[markus_GE]

I recently ran a few activities on the LE Surroundings route (Austrian route covering my area), mostly activities on the quite steep branch through my hometown (grades up to 5% on the piece covered by the route). Running downhill safely with the many speed changes common on European branch lines is quite a challenge with standard U.S.-type single line air brakes.

And that´s the point: In Austria we have been using a dual pipe braking system for quite a long time now, which allows for gradual release of the brakes. Now, I know ORTS has a built-in option to allow for that type of brakes, but I forgot to switch it before starting the activity and only found out about it when I crashed my train in a runaway.

Now, I also know of this parameter in the .ENG files:

BrakeSystemType( "..." )

"..." usually says "Air_single_pipe" in most engine files (also in the one of the trainset I used).

Now, let me ask a few questions:

• Does anybody know if MSTS would support something like "Air_dual_pipe" with the correct way of working (gradual release)?
• How does the situation look with ORTS?
• Could the need to switch ORTS' brake system mode be bypassed with ORTS-specific settings (like "ORTSBrakeSystemType( "Air_dual_pipe" )") an ORTS-specific .eng file?

Any help is appreciated :whistling:

Cheers, Markus

[Lindsayts]

 markus_GE, on 17 May 2014 - 04:59 AM, said:

I recently ran a few activities on the LE Surroundings route (Austrian route covering my area), mostly activities on the quite steep branch through my hometown (grades up to 5% on the piece covered by the route). Running downhill safely with the many speed changes common on European branch lines is quite a challenge with standard U.S.-type single line air brakes.

And that´s the point: In Austria we have been using a dual pipe braking system for quite a long time now, which allows for gradual release of the brakes. Now, I know ORTS has a built-in option to allow for that type of brakes, but I forgot to switch it before starting the activity and only found out about it when I crashed my train in a runaway.

Now, I also know of this parameter in the .ENG files:

BrakeSystemType( "..." )

"..." usually says "Air_single_pipe" in most engine files (also in the one of the trainset I used).

Now, let me ask a few questions:

• Does anybody know if MSTS would support something like "Air_dual_pipe" with the correct way of working (gradual release)?
• How does the situation look with ORTS?
• Could the need to switch ORTS' brake system mode be bypassed with ORTS-specific settings (like "ORTSBrakeSystemType( "Air_dual_pipe" )") an ORTS-specific .eng file?

Any help is appreciated :whistling:

Cheers, Markus

The parameter BrakeSystemType( "Air_twin_pipe" )
works OK, graduated release appears to work. I found one can connect single pipe rolling stock to "Twin_Pipe" locos and it will work as expected.

when you try it one can immediately see an effect as the brake display on he F5 hud has a couple of extra collumns.

Note: This has been working in OR for ages. All my pass rolling stock is set up now with "Air_twin_pipe".

Lindsay

[markus_GE]

:jawdrop2: for the info, Lindsay. I will put it to good use, once my DPU-program supports more ENG file parameters and more types of engines :)

However, will these changes affect MSTS? (just for backwards compatibility, if I should ever need it for whatever reason)

Cheers, Markus

PS: Obviously I haven´t been using ORTS long enough ;)

[Lindsayts]

 markus_GE, on 18 May 2014 - 04:25 AM, said:

:jawdrop2: for the info, Lindsay. I will put it to good use, once my DPU-program supports more ENG file parameters and more types of engines :)

However, will these changes affect MSTS? (just for backwards compatibility, if I should ever need it for whatever reason)

No, MSTS appears to ignore everything other than single pipe brakes, mind you its been ages since I have run MSTS outside of the editor and tools.

Quote

Cheers, Markus

PS: Obviously I haven´t been using ORTS long enough ;)

You'll get there, inspite of what most people think and do, some of us like to play around with the black magic in the eng files.

Note: To who ever is doing the OR manual, It still says only single pipe brakes work. Apparently who ever did the twin pipe mods did so without telling anyone as I have found now twin pipe with graduated release has been working OK for a long time.

Lindsay

[Csantucci]

 Lindsayts, on 18 May 2014 - 11:27 AM, said:

No, MSTS appears to ignore everything other than single pipe brakes, mind you its been ages since I have run MSTS outside of the editor and tools.

