Great But Bewildering

Thought I would finally try my hand at this though sadly see it has just come off support.

Well acknowledging it's a fantastic freeware effort nevertheless it is rather overwhelming. Just so much going on, got trains stood everywhere while trying to fathom out the various attach and detach moves at Carlisle Citadel and associated light engine moves. Currently at about 0340 and seem to have "lost" 5T02 but 0T01 still looking for it so can't move it on to the next working (I will have to amend the timetable).

Feedback - well it would have helped if some locations in the area had a few liberties had been taken allowing headcode data to be retained, namely the non platform through roads at Citadel. Comparison has to be made with with the SIAM Carlisle 1973 traffic simulation, albeit everything is diesel on that one, where it seems easier to keep track of things and you have total control over use of traction so you can grab any shunter to hand rather than have to be 0T01, 0T02 etc.

Has anyone done a simplifier with the "diagram" for each of the station shunters and/or all the attach and attach moves?

Anyhow I will persevere but fear a few more train deletions might be necessary to restore order!

Good on you for having a go - that's arguably the hardest timetable in all of SimSig, with all the tight shunting moves, and how difficult it is to recover after you make an error.

flabberdacks in post 158285 said:

Good on you for having a go - that's arguably the hardest timetable in all of SimSig, with all the tight shunting moves, and how difficult it is to recover after you make an error.

Thanks for that and postal too - yes have looked at the manual which helps a bit but unfortunately doesn't simplify the various shunt moves into a digestible form. I think this is one where practice will help and as I said it is remarkable for free when other lesser panels are payware.

Edit: I found 5T02, comes off the rear of 4M10 which is heavily delayed by yours truly north of Caldew!

it seems easier to keep track of things and you have total control over use of traction so you can grab any shunter to hand rather than have to be 0T01, 0T02 etc.

Has anyone done a simplifier with the "diagram" for each of the station shunters and/or all the attach and attach moves?

. . . but unfortunately doesn't simplify the various shunt moves into a digestible form. . .

So far as descriptions are concerned, I believe the locations that do & don't have descriptions replicate exactly what was in the real Carlisle PSB. That was in the era when most describer systems were driven by relays or multiselectors, or technology of that era, so came with quite an overhead in terms of space and complexity of circuits. That was also an era when 4-digit train describers were still regarded as something new (I believe the first may have been on Birmingham Snow Hill Panel at the beginning of the 1960s). Prior to that, either signalmen would have been working off bell signals in conjunction with Absolute Block (and some of them in Carlisle in 1979 would probably have worked that system) or describers would just have described approaching trains (the panel commissioned at Waterloo as late as the mid-1980s had describers of that kind and it wasn't until control transferred to the new box at Wimbledon in the early 1990s that Waterloo acquired 4-digit descriptions). So signalmen would be used to keeping an awareness of movements within their control area in their head rather than relying on descriptions and, in 1979, I suspect most shunt movements around the station would go without descriptions being input for them at all.

kbarber in post 158321 said:

So far as descriptions are concerned, I believe the locations that do & don't have descriptions replicate exactly what was in the real Carlisle PSB. That was in the era when most describer systems were driven by relays or multiselectors, or technology of that era, so came with quite an overhead in terms of space and complexity of circuits. That was also an era when 4-digit train describers were still regarded as something new (I believe the first may have been on Birmingham Snow Hill Panel at the beginning of the 1960s). Prior to that, either signalmen would have been working off bell signals in conjunction with Absolute Block (and some of them in Carlisle in 1979 would probably have worked that system) or describers would just have described approaching trains (the panel commissioned at Waterloo as late as the mid-1980s had describers of that kind and it wasn't until control transferred to the new box at Wimbledon in the early 1990s that Waterloo acquired 4-digit descriptions). So signalmen would be used to keeping an awareness of movements within their control area in their head rather than relying on descriptions and, in 1979, I suspect most shunt movements around the station would go without descriptions being input for them at all.

