Hello to all,
Here's an update to the Steyning template.
I have finally gathered enough information to start working on a new template for the Steyning route. Today, I have finished working on the NB template. Class 20 engines will be the main player engines for the route. AI traffic will be included, since it is a double-track main line.
Also some of the marshalling (switching) will take extra time in some cases. More than once, you can see two sidings in the same stretch of track. For example, if you wish to pickup a cattle dock car located at the cattle dock siding at the end of the track, you will have to remove first the coal car(s) located in the coal siding which is placed in front of the cattle dock siding and proceed with the pickup.
However, extra challenges have occured during building of the CSV files. Many sidings have the same name such as "cattle dock", "coal", "up siding", " down siding" etc... This situation required for me to use the service information of each marker with the track number (ACT CSV file) and to match the correspondent track number of the track database file (TDB CSV). During the process, the Activity Editor as well as the ACT and TDB CSV files were opened simultaneously in order to make the proper association with the correspondent region.
Also, because the British cars used in the template are a lot shorter that our North American counterparts (7 to 10 meters compared to 13 to 25meters), I had to recalculate the car capacity of each of the 70 sidings and to each change the car capacity value of the TDB CSV file which was based on american standards.
Other aspect of the route. Because of such identical siding names, the information on the MSTS workorder for the pickups and setouts will become incomplete because it will be impossible to make a difference as to which " coal" siding is to make a setout and to which "coal" siding to make a pickup due to the absence of the region associated with the sidings.
This is where the printed workorder (in AG) after generating the SLG- activity will become vital to print on paper and use the printed version to do your tasks. That is because AG also includes the region associated with the different sidings, even those with identical names. For example,you will see pickup cars at "coal" siding from Henfield region and setout cars at "coal" siding from the Hove region.
As you can see, this is where this aspect of AG comes in very handy. Otherwise, it would have jeopardized the whole template. I have tried to change the description of the sidings in the TDB CSV file but the information didn't show in the AE. At least I have given it a shot.
Steve, well thought as to this aspect of AG!
I will start working on the SB template, Here included are some shots of the route.
Enjoy
dgionet2007-8-25 20:48:43