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svante (376 posts)
Jan-09-02, 07:43 AM (EST) "3-car articulated ribside well cars" LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-02 AT 07:56 AM (EST)Within a few days the 3-car articulated ribside well cars below will be available for free download from my website at http://www.wendel.nu/msts/, joining all the 5-car ribside articulateds and standalone ribside and smoothside well cars that are already available. And all the well cars have been made using as few polygons as reasonably possible and can be used also in large consists in MSTS. Like the real thing. Some people with fast computers run them in consists with eight locomotives or more and 125 well cars over Maria's Pass...The 5-car articulated ribsides are available in eight different sets, one painted in the livery of APL Stacktrain (with an assortment of APL containers) and the others in TTX, with one set of empties, one set with EMP, one with NACS, one with J.B.Hunt, one with K-Line, one with mixed European containers and one with mixed Oriental containers. The standalones are available in several different liveries, including both CN and CP Rail, and with dozens of different containers. (And dozens more of the standalones are on their way out.)The new 3-car articulateds are heavy duty, with 70-ton roller bearing trucks at the ends and 125-ton roller bearing trucks between the cars, just like the originals. And like all the other cars I've made they're freeware.

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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... Sleepwalker Jan-09-02 1 RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... TAfan Jan-09-02 2 RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... svante Jan-09-02 3 RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... TAfan Jan-09-02 4 RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... svante Jan-09-02 5 RE: 3-car articulated ribside well ... svante Jan-09-02 6 Problems Crash Jan-10-02 7 RE: Problems svante Jan-10-02 8 RE: Problems ace6879 Jan-10-02 9 RE: Problems svante Jan-10-02 10 RE: Problems dnalot Jan-10-02 11 RE: Problems svante Jan-10-02 12 PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!! svante Jan-10-02 13 RE: PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!! dnalot Jan-10-02 14 RE: PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!! svante Jan-10-02 15

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Sleepwalker (30 posts)
Jan-09-02, 08:33 AM (EST) 1. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" The last ones were sweet these can only be a much needed up-grade keep in there bud ! ! ! ! ! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
TAfan (160 posts)
Jan-09-02, 10:08 AM (EST) 2. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" Ooh, these do look nice. I must have missed the 5 car sets!I'll post my question here also (as well as in response to the other five car artics being made): why do railroads use them instead of single ones? Is it just to save weight?Cheers!
TAfan Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-09-02, 10:41 AM (EST) 3. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" Nope, it's not to save weight primarily even though they do save weight and also save money since the trains need fewer trucks. The main reason for using articulateds, and also for using drawbar-connected standalone cars, is to reduce coupler slack. One of the main reasons why goods is damaged in transit is the sharp forward-aft movement of containers caused by trains when they accelerate and decelerate. The movement is caused by coupler slack, which can be substantial in a long intermodal train (imagine the effect of one foot of slack per car in a 125 car train, it's like a rubber band...). Using articulateds, and drawbar connected standalone cars, means that the slack can be reduced to one-fifth of what it would otherwise be when using 5-car articulateds, which means less damaged goods, which in turn means satisfied customers.But there is also a negative side to using articulated cars. Since the cars can't be switched individually you need 10 containers to the same destination in order to fill a 5-car set. If you don't have 10 containers you might have empty or half-empty cars. That's why the railroads like multi-purpose well cars that can handle trailers as well as containers. It's better to carry a trailer than nothing at all. The 3-car articulateds, which seem to be very popular nowadays (judging by the number of cars bought by TTX, BNSF and Pacer Stacktrain), reduce slack compared to single cars but also mean fewer empty cars than with 5-car sets.I've made standalones, 5-car articulateds and now 3-car articulateds. And who knows, I might even drum up some 3-car and 5-car drawbar sets... Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
TAfan (160 posts)
Jan-09-02, 03:04 PM (EST) 4. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" LAST EDITED ON Jan-09-02 AT 03:06 PM (EST)Thanks, Svante. I've just downloaded a couple of the five-car sets, and they look great! I'm looking forward to hooking up dozens of 'em behind a trio of Dash 9s or SD-70s!All I've done for now is hook up one five car set behind a GP-38. As I set off, I noticed that the projected speed in the track monitor (F4) was all over the place. When I got speed up and was just cruising around a gentle corner with the throttle on idle, the speedometer was wobbling violently. And when it came to a switch, the geep needed the throttle in run 3 just to get the artics through at approx 12mph - otherwise the thing just ground to a halt over the switch. Is all this due to the rigid nature of the train and the way MSTS treats it, or is it something that can be fixed? Still, great work nonetheless - I just have to give it plenty of gas through the switches!My other point is that in the file "(SW)-art5ttx1empty.wag" the weight is set to 2 tons instead of 24. I've corrected it in mine, but thought I'd mention it in case you didn't know about it!Cheers!
TAfan Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-09-02, 03:42 PM (EST) 5. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" The effect on projected speed doesn't come from the way MSTS handles articulateds, because MSTS doesn't know they're articulated, it comes AFAIK from the settings (in the couplers section of the wag-file) that reduce coupler slack. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-09-02, 06:09 PM (EST) 6. "RE: 3-car articulated ribside well cars" I've remodelled the cars (again...) so this is what they look like now. The Pacer textures for the car aren't finished yet (the black areas around the truck will be blue) but this is what the 3-car articulateds look like in Pacer Stacktrain livery: Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Crash (112 posts)
Jan-10-02, 10:35 AM (EST) 7. "Problems" Your cars look great! However, they don't like to go around corners no matter how large the radius. I had to have full thottle just to maintain 7 mph around a 500m radius curve. Also, while getting through this corner, the consist broke apart. In the first picture you will notice the end articulated car is missing.

