Eurostar on LGV Med

When the LGV Med route was first released, the Eurostar trainset was about the only TGV set freely available so for a time it was the mainstay of high-speed trainsimming.

The web•TrainSim roundhouse already had Chris Longhurst's Eurostar and it had some of its cobwebs removed now and then on NEC. The LGV Med was just the route on which to let the Eurostar show its potential - with a few tweaks (see below).

The LGV Med route is now at V2.1B; vist the author's site at perso.wanadoo.fr/lucweb/lgvmed/eng/ for screenshots, route description, FAQs and information about the TGV signalling system.

Eurostar at speed across one of the many viaducts on the LGV Med route

A view of Triangle des Angles from the version 3 Eurostar cab.

Eurostar & cab

05-Nov-03 Update: Gabriel Celeste has repainted Chris Longhurst's Eurostar trainset, eurostar.exe (7.79Mb) with a weathered appearance and the installation now uses sounds by Belphegor; it's available from TrainsimFrance.net. You'll want to take advantage of Kenji Kimura's improved Eurostar cab, Estarcab_V3.zip (2.48Mb, 31-Oct-03) which is a separate download. If you've made changes to your original Eurostar trainset as detailed below (Eurostar refinement), you'll need to backup the ENG files into another folder otherwise they'll be deleted in the installation.

As of 03-May-03, the Eurostar trainset can be downloaded from the Train-sim.com library, eurosta2.zip (1.6Mb, 03-May-03). Although he created this trainset in the early days of MSTS, Chris Longhurst's graphics skills have produced a worthy MSTS model. The zip contains a setup program so extract this to your zip install sub-folder and run it.

Now you need a suitable cab. You'll have read that the TGV rail system has its own signalling system - obviously required by the 300kmh top speed of the trains. So now head to the the Train-Sim.com file library to download Kenji Kimura's version 2 Eurostar cab, eurocab2.zip (2.05Mb, 11-Jun-02), which features the latest TGV in-cab signalling system, TVM430. 05-Nov-03 Update: use Kenji's version 3 cab, Estarcab_V3.zip (2.48Mb, 31-Oct-03), available from TrainsimFrance.net.

web•TrainSim has some time ago changed his Eurostar installation so he can't recall whether or not there's a Cabview folder already created for the Eurostar. If not, create one. If there is an Acela CVF cabview file in this folder, delete it.

To put the Eurocab files into the Eurostar's cabview folder, use the drag and drop method: open eurocab2.zip in a minimised WinZip window and open Explorer at Eurostar\Cabview. Select the files in WinZip and drag them onto the Explorer window to extract them.

While you've got Explorer open, delete any Sound sub-folder under Eurostar - we'll alias to the Acela sounds to save disk space in the Eurostar ENG file in a minute.

Before leaving the Train-sim.com file library, download and install the enhanced electric train sounds by Joseph Realmuto, elecsnds.zip. These sounds give you brake rumble and brake squeal, the former being particularly important when slowing the Eurostar - so much is happening so quickly, you can hear if you've got some brake applicaion.

A more exciting - and noisy - option is to upgrade your Eurostar power cars with Belphegor's TGV sounds: ElecAsync.zip (633kb) from his site at http://belph80001.free.fr/Sound_section/Sons.html. After running his Eurostar with these sounds, web•TrainSim would advise these sounds are a "must-have".

Tuning the Eurostar

We'll be running the European FR trainset which is an 18-passenger car consist, headed and tailed by power cars. This trainset weighs 810 tonnes and has 12200kW power at the rail under the 25kV catenary system. The TGVWeb site has some technical specifications, as well as other relevant information, including a description of how the TVM430 signalling system works.

So get WordPad fired up and load up the Eurostar ENG file, eurostar.eng. The changes you need to make are shown below in red and dotted lines mean you'll need to scroll down the file a few lines.

    ..............
    WheelRadius ( 18in )
    ..............
    DerailRailForce ( 2.5*90t )
    ..............
    Friction (
         540N/m/s     0     1mph     3.82N/m/s     1.86
    ..............
    MaxBrakeForce( 110kN )
    ..............
    Sound ( "..\\..\\Acela\\Sound\\AcelaEng.sms" )
    ..............
    ..............
    MaxPower ( 6100kW )
    MaxForce ( 300kN#est )
    MaxContinuousForce ( 280kN )
    MaxVelocity ( 186mph )
    MaxCurrent ( 2000A )
    WheelRadius ( 18in )
    Sanding ( 15mph )
    NumWheels ( 2 )
    ..............
    CabView ( eurostar.cvf )
    ..............
    ..............
    OverspeedMonitor(
         MonitoringDeviceCriticalLevel( 186 )
    ..............
    Sound ( "..\\..\\Acela\\Sound\\AcelaCab.sms" )
    ..............

