Car spawners and grade crossings

LAST EDITED ON Feb-10-03 AT 11:10 PM (EDT)

Is there any way to adjust how far from the tracks the cars actually stop? On sharply angled crossings, I'm getting up to three cars stopped between the gates and the tracks...I'd like the cars to stop short of the gates.Also, is there any way around the apparent length limit for car spawners?

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 00:16 AM, (1) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, werner001, Feb-11-03, 06:38 AM, (2) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 08:41 AM, (3) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, henry3, Feb-11-03, 09:48 AM, (4) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, Railfan727, Feb-11-03, 04:59 PM, (11) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, Railfan727, Feb-11-03, 09:46 PM, (12) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 11:55 PM, (13) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, Railfan727, Feb-12-03, 09:01 AM, (14) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, Railfan727, Feb-11-03, 11:05 AM, (5) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 11:38 AM, (6) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, Railfan727, Feb-11-03, 11:44 AM, (7) RE: Car spawners and grade crossings, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 12:57 PM, (10) Adding vehicles, Railfan727, Feb-11-03, 11:47 AM, (8) RE: Adding vehicles, gdwrench, Feb-11-03, 11:59 AM, (9)

Conferences | Topics | Previous Topic | Next Topic

As far as I know there is no adjustment on the grade crossing BUT you can adjust the space of the cars and this should help at grade crossings. Make the number higher in each spawner entry until you get what you want. I have all mine at 10 and that works OK.
CarSpawnerItem( "C_CAR.s" 10 )
CarSpawnerItem( "C_VAN.s" 10 )
CarSpawnerItem( "car1.s" 10 )
CarSpawnerItem( "car2.s" 10 )
CarSpawnerItem( "car4.s" 10 )

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I have a couple of such crossings on my route and i'm using a trick:
just place one short piece of track on both sides of the "real" track. This way for the sim this is a tripple track grade crossing. Now lower the elevation of the two dummy tracks so they aren't visible.
When you now add the grade crossing you will have 3 orange cubes instead of only one (on a on track line) and the cars will stop at a good distance from the visible track.
By changing the distance between the dummy tracks and the real track you can change the distance where the cars will stop.
The dummies are visible in the activity editor of course, but i don't mind.Werner

--> Visit the Virtual Lehigh Valley <--
www.geocities.com/wmueller28/msts.html

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Werner, Thanks for that cool info. I am going to try that. I have one really sharp angle road and track crossing it should work on.....

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Stolen! That's a neat trick. Unfortunately I have to wait another eight hours before I get off of work to try it. Thanks!Henry

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I've tried this, but if I place the extra track below ground level and then add the crossing signals, the orange boxes don't come up high enough to affect the car spawners...the blue/white spawner lines just go right over top of the boxes, and the extra track and boxes might as well not even be there at all.If I put the track at ground level, add the crossing signals, then sink the track, the boxes are at the right height but I get an error message saying "Can't save; the following object markers are no longer on the track".How do you get this to work?

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. As you can see, the car spawners miss the orange boxes...the cars won't stop short of the gates. The dummy track is just below ground level. How do I raise the boxes without raising the "dummy" track?Is road traffic really worth all this trouble, or should I only put traffic on roads that don't cross the tracks?

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Just a observation Your roads are not on the ground. I can see the block under the road. I tried this trick on my route and the hidden track worked vary good. Just a thought???

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I finally got everything positioned properly...or so it seems.Now, the cars are stopping directly under the gates instead of stopping short. I even had a semi stop with the cab right in the middle of the track.

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

I've noticed that I can't make a spawner longer than 1-1/2 miles or so. I have a highway paralleling my route for 13 miles...What can I do?

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

As for how long you can make the spawner, you have to make multiple spawners. Just keep adding another one where the first one ends. I try to do it behind a hill or building or some trees so you can not see the cars just vanish...It is a lot of work but the end result if you like traffic is worth it. I did the complete road on my Tehachapi Pass route.....

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Trouble is, there aren't any places to hide the ends. The road is about 15 feet from the tracks.

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

If you have the CAJON PASS route, Look at the road from San Bernardino to the pass. It has multiple spawners linked together and when running along beside the road you really have to look to see where it is linked together...

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

Is it possible to add vehicles to the car spawners after the spawners are already in place?Are there any good-quality modern American cars and trucks besides cars1.zip etc.?The Illinois Central guys have some very sharp-looking semis (from the screenshots I've seen), but I can't find them anywhere separately.

Alert | IP

Printer-friendly page | Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

You can add cars to the spawner after you have it in place but you can only have one spawner per route. I do not know if there is a limit to how many cars you can have. I have one route with 36 cars and trucks in it. As for the type of cars you will just have to look on the Train-Sim downloads and other routes for what you want.

Fred... "Mr. Goodwrench" a ASE General Motors Master Technician for 45 years in Kingman Arizona...

Alert | IP

[ Home | MSTS Forum | MSTS FAQ | File Library ] Copyright © 2002 by Nels Anderson. All Rights Reserved.