Marias – Kootenai – broken coupler fix?

As much as I was thrilled to see the Marias Pass route expanded, I was equally excited about Otto's statement that he thought the areas of the original route where broken couplers were a problem had been fixed. I just tried it for the first time, running a 75-car intermodal at 50 mph westbound near MP 1112 -- an area on Marias Pass 3.1 where I had often broke couplers before.I'm happy to report that I got through with no problem. I didn't even need to slow down. I hope this is the case with the other areas of the route where broken couplers were an issue.

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RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 01:12 AM, (1) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-16-04, 08:31 AM, (2) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 09:32 AM, (3) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, kmanc21, Nov-16-04, 10:00 AM, (4) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Swissie, Nov-16-04, 11:24 AM, (5) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 12:06 PM, (6) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-16-04, 12:44 PM, (7) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Swissie, Nov-16-04, 01:36 PM, (8) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Vern, Nov-16-04, 01:39 PM, (9) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 02:08 PM, (10) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-16-04, 02:35 PM, (12) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Vern, Nov-16-04, 04:41 PM, (14) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-16-04, 02:25 PM, (11) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Swissie, Nov-16-04, 05:42 PM, (15) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Swissie, Nov-16-04, 06:54 PM, (16) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-16-04, 07:07 PM, (17) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 03:35 PM, (13) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-16-04, 11:01 PM, (18) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-17-04, 09:54 AM, (19) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-17-04, 07:24 PM, (20) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-17-04, 08:44 PM, (21) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Busdriver, Nov-17-04, 10:00 PM, (22) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-17-04, 10:50 PM, (24) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-17-04, 10:25 PM, (23) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, cbblackard, Nov-17-04, 10:55 PM, (25) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Busdriver, Nov-18-04, 00:45 AM, (26) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, OTTODAD, Nov-18-04, 08:06 AM, (27) RE: Marias -- Kootenai -- broken coupler fix?, Busdriver, Nov-18-04, 12:05 PM, (28)

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Hmmm, looks like I spoke too soon. I'm unable to get past MP 1137 westbound without breaking a coupler.

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Hi CB !First time I have heard of that location causing Coupler problems in the MARIAS-KOOTENAI and will look into it using my 100 waggons consist.I take it that all your coupler settings have been adjusted as per PLAINSMAN, in particular the Damping line:Coupling (
Type ( Automatic )
Spring (
Stiffness ( 1.2e6N/m 4.6e6N/m )
Damping ( 1.3e6N/m/s 3.8e6N/m/s )
Break ( 5.4e7N 5.4e7N )
r0 ( 20cm 30cm )
)
Velocity ( 0.1m/s )
)DerailRailHeight ( 5cm )O t t o

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Thanks for the response, Otto...I stayed up to the wee hours of the morning working on this without success...The break occurs just beyond the switch before MP 1137 westbound. I wait on traffic train, then move forward. Even at 2 mph, the coupler breaks...My consist contains about 75 container cars, mainly the updated US2DoubleHeight cars (red and blue) which I downloaded from your site (before you had to stop providing them). Looking at these cars, I found what I think is an error in the damping. Instead of "1.3e6N/m/s 3.8e6N/m/s", it reads "1.3e6N/m/s 3.8eN/m/s" (with the 6 omitted in the second group). I corrected this and also increased the coupler break values to 7.4, then 9.4, and finally 12.4 with no success. I also ran the cars through the bounding box utility available in the library and it identified a change that needed to be made. I made the change but still no luck...But as you can see, I am trying! One question: after I make these changes, I go back to a previous save of the activity (rather than starting the activity over from the beginning) to test them. I assume the changed values are picked up by the program even though I am loading a save which, at the time it was saved, had different values. Am I correct on this?Thanks again. >Hi CB !
>
>First time I have heard of that location causing Coupler
>problems in the MARIAS-KOOTENAI and will look into it
>using my 100 waggons consist.
>
>I take it that all your coupler settings have been adjusted
>as per PLAINSMAN, in particular the Damping
>line:Coupling (
> Type ( Automatic )
> Spring (
> Stiffness ( 1.2e6N/m 4.6e6N/m )
> Damping ( 1.3e6N/m/s 3.8e6N/m/s )
> Break ( 5.4e7N 5.4e7N )
> r0 ( 20cm 30cm )
> )
> Velocity ( 0.1m/s )
>
>
>DerailRailHeight ( 5cm )
>
>O t t o

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One question: after I make these changes, I go back to a previous save of the activity (rather than starting the activity over from the beginning) to test them. I assume the changed values are picked up by the program even though I am loading a save which, at the time it was saved, had different values. Am I correct on this?CB,I'm no expert on this, but in my experience once you have trouble with a saved activity you almost always have the same problem. I have always deleted the bad save and started the activity over to get past a problem area. Your assumptions are correct IMHO, but we are dealing with MSTS here and the only correct assumption is no assumption. Not the answer you wanted to hear I'm pretty sure, but the only way I know how to properly test your changes.Ken

How did I survive before MSTS

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Hi CByes, you are correct. Changes to the settings within the .eng and .wag files are picked up when you reload the activity. The contents of these files are not part of the save of your activity. Changes to the .con file of the player or any AI consist, to the .tdb, .tit, .rdb and .rit files of the route, or the files associated with the activity itself (.act, .pat, .srv, .trf) would cause failures to load an earlier save of the activity, as these files need to be in synch with the information of the save. Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Lukas:As I research this issue, I read with interest your post in the following thread:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/24905.htmlIf I understand your post correctly, bounding box settings may be the culprit in broken couplers. I tinkered with these a bit last night but did not try the specific change you suggested in the above-referenced thread. Any thoughts?

