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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops?

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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 04/06/2023 at 03:40 #152061
drew
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I've been noticing this for a while and I suspect it may be a bug, but let's see. Freight trains with arrival and departure times at loops on the Unanderra - Moss Vale section in particular will stop at the location and wait for departure time before proceeding. Doesn't matter if they they have the road to depart and needn't come to a stand, they still pull up and wait. They can be early arriving, or on time. I've not given them any set down instructions.

I would have expected the trains to pull up, but then proceed after a short time if they had the road. Train seems to do that at other refuge loops and such. but I could be wrong. I thought "wait for departure time" was a passenger train peccadillo, and freight would keep going early if given the road. From a traffic regulation point of view it's not a big problem, it helps keep everyone on their path. But it makes little sense when there's no operational reason not to keep going.

I've included a save file where TM55 can be seen idling at Summit Tank until it's departure time.

My question to the wise is, is this normal Sim behaviour? Should I be using a set down option like "regulating stop" or "set down random"?

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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 04/06/2023 at 03:54 #152062
flabberdacks
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Yeah, if a train has time booked at a location but carries out no activities there, use 'regulating stop' - if given the road the train will cruise on through nonstop. If stopped at that location, the train will go as soon as it's given the road.

This allows the player to decide what order they'd like trains to go in, as opposed to being forced into a certain pattern if the train waits time.

For shunting movements and non-pax runs that change direction, use 'Stop and Go' so that the movement doesn't sit on the main line twiddling its thumbs for no reason - it'll observe any dwell times you have programmed into the stock type then go.

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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 04/06/2023 at 04:25 #152063
drew
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flabberdacks in post 152062 said:
Yeah, if a train has time booked at a location but carries out no activities there, use 'regulating stop' - if given the road the train will cruise on through nonstop. If stopped at that location, the train will go as soon as it's given the road.

This allows the player to decide what order they'd like trains to go in, as opposed to being forced into a certain pattern if the train waits time.
So the sim is doing nothing irregular?

I might have to try some regulating stops then and see how it goes.

I've only really got the issue where one or both trains goes away for a cross. I find they run early in most cases, and the train that arrives first to go in the hole might not be the booked one in the TT. They can both be in clear well before their respective departure times, and sit there twiddling. One with a passing time can always be held, but the other will not get while the going is good. Also I've got some instances where they might only cross something on a given day of the week, and it looks odd while they wait for the ghost train that isn't coming today.

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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 04/06/2023 at 07:55 #152064
postal
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IIRC Classes 1,2 and 5 wait for time no matter what unless a dwell time stipulation is set. Other classes used to act at random, sometimes departing immediately and other times waiting for the full dwell time. The various types of dwell time now available make it much easier for the TT writer / SimSig signaller to have control over what is happening. Before the additional dwell time options were introduced and the Simsig signaller wanted a train to press on then the TT had to be opened and the current/next position shifted forward. Just asking the train to shunt forward left it running at shunt speed going forward.
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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 05/06/2023 at 04:27 #152075
flabberdacks
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Yes mate that behaviour is defined in the timetable, nothing wrong with the sim in this particular case.

Especially in your case where the train is booked to cross a ghost train, use a regulating stop - when I see a reg stop in the timetable I always start checking simplifiers etc to find out what it's meant to follow, and whether I actually need to put it away or not. If not, I just give it the road all the way through and the train will happily sail through at track speed.

Last edited: 05/06/2023 at 04:28 by flabberdacks
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Freight trains waiting for departure times in loops? 05/06/2023 at 06:44 #152076
drew
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Sounds good. I've made all my freight crosses on the single line into regulating stops.
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