Creating paths in the Activity Editor

Here's web•TrainSim's method to create new paths which he wants to later use in activities he'll create one day. These paths are to provide passenger services, so for variety there needs to be several.

Note you shouldn't be making paths without first working out how your trains will use the route in question (e.g., what are the arrival and destination platforms?). Rather than just looking at paths for an activity you want to create now, consider ideas for paths that will make the whole route a working rail system.

For further thoughts - after more experience with LGV Med, NEC 2 and NEC 4 - see Documentation for webDotTrainSim's NEC 2 Activities and Documentation for webDotTrainSim's LGV Med Activities.

• Open AE, click on File/New, select a route and when asked to name the new activity, call it junk, or something you choose as a name - you won't be saving this activity so don't fret over a name.
• For Player Service, click on New. Fill in names, staying with junk.
• The Service editor window opens.
• You don't have to choose a consist so skip over this.
• In the Path section, click on New.
• Before getting to this stage, you should have worked out your system for using meaningful names for your paths. If you haven't, quit now and get to work with paper and pen. See below, Using a system, for some ideas. Otherwise, continue. Be careful naming your path. web•TrainSim has lost a couple of paths because the Path editor won't tell you that you've already got a path by the same name.
• You'll need to enter the path's file name and display name, so use copy and paste to save some typing, but more importantly, you know you will have used the same names.
• Click on the Mouse checkbox at the bottom left of the Path editor to help you keep track of where you're up to (placing the mouse over a green dot on your path results in the next section of your path being highlighted in red).
• Create your path. To do this job with the long-term in mind, you'll need to refer to your paper-and-pen sketch, or route schematic if there is one, to know where to switch from one track to another (e.g., when double tracks expand to triple or quad tracks for fast-slow trains, and which track you need to be on so you can call at a platform). In other words, you'll have to decide on which tracks you want your express, slow local stop-at-all-stations and freight trains to run.
• You could keep creating paths as long as you click on New but web•TrainSim prefers to just do one at a time to avoid being confused by AE's colouring system of the tracks. In the Path Editor, you'll note that AE has designated this path as player drivable for you. That means it will appear in Explore mode of a route.
• When you've finished your path, click Leave path editor.
• The Service Editor window re-opens. Click Cancel to close this window.
• Now you can start again to make another new junk player service and so, another path. Remember to be careful about naming this new path.

Using a system

web•TrainSim has been using the method described above to create paths that he's planning to use in various passenger train activities. One advantage of this method is that you're not thinking about two things at once: what's going to happen in your activity and the paths you need for various trains. Well, that's the theory anyway.

It just happened that web•TrainSim began making paths on Modern England because he'd started creating an activity on that route as a try-and-see exercise. Being away from his computer at one stage, he saw he could do some planning work with paper-and-pen. Similar planning will be applied to paths for the LGV Med and the NEC.

The first job was to go through the route in AE and sketch on paper the location and type of all crossovers and points, marking in the mileposts for reference. For other routes which have a schematic map, you can print it and make any notes as you go. Newmaps.zip (400kb, 12-Jan-02) from the Train-sim.com library is a PDF doc of all the default routes.

The next step was to find some little cards (5cm x 12cm) web•TrainSim had been collecting for ages, wondering when he'd find a use for them... now he has. Looking at a rough route map, ideas about what train services would run started to surface. So the following information for each path over which a service would run was jotted down, one path per card:

• name of the path. To simplify naming a path but at the same time giving some information about it, station names were abbreviated to two letters. So on Modern England, Manchester to King's Cross becomes:
• MN-->KX
• LCL denotes a stop-all-stations passenger service, EXP a fast express service between two major centres.
• the name of the path in AE reflects the above information. For example, a high-speed path for a train from Manchester to King's Cross is named:
• wDTS-MN-KX-exp (this name is used both for the Path name and Path display name)
• a stop-all-stations, local type path would be named (for both the path name and path display name):
• wDTS-MN-WT-MW-OJ-OX-lcl, taken from a card headed:
• MN-->WT-->MW-->OJ-->OX, denoted as LCL.
• since none of these paths are in an activity yet, you can later edit the names of path files (in a route's Paths sub-folder) in Explorer (e.g., you didn't properly use your own naming convention!); if you want to change the path's display name, use the Edit button on a selected path in the Player service window.
• space to jot in the departure and destination platform numbers. After creating the path in AE, these numbers can be filled in.
• length of the trip and time taken. These values are not critical but later, when designing an activity, AI traffic can use this path, and knowing times will help set up traffic meets to keep the driver alert.
• the platforms along the path at which the train will stop, or may stop, to load passengers. About one-third of the card's space contains this via info, listing the abbreviated names of platforms along the path.

The next task is to then mark the start point on the route in AE. Because AE chooses the path of least resistance, to use Rich Garber's expression, you'll need to follow the path to ensure your train is on a track so the driver can stop to pick up passengers at a platform. So here and there you'll need to change tracks - this is where your sketch and milepost information of crossovers and points comes in useful. There's plenty of zooming in/out and scrolling around during this stage of proceedings.

If you're familiar with NEC or Modern England, you'll know there are route sections with triple or quad tracks - slow and fast, up and down. So depending on whether the path is for a high-speed or local stop-all-stations service, you'll want to have your train use the appropriate track. You should have a long-term view in mind when deciding on paths and your planning and organising with paper-and-pen will pay off at this stage.

When you think you've got a driver path set up, you can do a test in Explore mode. Sadly, not all paths work in practice, so be prepared for some trial and error and occasions when it's back to the drawing board. Not only can things not work out as planned due to some idiosyncratic behaviour from AE (including a balloon loop in a path seems to be one example), but also, the original route designer may not have had in mind some paths you'd like to create (some points/switches/turnouts may be automatic, others manual). In a word, patience.

A note about naming services: web•TrainSim has been trying to put as much information as possible into the name of a new service. However, it's impossible to include everything (such as the path). So web•TrainSim's services are named this way:

wDTS-KX-MN-HST-Servicen

to denote service number n for the King's Cross to Manchester high-speed activity. All traffic services using the same consist (e.g., Pendolino) will be a particular service number (e.g., Service2, Service2a, Service2b, ...).

web•TrainSim has found the only way to fully identify each type of service is to draw up a table on paper or in a spreadsheet, using headings Service number, Path name, departure time, and platform/siding from/to. web•TrainSim is using HTML tables - see the services used for the King's Cross - Manchester HST and Manchester - King's Cross HST activities as examples.

Some tips

Consequences of changing player start time

If for one reason or another you change the player's start time, it's a good idea to get the AE to recalculate the player's train timetable.

• In the player frame on the right, click Edit timetable
• The timetable window pops up, showing the stations at which your train will be stopping to pick up passenger.
• Click Recalculate this and AE will churn away for a little bit, depending on how many timeabled stops there are, eventually showing new times or the old original ones if you're just checking.
• If you've already got services for traffic, you'll need to change start times for each of these. So select your traffic pattern and click on Edit to bring up the Traffic Pattern window.
• At the time of writing, web•TrainSim has right-clicked on each service listed and changed the start time.
• After each service's start time has been adjusted, choose each service again (left-click this time) to bring up the service's timetable window and click on Recalculate this to get AE to do its work.

Now all the times should be adjusted according to your new player's start time. There has been an occasion when recalculating the player's traffic timetable that a non-sensical start time appeared in the timetable - web•TrainSim has no idea why!