A Serious Problem

[landnrailroader]

Colleagues,

I had seen mention of a minimum radius curve of 500 (meters, feet, ?) and this turns
out to be a very serious flaw. 500 meters results in a curve of 3.5 degrees, and 500 feet results in approximatly a 10 degree curve.

Unfortunately, the value seems to be in meters. Tonight, I was able to lay track fairly well from near IronGate, Va to JD Cabin, where the former Mountain Sub. (Now the Buckingham Branch RR) joins CSX just east of Clifton Forge. As the James River sub. crosses the
James R. to reach the junction, the bridge is more or less straight with a 6 degree curve at the west end - oops, 6 degrees is a no-no.

Gee Kuju, we folks in American don't have high speed rail, we have curves to 20 degrees and some sharper, so how do you do it?

Jerry Sullivan

[Paddington bear]

Hi,

Minimum radius has been known to be 100 mtrs, but hey thats from where I am sitting , no idea about NA


http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=267833 try looking here


Ross

[sniper297]

Well, I always use the built in windows calculator because the pocket calculators I have don't work. One of them is haunted, every time I use it a ghost comes in and starts turning my TV on and off and flipping thru the channels, the other one is too stupid to even know who I am, just making beeping noises when I punch the buttons, then saying things like "Hello? Hello? Who is this?" :rolleyes:

But punching numbers in don't help unless you know what the numbers you're looking at are. RSDL didn't say 500 meters, they said 5 meters, a Ford F-150 won't take a curve that tight.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=267833

Track rule set in that one allows down to 30 meters, needs a bit more fiddling probably. Anyway, what's what;

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/attachment.php?attachmentid=1421&stc=1&d=1202783774


"Radius" of a curve is distance to the center of a circle if you continue the curve around 360 degrees to make a circle. Circumference is the distance around the outside of the circle if you go all the way around, formula is;

Radius times 2 times PI.

So 100 meter radius times 2 is 200 meter diameter, times 3.14 is 628 meters around the circle. Divide 628 by 360 (number of whole degrees in a circle) you get 1.744. That number corresponds to the LENGTH of the curve, totally different animal from the radius, but once you have that multiplier you can figure out the degrees of arc. A 100 meter radius curve that was 25 meters long, for example, would be 25 x 1.744 = 43.6 degrees of arc. If I have a 250 meter curve and want to turn exactly 90 degrees;

250 x 2 = 500
500 x 3.14 = 1570
1570 divided by 360 = 4.36 meters per degree at 250 radius
4.36 x 90 = 392.5 meters, so to make a 90 degree turn at a radius of 250 meters I need to drag the curve out to a LENGTH of 392.5 meters.

Different track rule sets, and even different line types within those sets, can have different minimum radius and parallel spacing. Just keep in mind that if you use a custom track rule set you need to include it in the packaging for the route when you upload it.

[landnrailroader]

Sniper,

I installed your rules file and found that it works fine and I was able to accurately place my
10 degree curve at Clifton Forge. The track following button is neat, in that the image moves as track is laid, but it move too much, too fast. I think a suggestion to KUJUAdam about slowing this thing down a big would make it more useful. It also tends to swing from side to
side.

I find that a lot of track can be laid in a hurry, but accuracy is going to be hard to achieve, this sucker is sensistive. However, except for the problem at boundaries of datasets, I have not been above to crash it. (yet)

landnrailroader