[KiwiPeter]

Hi folks,

I seem to remember reading that this is a known problem, but can't find it now. I'm running a shunting act on FBL3. For some reason parts of the loco are reversed. When going forward the arrow in the F8 display points down and if I want to throw a switch ahead I have to press Shift-G. Camera views 2 and 3 are also reversed.

Because of this I got confused and going through the Frampton switch yard I threw a switch under the loco. This didn't cause the emergency brakes to come on, but the train jumped onto the track connected to the switch and a coupler "broke" in the middle of the train.

I can reproduce this at will.

Do you want me to report this?

Regards,
Peter.

[KiwiPeter]

Correction: the second time this happened the train jumped only two tracks and didn't break up.

[rdamurphy]

Which locomotive?

Robert

[charland]

Hi Peter,

It's probably the spring and coupler settings or the particular piece of rolling stock and not Open Rails.

Make sure the couplers are not set as rigid,

These are the settings I've been using on my rolling stock and they work.


Spring (
Stiffness ( 9.8e5N/m 1.76e6N/m )
Damping ( 1.77e6N/m/s 1.77e6N/m/s )
Break ( 5.4e7N 5.4e7N )
r0 ( 0cm 4cm )

If you wag file lists both a front and rear coupler use the same settings for both.

Paul :-)

[KiwiPeter]

Hello again,

This is the loco:

Desert Minerals Corp SW1500 switcher and Ore cars

found here: http://www.trainsim....right&fid=13739

There is no wag file, only an eng file which does contain the coupler settings. I have tried your settings and also RouteRiter's suggestion, but the result is the same: every time the loco encounters a mis-aligned switch the train jumps to another track.

Here are the original settings:

Coupling (
		Type ( Automatic )
		Spring (
			Stiffness ( 1e6N/m 5e6N/m )
			Damping ( 1e6N/m/s 1e6N/m/s )
			Break ( 5.1e7N 5.1e7N )
			r0 ( 20cm 30cm )
		)

		CouplingHasRigidConnection ()
		Velocity ( 0.1m/s )

I don't think any of this happens with any other engine. Normally the emergency brake is engaged when running through a mis-aligned switch.

Regards,
Peter.

[markus_GE]

IDK what

CouplingHasRigidConnection ()

defaults to in case no value is indicated in the brackets, but I´d try puttin a 0 (zero) in there, like that

CouplingHasRigidConnection ( 0 )

And try again.

Cheers, Markus

[beresford]

markus_GE, on 16 June 2014 - 07:16 AM, said:

IDK what

CouplingHasRigidConnection ()

defaults to in case no value is indicated in the brackets, but I´d try puttin a 0 (zero) in there, like that

CouplingHasRigidConnection ( 0 )

And try again.

Cheers, Markus

So coupler stiffness causes the train to jump tracks? Really?

I saw something similar recently when the train was joining the main line from the branch and I inadvertently threw the point. The whole of a very large train jumped from the branch onto the main line.

[markus_GE]

It could in MSTS... And nothing is known so far about the behavior in ORTS...

Cheers, Markus

[roeter]

beresford, on 16 June 2014 - 02:18 PM, said:

So coupler stiffness causes the train to jump tracks? Really?

I saw something similar recently when the train was joining the main line from the branch and I inadvertently threw the point. The whole of a very large train jumped from the branch onto the main line.

It's all just more simple than that.
The position of all cars is always calculate from the rear to the front. This calculation follows the actual switch position. So, if the switch position is changed when the train is over it, the calculation will follow this new position and place the front of the train beyond the switch according to this new setting. It's a bit like the tail wagging the dog - the tail being the rear waggon of the train, the dog being the rest.
What is surprising is that it is possible to set a switch while the train is actually occupying it. That used to be blocked. Somehow, a 'leak' has sprung in the code somewhere allowing switches to be thrown when occupied. That needs to be looked into. What happens if that switch is thrown is not really surprising given the way the train's position is calculated. But that need not to be changed. When the program 'leak' is stopped, it will not be possible to throw a switch when occupied so the problem can no longer occur.

Regards,
Rob Roeterdink

[KiwiPeter]

Thank you all for joining in. Markus, I will try your suggestion.

Let me clarify something here: when I said the switch got thrown with the train on it, that is probably not correct, strictly speaking. The engine was already over the straight through section, but had not reached the point yet. Also, the switch cannot change the train's direction, because the train is going the other way, i.e. forcing the points to move (in real life). In fact, running this scenenario again I just noticed that the train was forcing another switch and in doing so all the wagons jumped track. I didn't notice this earlier, because I could only see the loco and that didn't move noticably.

Meanwhile, I did some more testing last night. In Explore mode nothing seems to happen, not even brakes.

In activity mode the train behind the SW1500 jumps every time (no msg about mis-aligned switch, brakes off, etc.), while a train with a Dash 9 gets the emergency brakes. Also, the switch doesn't need to be thrown "under" or close to the loco, just mis-aligning it is enough.

This happened after jumping the last switch in the yard. The Dash 9 was in the way. :sign_thanks:



The same engine, but with its ore wagons in a test activity on the Bruchwaldbahn didn't do anything, no jumping tracks and no emergency brakes.

I would really like to make a short video of this, but I have no idea how to do that. Is that hard to do?

There is also the mystery why some functions with this loco are reversed, as in my 1st post.

Regards,
Peter.