add level crossings

[kin3]

I am having a difficult time adding crossings. Sometime they work and at other times I place one and the traffic won't stop. Also ScailRail traffic, it appears sometimes and sometimes not, one way only one time then two way the next time. What should I look for. This a an old route I have been working on for awhile and I want to go back and add traffic and crossings. I have used the standard US Level crossings and SM Ditgal's crossings and one is no different from the other.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

With SR traffic there is the problem that you need to place the light blue "road link" on the invisible SR traffic loft, and not on the actual road loft section which is mostly just below it, so far I have not been able to find out a way how to always safely find the traffic loft, it always requires a bit of trial and error - or to move the road loft out of the way temporarily.

If the traffic won't stop on 'normal' roads either, then in my experience it was caused by wrongly placed links of the crossing signal, in which case I simply deleted it from the route and placed a new one.

Cheers!
Michael

[tdwolf]

This is what i do

first lay down road
if using scalerail traffic, which i use, lay traffic loft but extend past road that way you can raise and lower the traffic loft

leave traffic loft raised and add crossing
when you go to lower the loft you will notice the traffic points attached to the loft

just lower to correct height

PS: it took me a couple of tries until it came out right

[kin3]

Okay I tried moving the traffic loft up and then adding the crossing and lowering it back down. That seems to have solved that problem. Thanks.

I still get random traffic and was wondering does the asset count on a tile have something to do with it as this is a heavy detailed route. On my last run I had two sections that were showing traffic before and on this run nothing.

[GreatNortherner]

Hi,

The vehicle traffic seems to be heavily randomized. I think it is perfectly normal to have 50 cars on a certain road in one run, and not a single one in the next run. Not really sure about it though. You *may* be able to modify this behavior by creating your own traffic blueprints and road sections (which can be aliased to existing 3rd party lofts), but I have only begun to scratch at the surface of this area of "railworking".

Cheers!
Michael

[kin3]

Thanks Micheal I didn't know that. But it does make it hard to test to see if you did everything correctly.

[kin3]

Been trying the above suggestions and things are moving along very nicely now.

This is what I have found;
0. make backups (I do this by using RW_Tools and cloning the route with a different name (eg. "my route" to "my route dec 30). If something goes wrong then delete "my route" and clone "my route dec 30" back to "my route").
1. make sure the roads are all connected up, all red triangles and no rectangular ones.
2. do as suggested above, lay the SR traffic past the end of the road. (so I can find it)
3. raise the traffic loft.
4. place the level crossing
5. lower the traffic loft by using the height adjustment tool (yellow arrows).
6. traffic flows from one end of the road to the other and stops at the level crossings.

Thanks guys for all your help.

[ricksan]

Here are some additional thoughts and considerations.

The maximum continuous length of a traffic controller ribbon is 1024 m. You can extend the ribbon beyond 1024 m, but a red triangle will appear at the previous joint. Red triangles mark a "node" in the loft and red rectangles mark the termination points of a loft. Traffic will appear/disappear at each node and at the termination points. The only way to work around this limitation is to plan your traffic ribbons so the traffic origin points are hidden by scenery.

If you're using a traffic controller overlay, the underlying road doesn't have to be continuous except from a visual standpoint. For instance, in an urban setting you can alternate road lofts with scenery objects representing intersections (That's what I do; I'm not a fan of fixed network objects). The invisible traffic ribbon is where the action is and the cars will continue over both the road lofts and the intersections. Here's an example of a grade crossing at a complex intersection using a traffic overlay.



It's already been pointed out but it's worth mentioning again: the "road" that a level crossing interacts with is the traffic controller loft and that's what the control gizmos should be attached to. Thus, if you're using a traffic controller overlay, the gizmos must be attached to it, not the underlying road.

Traffic generation is indeed random. I haven't been able to make any sense of what's behind it. The spawner has the annoying habit of spitting out several cars one after another, then nothing for a while. Sometimes cars appear going in only one direction. Sometimes nothing happens at all. Sometimes they work perfectly. This is an area that could use improvement so the effect is more or less predictable and consistent.

[Unlimited]

Here are some additional thoughts and considerations.

The maximum continuous length of a traffic controller ribbon is 1024 m. You can extend the ribbon beyond 1024 m, but a red triangle will appear at the previous joint. Red triangles mark a "node" in the loft and red rectangles mark the termination points of a loft. Traffic will appear/disappear at each node and at the termination points. The only way to work around this limitation is to plan your traffic ribbons so the traffic origin points are hidden by scenery.

If you're using a traffic controller overlay, the underlying road doesn't have to be continuous except from a visual standpoint. For instance, in an urban setting you can alternate road lofts with scenery objects representing intersections (That's what I do; I'm not a fan of fixed network objects). The invisible traffic ribbon is where the action is and the cars will continue over both the road lofts and the intersections. Here's an example of a grade crossing at a complex intersection using a traffic overlay.

It's already been pointed out but it's worth mentioning again: the "road" that a level crossing interacts with is the traffic controller loft and that's what the control gizmos should be attached to. Thus, if you're using a traffic controller overlay, the gizmos must be attached to it, not the underlying road.

Traffic generation is indeed random. I haven't been able to make any sense of what's behind it. The spawner has the annoying habit of spitting out several cars one after another, then nothing for a while. Sometimes cars appear going in only one direction. Sometimes nothing happens at all. Sometimes they work perfectly. This is an area that could use improvement so the effect is more or less predictable and consistent.

Cool, did you design the crossing lights?

I figured out also how to do ScaleRail traffic to stop. But to me, i think it would be nice if you could see the loft there so you can overlay the road on top.

[micaelcorleone]

SMM Digital has a very good tutorial on placing these crossing links. Step by step, picture by picture.
Link:http://smmdigital.net/xingmanualonline2.html

[kin3]

SMM Digital has a very good tutorial on placing these crossing links. Step by step, picture by picture.
Link:http://smmdigital.net/xingmanualonline2.html

Putting in the crossings has not been a problem. It's the ScaleRail traffic that causes a problem. All the above are very helpful in doing this.

[micaelcorleone]

Yeah I noticed what your problem was. I just wanted to add this when some other people come across the question how to place the crossings.