Adding trolleys to a non-electric route

I am using MSTS to model the Old Colony-Newport branchline that operated between Fall River, MA and Newport, RI in the early years of the 20th century. That part of the route is non-electric. All the track is laid and I am now moving on to the roads, houses, etc. Recently I have learned that there was also an extensive inter-urban trolley system in the region, operated by two separate companies. One provided light rail service between Newport and Fall River, and the other between Newport and Providence, RI by connecting in Bristol, RI with the NYNHH. I would like to add these lines to my existing non-electric route, especially because the trolley and heavy rail lines crossed and passed close to each other at numerous points. This leads immediately to two questions:1) Has anyone ever modeled a turn-of-the-century trolley car that will run on non-electrified MSTS track? (I can't have both electric and non-electric in the same MSTS route and I don't want to scrap my existing trackage. That leaves me with running trolleys without the overhead "wires".)2) Where do I find light rail track sections compatible with MSTS?Looking forward to your help.Charlie Beckers
Newport, RI

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, smallspy, Nov-08-04, 12:05 PM, (1) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, CharlieB, Nov-08-04, 01:13 PM, (2) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, philmoberg, Nov-08-04, 04:59 PM, (3) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, CharlieB, Nov-08-04, 10:17 PM, (4) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, CharlieB, Dec-28-04, 11:57 AM, (5) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, wacampbell, Dec-28-04, 12:37 PM, (6) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, smallspy, Dec-28-04, 12:40 PM, (7) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, CharlieB, Dec-28-04, 12:45 PM, (8) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, Eric in UK, Jan-01-05, 11:21 AM, (9) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, TedB, Jan-01-05, 11:46 AM, (10) RE: Adding trolleys to a non-electric route, asamtrak911, Jan-01-05, 04:55 PM, (11)

Conferences | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

For your first question, you have two different solutions.One, you can "electrify" all your existing track, but "bury" the wires to give the appearance that all of it is non-electified. The downsides of this are that now all of your track is electrified, and obviously you're going to have to manually string up your overhead.The other option leave all of the trackage as is, and to "dieselize" whatever trolleys you use on the route. The shape file doesn't make a difference, the sim will only recognize whatever is in the ENG files. The downside of this though, is that you'll likely have to package the modified ENG files for the equipment that you use with the route, to allow users to run them on the trolley lines.For your second question, the X-Tracks package comes with several tight-radius curves that will do the job for inner-city trackage.DanEveryone is entitled to their opinion no matter how wrong it is.

www.greatlakesrail.com

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

LAST EDITED ON Nov-08-04 AT 01:17 PM (EST)

Thanks for the quick comeback. Now that you mention it, I've heard of the burying trick before, but never took note because I wasn't thinking about light rail at the time. That may be the best solution, as steam will run on electric but not the reverse. There will be no cross-overs between my standard and light rail trackage, so no chance (short of someone just making a mistake setting up an activity) for the wrong rolling stock to end up in the wrong place. (When they shut down the inter-urban trolleys in 1927, they ran all the rolling stock out to the closest point between the steam line and the light rail, disassembled the cars, carried the parts over to the steam rail for loading on standard flatcars, and sold them to a New Jersey light rail system, where they were re-assembled.) Since I will have to do a lot of messing around with the gantries out in the country anyway, stringing my own "wire" doesn't seem so bad. For version 1, might just put up gantries and no wires. <EDIT: This is the way the route would look if I dieselized the cars anyway, so might as well save people the confusion of having various ENG files.> Ah, tight radius curves! Hadn't thought about them...I was thinking more along the lines of trolley switches, which don't have switch levers and moving parts. The few screen grabs of trolley layouts I've looked at seem to have that kind of switch. Any experience converting from MSTS standard track to XTracks? I've used a lot of dynamic track sections that I would rather not have to replace. (IIRC Xtracks doesn't have dynamic track sections, right?) Charlie

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

have you seen the Boston Street Railway Association's book about this operation? IIRC, it is called "To Newport by Trolley." It has a wealth of pictures you might find useful, including the bridges at Tiverton. BTW, it's a paperback, and therefore should be relatively inexpensive. -Phil

