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Immingham Ambiguity

You are here: Home > Forum > Simulations > Timetables > South Humberside > Immingham Ambiguity

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Immingham Ambiguity 12/07/2012 at 11:33 #33848
Mickster66
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84 posts
Some time ago I posted with regard to the subject of arriving coal trains in the South Humberside simulation. My issue was that in some cases the destinations contained within the WTTs were confusing when placed against the locations on the sim.

Take for example, train 4R34. According to the WTT it is destined for Immingham Export Terminal. Where on the sim is this? Originally, in Real Life the Export Terminal was the old NCB Terminal! But when contacting this location in the sim, the reply is that the train is not destined for there. Also, I recall that on occasions there have been arrivals arriving concurrently for the Coal Pads in the Corus Terminal. During normal working hours one Coal Pad would be used exclusively for Corus coal trains. The other whilst vacant would be used for other coal services. Both pads can only accept one coal train at a time.

With my intimate knowledge of the area ( I spent over 30 years of my working life there!) I find the ambiguity in the WTT somewhat frustrating.

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Immingham Ambiguity 12/07/2012 at 11:51 #33850
Noisynoel
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989 posts
This is similar to the development of new sims. It takes time, is not the only thing on the go and, more importantly is a HOBBY! I will, when I have time, update the timetable accordingly, of course, you could write your own...
Noisynoel
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Immingham Ambiguity 12/07/2012 at 12:23 #33851
Danny252
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1461 posts
The coal destinations being labelled/named wrongly is a known problem (I recall a rather lengthy thread discussing what should be where, in which practically everyone got confused at one point or another!)
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Immingham Ambiguity 12/07/2012 at 15:06 #33855
Lardybiker
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This is a known issue. Some of the locations in the current release were incorrect due to non-existent or incorrect infomration. Further information came to light after the sim's release and appropriate amendments were made. Some affect the TT, some do not, and Noel has been on top of it as we've moved forward and his TT is currently up-to-date on my development version as far as I know.

There are in excess of 60 TIPLOC codes for Immingham. While many are duplicates (as each company appears to insist on their own code for a given location), there is still way to many locations to put them all on the screen. Also, whats in the sim matches what the signaler's have on their panels at the various Immingham boxes, so they have to know where they are. The sim is thus replicating real life. That's what makes operating Immingham so much fun!!!

Last edited: 12/07/2012 at 15:16 by Lardybiker
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Immingham Ambiguity 12/07/2012 at 16:05 #33857
guidomcc
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246 posts
I have this page bookmarked, so whenever I run SHumbs I just load it up and have it open in the background. The most common ones do get imprinted on your brain after a while, but otherwise you just have to scan down the second column for the location
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Immingham Ambiguity 13/07/2012 at 15:09 #33888
Mickster66
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84 posts
I thank everyone for their responses. However, I must take issue with the statement that the sim is "replicating real life" in one glaring instance - yet again affecting 4R34 and maybe others later. 4R34 is apparently destined for the NCB Pad 1 which we are led to believe is the same location as Coal Pad 1. Neither Coal Pad 1 nor Coal Pad 2 were built for the use of the National Coal Board, but for the import of coal for British Steel. However, the pads were later employed for the despatch of power station coal in addition to the steelworks traffic.

Each location can only take one train for loading. As I stated earlier, the BSC Operator would never allow an empty coal train to access either Pad if another train was already loading. In the case of this session, 4C71 was already on the loading pad. However, when requested, the release was actually given to allow 4R34 to enter the loading pad. If this had occured in rela life there would be an awful lot of paperwork to follow - as well as a host of managers from both BSC/Corus/Tata and DB Schenker - and perhaps Network Rail!

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Immingham Ambiguity 13/07/2012 at 16:27 #33889
Noisynoel
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989 posts
" said:
I thank everyone for their responses. However, I must take issue with the statement that the sim is "replicating real life" in one glaring instance - yet again affecting 4R34 and maybe others later. 4R34 is apparently destined for the NCB Pad 1 which we are led to believe is the same location as Coal Pad 1. Neither Coal Pad 1 nor Coal Pad 2 were built for the use of the National Coal Board, but for the import of coal for British Steel. However, the pads were later employed for the despatch of power station coal in addition to the steelworks traffic.