I believe there is some difference in brake sound triggers in single and twin pipe in MSTS; not very important, but I noticed that.

[markus_GE]

Just for reference, Lindsay posted some interesting additional info here.

Cheers, Markus

[cjakeman]

 Lindsayts, on 18 May 2014 - 11:27 AM, said:

Note: To whoever is doing the OR manual, It still says only single pipe brakes work. Apparently who ever did the twin pipe mods did so without telling anyone as I have found now twin pipe with graduated release has been working OK for a long time.

"whoever is doing the OR manual" - makes me smile. The OR Operating Manual is hardly one person's effort !

To my way of thinking, the manual should match the code, so any discrepancy between the code and the manual is a bug that ought to be fixed. Perhaps you would report this for us on the Bug Tracker, please?

[Lindsayts]

 cjakeman, on 19 May 2014 - 01:21 PM, said:

"whoever is doing the OR manual" - makes me smile. The OR Operating Manual is hardly one person's effort !

I realise this, one must start a post somehow :).

Quote

To my way of thinking, the manual should match the code, so any discrepancy between the code and the manual is a bug that ought to be fixed. Perhaps you would report this for us on the Bug Tracker, please?

I have hesitated to say much on this as OR has never official said that twin pipe is supported same as for my hi-res cabviews so it makes my wonder if such undocumented features are actaully supported at all.

I will see if I can write up a piece on the setup of twin pipe braking. Its a long time since I have done much testing on braking, twin pipe support having been added quite a long time ago. So all my setup was done along time ago and as previously mentioned nearly all my rolling stock that is twin pipe or better has already been setup and as usual I did not document the procedure at the time.

I will see what I can do though, probably as good as anything would be to put up the apropriate sections of some eng and wag files I am currently using.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

Post script to the above......

Firstly I am REAL surprised the previous message made it to the list as Elvastower returned an error when it was submitted.

Secondly and on topic. Twin pipes definitely works here, I am currently running V2237, problem is I cannot find any reference to two pipe working in the source. There's nothing in either....

MSTSBrakeController.cs or BrakeController.cs to twin or two pipe working in either file. This is making me REALLY unsure on proceeding, its either an accidental feature as is the hi res cabviews on someones done some black magic (or I am looking for the wrong thing, see 2nd last paragraph). In either case the facility would be unsupported. I certainly do not believe its an accident as in that case the F5 hud brake display would make provision for it.

I wonder if its a side effect of the Graduated Release code? As Graduated Release is not provided except with two pipe working.

Any hints on a way forward would be appreciated as I do believe its a worthwhile addition.

Lindsay

[Lindsayts]

There are 4 brake system types in the src code, these are.....

Vacuum
EP
Air twin pipe
Air single pipe

The source for these are spread over at least the following files...
physics/Brakes.cs
Rollingstock/MSTSLocomotive.cs
Rollingstock/MSTSWagon.cs
Rollingstock/MSTSWagon.cs
Rollingstock/BrakeController.cs
Rollingstock/MSTSBrakeController.cs

It would be a good idea to at least mention all the active braking systems in the docs, this would allow any user with drive to experiment with the systems and increase availible knowledge
of OR.

The brake system types Air twin pipe and EP are in fact extensions of Air single pipe. The only difference currently between Air Single pipe and air twin pipe appears to be the Auxillary reservoir has a continious constant air pressure supply from the main reservoir pipe.

The EP is enhanced over air single pipe quite a bit, I have not at this stage gone through the code to see how it works and I wonder if any of the developers have an idea on this already. The idea would be to produce some docs on the configuration of both EP and Air Twin pipe. If the function is there in OR it should be used.

The specfic Air twin pipe code is in Physics/Brake.cs lines 555 to 661,
The specfic EP code is in lines 662 to 750,
For Vacuum pipe the line numbers are 752 to 1024 (end of file).

Line numbers earlier than 555 are mainly air single pipe.

Unfortunately anything like well enough to get a good idea of whats happenning with only a short glance and sadly code has few good informational comments that would make this process much easier.

Excuse any spelling and formating errors, I am back on my dial up internet and its only running at 19.2 kilobits per sec.

Lindsay