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jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-23-01, 09:59 PM (EST) "Switches - Installing" Can't get switches installed on mainline grades. Must the track be level to get a valid installation. I read on this site about how the track must be first laid through the area then you must go back and delete the relevant sections to install the switches to sidings. Tried that approach with no luck. Still get the red marker indicating a bad connection. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... I will also do a thread check for related tips!
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Switches - Installing sniper297 Aug-24-01 1 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 3 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 4 RE: Switches - Installing ragmop Aug-24-01 2 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 5 RE: Switches - Installing sniper297 Aug-24-01 6 RE: Switches - Installing bnsf4794 Aug-24-01 8 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 13 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 14 RE: Switches - Installing davidbeach Aug-24-01 7 RE: Switches - Installing sniper297 Aug-24-01 9 RE: Switches - Installing ragmop Aug-24-01 10 RE: Switches - Installing sniper297 Aug-25-01 15 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-25-01 17 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 12 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-24-01 11 RE: Switches - Installing bnsf4794 Aug-25-01 16 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-25-01 18 RE: Switches - Installing bnsf4794 Aug-25-01 19 RE: Switches - Installing sniper297 Aug-26-01 20 RE: Switches - Installing jkcooney Aug-26-01 21

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sniper297 (268 posts)
Aug-24-01, 00:11 AM (EST) 1. "RE: Switches - Installing" LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 00:19 AM (EST)LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 00:17 AM (EST)The BLUE marker indicates a derailing point, or bad connection - the RED marker merely indicates a diverging path point, in other words - a switch! If all the blue lines are gone, and you still have the red lines, that's exactly right, Joe. That's the way it's supposed to look. As far as laying switches on a grade, I usually try to avoid it, but when I do I try to lay the switch, diverging tracks, and the next facing switch all on the same angle to avoid the problem of trying to connect to the switch from the trailing point end, because the straight and curve will be at slightly different elevations. And I generally lay mainline track with the switches already in, then come back and add the sidings onto the switches that are already there. Otherwise it's a royal pain trying to line everything up, especially if you're using the 1000 or 2000 radius curves on the main, then you have to tear up a whole bunch of track and relay it and you end up having to use dynamic track anyway just to get the connection back. No, I'm a lazy SOB, and I do it the easy way. Lay straight, lay curve, let's see, gonna need a right hand switch here, put it in now, keep going, come back and add siding later. And if you want to see if you got it right, create a temporary activity and go drive it. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 07:52 AM (EST) 3. "RE: Switches - Installing" Thanks. I finally figured it out. I'm such a dunce. If I just had the patience I would have looked it up in the tutorial docs. But after laying 8 miles of track I finally created an activity and ran a loco and none of the switches failed. Bravo and thanks for your help. On the issue of switches on grades... it was (is) very common and I know its trouble making sure all those little 10m sections we have to add are at the same grade level. Too bad the sim doesn't include "curved turnouts" as in real life. Maybe someone will produce an add-on CD containing all this neat stuff. Thanks again.
Joe Cooney
PS....when building a route did you ever get a message designating a particular tile as having signal install problem and giving the Lat. and Long. for the problem....its a great way to track down trouble spots. Not that we want them.
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jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 07:55 AM (EST) 4. "RE: Switches - Installing" LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 07:56 AM (EST)I know the problem of changing my mind and going back to redo the line. It also screws up any activity you may have just to explore the line (I call mine "Inspection Train"). Those activities will be dead when I make even a minor change in the trackage. How do I delete all those corrupted activites ... just go into the activity editor and delete them? Or are there more files to be deleted? For now I'm staying away from dynamic track. Can't cope with figuring the degree of curvature & stuff like that. Any tips on using it efficiently?
