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Good evening to all,Simple question: Has somebody had bad experiences by "tricking" out the catenary locally, for example above a spur that is supposed to be non electrified, by manually editing all the affected track sections of said spur (no points, just simple straights or curves) in the .w file into static objects instead of a trackobj, while leaving the .tdb and .tit files untouched? Assuming of course no interactive objects whatsoever are located on or past the edited spur, which could possibly cause erraneous .tdb and .tit entries for interactive objects no longer sitting on the track? This "ghost track" approach results in the catenary disappearing over that spur, while it can still be fully run by trains (including electric motors sticking their pans into the air ). While I'm fine-polishing the details on my little re-vamp of Europe2 into the ficticious Mountain Electric route, I have some spurs where prototypically a catenary would be either too dangerous (fuel dock) or plain non-sense (spurs under intermodal cranes, saw hoppers, coal shutes etc). In order to improve realism, I would like to alter all those spurs via the above mentioned way, as the very last thing before "closing the RE" on the route (in order to avoid messing up the .tdb or .tit by accidentally selecting one of the edited track pieces).I have tested the method under different conditions (no snow / snow etc) and found no problems whatsover. Switches into said spur worked fine - as I mentioned, the track sections edited into scenery objects begin one or two sections past the point, so no problem with a junction node suddenly missing should occur (as these are referenced in the .tdb to the UiD the switch has withing the .w file while the end node is irrelevant of the UiD). Simply put: Trains rolled in and over the edited sections without fault, stayed put after uncoupling, stayed put after saving and re-loading the activity, could be picked up again. So everything looked normal, as with any "ghost" track edited out of the tile but left in the .tdbDid I overlook something? Did anyone else use this approach and run into specific problems? Warnings, things to observe apart from what I've mentioned?Thanks for your input, and have a nice dayLukas a.k.a Swissie Edited for a typo or two (well past midnight locally)
RE: Experience Needed - Tricking out Catenary Locally
I'm not an expert by any means, and I just want to ask if the spurs can be part of an activity. From what I understand, as long as the track piece is in the .tdb, it will appear in the activity editor. Thanks
Danny - Pittsburgh There's a light at the end of every tunnel, just pray it's not a train.
RE: Experience Needed - Tricking out Catenary Locally
Hi Danny,yes, the spurs appear normally in the AE. The two shots above are from a test activity which includes dropping the tankers exactly in said spur. I saved & exited thereafter, loaded again, did some more shunting, drove on a few tiles, saved & exited, loaded, reversed, came back, still no problem...Oddly enough, just for curiosity, I carefully tried the same on a siding which still had the SidingItem markers, a speed limit at its end, a CollideObject (the nastelbuff) and SoundRegions placed on it - and it all still worked nicely, without error message neither in the RE nor the Sim itself - at least as long as I didn't try to select any of the interactive items mentioned (which I didn't want to risk at that time). So I'm actually investigating how far I can stretch this trick, yet I'm still sceptical about leaving interactive items in, even if it surprinsingly seemed to work in the first place. Lukas a.k.a Swissie
RE: Experience Needed - Tricking out Catenary Locally
I did not try anything like this with the Milwaukee Road, RMD-2, but a fellow who had a stronger interest in my rendition of the Northern Pacific, simply turned off the overhead wire in his preferences before running the sim. I was careful to only provide support structures where there was supposed to be catenary.J. H. Sullivan
RE: Experience Needed - Tricking out Catenary Locally
Hi Landnrailroader,yup, but I prefer to have the wires over the remaining 99.5% of the route. It's really just some spurs on which I want to have no wires - so what I'm trying here is to overcome the old shortcoming of MSTS not to offer a choice to have track objects with and without wire in one route...Lukas a.k.a Swissie
Simply put: Trains rolled in and over the edited sections without fault, stayed put after uncoupling, stayed put after saving and re-loading the activity, could be picked up again. So everything looked normal, as with any "ghost" track edited out of the tile but left in the .tdbDid I overlook something? Did anyone else use this approach and run into specific problems? Warnings, things to observe apart from what I've mentioned?Thanks for your input, and have a nice dayLukas a.k.a Swissie