DCForum Discussion Forum - Standards

After discussion with a few people about traction standards, it might be a good idea to get them down again. The main one I can think of is wire height. We decided that 20ft would be good for traction, as it was a fair compromise between city systems and interurban lines. I have a problem in that my models have the trolley wheel or skid pegged at 20ft in TSM, but when I convert to MSTS, they are a little high. My theory is that when one selects the wire height in the TRK file, the contact wire is a little lower than the height specified. Mabye it refers to the carrier wire of the catenary? I support this theory with the point that the blue sparks are set at the correct height in the .eng file, and appear a little above the wire. What is the exact metric conversion of 20ft? Mabye my calcultions are wildly inaccurate!Any thoughts on this or other standards?Cheers,
Matt A

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RE: Standards, Smokewraith, Jun-11-02, 10:26 PM, (1) RE: Standards, CMO, Jun-11-02, 11:18 PM, (2) RE: Standards, msavianney, Jun-11-02, 11:26 PM, (3) RE: Standards, tryagin, Jun-12-02, 00:13 AM, (4) RE: Standards, msavianney, Jun-12-02, 06:50 AM, (5) RE: Standards, chuckzeiler, Jun-12-02, 08:36 AM, (6) RE: Standards, OkrasaGhia, Jun-12-02, 03:13 PM, (7) RE: Standards, CMO, Jun-12-02, 05:01 PM, (8) RE: Standards, burgoofj, Jun-12-02, 10:27 PM, (9) RE: Standards, msavianney, Jun-12-02, 11:32 PM, (10)

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Using a program called The Converter, 20ft=6.096m.Bill

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6 meters is close enough.
Is there a way to string trolley wire that is not catenary, i.e. a single strand? All the photos I have seen so far seem to use the MSTS catenary, which is only realistic for main line interurbans, and not ordinary country lines and city streets.

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I've been working on 6.1m It seems that I have had to adjust my electrified routes to 6.3m to look accurate. It seems that if we settle on 6m, then I will have to adjust the TSM models to suit, which will probably be about 19ft on the TSM grid. I'll do some tests tonight, and see what I come up with. It will probably mean that I'll be uploading a pack with new .s files for the 1100 and curved-side cars. As to prototypically correct overhead, from what I understand, it can't be done. MSTS strings it the way we see it, and unless we made up fake overhead and imported it as scenery objects, while setting the overhead height at 1000m, I can't see how we could do it. I've done various traction poles, but haven't attempted wire.Cheers,
Matt A

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Just as a point of interest, I've got my wire set at 6.4 and the wheels on my trolleys all seem to hit it just right,being set at twenty feet in TSM.
Tim

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Yep, me too. I found that 6.4m worked perfectly. So what do we do? Set the height at 6.4m in the route files, or do those of us using TSM build to 19ft, allowing for MSTS scaling? Cheers,
Matt

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My opinion, if the 6.4m height works best, then use that. You don't really know where MSTS begins the measurement. Is it the rail head or the roadbed?

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The railhead sits at 0.325 meters inside MSTS.
I take it when modelling you set it at 0,
thus you end up high when running it in MSTS.
FYI the trackbed sits at 0.2 meters.
I think this is to make sure the track bed covers
the ground even if it's not completely level.

//Okrasa
Chief Engineer
okrasaghia @ yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/okrasaghia



Steam: 0-4-0T #9, 0-6-0 #12, 2-6-0 #25, 2-6-6-2 #37, 2-8-2 #40
Diesels: SW8 #16, F3 #53, F7 #54, FP7 #57, Budd RDC #61, TrainMaster #88

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I think I have read that TSM measures 0 at ground level, which is below the top of rail, so this may aaffect your measurements.
So, pick a number that works, and looks well.

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Here's my theory. The following picture helps to illustrate.The blue tower is a kind of ruler I made. It is based at ground level, I believe it is accurate. The wire height is set at 6.09m. You will notice that it intersects the ruler at exactly 20ft. The trolley wheel is at 20ft in TSM. The wheels in TSM are slightly above 0. I used the railreference included with TSM to position the model. This does appear to make the wheels sit correctly on the rails in the sim.However, if you load railreference into TSM, the rail is above 0 and the ties are below 0. I suspect that the model is correct, and from the bottom of the rail to the trolley wheel is probably at 20 feet. However adding the height of the roadbed and the ties probably is what accounts for the error we are seeing. So, our options are to either increase what we use for wire height, or lower what we use for trolley poles or pantographs.Frank Burgoon

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Good points Frank,I would suggest that we aim for a wire height of 6.1m in the sim. That might mean that those using TSM have to build our cars with the trolley wheel/skid at 19.5ft. I think if we just raise the wire height, then we'll have scale problems when we start building small city-based streetcars. Of course, I'm biased, as I'm working on a Birney car and 21ft looks too high, even with a trolley tower. I'll try it and see what height is required in TSM for a 6.1m wire height.Matt A

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