Sherman Hill Activities - Impressive and Disappointing

[dcushing]

I have spent the weekend completing the six basic activites for Sherman Hill and I'm very impressed, and only slightly diasppointed. First I'm impressed because they all worked, 100%, right out of the box. The AI's all ran as they were supposed to. The weather, well it was so rough I thought I was headed for Gilligan's Island at a couple of points. The special effects in the night activity, especially the burning car were nicely done. The added story lines were well done and not at all over done. And the route itself is just about perfect.

To most others I'm sure my diasppointments will seem petty, and I admit they probably are, and I admit the guys across the pond did a very good job, but coil cars do not carry fuel, and have no business in a fertilizer plant (Wycon) and Wood chip hoppers do not carry gravel or ballast. Track one should be used for most eastbound runs with track three being westbound and track two bi-directional only as required. I also wish they had inclueded an activity using track three between Laramie and Hermosa.

Now I just gotta figure out how that Relay thing works.

Duncan

[buzz456]

Duncan,
If that's the most serious thing you can find wrong they done pretty good.

[ozinoz]

After a fairly painless update and install process, I am currently working through the one with the Summer Storms (about half way). So far I have gone from Laramie to Hermosa in Notch 1 - really would have thought it would have taken a little more effort than that, as well as taking off like a greyhound from Laramie

Am a little disappointed that this Summer Storm weather is only available for use in this one scenerio, which is a shame as I was looking forward to tackling SH with a 4000 and 50-60 cars on. Oh well. All in all I am impressed though - it certainly looks nice and I like the "high desert" feel.





G

[Chacal]

Am a little disappointed that this Summer Storm weather is only available for use in this one scenerio

Why can't you use it in a different scenario? Just change it with the RW scenario editor, or the one in RW_Tools.
EDIT: Never mind, I just read the post that explains it.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

But you can swap the player train for a consist of your own choice, can you?

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

I have swapped the container train for a long employee excursion train: 2 Challengers, 2 auxilary tenders, 1 SD40, 1 tool car, 25 passenger cars.
Looks mighty fine on home rails! Challengers need some visual tuning, a projecting headlight and more black smoke because they are oil fired. Perhaps the dynamic smoke scripts do not work correctly anymore. Also the dynamic and positional sound mixer has problems keeping all the sounds apart and clearly defined, there is a n ugly attenuation effect. So much has changed in TS2013
Was hoping for the same bad weather but didn't make it that far due to some collision near Dale Jct. Since there is no advance signal indication in the F3 HUD anymore one must drive steam in "2" head out view and really observe the signals and speed signs along the track. Didn't pay enough attention as to exactly what had happened and clicked the window away too early also. So must try that run again and not spoil it this time.
My second run made it safely into Cheyenne, but no thunderstorm fell over me. Perhaps swapping all that rolling stock using both RW_Tools and the scenario editor messes paths, events and timings up invisibly? Perhaps the thunder and lightning events are really linked to the original #6 scenario and not enabled in my copy?

Would somebody else with more scenario debugging experience have a go?
Here is a rwp package: http://www.mediafire.com/?s1xux0bse0m1qfj
You need the Steam DLC Challenger Pack and the UP auxilary tenders from here: http://www.trainsim.com/kdl.php?fid=28160 (login for trainsim.com required)
There is no info page on trainsim.com, but you can search for this text: DSGDDR.

First, install the package using utilities.exe from your railworks folder in the ordinary fashion.
Then start TS2013, go back to the Main Menu, choose Single Player, Sherman Hill and Standard Scenario. It should be listed as #7 Employee Excursion Challenged.
Best put the Automatic Fireman on the first time.

There is indeed a challenge, as mixed traction apparently prevents you from moving the reverser whilst the throttle is engaged.
Neither keyboard, nor HUD nor cab control allows you to adjust the cutoff on the Challenger whilst the throttle isn't reduced to 0%.
So once out of Laramie, I leave the cutoff at 20% and run the train by throttle alone.
Perhaps shutting the SD40 helper down using some scenario trick disengages it from the chain of command, otherwise remove the Diesel completely.

Didn't risk to alter the path from Laramie's house track to Cheyenne platform track, since there is lots of opposing AI crossing the player train's path.
That is for the next challenge.

[TDHenderson]

There are quite a few threads going on the SH route. Hope you don't mind that I put this in here.

Not sure where the heck I saw this originally, but here is a link to a nice chart for the Laramie to Cheyenne segment of the UP mainline.

http://www.fogchart.com/Down/Beta/LARAMIE02.pdf

Trevor

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Thanks, Trevor for these maps.

From another map I learned the coloured grade lines mean:
green - throttle modulation
yellow - dynamic braking
red - automatic braking = air?
blue - dynamic and automatic braking.

These charts or maps learn engineers how to conserve fuel etc.
Mojave with its steep grades is interesting.
Now have to find Cajon Pass, but that is BNSF with UP trackage rights, right.

Anyway the maps and milepost with detector locations help me decipher railroadradio.net Lancaster, CA's scanner I am currently listening to. It has often Mojave/Bakersfield transmissions on.

[hertsbob]

a link to a nice chart for the Laramie to Cheyenne segment of the UP mainline.
http://www.fogchart.com/Down/Beta/LARAMIE02.pdf
Trevor

Great link. Thanks for that.
I spent hours pouring over those very diagrams earlier on this year and having never seen anything like them in colour I never figured out why they had east and westbound versions. Now I know.

Cheers

Bob

[OldProf]

Regarding the thunder storm weather option, this isn't the first of its kind for RSC. As early as the first version of RS, there was a rain option (don't remember the exact label) in which weather alternated between cloudy and rather heavy rain, with several variations in between. Sometime during the last few days, I stumbled on a video previewing that stormy scenario for the Sherman Hill route that included lightning bolts and some bodacious thunder claps, but I didn't experience either of those effects during the scenario. RSC should be ashamed of themselves for such deception.

[OldProf]

On a slightly different note, I'm really intrigued by the fact that it is now possible to choose which engine to drive in a standard scenario without having to clone and edit. That will make for some interesting experiments!