New SimSig beginners' tutorial using Royston

Max.
Refering to the section headed Goods Trains
Are you correct in saying that the R in 6R02 stands for it telling us that it reverses somewhere along the way and also that the T in 6T41 stands for a through train.
I always thought that the second digit or letter in the 'four position numbers destination indicator' was used to indicate the destination i.e. region in the case of an inter regional train, division in the case of a train running within the region or for a local passenger train within, in this case the Kings Cross division.

Otherwise I am still going through this. Detailed and long but obviously a lot of effort has gone into it.

Geoff

however i do also see that a lot of the manual has "critical analysis" of SimSig, which i see as rather improffesional and when a newbie sees this, it can be offputting as it is essentially slating the game.

Normal headcodes are used. Trains with a C or T headcode run through to or from Cambridge (C headcodes reverse at Cambridge, T headcodes continue further north). Trains with an R headcode reverse at Royston.

Missed Peter and Geoff's comments while composing my reply.

Yep. From Royston's manual:
Quote:

Normal headcodes are used. Trains with a C or T headcode run through to or from Cambridge (C headcodes reverse at Cambridge, T headcodes continue further north). Trains with an R headcode reverse at Royston.

Can't get any closer to the horse's mouth than that. :)

The problems newbies face are not only that there is a vastly greater amount of information to assimilate than they ever dreamed of, there are illogicalities lurking under the surface of every sim like dead trees under the surface of a lake, waiting to take you out when you inevitably run across them. The manual I thought was marginally intelligible to a newbie, and even a trifle dishonest in the way it claimed long freight trains could not fit behind the LOS (LK246) shunt signal, as I disproved. That set me wondering. If that's the case, why does the sim need it, particularly if its freight trains are fictitious anyway? So far I haven't encountered any other train that uses it, and anyway it's impossible to set a route from K978 to it, so I can't see Up Main trains using it. However, as I haven't played all its trains (it gets terribly boring after a while) perhaps there are one or two.

I demonstrated SimSig to one of my friends recently, a guy who's been around model trains and train simulators for years - but not UK signalling. He almost freaked out when he saw how large the Exeter area was and quickly exclaimed "Too hard for me".

SimSig uses two, three and four-colour aspect signalling

Junction signals occur where routes converge (form a junction) or diverge (branch). Where they diverge, the direction in which points are set is indicated by an additional signal to the main signal such as a feather or theatre indicator. Since Royston is simply an NX (eNtry-eXit) panel with no divergence, it contains no junctions. In other sims, junction signals look no different from main signals, but nevertheless should not be confused with shunt signals, since routes may be set through them with no loss of TD.

You will know that you have successfully set a route between two signals when the first (nearer) one turns green. If it does not, you may have to clear some other obstacle first, such as lowering the barriers at a level crossing along that route to bar road traffic, or wait for an earlier train to pass so that the interlocks created by its route are lifted.

Repeater signals are not encountered in the Royston sim but are worth mentioning here since routes cannot be set to them as their purpose is simply to provide advance indication of the next signal ahead, where the driver's view of it may be restricted, e.g., because of track curvature or a bridge abutment.

6R02 enters from Baldock at 07:25. Its TT states that it stops at “Royston S K246 (Reverse)” between 07:35 and 07:38 and terminates at Royston Sherriff's Siding at 07:39.

did we ever establish whether it was acceptable (to the Driver) to instead set the route into the loop and expect the train to successfully reverse behind the signal in there as an alternative to 246?

I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all

You are telling people to do things that the sim isn't programmed for, and it isn't programmed because it doesn't happen in real life. The whole point on SimSig is accuracy to the real world, as much as possible, and under no circumstance I know of can you authorise a train to pass a LOS signal.

You are telling people to do things that the sim isn't programmed for, and it isn't programmed because it doesn't happen in real life. The whole point on SimSig is accuracy to the real world, as much as possible, and under no circumstance I know of can you authorise a train to pass a LOS signal.

The LOS on the Down line is closer to signal 977 than you might think. Long trains won't fit in there and need to be reversed on the Up.

