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Last Updated 26-Apr-2003

FGW Class 180 Adelante

Several Train Operating Companies (TOCs) in the U.K. and elsewhere have ordered, or are ordering, new trainsets that incorporate underfloor motive power in each car in the set. Virgin Trains' Voyagers use a Cummins diesel to power an alternator on each car to drive electric motors on two axles. Other trainsets also use a Cummins diesel or equivalent with hydraulic drive to two axles per car. The Class 180 Adelante run by First Great Wester is one such trainset.

In MSTS, the Kuju trainset with hydraulic drive is the only example to work from and its hydraulic drive is a manual version. The newer trainsets such as the Adelante have automatic hydraulic drive, usually with three gears, developed by Voith Turbo.

web•TrainSim's first attempt at making automatic hydraulic drives work in MSTS was with the Countrylink Explorer and Endeavour - he'll return to these for more work at a later date.

In first place it must be said that MSTS does not at all well simulate the behaviour of hydraulic driven cars. It seems to completely ignore MaxPower, MaxForce and MaxContinuousForce values and rather only take notice of the values given in GearBoxMaxSpeedForGears and GearBoxMaxTractiveForceForGears. You can read more about this in Rudolf Richter's Manual for .eng- and .wag-files of the MS Train Simulator available Australian Add-ons to MSTS.

What was most annoying for web•TrainSim was the lack of synch between the the gear changes and the cab sounds when authors used the Kuju default sounds in their own creations. It wasn't until Edouard Staniczek's EAD serie 4750 SNCF version 2 with sounds by Belphegor (x4750v2.zip, 13.6Mb ,08-Apr-03, from Train-sim.com)was added to the roundhouse that possibilities came to mind - it was time to have a look at how Belphegor developed his sounds for hydraulic driven trainsets.

The X4750's sounds were first tried but they weren't quite right and a look at Belphegor's site (in the archives section from memory) there were two possibilities: AutoRail and AutoRail2; the latter was settled on because the readme indicated the sounds were linked to the train's speed (a bit of guesswork using web•TrainSim's school-times French!).


The ENG files

There are three ENGine files for the Class 180: Class180.eng (with cabview), 180coachfirst.eng and 180coach.eng. A typical 5-car consist is made up of Class180.eng, 180coachfirst.eng, 180coach.eng, 180coach.eng and Class180.eng. Each of these files has been edited below according to what's found in the default Kuju ENGine file but with adjustments to various values according to the Voith data documents and an eye on being able to drive the Class 180 with the Raildriver control.

When looking at the Countrylink Endeavour and Explorer some months ago, web•TrainSim discovered Voith have a comprehensive set of detailed documents which descibe graphically how their drives work. Each drive's graph shows the tractive effort (force) against speed so it's these values which web•TrainSim has used in GearBoxMaxSpeedForGears and GearBoxMaxTractiveForceForGears. At Voith's railcar page there's quite a list of specs for trainsets including the U.K. Class 170s and Class 175s and the DB 640 light railcars.

Load the ENGine files into WordPad or your favourite Unicode text editor or the MSTS Tree Editor (use text mode), scroll down into the Wagon section after Lights so you can see the section beginning with EngineBrakesControllerMinPressureReduction. The Class 180 only has Train brakes so you can delete all lines in this section referring to EngineBrakes and end up with:

    ..............
   TrainBrakesControllerMinPressureReduction( 6 )
   TrainBrakesControllerMaxApplicationRate( 10 )
   TrainBrakesControllerMaxReleaseRate( 4 )
   TrainBrakesControllerEmergencyApplicationRate( 50 )
   TrainBrakesControllerMinSystemPressure( 0 )
   TrainBrakesControllerMaxSystemPressure( 90 )
   TrainBrakesControllerEmergencyBrakeTimePenalty( 0 )
   TrainBrakesControllerFullServicePressureDrop( 26 )
    ..............

A few lines down you'll see:

    ..............
   DieselEngineIdleRPM( 115 )
    ..............

Presently web•TrainSim is using values from the X4750:

    ..............
   DieselEngineIdleRPM( 1 )
   DieselEngineStallRPM( 500 )
   DieselEngineMaxRPM( 1550 )
   DieselEngineSpeedOfMaxTractiveEffort( 13mph )
   DieselEngineMaxRPMChangeRate( 250 )

Directly after these lines is where we add the code for our hydraulic drive parameters:

    
   DieselEngineType( hydraulic )

   GearBoxNumberOfGears( 3 )
   GearBoxDirectDriveGear( 3 )
   GearBoxMaxSpeedForGears( 60 90 125 )
   Comment ( Assumed that above speeds must be in mph )
   GearBoxMaxTractiveForceForGears( 250000N 60000N 40000N )
   GearBoxOverspeedPercentageForFailure( 10 )
   GearBoxBackLoadForce( 4500 )
   GearBoxCoastingForce( 20000 )
   GearBoxUpGearProportion( 0.75 )
   GearBoxDownGearProportion( 0.35 )
   GearBoxOperation( automatic )
   GearBoxEngineBraking( direct_drive )

   DoesHornTriggerBell( 0 )
    ..............

