I am not certain if this is an activity gen problem, my own problem or a template problem.

When I create an activity using the Template for Gapyards and selecting Orthello I can not get any switches to open or close. In other words they do not move from the default position. The act loads and runs fine. Activities created with other Gap Templates run fine and switches work fine.

I have substituted some rolling stock in the templates for those I do not have in the original template. This has never caused any problems. One loose consist does report "length exceeded". Don't know why this would effect switches however. As near as I can see no consists are sitting over any switches.

Any ideas on this?

Dave

Most likely it's an issue with the route. I don't have this route but have encountered 'Frozen Switch Points' on a few routes. I would first check the using the Track Monitor or using F8, Switching driving aid on/off, to see if the path is changing when activating the switch using 'G' or Shift 'G'.
If the switches seem to change paths in the monitors, then the issue is a frozen switch point.
I would suggest following the links listed below to learn more about it and how to fix it. You can fix them manually or it can be done using Route Riter.

From TrainSim: http://www.trainsim.com/vbts/showthread.ph...frozen+switches

From the Steam4me site: http://msts.steam4me.net/tutorials/frozen_points.html

Jim

Hi Dave,

During testing, I did have this issue exactly at Othello while trying to proceed with change of motive power from Electric to Diesel. I had to use the 'Change all the switches in a route to Manual' feature of AG to access the designated locos.

To do this, you must first save the activity just before switching to manual. Once saved, proceed with the switching feature of AG to manual, reload the act and access the sidings. Once your work is done at Othello, you can save the act again, restore the switching to its original settings with AG, reload the act again and resume your run.

Denis

I too changed the switches to manual in certain situations.After reading the above,I checked the switches with Route riter and there were several errors,Route riter DOES fix them.

Thanks Denis,
Nice to see others have had this problem also. Before creating act after the CSV file is selected in the AG there is an opportunity to set all switches to manual. As this was a yard work activity I had already done that prior to creating the act. I will try your way also and see what happens. I wonder if anyone has contacted Jerry about this problem? This is my first act at Othello but have run others which worked fine, just not at Othello.

Great set of templates by the way!

BTW I did run the route through RR when I first installed it. No problems reported there.

My problem came after the update for some reason,it worked fine with the original version.

Once you change the switches to manual, you could leave them that way if you like. Everything should work as before. It's the signals that you always want to change back. For a more permanent fix, you would have to edit the route and change the 'auto' switches to 'manual' switches. Once you learn how, it's pretty easy. It's just time consuming. I've seen a few other routes with the same issue. The auto switches are intermixed with the manual ones. I've done it a few times myself. When selecting the object, you need to make sure that correct one is selected. Some of the names are almost the same, so it's easy to make that mistake.

Route Riter does have a special section, in the utilities, just to search for switches with bad points.

Jim

Thanks Jim,

Although I have been using MSTS since it was released I am not familiar with route editing. I would prefer to let the author do so if he agrees there is a route problem. I spend enough time editing eng and wag files, not going to get into route stuff.

Dave