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Yup...the book is by Don O'Hanley, who happens to be the "resident historian" for my original route, the Old Colony-Newport. I always knew there had been a trolley line in Newport, but it wasn't until I read his book that I realized the extent of the routes and the relationship to my OCN route. That's when I decided to add the inter-urban trolleys to my layout. At least I have the RGE part done. All I need to do now is figure out how to get my existing track into XTracks, so I can start laying trolley track. The copy of Don's book that I have is a loaner from the Newport Public Library. I'd really like to find a copy for myself, but don't want to do it "blind" over the internet, because condition is important to me. I emailed Don to see if he knew of a source for a new copy of the book, but even he has to rely on the used book market. I've also got an interesting book called "Trolleys - Riding and Remembering the Electric Interurban Railways" by Ruth Cavin. More of a general history than Don's book. I'll rely on Don's book for the details of the trackage and the scenery. The Stone Bridge crossing at the north end of the island that you are talking about is just the stone piers now...all the ironwork went long ago, but people I know can recall crossing that bridge in cars, after the trolley lines went away. I used one of Ron Picardo's swing bridges for the OCN crossing just north of Stone Bridge (that bridge is still there, but inoperative). Using the info in Don's book, I took a ride around looking for the reminants of the trolley lines. The Commercial Wharf trolley barn has been replaced with a waterfront condo complex. The Vernon St. trolley barn is still there, being used by a car repair shop (looks more like a scrap yard). I remember the trolley barn just off West Main Road in Middletown, but it was torn down years ago. It was a bus garage when I first moved to the island in 1970. My next trip is going to be to find the two private right of ways (or should that be "rights of way"? I can never figure those things out.) in Portsmouth. Thanks for your thoughts...Charlie

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I am kicking this thread back to the top of the pile, because I would like to see if there are some other ideas out there about having electric and non-electric sections on the same layout. I tried the "bury the wires" idea, but RE won't allow entry of a negative height and the smallest positive height it will take is 0.5 m. This leaves the wire showing on top of the "ties" and the support wire clearly above the ties on the turns (using the "Tram" track sections in the standard tsection.dat). The only other reasonable alternative I see is to just leave unsupported catenary over the steam section at 6.2 m. Anyone have any other thoughts on this? What happens if I select the third-rail option (don't want to try this without some input first, for fear of really screwing things up)? Do traditional trolleys still work? BTW...to my great joy, my wife was able to find a nearly perfect copy of Don O'Hanley's "Newport--By Trolley!" for Christmas. Now the public library gets its copy back. CharlieB
Old-Colony Newport Branchline
Newport & Providence Railway
Old Colony Street Railway (ex-Newport & Fall River Street Railway)

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Hello CharlieB,Yah, as you have found out, you can't bury the wire. What I have done on my L&PS route ( www.lnps.info ) is to set the wire at 1000m height. At this height it is totally invisible. Wayne

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Bizarre, I could have sworn that RE did allow for negative heights...at least I could have sworn that I did it once...Well, if that doesn't work do the opposite. Put a very high number in, like 10000. To the operator, same effect, invisible wires.DanEveryone is entitled to their opinion no matter how wrong it is.

www.greatlakesrail.com

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Slaps his forehead and says..."Duhh, why didn't I think of that!" Thanks guys.CharlieB
(thought I'd better start using the "B" again, least I get confused with the original "charlie")

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

On some 3rd rail routes which I ran some time ago, I set a negative value of -0.5 in the route's TRK file. This seemed to work and the ENG files of the stock did not need to be converted to "diesel".Just a thought.Eric in UK

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

It's not realistic, but in ALL my non-electric routes, I electrify it and set the wire height to 10000. I can run ANY engine on any route. I used to make change to individual engine files, but that was MUCH too much work, not worth all the effort.Happy New Year.Ted

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

The third rail option in the route editor seems to be a feature that was never fully worked out in the sim. You can set a route to be powered by third rail, and no catenary wires will show, but if you try to run an electric train on the route, you'll get an error message saying "As this route uses third rail, this consist will not be able to power itself." There's no way I've heard of to designate a particular locomotive as being third-rail powered, so basically it's a useless feature.Now, if someone were feeling really clever and ambitious, they could release a set of trolley track sections with accurate overhead wires and support posts already added to the shapes. That would save a lot of work and alignment problems within the RE!Alex Stroshane
http://www.trainweb.org/asamtrak911

Alert | IP

[ Home | MSTS Forum | MSTS FAQ | How To... | File Library ] Copyright © 2004 by Nels Anderson. All Rights Reserved.