"Moral: There is a big difference between setting a route created by the sim's programmer, and making a train go where you want it to go. Your confidence in doing the latter should have increased immeasurably by now."

What!? You are telling people to do things that the sim isn't programmed for, and it isn't programmed because it doesn't happen in real life.

In that case you should contact the developers and suggest they delete the code for everything in F2 > Signalling Options.

But the point is you shouldn't show them how to break things, as they may well get confused by what is the correct way with all the options you gave them. A beginner's tutorial should only tell them "how to", and any information like that is either not required or should be elsewhere, clearly labelled as "how not to do it".

All seems very simple to me. Those who want to use SimSig as the next best thing to reality can take advice from people like a signaller in one of the busiest boxes on the UK network. Those who want to take SimSig as a game and do not want to try and follow the rule book can follow the work rounds in the tutorial.

• I don't really understand why the signal map is so useful. It's the very first thing you call out, but I don't see many references to it or to specific signals beyond illustrations in diagrams. (Mostly the only time I've looked at them is to get a feel for how big/complex a new sim is.)


• I probably wouldn't proscribe a specific set of display options nearly to the extent that you do. My one specific change would be to turn "Show track circuit breaks" on; this helps explain "why hasn't this signal cleared yet?"


• A beginner's tutorial really shouldn't describe things as "weird", "contrary to expectations", "cause great frustration to the newcomer", etc.


• I'd tend to focus on the specifics of the Royston sim, and maybe put a page at the end on some things that are different in other sims -- four-aspect signals, repeaters, different display options, and so on. For that matter, you don't usually need to touch the "A" or "E" buttons, the "long route" concept seems to be an exception I never knew about, you don't typically need to cancel routes, ..., and I might move discussion of these things to the second-to-last page. Cancelling routes and the related full-page discussion on approach locking and ACOA is definitely less important than the following page of examples.


• In the discussion of 5R96 becoming 2R96, throw away the Train List. But do note, as 5R96 is arriving, that its WTT has the N:2R96 notation, and explain how to interpose the new TD. Don't even mention the possibility of the "reverse direction" instruction since it is so counter-productive here. Similarly, when you talk about calling-on routes, describe the right way to do it first before going into details of Huddersfield control.


• One thing that might be useful is a translation guide for foreigners like me. I figured out the extra "u" in "color" and that "switches" are "points" pretty quickly, but it took a while to figure out that "up" is "towards London", and I hadn't realized until I saw it written down here that a British "siding", unlike an American one, doesn't allow trains out the far end.


• When 6R02 reverses at "Royston S" that's South of the station, which lets you cast an educated guess at its location. And you do eventually get to that, but it seems an easier way to find things than digging through the signal map. 6T41 presumably (like the 1Txx passenger trains) heads via Cambridge and Ely towards King's Lynn; again, its example should show the right solution and mention that routing via the loop won't work, rather than only focusing on the wrong answer. (It's mildly irrelevant here, but I only recently realized that all of the 1V/1E/1M trains on Exeter/Bristol/Gloucester/Saltley were the same trains, which is kinda nifty.) 6E55 could (length and routes permitting) reverse at either signal 977 or 245 (though here a mention that the sim will only allow one choice makes sense). 6M82's discussion should probably start with bringing up its WTT.


• For blocking off LCs when needed, I tend to collar only the signal after the LC, since it prevents you from setting routes either to or from it.


• I agree with everyone else: don't document the "brute force" options, you should only usually need them during failures. Speaking of which, some examples of things that potentially go wrong (and when you do legitimately need to "tell driver to examine line and pass signal at danger"would be a helpful advanced topic.


• Recommending some "next" sims in the conclusion could be nice. Liverpool Lime Street might fit the bill; Euston is small and usually only has one or two things to deal with at a time, but it has a lot of special cases; Cambridge (with the "modern" timetable) might be a good "next next" sim that's larger but not too busy, or Peterborough with most of the ARS switched on, or even SwinDid. Some specific examples from these sims (from Cambridge, the single-track lines and the Ely interlocked LC, for instance) could also help fill out the SimSig "vocabulary".