Railworks America

Hi everyone,
When playing scenarios on Stevens Pass, I notice that the road crossing gates don't stay down for the entire passage of the train. Is there any way to increase the time,
and if so, which file would I need to modify?
Apologies if this has been answered before.

Cheers, Rob

I believe this is a hardcoded limitation. Someone with more knowledge might be able to confirm or deny.

It is a hard coded limitation. The distance that the grade crossing activates is the same distance AFTER the head end passes that the crossing will deactivate. And, if you wait long enough, you will see the crossing activate again before the tail end of the train passes. For example, on a 1200m train:

- Crossing set to activate 400m from train.
- Crossing deactivates 400m after the first locomotive passes.
- No coverage for next 400m of train.
- Crossing activates again 400m from end of train, stays on through end.

I dont think the Creators are to keen on standing around to watch the entire train go by.

Thanks guys.

Cheers -Rob K

Hi All,
I have started building a freight scenario on the Pacific Surfliner. I have a 35 car freight running from San Diego to Hobart yard. Coming through San Diego I find the crossing
booms stay down the entire time. I even stopped the train over a crossing for 4 minutes and the booms stayed down, bell ringing, and lifted when the train cleared.
Stevens Pass doesn't seem to follow suite. If the crossing time is hard wired at 1 minute or so how do the Pacific Surfliner crossings over ride the code?
Curious.

Rob K

I'd hazard a guess it's because Pacific Surfliner is stand alone, doesn't require the base game, therefore it's "hardwired" code is different.

Hey Guys.

Not to jump too far off topic, but I also had a question about this. What about the RCAP crossing sig's. I want to change the timing distances from 30 second's to about 15 second's or cut the timing down to half. Not sure what files to change or even what files to look for. I know Jerry had a document for this at one time. Could someone assist me?

jmslakings wrote:Hey Guys.

Not to jump too far off topic, but I also had a question about this. What about the RCAP crossing sig's. I want to change the timing distances from 30 second's to about 15 second's or cut the timing down to half. Not sure what files to change or even what files to look for. I know Jerry had a document for this at one time. Could someone assist me?

I had tried looking for that as well. I knew what to look for in TS2013, but when 2014 came out, those files were bundled into something compressed (.ap I believe). Not sure how to mess with it. However, something I just recently noticed was that the Portland Maine and Johnson's Pass routes use signals that have the most perfect sweet-spot on timing. Not too long, not too short, operation is very tight and works more like real life.

Hope that helps.

Many of you apparently don't read a lot of the forum. The .ap file is nothing but a zipped file that can be unzipped with 7zip or winrar or several other unzipping utilities. They just turn into the regular file structure that you are used to working with. These files must be the work of NSA since both Steam and TSC deny any knowledge of why these files are now the standard. In any event we have determined that if you unzip these puppies that RW reads them first (the unzipped files) then looks at the .ap. The only thing to be aware of is a verify or a update might well make any changes that you make go back to the default.

For the RCAP (and the Kuju) xing signals, the timing is in the first few lines of the signal LUA. Sorry I can't be more specific as it's been a couple of years since I looked at the code.

buzz456 wrote:Many of you apparently don't read a lot of the forum. The .ap file is nothing but a zipped file that can be unzipped with 7zip or winrar or several other unzipping utilities. They just turn into the regular file structure that you are used to working with. These files must be the work of NSA since both Steam and TSC deny any knowledge of why these files are now the standard. In any event we have determined that if you unzip these puppies that RW reads them first (the unzipped files) then looks at the .ap. The only thing to be aware of is a verify or a update might well make any changes that you make go back to the default.

BTW, on my last post I meant "Steven's Pass" not Johnson's Pass, sorry.

I had been following that thread for a while. On the original TS from Micro$oft, I had found where that file was to adjust the signal timing. Once I had found it on TS2013, I had put off making the adjustment (just too pre-occupied with other things), and when TS2014 rolled out with that odd .ap file arrangement, well, to me, the one thing that kept me from making any adjustment was any verification restoring things back to the original setting.

I had noticed that some of the test edits I did (just playing with adding a crossing grade to see how it works) that eventually the changes vanished and went back to the original way the grade crossing looked. When it was on a disk, I knew what would happen - when it's downloaded from Steam, and Steam wants to "fix" something it found that didn't match what it sent you, well, that made me a bit hesitant to edit anything.

I'm assuming now that any route that I'd like to edit would have to be cloned in order to keep any changes I'd edit into the route since Steam will want to roll things back to "normal" any time a verification is done, correct?

In any event, the original poster wanted to know how to edit the timing and where the file was. My suggestion was obtaining Steven's Pass, then import those signals and use them instead, since they already seem to have the correct timing that the OP was looking for.

Zayphod wrote:I'm assuming now that any route that I'd like to edit would have to be cloned in order to keep any changes I'd edit into the route since Steam will want to roll things back to "normal" any time a verification is done, correct?

No. You just have to reapply your changes (e.g. copy your modified file again).
It is easy to use a script so that all your changes are reapplied in two clicks.