Random Loco Malfunction issues?

[Anderson]

So I finally broke down and bought Railworks 3 after being alerted to the fact that a really good pack was on sale during the week this week. I've been playing, and I have noticed that every-so-often, I will have a train just...stop. The emergency brakes trigger, and when I get them turned off and the train starts moving again, the brakes fire again. What's up...is this a bug in the program? And how do I deal with it?

[Hawk]

You didn't say which route or engine you're running, but you're probably dealing with the alerter, also known as the dead man's switch.
You should hear some sort of a sound just before you go into emergency. When you hear that sound, hit the Q key.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Also, since you are referring to a really good pack you perhaps mean the Southern Pacific Donner Pass route you have got in the 'Haulin' USA"deal?

Here in some scenarios the engines have been sabotaged to break down on purpose, probably representing the real SP's conditions of the late 90's. You can do nothing about this, the random breakdowns are part of the fun in completing your scenario with only half the motive power.

[Kali]

Definitely sounds more like an alerter than the random power-down the DP things do. Either that or it's a european route with in-cab signal warnings.

[arizonachris]

I don't know of any US route, well maybe NEC, that has AWS. So it's most likely a random breakdown on either HSC or Donner. If it's a multiple engine lashup, switch to another cab (I forget which keys they are, sorry)

If it's a British or other Euro route, then it's the AWS. Like Hawk said, when you hear the alerter, press Q.

[Hawk]

I don't know of any US route, well maybe NEC, that has AWS.

It's definitely on the NEC. If you do a search on the forums for alerter in the Problems and Peculiarities forum, as well as the General Discussion forum, you'll find a few posts about it.
The G-Trax P42DC and I believe the GG1 both have that issue, as well as - I think - the AEM-7.

[arizonachris]

Interesting. The Genesis on Barstow/ San Bernadino does not have AWS. And I don't have the GG1 yet.

[Hawk]

It may be an issue just on the NEC. I don't know.

[Kali]

AWS is dependent on the signals passing messages, as is the cab signalling. The old signal scripts don't tell the train anything.

Try the Genesis on HSC sometime, those have slightly different scripts but they've still got *some* cab signalling.

[Anderson]

Actually, I was running the Amtrak Southwest Chief mission through Cajon Pass when this happened particularly memorably. And yes, there was a sound before it happened...apparently, they not only wanted to sim Espee's issues, they decided to imitate Warrington's deferred maintenance as well.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

That means the GTrax Amtrak GE P42DC engines, which incidently are some of the finest in the game.

Cajon Pass' tracks that bad at your end? AFAIK the new cabsway/track uneveness parameters aren't even set on the default Barstow-SanBernardino route over Cajon Pass, unless they have indeed been set in the sp1 upgrade? If you only recently acquired the game and some content to go with it, you have the current sp1 version with all the latest bells and whistles.

There is a fix for the very short alerter cycle.

Look here for "Disabling the P42DC Alerter": http://www.gtraxsims.com/support.htm

It is quite easy but perhaps there is a readymade fixed file available? For I believe the LUA file mentioned will be restored by Steam when you verify your game and you have to apply the fix again.

[Kali]

The route updates didn't touch any of the network files, just graphics. The sound is probably the alerter alarm...

[MattW]

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this thread over AWS vs Alerters.
The G-Trax Genesis locomotive has what's called an alerter. Basically, it's an assurance that the engineer isn't incapacitated. The engineer must do something with the controls within I think 2 minutes, or an alarm sounds. The engineer then has I think 30 seconds to do something, or press the reset button (Q in RW's case) or the emergency brakes apply to prevent an out of control train.

The AEM-7 on the NEC however has an overspeed indicator and something that functions like AWS. These have to be explicitly enabled by the user in-game however. The overspeed alarm will trigger emergency braking if the speed of the train is higher than the lowest of the two speeds displayed on the cab signal unit and the brakes haven't been manually applied. The other function will apply emergency brakes if a stop signal is overran much like AWS, however, there isn't a manual acknowledgement approaching a less-than-clear signal like there is on the British routes.

I may have a few of the exact specifics wrong (alerter times), but the gist of these is spot on. I hope this clears up any confusion.

[EDIT] I wasn't completely correct about the AEM-7, but it's a bit long and hard to explain succinctly so I'll just suggest reading the last two sections of the AEM-7 manual, but I will note that it does have an alerter like the Genesis does, but it too must be enabled by the user.

[jamesphh]

Having run most of the scenarios on Donner, I have never had a player train go dead with a random failure. Mostly the random failure is with AI trains and the worst is when the lead engine goes dead. The next AI down the same path appears not to recognise that the block ahead is occupied an crashes into the stalled train ending the scenario.I think this is a failed feature and should be eliminated.

[Kali]

Just for the sake of it, TPWS is the ( english ) SPAD overrun protection; AWS just warns the driver there's a restrictive signal ( but still needs acknowledgement ). You could find AWS on older (50s & later ) routes with semaphores, but nobody seems to have fitted it.

AI should not pass the link0 of a signal with an occupied block ( sadly this is totally independent of the signal scripting ), so yes AI running reds and crashing into other AI is definitely a bug of some sort. The engine "death" is just it deciding not to make any power, not it going dead like ticking the box in the scenario flyout.