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LAST EDITED ON Nov-16-04 AT 12:47 PM (EST)

Hi CB !Thanks for bringing this "Damping" typo to my attention, which means that all my Rolling Stock has it having been amended with Engmod.The lower edge of the Bounding Boxes have already been raised by me in accordance with SWISSIE's and John Hopkins suggestions !Was just about to upload an amended version of the mp3kcons.zip and will take care of it so that those who are going to download it for the first time will have the correct values and also for others who want to update theirs !Give me a couple of hours before downloading:www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/downloads/mp3kcons.zipI am also going to check this location you are having coupler problems with and shall report later !Take Care.

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Hi CB,I also just had a break on MK3 at the famous spot in cutbank, and will look at the culprit car's .sd file later tonight. So please stand by.I had some severe bouncing on all the cars in my consist when passing that switch. That is due to the long distance without switch (track node) and rounding errors when MSTS calculates the progress of the train from that node, so I expected that. The revised damping as mentioned above kept my juggling cars together until the sixth boxcar was stopped dead in its tracks (literally) and couplers snapped. No derail though, so it may well have been the .sd file.Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Try setting the break value to 9N. That usually fixes 'em.

Chief Track Welder

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>Try setting the break value to 9N. That usually fixes 'em. With what number in front?

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Hi CB !Corrected the Coupler Damping values and the amended waggons are now available:
www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/downloads/mp3kcons.zipDid a test with my 100 waggons consist headed by 8 SD40-2 to get it started at this incline just before MP 1029 and had no problems. Where did you start your run from, Shelby ? If it was from there and you drove on the right-hand track then there is no Node for another 22 miles after the last one leaving Shelby !O t t o

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>>Try setting the break value to 9N. That usually fixes 'em.
>
>With what number in front? The rest of the numbers stay the same, just the actual "N" break value. Works for me...

Chief Track Welder

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Hi Lukas !Can you give the MP of that spot and where you started from before getting problems at Cutbank, also the length of the consist you used.The only problem spot I was being made aware of by previous posters a while ago was in the ESSEX, JAVA area, due to a stretch of over 16 miles without a node prompting me to inserted a double-crossover node.Checking MP 1137 where CB reported having problems and I did not I find that there is a stretch of 22 miles without a Node in the right-hand track between the last one leaving Shelby and MP 1090.We has this before in the CAJON at MP 29, remember ? Will be interesting trying to get to the bottom of this one !Take Care, O t t o.

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WillCo Otto,Started in Shelby, right hand track, all the famous 22 miles without node, thus letting the rounding errors sum up to quite some distance, in total ca. 1/2 box car length judging from the jolt the cars took.Problem zone was the well known pair of switches East of Cutbank, milepost 1090. Consist was
CR GP38 7656 (Dekosoft, the one in ex LV paint)
CR GP35 3675 (Dekosoft Demo)
LV GP9 303 (3DT Demo)
Chessie GP 4324 (Dekosoft)
followed by 38 standard 50ft Boxcars, mostly of the various recent Larry Goss/Bill Cline releases. Actually the break occurred between the fifth and sixth unit in my train, not car as wrongly remembered.
Investigation of the .wag and .sd files revealed that the first boxcar had its coupler damping showing the correct physical unit, but also had the damping set to a much weaker value than what I now use on all other stock (I recently had re-installed the car from an older back-up). So the break is probably due to that car having its coupler settings differ substantially from the settings of the adjoining car (remember, it is the weaker setting of two neighbouring cars that prevails over the coupled cars).Here's the shot from the scene:
No damage incurred, everything stayed on the tracks, and as the track monitor shows, no excess speed involved :XWell, one of these days, I'm going to uninstall interactive objects, add a pair of switches between the two main tracks at Ethridge and near the oil spurs, and put the interactives back in. That should cure the problem for good...Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Just a quick confirmation: Adjusting the settings of the couplers of the .wag in question to the same values as the trailing Geep and the following car, loaded from the latest safe just a few minutes short of the spot, and it worked. Still a jolt of course, but no more breaking at the one weak spot of the consist.Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Hi Lukas !While all this was going on I did another test run with my 8 SD40-2 + 100 mixed US2 and 3D-TRAINS freight waggons, all Coupler and Bounding Boxes settings identical.Did the same as you, leaving Shelby on the right-hand track and drove as smooth as silk all the way beyond Essex, past all previously known trouble spots, doing an average 60 mph.Can't help feeling that some of the problems are due to variations in the type of processor, motherboard buses, caching and amount of available memory while running MSTS and possibly other programmes running in the background as well.My WIN-XP is handled by an AMD XP 1800+ with 1.1 Gb available memory while MSTS is running and nothing else !

