coupler swing

[gordon]

I have been trying to get some of the cars that go with the Meaba route to go around the sharp curves. I changed the last figure in the .wag file as someone suggested before and can get the log car around the curve but only one car at a time. I checked with box edit and fixed a problem there. Any info to point me in the right direction would be appreciated as this is a great route. I also notice that for the last figure in the .wag file ( r----30cm) is different on some files as it has numbers and letters } r0 (15cm 1e9) } Maybe a clue here?
Thanks for any help.

[dchagar]

This doesn't do anything to the couplers, but Tim Muir had the same problem with the C&LE flat on the Mesaba. He changed the bounding box in the sd file to read as follows:
ESD_Bounding_Box ( -1.52 0.5 -7.95 1.52 4.05 8.2 )
I don't know if this would solve your problem, but it might help, as the C&LE went around the curves at any speed once it was changed to this. I don't know which loco your using, but you might have to change some of it's specs as well. Tim's PRL&P motor worked fine, but the new BW wouldn't, so I had to change some it's characteristics as well.
Dave

[gordon]

Thanks for the tip Dave. I will give it a try

[tryagin]

Well, what and all I did was copy the following coupler values from Matt Austin's Milwaukee 1100's' .eng file:

Coupling (
Type ( Automatic )
Spring (
Stiffness ( 2e7N/m 0 )
Damping ( 0.2e7N/m/s 0 )
Break ( 1e7N 0 )
r0 ( 0.1 1e9 )
)
CouplingHasRigidConnection ()
)
Buffers (
Spring (
Stiffness ( 1e7N/m 0 )
Damping ( 1e6N/m/s 0 )
r0 ( 0m 1e9 )
)
Centre ( 0.5 )
Radius ( 1 )
Angle ( 0.5deg )
)
And pasted it into the .eng file of the car, in place of the offending lines, deleting those first. Bounding boxes didn't make any difference. After much trial more errors, I noticed that Matt's motors all swung through the 30degree curves like traction equipment should, so I figured give it a try, and it works. Now if only we could animate the actual coupler swing as if they were really coupled.Hmmmm...

Tim

[denverrails]

I have had trouble operating freight trains on the Mebasa Electric as the trains get "stuck" on the tight curves even when using short, old time cars. I saw the message about changing the code but as a "Newbie" can someone tell me how to insert this code?

I've just started working with route editor and thought I'd try my hand at some freight bypass routes as the Illinois Terminal did in several cities. Got a long way to go on that as it isn't as easy as the book make it look.

Wally

[tryagin]

Wally,
If you email me at timmuir@wcn.net , I'll email you a copy of my C&LE flatcar with the correct values for interurban use, and I'll also send an explanation on what and how to do it.

Best regards

Tim

[chuckzeiler]

According to the TechDocs (supplied by MS/Kuju), the following applies to the spring settings in the .eng or .wag files:

************************************************** *************

SPRING - a sub-section of the coupling section that defines the physical parameters of the coupling. Springs in a train have two different extension dependent sets of characteristics. This is so that, for example, the initial extension of the coupling can be mimicked with relatively low numbers using the first set of values until the extension reaches what in reality would be the maximum coupling extension and hence a much larger set of values would kick in to mimic this.

STIFFNESS - Two values in Newton Meters giving the stiffness of the coupling over the first and second extension stages.

DAMPING - Two values in Newton Meters per Second giving the damping factor over the first and second extension stages.

BREAK - Two values in Newtons giving the force at which the couplers will break in the first and second stage. Generally, these values will both be the same, and will lie somewhere in the second stage extension.

r0 - The first value in here describes the rest length of the spring. The second value indicates the length at which the second set of values kick in.

Coupling springs work in compression as well as extension.

CouplingHasRigidConnection - set to 1 for wagons that have rigid rather than flexible couplings.

Wagons can have 2 Coupling entries if they have different couplings at either end.

BUFFERS - NOT USED

************************************************** ************

That having been said, there appears to be no point to modifying any entries under BUFFERS.

One wonders if modifying the CouplerHasRigidConnection variable might provide for a wider coupler swing, mimicking the way traction couplers were sometimes built. I have not modified this variable yet, but I imagine the setting is either 1 (for rigid), or 0 (for flexible?). Perhaps someone else knows better about this.

Looking at Matt Austin's settings (in the post above) would indicate that there are no (0) settings for the extension (or compression) of the coupler spring. Perhaps this simply overrides the MSTS attempt at reproducing the coupler spring effect. I will give it a try.