Planning some mods inspired by Stevens Pass

[dtrainBNSF1]

Hello all!

I finally got Stevens Pass back in May and I have to say that I was pretty pleased with the stock that came with the route. Most of the cars came with loaded and unloaded versions which made creating more realistic scenarios (figuring ToB, HpT, trailing tonnage etc.) MUCH easier. However I think that spoiled me for previous routes and their stock.

I've been poking around in the files for the stock in Marias Pass (accompanied by the Dev Docs to interpret what's going on) to figure the weight of the cars. I now have an idea as to what I think I could do...

My plan is to make a copy of the stock that came with Marias Pass. I plan on taking the weights listed on the sides of the cars and based on those create loaded/unloaded versions of the non-interacting stock (boxcars, reefers, etc.). For the interacting cars (bulkhead flatcars, coal hoppers, etc.) I plan to adjust their empty weights and their capacity figures, again based on the numbers printed on the sides of the cars (sure there's some conversions like pounds-tons, kilo-tons but with a calculator you can do anything). I know for intermodal well cars that per container there's something like a 60,000-pound limit per container. Don't know for trailers... The tank cars with Marias Pass are technically interactive, but that doesn't make sense because no industry in TS2014 interacts with tank cars, so I'll remove the capacity line and adjust the mass accordingly for loaded/unloaded versions.

So as not to interrupt operations on everybody else's copies of Marias Pass, I plan on releasing this in a way that they can operate without overwriting the original files from then-RSC. The cars would probably be in the same railvehicles folder but under different names so as not to overwrite what's already there. Theoretically they should work being located in the same asset folder.

Now before starting this project, I have to ask:
-Does anybody else think this is a good idea or am I just crazy?
-Has anybody already done this? (Haven't been in the forum for too long so I'm not quite up with the times)
-What unit of measure (ton, kilo, etc.) are used in the cars' files? The dev docs say that the mass is in kilos and the capacity is in pounds, but I find that doubtful because in my findings some of the numbers for capacity have been as low as 20 or so and I know based on testing that clicking that "load" button adds some mass to those cars, more than pounds would do anyway.

Any and all help/advice is welcome!

[Kali]

Blueprint figures are generally metric, although I've not set up loads I suspect they're in tonnes too. I've been away a while & forgotten a lot.

Don't forget to adjust the brakes - from general catalogues/braking docs for US stock the upper end is ~14% of total mass ( I forget if US stock auto-adjusts for load, I suspect so though ).

Vehicle load is vehicle load, no reason you couldn't load tanks like anything else.

[dtrainBNSF1]

I can see what you mean about the tanks. I guess I'll let 'em be.

There are some cars (reefers, autorack) where I can't find the weight printed on the side. So for those I'll refer to the BNSF customers page - they have diagrams of their equipment. (except doublestacks and trailer flats)

[thebigroyboyski]

There is a list of converted car weights on the site somewhere if you do a search.
There is a feature to change the weight in RWTools which saves a lot of time.
You will notice a difference when you change them

[dtrainBNSF1]

I just got done doing them manually. I can tell the difference, especially when stopping (after adjusting the brakes a bit). For testing I took a 11449.2-ton coal train over the west side of Marias Pass with 4 Gevos. It went up and over easy enough but it took me FOREVER to bring the train to a stop.

The braking change I've made is the percent of total mass in the brakes. Initially all of the cars were set to 70. Looking at BNSF's site, the percentage in most empty cars was around 25. Loaded ones (especially heavier cars) went down to 8.

Fun times all around

Anybody want to give 'em a try?

[thebigroyboyski]

Yeah
I never got round to modding the newer stock, just the original kuju stuff.

[dtrainBNSF1]

Okay. How do I go about sending them to you?

[thebigroyboyski]

Just post them on here then anyone can use them
Or upload them to the file library.

[dtrainBNSF1]

Just now uploading them to the file library. May take a while because it's the whole Freight file from Marias Pass.