Railworks America

Writing a new switching scenario for the Maria Pass route has led me to the Whitefish yards and, more specifically, to the turntable there. Those familiar with my scenarios know that I love to send engines 'round on a turntable, despite our beloved simulator's objections. This TT at Whitefish is quite a rare fish, in fact, especially when I test a scenario I've just been editing:


... reminds me of Peter Pan flying above London.

Then there's the fact that only in a couple of cases do two tracks line up with each other across the table's bridge, which makes for a lot of key-pushes or mouse clicks. Moreover, if the first movement goes clockwise, the bridge takes a large step counter-clockwise before bucking ahead in the chosen direction. My apologies for not catching a video of that entertaining maneuver.

Finally, when the bridge eventually arrives at the desired exit track alignment, this is what the "driver" sees:


... despite that sinister (pun intended) looking gap, the engine passes through without derailing:



Please accept my apologies for not lightening these images a bit ... chalk it up to summer heat & humidity.

Despite these and other Whitefish design flaws (for example, a diesel refueling tower with its hose pointed at the wrong track), I'm enjoying myself while waiting for the release of the next giant step for train-simulating mankind.

They disappear on me while editting all the time. It happens religiously on the NERW.

I suspect it's the same bug, or at least it's closely related, that causes the whistle or horn to be silent sometimes. Maybe it's a memory overflow or something similar that causes things to drop out - sounds, sections of track, etc.

By the way, Tom, the silent horn happened to me today when playing a scenario with the 377 on the L2B route.

The now-you-see-it, now-you-don't turntable (or transfer table, for that matter) phenomenon is nothing new to me, either. I'm more concerned about this TT's other anomalies, such as the odd backwards lurch before moving clockwise, but I threw in that floating engine image because it tickled me. As both you fellows know, the table bridge re-appears magically as soon as it is commanded to turn. What fun!

I would imagine the lurching is something to do with the animation being a bit iffy? I guess it's resetting itself before it turns, or something.

To continue the theme of being no help whatsoever, I've no idea why all the turntables seem to appear only when they feel like it! Does the Cheyenne TT do the same thing, as a matter of interest - all the others I've come across seem to...

All the above and having your engine topple off while going around. What fun.

XDriver wrote:All the above and having your engine topple off while going around. What fun.

We don't call it "playing" for nothing!