Engine Servicing/Maintenance Facilities

[Bill Hobbs]

I think you expect more from a simulator than can reasonably be expected. You are beginning to show serious symptoms of becoming a future live steamer. Here is a web site to accelerate the onset of the disease -- uh, I mean hobby:
http://www.littleengines.com/

[Traindude]

No message

[Traindude]

Sorry for my behaviour...I hope I don't get kicked off the forums for saying what I did.

Anyways, what I am trying to say is "Every aspect of American Railroading that MSTS has ignored or neglected, KRS shouldn't."

I am a perfectionist with Asperger's Syndrome--I can be tempermental but otherwise highly intelligent.

Can anyone get around in the model railroading field without spending $200 or more? No.

You will respect my authority!!!

[Traindude]

I have recently acquired a habit of visiting my hobby shop to pick up various volumes of Kalmbach Publishing's The Model Railroader's Guide To... series. Study of these books helps not only model railroaders but Train-Simmers too.

I studied The Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals and would like to present to you some suggestions.

General
Most servicing facilities in the real world span multiple tracks or serve multiple locomotives, while MSTS's facilities serve only one track and one locomotive at a time.

Fuel For Steam

If KRS's steam parameters broaden enough (see my "Steam, Steam, Steam" thread: <http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=27&topic_id=496&mesg_id=496&page=>) I would suggest woodsheds used for woodburning loco's, multitrack coaling trestles/towers, and oil columns for oil-fired steamers.

Water

Multitrack columns/tanks, water for non-steam engine's steam generators.

Diesel Fuel

Fuel racks with the ability to serve up to 4 units.

Sand

MSTS's loco tutorials claim "There is a limited amount of sand on board the locomotive, so don't forget to turn the sander off." Yet look up a loco's .eng file or the train operations window (F9), and it says the exact opposite (SAND: INFINITE). Unlimited sand also has personally bothered me. Interactive sanding facilities, please!

Ashes

Interactive ash/cinder pits and ash accumulation parameters. See message #774 on the "Steam, Steam, Steam" thread.

I am unsure whether interactive wash facilities are required, as MSTS/KRS locos never get dirty. I'd like to hear your opinions!

[Traindude]

I know my expectations are very high, but these suggestions are very interesting and useful. Ask any veteran railroader to try MSTS, and he/she will say, "There's something missing..."

Note one thing I left out was activities to replinish coal/oil/wood/fuel/sand and to haul away ashes. That is one compromise.

[Bill Hobbs]

You seem to lose sight of the fact that there is -- and always will be -- a lot missing from any Train Simulator. Thank goodness for that. A simulation is a selective representation of reality rather than reality itself. When running a virtual steam locomotive, I don't expect to feel the heat of the firebox or smell the hot steam and oil or coal smoke, I don't expect to be jarred by rough track, have to accurately throw heavy shovels of coal into the hot fire without spilling them all over the cab floor, fight a sticky throttle, have the reverser snap back when I try to move it, get wet or cold depending on the weather outside, etc.
Further, some of your "druthers" would require a base of very specific information about what goes on in the firebox that does not exist. There is no point in modeling the oil blowers in detail if the results of adjustments aren't going to be accurate. The kind of knowledge about the combustion process that is available focuses on the general impact of various things going on, e.g. holes in the fire, too thick or thin a fire, the availability of secondary air, the advantages of a combustion chamber or arch, and so on. Would you know if a small hole in the front left of the coal bed is being modeled correctly -- as opposed, say, to a small hole in the right rear? It really doesn't make sense to demand a level of detail with no data to support the simulation.
If Kuju gets the general relationships of the parts of the steam locomotive modeled well and with setup parameters that can be widely understood by someone who is not loco for steam locos, that will be a very big accomplishment.

[ozdriver]

"There's something missing..."

YEP,YEP That feeling and talkback from the engine thought the seat of your underwear and the push and pull of the weight behind you

[Traindude]

OK...

For steam locomotives ONLY these improvements are necessary:

-Mechanical stokers (no jet controls or reversers)
-Non-coal-burners
-Feedwater Heaters
-Booster Engines
-Blow Downs (you can't use cylinder cocks to clear priming all the time)

That's the bare minimum!

For fuel points, the parameters should be as follows:

Fuel: Coal
Fuel: Wood
Fuel: Oil
Fuel: Water
Fuel: Diesel

Maybe unlimited sand can stay!

Of course ash dumping and re-sanding can be simulated by having the player stand next to a "Static" object to "Pretend" to take care of business. (That's a technique Kalmbach suggested for freight operations in The Model Railroader's Guide to Freight Yards)!

[CWA13000]

I agree with every thing you are saying, Bill!

Having said that, I have some extra interest in the following:

"I don't expect to feel the heat of the firebox or smell the hot steam and oil or coal smoke,..."


I have actually spent a couple hours experimenting with the idea of something like an incense burner that could sit by my MSTS computer to create the coal fired smell.

I should have not mentioned this cause I have had no success as yet and I'm retired so I don't have enough time to get everything done that I would like.

If anyone out there has solved this problem, please send details.

Wild Willy the Wacko

[Bill Hobbs]

A few years ago some hard-core modelers tried using a soldering iron to heat a piece of coal and produce some smoke during operating sessions. Apparently it worked enough for them. Coal is difficult to keep burning in small quantities so an incense burner is probably not a good bet.

[tooltroll]

Suggestions are always good. . .

Some things we don't have in a simulator because they're a PITA. (Although tolerance for one aspect or another of any activity varies widely from person to person. I'd like to have the option of boarding and starting up my own locomotives, including setting all the proper switches, cranking the diesel, pumping up the air, etc., but some people wouldn't, f'rinstance.) Good software design would allow you to pick and choose what details to include, operationally, as well as visually, etc., but it would be nice to have the option to kick in as much detail as possible if one wanted to. I could get into more detailed servicing.

Other things we don't have because of the phenomenal cost involved, but most of us would have 'em if we could. . . If I won a lottery, I'd have a full size cab simulator with motion control, 360° spherical projection, all the vibrations, lurches, smells, sounds & sights of the real thing. If I knew what tastes were involved, I'd do my darndest to include those, too! I'd bet that most of the folks on this here forum would, too, if they had a spare million or three, especially if the existing software was capable of handling all or most of it. Now that's expecting too much!

A man can dream, though. . . A man can dream.

Bob

- I found Jesus! He was behind the couch the whole time!

[Gecko]

I'm feeling nasty today -- someone to clean the heads or in N&W's case take the plastic bags.

George

[Eryk]

Don't forget about gasoline turbines! ;-)