Each location can only take one train for loading. As I stated earlier, the BSC Operator would never allow an empty coal train to access either Pad if another train was already loading. In the case of this session, 4C71 was already on the loading pad. However, when requested, the release was actually given to allow 4R34 to enter the loading pad. If this had occured in rela life there would be an awful lot of paperwork to follow - as well as a host of managers from both BSC/Corus/Tata and DB Schenker - and perhaps Network Rail!
Taken from the SimSig home page...
"You will be presented with an environment closely resembling a real signalling control centre, including the screen display and controls. It recreates the signalling as realistically as possible"

The key bits there are "Closely resembling" and "realistically as possible". At NO stage has SimSig or the developer or TT writer for the Sim stated that it is 100% accurate. It is a representation of the area/TT done with the data available at the time

Noisynoel
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The following user said thank you: guidomcc
Immingham Ambiguity 13/07/2012 at 19:43 #33895
postal
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5265 posts
We already know that the existing sim contains lots of areas where Chris was working with what is now known to be inadequate data. A lot of work has gone on since the sim was released in order to bring these areas up to date.

Perhaps it might be better if we all waited for Chris to complete his update and then review the new release rather than worrying about issues on the existing release which may already have been corrected by now.

“In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe
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Immingham Ambiguity 13/07/2012 at 21:15 #33904
Lardybiker
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771 posts
My statement "replicating real-life" was referring only to the lack of labels for all the TIPLOC's on the panels. At no point was I discussing or referring to the operation of the sim as a whole or specifically, the operation of locations at Immingham.

And what Noel says is 100% correct.

When I was informed of the limitations of certain locations (not long after the sim came out), we immediately started looking at ways to restrict the number of trains at a given location (and not just at Immingham locations either). Unfortunately Its complicated to add such a feature and the effort to include it is still an ongoing. In fact as it stands, there isn't a way to do it 100% correctly so you may just have to live with it as it is.

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Immingham Ambiguity 14/07/2012 at 02:33 #33913
Mickster66
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84 posts
Whilst I have taken everything said on board, surely the limitation of the locations in question would have considered in the planning of the simulation. Working in the area as a footplateman for over 30 years I had an intimate knowledge of the South Humberside area and at one time I was contacted to give some advice and information about the area in the pre-planning stage. However, this was not followed through.

Perhaps the South Humberside sim was brought out too early?

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Immingham Ambiguity 14/07/2012 at 11:29 #33925
Stephen Fulcher
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2084 posts
Please do not take this personally, but I think you are being overly critical.

South Humberside works well with very few bugs. If there are a couple of locations that can accept too many trains then this is not really an issue because the average user will not have a clue that this occurs and the simulation will accept the train anyway, and anyone who is bothered can just loop excess trains until they want to send them in.

Please do not encourage the Developers not to release something that works well, or else there will never be anything new.

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The following users said thank you: BarryM, TimTamToe, Josie
Immingham Ambiguity 14/07/2012 at 11:56 #33927
TimTamToe
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664 posts
" said:
Please do not take this personally, but I think you are being overly critical.

South Humberside works well with very few bugs. If there are a couple of locations that can accept too many trains then this is not really an issue because the average user will not have a clue that this occurs and the simulation will accept the train anyway, and anyone who is bothered can just loop excess trains until they want to send them in.

Please do not encourage the Developers not to release something that works well, or else there will never be anything new.
I agree and it does seem a minor issue that doesn't really affect the running of the sim too much at all (if at all). Hasn't affected my enjoyment of the sim, the only thing I've noticed is that the sim is fantastic.

Trying to write timetables for other simulations (some of which are far less complex) it is no easy feat and takes far longer than you think. I take my hat off to all those involved with South Humberside!

G

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