Quartered drivers ARE possible!

Since TS was released about one year ago I came across several discussions on this board and elsewhere about how TS would apparently not support quartered drivers on steam engines and siderod electrics. However, it would seem as if Italian designer Enrico Onori had figured out a solution to the problem. There are two examples from his workshop that I am currently aware of, which have quartered drivers. These are the Italian three-phase electric engines E331 and E432, which can be downloaded from the train-sim.com file library as well as from http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/il_deposito/index.htm and http://www.trenomania.it/ .Below are two shots of the E432 to clarify. I promise I did NOT move the engine between the two shots! Anybody have an idea how he could have done this?
Dominik MannProud Member of the MSTS European Railfans

- Interested in Euro railways, virtual or real? Visit the European Add-Ons Discussion forum at http://www.trains-station.com/ -

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RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, wpfan, Aug-03-02, 09:03 AM, (1) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, timken, Aug-03-02, 09:38 AM, (2) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, FozzyBear, Aug-03-02, 09:40 AM, (3) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, cjmaclean, Aug-03-02, 11:17 AM, (4) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, FozzyBear, Aug-04-02, 10:03 AM, (6) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, deanville, Aug-03-02, 11:24 AM, (5) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, darkstar, Aug-04-02, 03:10 PM, (7) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, FozzyBear, Aug-04-02, 03:40 PM, (8) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, darkstar, Aug-06-02, 05:53 AM, (9) RE: Quartered drivers ARE possible!, KeltikSylk, Aug-07-02, 05:04 PM, (10)

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It is not so much a question of is it possible, but is it practical. For side rods on electrics and for steam locomotives fitted with Stephenson valve gear it is quite practical. This is because on the diesels and electics there is only the coupling rod, and on the steamers I mentioned the valve gear is inside the frame thus reducing the number of visible parts. However on steam locomotives equiped with Walschaerts, Baker, or any of the other valve gears that were hung outside the wheels it becomes more of a problem. With Walschaerts valve gear there are six components involved in addition to the coupling rod and connecting rod. That would add up to a lot of animated parts, more I think than the allowable number of rods (what is the limit, I haven't done anything unusual yet?) It is simply easier (not to mention easier on MSTS) to make both eccentric cranks one piece, both radius rods one piece, etc. I hope this answers your question

www.sacramentolocomotiveworks.com
Bringing the steam locomotive to the digital era

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Sorry to ruin your day, but it is possible with Walschaerts, and has been done! The new K-36 is quartered! I'm working on sound, and took these side shots without moving the engine. By the way, it runs just fine on my Athlon 1000 with 256m RAM and an old Nvidia TNT2 Pro 32 video card.

Steve T.

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LAST EDITED ON Aug-03-02 AT 10:12 AM (EDT)

>With Walschaerts valve gear there are six
>components involved in addition to the coupling rod and
>connecting rod. That would add up to a lot of animated
>parts, more I think than the allowable number of rodsErmmm Yeah! I know they're possible.It's not a problem at all!! The D&RGW K-36 I'm about to release has fully quartered valve gear and it is Walschaerts..... There are a total of 19 fully animated rods on that model!. There is no limit to the number of rods that I have found at all!! I've had up to 30 animated components on a test model. It's not a question of rod limits it's a question of how you name them.The trick to the naming is as follows: starting at Rod01.....Rod08, Rod09, (now at this point is where the answer to it comes in!) you would think that the next rod should be Rod10 but it isn't!! after Rod09 the next rod is in fact Rod010 followed by Rod011 Rod012 etc etc.... Name them that way and they work! So just add a leading zero when you get to the tenth rod onwards. It took me quite a while to figure this one out and get it to work.... Try it! Hope that helps you!
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
P.S. LOL I See Steve beat me to telling you this just a few seconds before I posted it!!.... Cheers Steve!!Just as a quick adendum to what Steve said, I've tested the loco on everything I can get my paws on, from a PII 400 to an Athlon XP2200+ and it runs fine on all of them without any frame rate dents.

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Julian and Steve, thanks to both of you for clearing this up! My conclusion from those debates about the absence of quartered drivers in MSTS was that they could not be done at all, owing to some kind of limitation on the side of the sim. Looks like I was mistaken there!BTW, Julian, I'm getting more and more eager to drive your loco!
Dominik MannProud Member of the MSTS European Railfans

- Interested in Euro railways, virtual or real? Visit the European Add-Ons Discussion forum at http://www.trains-station.com/ -

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>Julian and Steve, thanks to both of you for clearing this
>up! No problemo!!>BTW, Julian, I'm getting more and more eager to drive your
>loco! Not long to wait now! I'll make an announcement in the forum when a release date has been set.Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

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No valve gear, but the GE 45 Ton switcher "dv_G45_b.zip" I released last November has quartered drivers.I used an early MSTS export version of 3DCanvas and tied the pivot of one siderod to the rear wheelset on a bogie, and the pivot of the opposite tierod to the front wheelset but offset 90 degrees. I animated the wheelsets for 8 frames, adjusting both siderods to horizontal in each frame. I think you can also tie both siderods to the same wheelset as long as you do the animation yourself.Deanville

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Hi all,
quartered rods are surely possible, no matter how many animated parts are used, TS seem to accept everything with no problems at all!
Here are some further examples, these are my last steamers, the locos are not published yet, I still have to test them before uploading, but times are short!
This is the 2-8-0 class 745-008, internal cylinders and external Walschaerts distribution, total of 20 animated rods, this is right side:this is left side:even internal rods are animated and quartered:This is the 2-8-0 class 740-351, two cylinders with Walschaerts distribution, also 20 animated rods, right side:left side:That's all, I have to say that I used to name parts as Rod01-Rod02...Rod19-Rod20, but I have experimented that any kind of name makes no difference.See you all soonEnrico Onori

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>That's all, I have to say that I used to name parts as
>Rod01-Rod02...Rod19-Rod20, but I have experimented that any
>kind of name makes no difference. It makes a big difference when your poly count and other UID20000 causes start to crop up. If you don't add the leading 0 as I said, you will run into problems with the balancing trick between polys and intersects and hierarchy. This is particularly the case with TSM..... because if you don't add the leading zero after you get to Rod09, then you place the first rod which should always be the first "main wheel link" in the wrong order in the hierarchy. It may be that you havn't run into this problem because you havn't actually been pushing the limits of MSTS.Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

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Hi Julian,
maybe you are right, but I repeat that I've never had trouble with rods and rods name, even using "italian" names for them (accoppiamento, motrice, pistone, glifo and so on), I've had problems with poly count, that's true, but with every kind of loco even without any rod. In this case the 745 have 6068 poly and the 740 6377, just for information. Maybe I am a lucky boy?RegardsEnrico

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Thanks for the info...The Milwaukee A1 I'm building has quartered drivers but they will not animate. At least now I have something to go on...Frank Musick
Lehigh & Atlantic Railway, Canal Navigation Company

<www.KelticSylk.com>

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