I am happy with the MARIAS-KOOTENAI and hope that most other users are too ! Take Care, O t t o.

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Most times I get a broken coupler but occasionally the train will derail instead. >Hi CB,
>
>I also just had a break on MK3 at the famous spot in
>cutbank, and will look at the culprit car's .sd file later
>tonight. So please stand by.
>
>I had some severe bouncing on all the cars in my consist
>when passing that switch. That is due to the long distance
>without switch (track node) and rounding errors when MSTS
>calculates the progress of the train from that node, so I
>expected that. The revised damping as mentioned above kept
>my juggling cars together until the sixth boxcar was stopped
>dead in its tracks (literally) and couplers snapped. No
>derail though, so it may well have been the .sd file.
>
>Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Okay, I still don't have a solution but I think I'm getting closer. The problem happens at MP 1136, right at the switch. There appears to be a dip in the terrain and it is precisely at that point that the coupler break and/or derailment occurs. Note in the picture below how the second container car is rearing up as compared to the first container car. A half second later is when the break/derailment occurs. Is there some adjustment I could make to the car? I note that the second number for bounding box lower looks really low (0.07). I tried raising it to .78 but that didn't help.

Attachments

http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/419accff18c58868.jpg

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Hi CB !Is this the MARIAS-KOOTENAI you are running on, because I do not get the same !Check the Bounding Box settings of those cars and raise the lower boundary as per SWISSIE or John Hopkins.Test this spot with my now updated US2DBLEHGTFRGHT?? waggons in the MARIAS-KOOTENAI and show us what you get:www.otto-wipfel.co.uk/downloads/mp3kcons.zipO t t o

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I am definitely running on Marias--Kootenai and I downloaded your latest cars with no success. Clearly what is happening is that the first wheels of each car passing this particular point are raising up off the track. (Note the shot below of my lead loco doing a wheely!) I'm not sure why I am experiencing this and you are not except that you are traveling a high speed while I am proceeding from a dead stop (after having waited for a traffic train to pass from the opposite direction). Would you mind testing yours a low speed (say 5-10 mph?)

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http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/419bebc50458255d.jpg

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Okay, I just tried running through MP 1136 at 40 mph and, like Otto, I made it through with no problem. So, for whatever reason, the problem only seems to occur at low speed. Very bizarre. Here's another shot of my loco doing a "wheely" when trying to pass the point at low speed. In fact, in this shot it looks like ALL the wheels are off the ground. Not surprisingly, the train derailed a second later.

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http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/419bfe46309549e4.jpg

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Otto,I have tried several times to download your zip of trains, but it keeps getting about half way, saying it is complete, but it won't open, and only about 35MB come over.Any thoughts?Bryce

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Hi Bryce !Just test-downloaded the mp3kcons.zip and had no problem.It's a 82 Mb file and unless you got BROADBAND / DSL could have a problem with your ISP ?Let me know if that is the case and I split it up into 3 smaller Zips.O t t o

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Hi Cb !Well, first of all, watching the boogies of the rolling stock bounce up and down all along the MARIAS-3 part of the MARIAS-KOOTENAI and especially at this location, it is surprising that trains stay on the rails at all.Have a look at your loco's .sd file. The third value -10.336988 in the ESD_Bounding_Box line indicates the lower edge of the Bounding Box, I think:
Shape ( CabUnit.s
ESD_Detail_Level ( 0 )
ESD_Alternative_Texture ( 0 )
ESD_Bounding_Box ( -1.674321 0.044544 -10.336988 1.676321 4.779516 10.338964 )
)SWISSIE and John Hopkins are the experts on that. If the lower Bounding Box edge is set to low, it will cause the loco to bounce up if the Bounding Box hits an unevenness in the track.Mine, these values are taken from, do not take off but the boogies rotate viciously up and down !O t t oNALW BIG-BLOW Turbine diesels by courtesy of NALW / Chuck Schneider and crew, available in the file Library !

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Okay, I'll experiment with that.Thanks for all the help!

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Otto,The 3rd value in the ESD is the length of the box going to the rear of center. The 2nd value is the one that is the height above the rails.I'll try downloading again, and I have DSL....not sure why it is happening since I have been able to download larger files before.
Bryce

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Bryce Thanks for refreshing my memory !I am going to get smacked from beyond for forgetting Cyndi's HOW TO Tutorial on the subject ! If you still have problems downloading the mp3kcons.zip let me know and I split it up for you. Got nothing much to do at the moment ! CB Found the thread where setting of lower Bounding Boxes edges was discussed by Swissie and John Hopkins: http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/24905.htmlI would use John's higher setting.O t t o

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Otto,I tried to download from work where the connection bandwidth is huge, and after 2 tries, I got it here. It only took 2.5 minutes. I'll transfer it to home from my laptop.Thanks.Bryce

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