I'm just learning about how to use reverse points(actually activities in general), so bear with me. I'm working on an activity where I need to pick up a cut of cars from a trailing point siding but from the 'wrong' main. There is an absolute signal a very short distance to the west of the switch displaying to east bound traffic, I'm westbound. It is a close fit for the locos to pull the pin, pull ahead and reverse into the siding to get the pickups and not entirely pass the signal, but doable. Same story on the pickups coming out, get stopped before the last car passes the signal , no problem ... I can back and get the remainder of my train and leave. However, if the locos on the first move pass the signal or the pickups on the 2nd move pass the signal then they can't get back to the train. Permission denied. I'm pulling out 17 cars so its going to be difficult to stop in space between the signal and the switch which is only about two car lengths. An unknowing user of this activity wouldn't necessarily have that insight, and would get blown out of the activity by passing the red to his train or never get permission to pass it, frustrating in either case.
I know that I can use a reverse point to clear that signal for the backing move. I don't need switches to move. Here's the real question ... if I place reverse points in this area that would clear the signal if I pass it once OR twice and have corresponding reverses behind the train but don't trigger all of them, will later reverse points work? Or ... is there anything else these might cause to malfunction if they don't get tripped? At minimum, only the first of four would HAVE to be triggered, and that's when I leave town after completing the work and not having passed the signal on either move.
A related question. Because I can't predict where a user will stop the train on arrival, I can't be certain where I would place the reverse points 'behind' the train. If the train stops on top of a point that is 2nd and/or 4th in the sequence would they ever get triggered. Let's say the locos cut loose, leaving their train on top of the 2nd reverse point They pass the signal while doing their pickup, then come back and couple. The 1st reverse point had to have been tripped to get back to the train. Would the act of coupling to a cut on top of the 2nd reverse point trigger it OK? Does the 2nd point NEED to get triggered for the 3rd reverse point to be available if needed?
BTW, I tried to do 'screenprint' in the Activity Editor to get an image to show what I'm talking about, but doesn't seem to work (nothing in clipboard to paste into PSP). Is there something I'm overlooking here? Here's a represenataion of what I think I want to configure. <== west
------------------------------------------------------------wb main---------rp3---rp1 ---------------------rp2----rp4---------eb main
sig \
-------pickups------------Thanks for any and all help.
Lyle
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