Freight cars/wagons, loaders and their loads

[OldProf]

While writing switching scenarios, I sometimes run into the problem of matching loadable freight cars such as hoppers and gondolas to loaders. I'm pretty sure that each interactive loader or un-loader is designed to handle a particular commodity and that the same goes for each loadable car. But where in the car's or loader's code can this information be found? Once someone tells me how to find this information, I'll start putting together a table of cars, loads, and loaders that should be of general use to scenario writers.

Thanks!

[GreatNortherner]

Hi Tom,

The cargo situation in RW is probably (and unfortunately?) a lot simpler than what you may expect. There are basically only two types of cargo, one that has a child object as cargo added and one that does not. Well, and then there are of course cars that don't have an interactive cargo option at all (either because they're very old or because the developer has supplied separate MT and LD versions for improved weight/braking physics).

Any car that has the cargo child object can be loaded at any container crane style transfer point. The cargo object is set up in these lines below -- these control what object gets loaded when you tick the "cargo" checkbox in the scenario editor. Using a container crane in play mode will however override this, so in the example below this "logload" flatcar would also receive a container if you load it with a Kuju container crane.

Code: Select all

               <CargoBlueprintID>
                  <iBlueprintLibrary-cAbsoluteBlueprintID>
                     <BlueprintSetID>
                        <iBlueprintLibrary-cBlueprintSetID>
                           <Provider d:type="cDeltaString">GreatNortherner</Provider>
                           <Product d:type="cDeltaString">SteamEra</Product>
                        </iBlueprintLibrary-cBlueprintSetID>
                     </BlueprintSetID>
                     <BlueprintID d:type="cDeltaString">RailVehicles\Freight\Loads\41ft-flat-logload.xml</BlueprintID>
                  </iBlueprintLibrary-cAbsoluteBlueprintID>
               </CargoBlueprintID>

The other type of cargo setup is mainly for open top cars that have an animated, fillable cargo. In that case the <CargoBlueprintID> section is typically left blank and the cargo that shows up when ticking the checkbox in the editor AND when using any bulk freight transfer point (coal loader etc.) will always be the animated object the car has built-in (coal load in a coal hopper for example.)

Cheers
Michael