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ragmop (85 posts)
Aug-24-01, 01:11 AM (EST) 2. "RE: Switches - Installing" Yeah, red is okay.On laying on grades. I haven't found this to be trouble. One thing I noticed is the little elevation box. Using the mouse to rotate the switch or track up, you can see the track raises in increments. Just remember the grade your using and linking everything up shouldn't be a problem. I also lay the sidings while I'm there too, so I don't have to come back and figure things out. Typically you don't want steep grades anyway, so figuring what grade you laid shouldn't be too bad. And here's one more tip. Hold the END key down as you rotate the track and you should get perfect fits. Hope this helps. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 08:01 AM (EST) 5. "RE: Switches - Installing" Yes, I do that now but my problem is what is considered a steep grade setting. I have used settings in graduated steps or intervals from O.15 up to 0.60 thats as steep as I have made the grades sofar but what do those numbers correspond to in rr lingo. Is a 0.60 setting considered a STEEP grade or a MODERATE grade. That would be helpful to know now. I can kindof judge it by the terrain profile with the "F" key ... but that is only an eyeball approach. Can you provide some info. on the real "ruling grades" these percentage numbers represent?
Joe Cooney, Ocala, FL Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (268 posts)
Aug-24-01, 02:59 PM (EST) 6. "RE: Switches - Installing" LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 03:08 PM (EST)You'd have to check with the real train guys about that, and it's complicated by the grade plus curve component - which if you think about it for a minute seems kind of obvious, more drag on a curve, so a curve with a grade is gonna be harder to pull uphill than the equivelant grade straight. But I believe it's a "percent", and it's something like so many feet of rise for so many horizontal feet, so a 100 meter track - You know, I,m gonna have to try this to check it out - would be 1 meter higher at the other end. I think. Anyway, in the new part of the mountain division I'm working on, I got a little goofy and went all the way up to 77 meters at the summit, ran out of space coming down, and even after putting in a mini - horseshoe curve I had to go over 2 1/2 percent in one place. Two geeps and 35 cars won't make it, but 3 geeps will if you have a enough momentum going into the grade, like 30+mph. Problem is coming back down, gotta remember to get on the dynamic brakes early, and use some engine brake as well to manage the slack, otherwise you got "runaway train".

Only 1.8 % grade downhill, but I was daydreaming instead of watching the slack.
Oh yeah, on the activity, ever since I got more ram I can open up the activity, and get the broken path error message without having it lock up on me, and edit the broken path to remove the start point and put in a new one. Failing that, delete all the files in \activities , \paths , and \services , and that will get rid of it. Also, when you make a new activity, pick a section of track you know you're not going to be changing, place a start point - AND AN END POINT - on that section. It won't try to trace out the path beyond the end point, so you can change it after the end point to your heart's content without getting broken paths. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bnsf4794 (26 posts)
Aug-24-01, 04:08 PM (EST) 8. "RE: Switches - Installing" Please forgive me if you guys know this already. When you set the grade on the piece of track, the number you set is in degrees of angle, not grade percent. For example, a value of 1.500 in the elevation window is not 1.5 percent, it's 1.5 degrees from horizontal, which equals a 2.6 percent grade.Tangent and Arc-Tangent are used to convert between the two. If you have a scientific calculator it's very simple. Make sure the calculator is set to Degrees (most have a degrees/radians/gradians button labeled DRG).To convert degrees to percent: (1.5 degrees as an example)
1) Enter the number of degrees in the elevation window
2) Hit the TAN (tangent) button
3) Multiply the resulting number by 100 1.5(TAN) x 100 = 2.618 Percent GradeTo convert percent to degrees: (3 percent grade as an example)
1) Enter the grade in percent
2) Divide grade by 100
3) Hit Arc-Tangent (tan-1). Some people will need to hit the shift or second-function button. On my calculator, I hit (2ndF) and then the (TAN) button.

3.0 / 100 then (ArcTangent) = 1.718 Degrees
(make sure you have 0.03 BEFORE hitting Arc-Tangent)
Here's some conversions for those who don't like trigonometry:
Percent : Degrees
0.5% = 0.2864
1.0% = 0.5729
1.5% = 0.8593
2.0% = 1.1457
2.5% = 1.4320
3.0% = 1.7183
5.2% = 3.0000 (max number the sim will allow for track!)I had laid alot of track up and down hill before I realized this! John Greenstone
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jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 08:55 PM (EST) 13. "RE: Switches - Installing" thanks for the conversion table. Very helpful. Does the grade in percentage terms mean the same thing that Railroaders use when they refer to "ruling grade". My understanding is that ruling grade takes into account other factors such as track curvature and friction factors. Is a 2% grade in numerical terms the same as ruling grade (controlling the maximum train capacity) over a line?
