[vince]

I believe it's for toggling the scoop.

vince

[steamer_ctn]

 Docmartin, on 14 January 2022 - 02:43 PM, said:

That said, although the feature whereby the water scoop breaks if it passes over an obstruction in the lowered state works in the test activity, it does not work in my Chiltern route. In the latter the lowered scoop passes over points etc without breaking. Could this be something to do with the fact that the Chiltern route uses the UK Fine Scale track system whereas the test route of course uses the default track system?

If it works ok on the CTN route, then in principle it should work on any other route. As you suggest it could be something with how the track pieces are "tagged".

 Docmartin, on 14 January 2022 - 02:43 PM, said:

Secondly, I wonder what the purpose is of the following entry in the Engine Controls section of the Hall .eng file used in the CTN water trough test activity.
WaterScoop ( 0 1 0 )
Since no water scoop mechanism is or should be visible in the cab, I wonder why it is necessary to include a water scoop control entry in the .eng file.

Firstly it acts as an "indicator" that a water scoop is fitted to the locomotive. So if not activiated, then OR assumes that no water scoop is fitted.

Secondly, as far as I am aware there was some form of control fitted in the cab (somewhere) that allowed the driver or fireman to raise and lower the scoop. Was this not the case?

[Traindude]

I was reading that on the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads (two of the few railroads where water scoops and pans/troughs were used), the scoop was air-operated. So if there was some way to have the air supply in the main reservoir deplete slightly whenever the scoop is dropped and then retracted, then that could be a nice realistic touch.

[dforrest]

The following reflections from contemporary British Railways railwaymen in the use of water troughs and scoops, should be very interesting and informative:

https://www.lner.inf...b0fbe6f055531f5

[Docmartin]

In post #40 I wrote

Quote

although the feature whereby the water scoop breaks if it passes over an obstruction in the lowered state works in the test activity, it does not work in my Chiltern route

In fact, further extensive testing proves that in fact the water scoop breaking feature DOES indeed work in my UKFineScale Chiltern route, with the exception of, to the best of my knowledge, at one particular junction. I relaid the crossover at this junction and the problem disappeared, the water scoop now breaking correctly on passing over the junction.

I presume the moral of this story is that on occasion one may come across junctions with issues inherited from MSTS that need to be replaced in TSRE.

Martin

[darwins]

 steamer_ctn, on 14 January 2022 - 09:21 PM, said:

If it works ok on the CTN route, then in principle it should work on any other route. As you suggest it could be something with how the track pieces are "tagged".


Firstly it acts as an "indicator" that a water scoop is fitted to the locomotive. So if not activiated, then OR assumes that no water scoop is fitted.

Secondly, as far as I am aware there was some form of control fitted in the cab (somewhere) that allowed the driver or fireman to raise and lower the scoop. Was this not the case?

That would require some differentiation between scoops. Most of them in UK were purely mechanical, worked by a screw mechanism, but there were also examples of air operated and steam operated scoops.