Further down we need to find the EngineControllers section - the following lines are to be inserted instead:

    ..............
   EngineControllers (
     Throttle ( 0 1 0.2 0 
       NumNotches ( 6 
         Notch ( 0         0 Dummy )
         Notch ( 0.20      0 Dummy )
         Notch ( 0.40      0 Dummy )
         Notch ( 0.60      0 Dummy )
         Notch ( 0.80      0 Dummy )
         Notch ( 1         0 Dummy )
         )
     )
     Brake_Train ( 0 1 0.0125 0.75 
       NumNotches ( 5
         Notch ( 0    0 TrainBrakesControllerReleaseStart )
         Notch ( 0.3  1 TrainBrakesControllerGraduatedSelfLapLimitedStart )
         Notch ( 0.85 0 TrainBrakesControllerSuppressionStart )
         Notch ( 0.9  0 TrainBrakesControllerContinuousServiceStart )
         Notch ( 0.95 0 TrainBrakesControllerEmergencyStart )
       )
     )
    ..............

The changes above need to be made to each ENGine file. So save the files, have a breather and we'll do the next bit, the sounds.


Sounds

Download AutoRail2.zip (417kb) from Belphegor's site and install these to a sub-folder named AutoRail2 under Common.Snd (we'll probably find another trainset to use them with). You may as well download AutoRail.zip (576kb) too.

In the AutoRail2 SMS files, there are a few places where the WAVs haven't been correctly aliased to those default GP38-2 sounds that are also used. You'll need to open XAutocab.sms and XAustoeng.sms in WordPad or MSTS Tree Editor (use text mode) or you favourite Unicde text editor to prefix those WAVs with ../../Gp38/Sound/, just as Belphegor has done (except for some he's missed).

Then it's back to the ENGine files to insert the new SMS file names. In each ENG file, find the two Sound lines, one after the Lights section, the other just before the Description section.

    ..............
   )
   Sound ( "..\\..\\Common.Snd\\AutoRail2\\XAutoeng.sms" )
)

Engine ( Class180
    ..............
   EngineVariables ( 500 )
   Sound ( "..\\..\\Common.Snd\\AutoRail2\\XAutocab.sms" )
   Name ( "FGW Class 180" )
    ..............

Save each ENGine file, use ConBuilder to test each if you've got any doubts and then it's time to give the Adelante a run.


Cab

At Spotted Robe we cross a waiting eastbound freight.

web•TrainSim has got to do this job humself but he's decided to use the Class 220 Voyager cab instead of the Acela after looking at a cab photo from a train magazine. This cab mightn't be perfect but it's closer to the prototypical than the Acela's!

If you've installed the Virgin Voyager trainset, voyager.zip (7.1Mb, 15-Jun-02), available either from Train-sim or UK Trainsim, you're ok. Otherwise the Voyager cab is available as a separate download, voyagercab.zip (4.2Mb, 12-Jun-02), from UK Trainsim.

Under your Common.Cab folder, create a new sub-folder - web•TrainSim named his Class220 - and copy all the files from the Voyager's Cabview folder into this new folder.

In the Class220 sub-folder, rename the CVF file to Class220.cvf so it's easy to recognise and remember. Then load this CVF into WordPad or your favourite Unicode editor to prefix the graphics ACE files with the path, ..\\..\\Common.Cab\\Class220\\ so MSTS can find them.

Finally go back to Class180.eng, find the CabView line and change it to:

    ..............
   CabView ( "..\\..\\Common.Cab\\Class220\\Class220.cvf" )
    ..............


Other jobs, observations

These are some of the jobs to be done:

  • the cabview file needs editing to correctly display the current power setting (it's stuck on "4");
  • GearBoxCoastingForce is one parameter that seems to do little (perhaps) and web•TrainSim wonders if it can be linked to the retardation feature that Voith refers to in their docs; a realistic value for GearBoxCoastingForce to get it to work is another thing;
  • it's interesting that with the current settings, 60% throttle gives the Adelante a maximum speed of 73 mph or so and 80% sets the speed to about 96 mph;
  • the Voith docs specify the T 321 br hydraulic model used in the Adelante as having a retarder braking feature - how this can be simulated in MSTS is uncertain - perhaps fudging by using the dynamic braking code?

  
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