Altenburg to Wildau questions

[OldProf]

I installed the Altenburg to Wildau route a couple of days ago and want to pose a couple of questions about it.

1) After installation, I wanted to check the route and its scenarios in RW_Tools. In the "Check Routes and Scenarios" area, the name of this route appears as "Barstow to San Bernardino" even though the route number is different, and the scenario list for B to SB appears for both entries, making it impossible to check the route for errors. In the "Scenario Editor", on the other hand, the A to W route's name appears correctly, along with its scenarios. (The route and its scenarios open as they should in RW3 for running or editing.)

2) So far, I've tried several scenarios, finding them all impossible to complete. For example, the first Standard Scenario, titled "Delivering Gravel to Wildau", is timetabled and involves working a freight train through passenger traffic at several points. Right from the first instruction, the arrival/departure times are impossible to meet. The player train begins its run just beyond a passenger track marker, where it has to stop while two other trains leave the station area. This is a very heavy freight train that cannot possibly reach the marked siding by its scheduled arrival time; once stopped at the marker, the train does not receive a green signal until more than two minutes after its scheduled departure time. The train's second destination is even more impossible. Again, it is absolutely impossible to reach the destination marker, where the freight is supposed to wait for a passenger train again, by the scheduled time while driving within the speed limit. The passenger train arrives well before the freight and picks up passengers. As the passenger train starts to leave the station, the automatic switch it is approaching changes and the player freight is routed directly into the path of the departing passenger train! I also tried the "Wood Service St. Rudolph" scenario and again encountered an impossible timetable. Here, also, the player is driving a freight train that has to work its way through several passenger trains. The run is barely possible through the first three quarters of the scenario, but the last meeting is impossible to complete and the scenario fails. I tried editing the times of the "Gravel" scenario, but could not manage to adjust all of the AI-player meets successfully.

I'd like to hear from others who have installed this route and have attempted to check it with RW_Tools and play its scenarios.

Tom Pallen

[dick8299]

Here is a post about Alenburg and RW_Tools:

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... ot+showing

[Griphos]

Yep, you have to use serz.exe to fix the route properties so it will show correctly in RW_Tools. The link above will fix you up with how to do that.

As for the scenarios, I've stopped running this route, as lovely as it is, and may remove it, because you can't run the included scenarios (at least that I've tried...repeatedly) successfully. I've corresponded with SAD about it, and he admits he's not a scenario writer. :-) There are freeware scenarios from DWagency, but all of them require dozens of freeware asset downloads, and sometimes payware downloads as well. I've gotten a couple of them, and many of them use many of the same freeware assets, so it's doable to get a set of workable scenarios for the route, but it's some work. It is a lovely route.

[OldProf]

Thanks, folks! I can now check the route in RW_Tools.

As to the scenarios, I may try to rework some of them myself to make the timings achievable.

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

Hey Tom. If you wind up doing that, I hope you'll share. :-)

[OldProf]

Hey Tom. If you wind up doing that, I hope you'll share. :-)

You can bet on it! But I'll practically have to start from scratch in the sense that all timetabled items will have to be eliminated or changed and all AI traffic will have to be re-timed. Right now, I'm very busy finishing up two challenging new scenarios for the HSC route, which I hope to upload soon ... and I do like to reserve some time just to enjoy running other people's scenarios!

Tom Pallen

[Griphos]

:-) That sounds reasonable. :-) Looking forward to the HSC scenarios too.

[Chacal]

It might be easier to directly modify the scenario xml file than to use the Railworks scenario editor.

[OldProf]

It might be easier to directly modify the scenario xml file than to use the Railworks scenario editor.

Maybe for you, but decidedly not for me! The editor suits me much better, perhaps just because I can see what I'm doing, step by step. Actually, I already have the "Gravel" scenario running as it should and have partially worked out the "Rudolph Wood" scenario. No offense to SAD, but I find myself rewriting a lot of his "English" instructions, too.

Tom Pallen

[Chacal]

To be honest, I have this problem with a lot of DLC scenarios.
It is usually a language problem, many authors not being English-speakers, and I'm thinking of offering a free editing service.
Same goes for the readme.txt files that come with DLC - being good at asset or route creation doesn't mean you're good at technical writing.

[Machinist]

It might be easier to directly modify the scenario xml file than to use the Railworks scenario editor.

That's a good idea I'll try further. I just modified the start time of a NEC scenario with almost 50 consists, and was very hard. So far RW_Tools isn't working for this feature (change start time to all consists), but I can use RW_Tools to edit the xml to change start time in batches.

[OldProf]

I found time to do some work on the Altenburg to Wildau scenarios yesterday, particularly "Gravel" and "Wood", and quickly discovered that these are simply long freight runs from one end of the route to the other. As I've noted before, they are unplayable due to AI traffic that cannot be fixed simply. Rather than wasting a lot of time trying to make these playable, I think that I will try writing at least one new scenario for the route, which will, no doubt, involve switching and perhaps loading and unloading as well.

Could someone provide a website address for the payware version of this route? I've visited the site previously, but did not bookmark it.

Thanks,

[JackD]

Tom,

URL for Altenburg-Wildau is: http://rail-sim.de/railsimnew/index.php ... 1-strecken

It's 5th download down ( I think).

[ex-railwayman]

Could someone provide a website address for the payware version of this route? I've visited the site previously, but did not bookmark it.
Thanks,

Hello Tom,

The payware section of the route is called Koeblitzer Mountain Route and can be found for sale on here - http://en.shop.aerosoft.com/eshop.php?a ... ge=english

I don't know the currency exchange to US Dollars from Euros, sorry......

Siegfried's Blog URL is here, if you want to save it for future reference - http://sad-railworks.blogspot.com/

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

[OldProf]

Hello Tom,

The payware section of the route is called Koeblitzer Mountain Route and can be found for sale on here - http://en.shop.aerosoft.com/eshop.php?a ... ge=english

I don't know the currency exchange to US Dollars from Euros, sorry......

Siegfried's Blog URL is here, if you want to save it for future reference - http://sad-railworks.blogspot.com/

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.[/quote]

Thanks! Since I live in Italy part of the year, I'm all too familiar with the dollar-euro exchange rate. The download version of Koeblitzer costs 20,97 euro which, at the current rate, comes out to $27.47 (that's without the 19% VAT, which we Americans don't have the privilege of paying. I'll see what my spare change pile looks like after acquiring the Woodhead Line from RSC, which is due out today or tomorrow.