parameters as well as different parameter values ( I found this .pdf file that speaks of historical developments of railroad brakes... might be useful). I just don't enough about the facts of the matter to say what's right here but so long as it is so early in making use of this feature we ought to figure out, don't you think?

[Lindsayts]

Genma Saotome, on 01 June 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

Those are for > atmospheric air pressure, right? What about systems that are < atmospheric air pressure (vacuum) based?

There is of course the Vacuum brakes from the UK of the past, I know nothing about them though. If someone can nominate a loco and car set with a decent Vacuum brake setup, that would be a serious step in the right direction. I have not driven many such vehicles as I found the brake controler vaery poorly set up.

Quote

And AFAIK, this is all about the train line... are there disk brakes in use? If so, where do they come in to this topic?

What I am trying to do at this stage is to get a default set up to work OK with the new include function. At this stage there is not enough difference between standard wheel and disk brakes to worry about it.

Quote

I wonder if it might make more sense to have 1 include file that properly describes the attributes of the trainline and a different one for how the braking force is applied at the wheel. At least two files in theory. We might see that on a national fleet level 1 file is good enough; Or other aspects for car (or locomotive) brakes that warrant different parameters as well as different parameter values ( I found this .pdf file that speaks of historical developments of railroad brakes... might be useful). I just don't enough about the facts of the matter to say what's right here but so long as it is so early in making use of this feature we ought to figure out, don't you think?

I do not know if OR has the ability to differentiate such level of detail at the moment. This would need code to vary the coeffeicent of friction with Brake temp, brake surface contamination, type of brake block material etc. This is a VERY large subject and much has been writen about it. From what I have read on the subject there does not appear to be a huge variation, it appears one of the main goals on railway brake research is to get the performance of Cast Iron (very good performance in the wet and at high temperatures with out the disadvantages (high wheel wear rate).
Its also not really compatible with what I am currently trying to acheive AT THIS STAGE, ie getting a simple reasonably performing standardset up using the new include interface. There will be time latter for anyone to try and get more accurate results.

Lindsay