Joe Cooney Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 09:00 PM (EST) 14. "RE: Switches - Installing" Good tip about starting and ending points. You can set up a one mile activity but then "explore" the entire route without fear.
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davidbeach (63 posts)
Aug-24-01, 04:02 PM (EST) 7. "RE: Switches - Installing" LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 04:03 PM (EST)No where in Train Sim did Kuju decide to use the same measurements that are used in North American railroad construction. The RR's use grades in % which is rise/run*100 - 2.2% being a steep mainline, less than 1.5% being highly desirable. MSTS uses angle in degrees with a maximum of 3 degrees. A little basic trig & 3 degrees = 5.24%. Take the tangent of the angle * 100 to get %grade. The arctan(%grade/100)= angle. The angle of dynamic track is in radians, where 1 radian = 57.2958 degrees. Any scientific calculator should be able to do tan(), arctan(), degrees<>radians. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (268 posts)
Aug-24-01, 04:29 PM (EST) 9. "RE: Switches - Installing" LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-01 AT 04:35 PM (EST)"A little basic trig". You math geniuses always give me a headache. I flunked fourth grade math, struggled thru a couple years of freshman algebra, and had to go to 2 extra hours of instruction a day just to learn enough "basic" trig to get thru Navy electronics school. Would have picked a different MOS if I had only known. Thanks for the info, tho, and you did translate it into something that resembles English closely enough that I actually understood it. What I did was lay a section of 100 meter track, connect another piece of track to it, cranked it up one degree (again, thanks, never would have guessed it was degrees instead of percent grade) and connected another piece to the other end, then checked the elevation difference between the two end pieces, which in this case was 1.7 meters or feet or rods or hectares or fathoms or something - why couldn't they have at least given us a clue as to what all these values are? Anyway, .600 rise gives close to one meter (I ASSUME it's meters) in 100, and I think david could probably give you that formula. All this time I was going on the assumption that it was percent grade, but it don't really matter, cuz with enough dash9 units you could pull a train up the side of sears tower. I did take geeps up this grade and curvature, and found that one geep per 8 cars is a good thumb rule, and this is the steepest curved grade on the route. I added a spur with an enginehouse at the bottom to put a couple helpers in for the activities, and I like it that way and it's my route so I'm gonna leave it. There's also a branch line that serves as a return loop or short line, so anyone who ain't engineer enough to make it up can bypass it. Here's something else that might interest you, Joe. I was screwing around on that connecting branch putting in one of those "switchman's nightmare" yards, and it suddenly occured to me the nearest passing siding was at the other end of the branch line, so I needed one here. I thought I was gonna have to use dynamic track due to the odd shape, but by trying a bunch of different configurations with some 7 meter straight sections i did it without a dynamic section.
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ragmop (85 posts)
Aug-24-01, 04:53 PM (EST) 10. "RE: Switches - Installing" Hey Sniper! That top pic in a b&W... is that hand drawn terrain, is is that Dem? If it's hand drawn... you can do my mountains any day!! Great job! Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (268 posts)
Aug-25-01, 01:14 AM (EST) 15. "RE: Switches - Installing" Actually, I started this route before I heard of the dem extractor, and wasn't really interested in the dem when it first came out - Yeah, right, with all the trouble I'm having learning this cranky editor I'm gonna stop and learn how to use something else that's probably just as complicated? Maybe one of these days after the rest of you guys have done all the beta testing and figured out all the tricks I'll look into it, but I'm not the trailblazer type. I also can't do very much with that stupid terrain editing tool, because the cursor jumps all over and never does what I want it to do. But the "Y" key is the best friend a guy ever had for making mountains out of molehills in minutes. Lay a piece of track, long, short, straight, curved, depending on what effect you're looking for, raise it up to whatever height you want for the top of the mountain.


