LAST EDITED ON Apr-04-04 AT 02:28 PM (EDT)
Routes and info available at http://home.cfl.rr.com/bvefl/download.html Quick SummaryWith the release of BVE 2.6.2, tight curves are possible. BVE 2.9 allows tight curves, but it is only a BETA and not in vide release. We will define tight curves as less than 100 meter radius and very tight curves as less than 50 meter radius. Earlier versions of BE will do tight curves, but very tight curves cause the train to get stuck if it runs slowly or rock violently if run at speed.
BE 2.6.2 and better support very tight curves to ( tested) 4 meter radius), although some trains will still get stuck in curves of 16 meters or less and may not restart. The routesTo check out the capability of 2.9.2 to do very tight curves, I have created a small set of routes. These are included with this document. Also included is Included is a 50 meter radius curve and an 8 meter radius. These objects are very preliminary versions and may be changed.
The package contains 6 basic routes.1) 1 A test curve route. You can change the radius and circumference and see what happens.
15 meter test curve
16 meter curve test route
2) A basic figure 8 of 50 meters left and right. If you run this route set the view distance to 200 meters 
Figure 8 with out scenery3. A basic figure 8 of 50 meters left and right with limited scenery. Created just to see what the scenery does in a tight curve.
4. A simple center of road in city tram route. It is an expansion of the basic figure 8. If you run this route set the view distance to 400 meters. It uses the buildings from Route Builder, since you see all the sides on some buildings. An undocumented feature is used to generate random traffic on road. Fully functional signals. They are suppose to be traffic lights, but I did not want to create custom signals for this. This is about 2 miles so that I can submit it to the 2mc some day. NOTE because the prior car/tram is so close, you can not keep the schedule. It is a busy evening as night falls.
5. A simple center of road in city tram route in CSV format with the real $RND command
6. A left hand drive side of road city circulator route using 8 meter radius curves. This shows how to use a large follow on curve to get an exact size or degree, curve . See picture at bottomSuggested train
SFC_15 by Alfred Barten and Luigi Cartello from
http://www.alfredbarten.com/downloads.html
Any of the trams on this page will do nicely. There is also a UK Tram that was available with the Netram route that works well. You need an old slow "bone rattler" tram/trolley. I have used the newer ones too, but they seem too fast. Best speed to run the routes at is 15 kph or 10 mph. What ever you use, the driver position needs to be near the center of the car, no more than about .6 meters left or right, there is not much clearance on this route and there are still some tight curve effects ( see below).
Note the city route is a right hand drive routes, but if you reverse the way the traffic faces, it would be left hand.. Not a difficult task, just change the 90 to -90 and -90 t0 90 in the freeobj command.
These are hand coded routes, but look a little like route builder routes since there is a lot of detail and you code almost every piece of track. Route credits
Buildings from Route Builder Library
Used within those restrictions
Object Artist
Uwe Post
Sanford Mace
Jan de Jong
Fons de Jong
Thomas233
Richard Long
Kevin Taylor
Rainer HubnerTrees and circulator buildings
copyright (c) Tom Beevers January 2004
Used within his use restrictions
http://tombeevers2000.free-hosting.org.uk/piccadillybveTrucks and big Bus from Miquel Pujadas
They are copyright Miquel Pujadas from his site
http://www.casacota.net/casulleras/trainsimulator/bve/bve.htm
and are used within his use restrictions UKTS van is a reskin by James UnderwoodNote all trucks, vans and bus objects
have had their vertex values adjusted
so that all have the same center ResultsNOTE Track views are with the version 1.5.9 of track viewer which I think acts more like 2.9 than 2.4.2.
In general, the tight curves are possible, you can drive fairly slowly and with some trains, stop and start on these curves down to 16 meter radius. Some trains still bind if you stop. I did create a curve of 8 meters radius and the SFC15 would make through 180 degrees, if you entered at 10 mph or faster. I also created a curve of 4 meters radius and the SFC15 would make through 360 degrees, if you entered at 15 mph or faster. Other trains, notably the T180a could stop and start in the 8 meter curves The background bitmap tends to jump as does the objects when you come to the end of a 90 deg 16 meter curve. You will see this mostly on the turn from Center to Haus street in the tram route, where you swing into the truck, then snap out of it. NOTE BVE 2.9 does this better.