Press Save and then we need to edit a couple of values in each WAG file of Eurostar's passenger cars. Here are some suggested changes:

    ..............
    Mass ( 35.0t )
    WheelRadius ( 18in )
    ..............
    DerailRailForce ( 2.5*35t )
    ..............
    Friction (
        465N/m/s     0     1mph     1.15N/m/s     1.86
    ..............
    ..............
    Sound ( "..\\..\\Acela\\Sound\\AcelaWag.sms" )
    ..............

web•TrainSim has run the default LGV Med activities and, allowing for some of the steep grades, has found the above parameters reasonably realistic. After just a couple of runs, he's been only 2 minutes late for Marseilles-Nimes.

The individual mass values may not be correct but they give a total mass of 810 tonne for a Eurostar 18-car trainset, as per the specifications (819,000 kg fully laden).

Still within the boundaries of Marseilles

Eurostar refinement

A further change to the Eurostar trainset to achieve more prototypical performance and behaviour is to convert the R1 car from a WAGon to an ENGine.

The real Eurostar is powered by 12 electric motors, each of 1020kW (1370 hp), four each on the power cars, two on car R1 on the bogie closest to the power car and two on R18, the last car coupled to the trailing power car.

So these are the steps to take to change car R1 from a carriage to a powered carriage and adjust the power value in the original and new ENGine files.

Open Explorer and wend your way down the folder tree until you reach the Eurostar folder, Eurostar.
Rename eurostar_r1.wag to eurostar_r1-wag-orig.bkp
Select eurostar.eng and make a copy of it (use the Copy and Paste commands on Explorer's toolbar is the simplest method or use the right-click popup menu).
Rename Copy of eurostar.eng to eurostar_r1.eng
Start WordPad (or your favourite Unicode text editor) and load eurostar_r1.eng to update some values, as shown in red:

Wagon ( Eurostar_R1
    ..............
    WagonShape ( eurostar_r1.s )
    ..............
    Mass ( 35.0t )
    ..............
    DerailRailForce ( 2.5*35t )
    DerailBufferForce ( 200kN )
    NumWheels ( 4 )
    ..............
    Friction (
        465N/m/s     0     1mph     1.15N/m/s     1.86
    ..............
    ..............
Engine ( Eurostar_R1
    Wagon ( Eurostar_R1 )
    Type ( Electric )
    MaxPower ( 2040kW )
    MaxForce ( 100kN#est )
    MaxContinuousForce ( 90kN#est )
    ..............
    ..............
    ..............
    Name ( "Eurostar_R1" )
    ..............

At this stage, do a Save and scroll back through eurostar_r1.eng until you find the Cabview line - select this line and delete it.
The Lights section is not required so all that section can be deleted. Select all the lines beginning with:

    Lights  ( 9
      Light   (
              comment( Sphere of light )
              Type  ( 1 )

down to the second last bracket before the Engine section, as shown:

    ..............
                 Radius ( 0.40 )
               Elevation ( 0 0 0 )
                     )
                 )
              )
           )
        )

Engine ( Eurostar_R1
    Wagon ( Eurostar_R1 )
    Type ( Electric)
    ..............

After the deletion, you'll have:

    ..............
    BrakeDistributorTrainPipeControlRatio( 2.03 )
    BrakeDistributorNormalFullReleasePressure( 110 )

    Sound ( "..\\..\\Common.Snd\\TGV\\XElecEngTGV.sms" )

Engine ( Eurostar_R1
    Wagon ( Eurostar_R1 )
    Type ( Electric)
    ..............

If you want, you can also delete the Description ( ) and EngineOperatingProcedures ( ) sections.
Save eurostar_r1.eng and load eurostar.eng to make the following adjustments:

    ..............
    MaxPower ( 4080kW )
    MaxForce ( 200kN#est )
    MaxContinuousForce ( 180kN#est )
    ..............

Save and exit WordPad. The final job is to use ConBuilder to edit your Eurostar consists so they use the new R1 powered carriage.

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