Adjust the width, embankment, and cutting, then hit the "Y" key. Move the track around and up and down, rotate around and up and down, change the embankment angle, keep hitting "Y". Then delete the piece of track. End result, a one minute mountain. Repeat until bored, then go work on another section. Be advised, this eats memory, I have 512 mb and I don't do this more than 15 minutes without saving, exiting to desktop to clear the ram, and starting again. If nothing happens when you hit the Y key you're probably running out of ram, so save and exit. This also applies when you're placing objects and you get that glitch where you see the shadow but not the shape.
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jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-25-01, 12:36 PM (EST) 17. "RE: Switches - Installing" I'm with you on creating hills and terrain. We can eyeball it and just know what looks correct. I use photos and books on the road I'm modeling: New York, Ontario & Western Rwy. They work just fine and the only time you see the flaws is when we are doing a "fly over " in the route editor. Trackside, you can't see the stuff anyway. Question Jim: did you import the sounds components for use on the Port Ogden (tunnel sounds, water, etc.). How is this done now that I have successfully loaded the objects into my route folder?
Joe Cooney Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 08:51 PM (EST) 12. "RE: Switches - Installing" Yes, I wondered what those 7m sections were for and this gives me a reason to try them out. Once I get a reasonable mainline constructed I'll start working on the ladder track. Dynamic track scares me to death. All those little neon green cubes on the track are very intimdating. Not to mention the math to figure out the radius.
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jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-24-01, 08:49 PM (EST) 11. "RE: Switches - Installing" So a .60 setting would give me a ruling grade of approximately 60% of 5.24% which would be an actual grade of 3%+ in U.S. terms? Or have I missed the point here. .45 would be about right then for a ruling grade on most mainline RRs? Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bnsf4794 (26 posts)
Aug-25-01, 03:36 AM (EST) 16. "RE: Switches - Installing" You missed it a little bit. There's no linear relationship between degrees from horizontal (simulator) and Percent Grade. Percent grade measures the rise over the run, whereas degrees of elevation measures the angle of the track from horizontal. A 0.45 degree angle is only 0.785 percent grade. I can see why they did it this way in the sim, because the physics engine would need to know an angle to figure out the speed loss or gain depending on if the loco is going up or downhill. But it would have been nice if they had put in a conversion window.As for a ruling grade, it depends on the railroad and the area. Ruling grade is either the steepest section of grade, or the steepest section which an entire trainlength can fit at one time. I don't know which is correct. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-25-01, 12:40 PM (EST) 18. "RE: Switches - Installing" Thanks for the feedback. I would have made my grades too shallow. I need grades approaching 2% not .70%. I think the second definition of ruling grade you mention is correct. Yes, they are specific for the individual rr you are doing and I recall that it is directly related to the length, weight and friction generated by that size train that determines the limitations of a partiucular line. By the way... have you had any success in transferring the ambient sounds (tunnel, water, trestle) to your route? I haven't tried it yet. Just glad I finally got away from the default objects.
Joe Cooney Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
bnsf4794 (26 posts)
Aug-25-01, 04:01 PM (EST) 19. "RE: Switches - Installing" I haven't played with any sounds yet, but I think it involves copying the ssource.dat file from another route, maybe there are some .sms files also.John G. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
sniper297 (268 posts)
Aug-26-01, 00:55 AM (EST) 20. "RE: Switches - Installing" No, Joe, I had rail sounds in it at one time, but putting them in the first time went so smooth and easy that I didn't back it up, and then I lost the track sounds due to a crash from something else. I got a bunch of errors when I tried to do it again, so the first time musta been a fluke. I'm gonna try it again, tho, it sounded really cool with the track sound changing from concrete supported to steel girder and back again on that one combination bridge, and I think the effect is worth all the screwing around. I'm not really planning any sound regions like chirping birds and stuff, but track sounds are a definite must. Without the sounds the only thing you need is ingame.sms and one other it looks for, I forget which, mostly I find this stuff out by deleting some files and then writing down the error messages to see which ones I really need. Crude, but it works. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
jkcooney (422 posts)
Aug-26-01, 02:48 PM (EST) 21. "RE: Switches - Installing" I agree. We can't hear chirping birds and flowing water anyway with all the cab noise. But I do want those track related sounds and the bells at crossings. They make it very real! Keep me posted about which files go into the route when you find out!
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