I need help - lots of it please!!, Running A1 traffic on Marias Pass V3.1 Options

[sygmalion]

I am a newbie at this A1 stuff. My plan is based on the Marias Pass V3.1. Running my player service freestyle along the route in any direction with A1 traffic setting off from Shelby to Whitefish. The A1 traffic route is set so that they always stay on the right hand track in the direction of travel.My first player run is from Shelby to Whitefish following the A1 route and that goes quite well. My second run (return) is Whitefish to Shelby and apart from a few head ons I get by. To avoid the head-ons I take to right hand track that means setting a few points to get onto the track not used by A1 traffic. When I return to the A1 route I always check to ensure that the points behind me are set in favour of the A1 traffic. Then comes the crunch. On the third run, returning the the A1 traffic route I get on fine till I reach balloon track. From there to Whitefish are all the trains that had left Shelby. They do not complete their journey but stack up along the rest of the route all the way back to Whitefish. The main bottle neck seems to be a Belton station where the track diverges as you appraoch Belton from Whitefish. (west). Is there a tutorial that someone can send me that covers such things or is it that I am expecting too much from MSTS?

I am willing to write a full account as this is just the bones but enough I hope to help others to understand the problem.

Sygmalion

[kevarc]

A few questions:

1. Are you running the 3rd time down this section of track? It is a little confusing exactly where you are when this happens.

2. When you say, take the right hand track - are you doing this all the time. i.e., when westbound, you take the right hand track and then when eastbound you take the same track? What you need to do is set a path for eastbound and westbound, you will need to hardcode it, do not use passing paths. When the player is westbound, make sure it follows the westbound path and vice versa. It seems that you are missing this somewhere and that may be causing the traffic back up.

We will try to help, but I am not a fan of "freestyle" activities, so I have very little experiance with them. I like to have a purpose to the activity.

[sygmalion]

Hi Kevin

The third run is where I discover the extent of the backed up traffic (that is from Shelby to Whitefish). The back up commences West of Belton Station. Trains just won't cross points that are set against them despite what the route editor does.
As for setting a player route does that not mean you are also setting all the points and therefore you cannot leave the route. The idea I had was to set A1 traffic so that it does it thing whilst I in the player train pick up consists etc and move them to different parts of the route.

I have never heard of the term "hardcode it" so not sure what that entails.

If there is no way A1 traffic can run points because the points were changed by traffic coming from the opposite direction so as to avoid a head on then that is that really. What might be an idea is to make A1 traffic run short journeys using sectons where they can with out point conflict, and do this at various sections of the route so as to create the illusion they have travelled the entire length.

Your comments appreciated - thanks



Sygmalion