You can not use a tilt on the curve because it introduces too much binding in the curve and some trains ( like the sfc15) will not make it. NOTE ANY tilt seems to set this off. Maybe still a small bug.
(NOTE the following is not noticeable from a cab view. From the cab you can not tell an 89.5 degree turn from a 90 degree turn. If this is important to you, how ever, read on). You MUST be very aware that BVE works in 25 meter increments and can only do whole meter radius curves. To make a perfect 90 degree curve, you need a 100 meter circumference giving a radius of 15.915507E meters ( Approximately)., but BVE only will do 16 or 15 meters, see the pictures above.. This means that you can not get a perfect 90 degree corner, so when doing something like the figure 8, there is not an exact over lap.
360 degree 4 meter radius 1 25 meter section 1=360
(Very Very Very tight tested and works but very ugly)
180 degree 8 meter radius 1 25 meter section 1=180
(Very Very tight)
90 degree - 16 meter radius 1 25 meter section 1= 90 degree
90 degree - 32 meter radius 2 25 meter sections 1= 45 degree
90 degree - 48 meter radius 3 25 meter sections 1= 30 degree
(normal BVE will do this)
90 degree - 64 meter radius 4 25 meter sections 1=22.5 degree
(normal BVE will do this)
You can add a large follow up curve to make the difference up. See the circulator route. This uses a 1500 meter curve after the 8 meter curve to make the curve exactly 90 degrees, so this route does over lap.
Note that none of these is exact because of the discussion above
Because you can curve the route back onto itself, you can see a section of the route several times. This is also a partial answer to a something Alfred Barton ( I think) posed on his site: How to get BVE to show following tracks in tight city tram routes. In the city route, the cross over is seen twice from almost all sides. This makes placing objects interesting, and since the overlap is not exact, it can product the effect of an object moving. You see the trucks at the crossing in one place first time and another the next time. You must also have an object that has at least 3 sides, perhaps 4. These are small enough that the 600 meter view overlaps too much so you have to cut the view distance down to the suggested ones. This might make the routes run a little better on slower machines. A slight longer route would not need this. (See the city circulator route for an example) Version 2 of the COR route might be around 600 meters from one center corner to the other for the correct overlap. This would allow some other effects like a passing track or a smooth vertical rise and fall section. Suggested useWhy is all this important. In a "normal" train route, it is not. Curves of this radius are unusual; in heavy rail. I saw a 100 meter, more or less, turning curve in the Amtrak yard in Miami Florida and in a couple of other yards, but nothing this tight in main line service.
However in industrial applications, yard models, some narrow gauge routes and tram/lrv routes curves of this size exist. Until now we have been limited to about 50 meter curves. See some of Luigi Cartello’s Italian mountain routes for examples.
Alfred Barton (I think it was him) posed a question on his web page about tram routes and BEV objects disappearing after you pass by. He posed several solutions to this. Here is another.
See picture at bottom
Construct a tram route. The distance from B to F is 600 meters ( or less) Curves at B C are 90 degree (15 meter) and D-E is 180 degree (8 meter followed by 1500 meter). B-C should be 25 - 50 meters. C-D should be 275 or 250 meters, D-E will be 25 or 50 meters depending on curve radius.E-F will be 250 meters. Keep the total to less than 600 meters and this works. (The Circulator route uses this length.) This will allow you to come around the curve from A-b and see all the scenery. Make the track from C-D invisible. Define ALL the scenery from C-F, including the track from C-D, as free objects along the section of track E-F. Make sure you create an extension of street B-C to the outside of E-F or close it with a building. Curve D-E and its scenery can be normal.
Now when you come around curve A-B, you see the street ahead . You curve around C and see a normal street view on both sides of the wide boulevard CDEF.. Make the curve D-E and you now see both sides again. The scenery behind you now disappears, but now it does not matter. Note objects will need to be 3 or 4 sided because you see them coming and going.Comments and suggestions welcome to smace<at>netzero.net. Place BVE in title to pass the email filters.
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