Well, here it is almost a mile behind the train. It is a #1 car.

When the consist broke apart, this car went shooting off through the rest of the consist and ended where we can see it in this picture. The funny thing was, I got no derail message and was able to get what was left moved around. The wierd thing was, I was able to still see this car when I hit the "3" view key.Do you think you'll have a fix for this soon?Mark Drees, MCSE-Windows 2000

BNSF Western Washington Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-10-02, 11:37 AM (EST) 8. "RE: Problems" I'll see what I can do. I'll either fix the articulateds or withdraw them.Ain't nothing like MSTS.... Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
ace6879 (557 posts)
Jan-10-02, 12:30 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Problems" Hi Svante, I have had no trouble like that yet. I have had them in several curves as well. Hmmmmmm.....Kelley

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svante (376 posts)
Jan-10-02, 01:34 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Problems" It seems like the problems with needing to apply lots of power arise when the articulateds go through curves combined with a number of switches, such as leaving Whitefish yard. I've tried a number of different configurations in the wag-files but it seems like the problems are caused by the way MSTS handles the articulateds, and that it's something that we'll have to live with if we want articulateds. As for the cars decoupling I think I can fix it by increasing the values for break force. It's only happened to me once, and that was also when going through the switches and curves leaving Whitefish (in Maria's Pass 3.0). Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
dnalot (128 posts)
Jan-10-02, 03:30 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Problems" I don’t think the Sim knows an articulated from any other type of car. I have been trying to develop very long flat cars with more than two bogies and the binding appears to come when a bogie cannot turn as tight as the track does. Placing the centers of the bogies to far off center (for and aft) also seams to create a bind in the Sim. I finally decided that to make the large flat cars I would need to make them by assembling three different components in the consist editor (combining three cars into one). After working out how to use two types of couplers in the same Wag file I was able to make a working mockup of a 10 axle flat car that roles smoothly through the switches. Mark Toland Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-10-02, 04:30 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Problems" MSTS doesn't know that the cars are what we call articulateds, but it surely knows that the cars are on top of each other in the sense that the all of the cars except for the last one in a set has one visible and one invisible truck, so two trucks compete for space (the last car in a set has two visible trucks)... But I don't buy the theory that the trucks are too far apart. I've made non-articulated cars that are longer than these well cars and have the trucks farther apart, yet without these friction problems (or whatever it is). And some of the stock MSTS cars also have the trucks farther apart than my well cars, without problems. Not to mention all my standalone well cars. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-10-02, 04:47 PM (EST) 13. "PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!" I've solved the problem. It was a conflict between the trucks that were "on top of each other" that caused it just as i suspected. I replaced the invisible trucks with sets of invisible wheels (actually a transparent cylinder simulating wheels) and the problem disappeared. My test consist with an SD-40 and nine articulated well cars (three 3-car sets of empty well cars) zipped through the curves and switches at the end of the Whitefish yard with one notch of power, just like it should. With the invisible trucks I had to go to notch 3 to get the cars out onto the main line.But this means that I will have to make new 3D-shapes for all the articulated cars.... Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
dnalot (128 posts)
Jan-10-02, 06:22 PM (EST) 14. "RE: PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!" All you need for the invisible bogie is just one face. I use a VERY small three-point face and position it so that it is hidden inside the visible bogie right at the pivot point. Mark Toland Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
svante (376 posts)
Jan-10-02, 06:44 PM (EST) 15. "RE: PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!" I know. But the problem was solved by not using a bogie but a set of wheels. (Removing "Bogie2" and replacing it with "Wheels21"). The bogies and/or wheels can be represented by whatever you want, and in this case I liked the idea of the invisible spinning cylinder. The invisible bogie was represented by a single polygon.Bogies or wheels are needed at each end of the cars in order to get the articulateds to follow the track the way they should. And my testing showed that MSTS couldn't properly handle invisible bogies but invisible wheels work fine. Which is good to know for others who want to make articulated cars for MSTS. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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