Union Pacific FEF-3 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive, by Smokebox

[ozinoz]

Anyway, what all of this has shown me is that, despite what some people say, the steam simulation in RW4/TS2013 is actually very good and if the simulation data is done with care, it is possible to make the models run very realistically.

Dead right - the problem being it has taken until now for us to get a model that operates as it should, taking some skill (which I don't have ) to achieve a result. As I have said previously, the Connie has set the bar, and about that I know there are many of us that are extremely grateful. I have been guilty in the past of only using the auto fireman and spending 90% of the time lineside watching myself roll past. Now I have work to do to actually make that happen, and I don't have time to be "lolly gagging" about trackside (apologies to Slim Pickins)

and have a great Easter break...

Grant

[mrennie]

Anyway, what all of this has shown me is that, despite what some people say, the steam simulation in RW4/TS2013 is actually very good and if the simulation data is done with care, it is possible to make the models run very realistically.

Dead right - the problem being it has taken until now for us to get a model that operates as it should, taking some skill (which I don't have ) to achieve a result. As I have said previously, the Connie has set the bar, and about that I know there are many of us that are extremely grateful. I have been guilty in the past of only using the auto fireman and spending 90% of the time lineside watching myself roll past. Now I have work to do to actually make that happen, and I don't have time to be "lolly gagging" about trackside (apologies to Slim Pickins)

and have a great Easter break...

Grant

"Lolly gagging" ... last time I heard that was when a guard in Skyrim said it (my son used to play that game a lot). I never knew it was Slim Pickins

Happy Easter to you too!

(I'll be relaxing here at home, putting the frames on the Northern)



Mike

EDIT: Apparently "lolly gagging" is older than I thought .... http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061005194108AAY5SqD

[buzz456]

From the movie Bull Durham: Skip: You guys. You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first. You lollygag in and out of the dugout. You know what that makes you? Larry!

Larry: Lollygaggers!

Skip: Lollygaggers

[ozinoz]

Slim Pickins - Blazing Saddles. (one of my favourites ) A movie they just couldn't make now...



I think Blazing Saddles trumps Bull Durham

[buzz456]

Remember that.

[FourEightFour]

At certain speeds and throttle settings, it actually slows you down, just like changing down a gear in a car when you're going fast - it induces engine braking (or even engine breaking if you're really ham-fisted with it!).

The technical term for that is called Backpressure. This happens when the volume of steam is being pushed out at a faster rate than the exhaust nozzle in the smokebox can accommodate. This is what makes an engine go faster, a lack of pressure that is. Most of the large engines had backpressure gauges in the cab, the FEF is one of them. I know the maximum backpressure allowed on this type was 12-14 psi. I have no idea if railworks even supports backpressure. It would take the mystery out of it for some of the unschooled in steam...

[mrennie]

The technical term for that is called Backpressure. This happens when the volume of steam is being pushed out at a faster rate than the exhaust nozzle in the smokebox can accommodate. This is what makes an engine go faster, a lack of pressure that is. Most of the large engines had backpressure gauges in the cab, the FEF is one of them. I know the maximum backpressure allowed on this type was 12-14 psi. I have no idea if railworks even supports backpressure. It would take the mystery out of it for some of the unschooled in steam...

RW does support back pressure - you can try slamming the reverser fully forward at speed and see how it slows down the loco. The blueprints also include parameters for the maximum amount of steam that can be fed into the cylinders and the maximum capacity of the exhaust. They can be set up so that it's possible to choke the exhaust. What I'm not so sure of is whether it'll be possible to set up a working backpressure gauge. It is possible to set up custom gauges - for example, the main reservoir pressure gauge in the Connie uses a control variable that I had to create and compute myself (because the one that RW computes, which is supposed to be the MR psi, is totally borked - the F5 HUD gets the MR PSI from something else that's not available to the LUA script). The difficulty will be in extracting the information from the core code. If it can't be extracted, it'll require some hefty scripting to compute the back pressure myself based on other parameters (one of which is the steam chest pressure). I'll have to consult my books again to see how to do that!

[mrennie]

For those of you who don't do fa(r)cebook:

2013-04-11_00002s.jpg

[bpetit]

Fabulous work Mike.

[mrennie]

Fabulous work Mike.

Thanks Brennan

[hertsbob]

Can't disagree with that!

As a matter of interest, why do you start with the wheels?

[ArcticCatZRT]

Seems like you're missing some locomotive

Its looks great! Can't wait to see more progress!

[mrennie]

Can't disagree with that!

As a matter of interest, why do you start with the wheels?

It's because the wheels sit on the rails and everything else sits on the wheels. I just find it easier that way. It's also vitally important to get the wheels exactly right before doing anything else because the wheel centres have to be precisely in the right position (x, y and z) so that the connecting rods and valve gear will all come together properly.

In the engineering drawings, a lot of the measurements are given relative to the wheel centres. So I actually start with a guide object which is just a box with vertical lines at the appropriate distances apart, as well as horizontal lines for important references such as the height of the wheel centres. I lock that object and check frequently to make sure I haven't accidentally shifted something that was supposed to be aligned with the guide lines. I learned that one the hard way when i did accidentally shift an entire set of parts of the Consolidation by about a scale inch and discovered the error some weeks later when another part didn't fit like a glove.

There's another slightly dafter reason ... it allows me to get something rolling along the track as soon as possible, which helps to keep me motivated

[mrennie]

Seems like you're missing some locomotive

Its looks great! Can't wait to see more progress!

What you can't see in that shot is that the engineer and fireman are sitting in mid air in an invisible cab, and there's smoke and steam coming out from various places

I used the Connie's templates to get a head start and since they already include everything such as the crew, I kept them. It looks quite amusing when you see the whole lot trundling down the track.

[hertsbob]

Makes a great deal of sense. Thanks for explaining. The whole co-ordinate relationship thing in 3D modelling has always baffled me and I've often wondered how people manage to marry up loco bodies with bogeys, etc. and now I see that actually they don't! They're all part of the same thing...

it allows me to get something rolling along the track as soon as possible

I was so hoping you were going to say that you were driving your wheels about!