Its probably fair to add that in real life there would be several shunters on duty who themselves knew the plan and how best to conduct it, along with umpteen drivers with diagrams in their pockets. In Simsig you have to do a bit of all their jobs following schedules that simply didn't exist on the real thing and would have been a simple phone call request "2 vans P4 to Siding C please mate. Jocko and vans will sit there until XXXX arrives and we'll drop them on the back then"

There's no substitute for the Mk1 pen & paper either - When working Loughborough Central, its not uncommon for the shunter to ring and give us 4-5 moves to be made which get noted down and then worked in order between booked trains and scratched off the list.

jc92 in post 158324 said:

kbarber in post 158321 said:

So far as descriptions are concerned, I believe the locations that do & don't have descriptions replicate exactly what was in the real Carlisle PSB. That was in the era when most describer systems were driven by relays or multiselectors, or technology of that era, so came with quite an overhead in terms of space and complexity of circuits. That was also an era when 4-digit train describers were still regarded as something new (I believe the first may have been on Birmingham Snow Hill Panel at the beginning of the 1960s). Prior to that, either signalmen would have been working off bell signals in conjunction with Absolute Block (and some of them in Carlisle in 1979 would probably have worked that system) or describers would just have described approaching trains (the panel commissioned at Waterloo as late as the mid-1980s had describers of that kind and it wasn't until control transferred to the new box at Wimbledon in the early 1990s that Waterloo acquired 4-digit descriptions). So signalmen would be used to keeping an awareness of movements within their control area in their head rather than relying on descriptions and, in 1979, I suspect most shunt movements around the station would go without descriptions being input for them at all.

Its probably fair to add that in real life there would be several shunters on duty who themselves knew the plan and how best to conduct it, along with umpteen drivers with diagrams in their pockets. In Simsig you have to do a bit of all their jobs following schedules that simply didn't exist on the real thing and would have been a simple phone call request "2 vans P4 to Siding C please mate. Jocko and vans will sit there until XXXX arrives and we'll drop them on the back then"

There's no substitute for the Mk1 pen & paper either - When working Loughborough Central, its not uncommon for the shunter to ring and give us 4-5 moves to be made which get noted down and then worked in order between booked trains and scratched off the list.

On top of that, of course, many locations had local nicknames. As did some local trips. So for instance: "When the Double Extra comes off the Dead Shed have him pick up a raft off the New Found Out then down the Linger with him;" to mix jargon from Stratford, Willesden and Cricklewood. Working a big box back in the day could be distinctly 'interesting' and certainly wouldn't be reflected in what happened on the train describers.

kbarber in post 158337 said:

On top of that, of course, many locations had local nicknames. As did some local trips. So for instance: "When the Double Extra comes off the Dead Shed have him pick up a raft off the New Found Out then down the Linger with him;" to mix jargon from Stratford, Willesden and Cricklewood. Working a big box back in the day could be distinctly 'interesting' and certainly wouldn't be reflected in what happened on the train describers.

Oh the dreaded 'Linger' The line in-between the Down Hendon & Cricklewood Recess Sdgs albeit at a lower level than the Down Hendon line., been on that many times during the 1980s. I've heard some driver saying that you could spend an entire shift on the 'Linger' without moving a wheel. Hence how that line got it's nickname I suspect.

Well it was going quite well but now seem to have a bug.

Sent 0T01 into SC to couple on 5T01, which then does a south end shunt to attach on rear 1S09 sat on P3.

However 0T01 is sat there with message "5T01 in front", with 5T01 shown "waiting for 0T01" but there seems no way to force the two together. I could delete 5T01 and abandon the join on 1S09 but then that leaves 0T01 orphaned from it's next working.

NorthernWarrior in post 158355 said:

Well it was going quite well but now seem to have a bug.

Sent 0T01 into SC to couple on 5T01, which then does a south end shunt to attach on rear 1S09 sat on P3.

However 0T01 is sat there with message "5T01 in front", with 5T01 shown "waiting for 0T01" but there seems no way to force the two together. I could delete 5T01 and abandon the join on 1S09 but then that leaves 0T01 orphaned from it's next working.

Two things which may help. Firstly has the TT for 0T01 stepped forward to Carlisle? There are what ere effectively inner and outer reversing locations at Carlisle and if you have reversed at the other reversing point the TT may not have stepped. Secondly you could try using F2 to tell 0T01 to shunt forward. Don't recollect ever seeing the problem during TT testing but the core code has moved on several generations since then so there could be some change which is upsetting things.

Tried all those tricks and still stubbornly refused to couple
5T01
1S09
0T01
5S07
5T02