Update on the steamers

[dtrainBNSF1]

Oh fellas...

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Phase 1 of the auxilliary tender project is complete! I've made a variant of the GTEL fuel tender, renamed it, and implemented bar couplings (the couplings on the tender are known as "tight" couplers; there was no bar coupling folder so I copied the one from the Challenger and pasted it in the GTEL's coupling directory). I have also made a variant of the Challenger Black tender and adjusted its auto-numbering scheme to list 4014, 3985, 3967, and 3718 (3985 posed as 3967 back in the early 90s on a fan trip from Denver to Laramie and back; smoke deflectors were removed from the 3977 on display at North Platte and placed on 3985 for the trip. On the way back to Cheyenne from Denver 3985 was renumbered again as 3718 as a joke by the crew, because if 3985 had been converted to oil-burning operations back in the steam era it more than likely would have been renumbered as 3718 anyway - it makes a lot more sense after looking through this article here: http://utahrails.net/up/ttg-challengers.php) The only thing left to do is to adjust some weights and the water amount in the black tender and we're all set

Due to the auto-numbering scheme on the GTEL tenders the real numbers for the auxiliary tenders won't render. You can identify which tender is which by double-clicking on the tender in the scenario editor and referring to the flyout on the right side of the screen. The problem comes from the formatting; the tender can't take a 3-digit number. It can take 2 digits, but if you try to add a third digit all the numbers appear all jumbled up on top of each other which doesn't look right at all. That's the best I know how to do with the numbers.

Let me just clarify the following: 1) I am not a repainter. I suck at art, so don't ask me to put Union Pacific's American Flag on the side of one of the tenders because I don't have that skill. 2) I am not going to modify any of the FEF-3 tenders for this mod. Those are mrennie's and if mrennie wants this sort of thing to happen with his loco then he'll be the one to implement it. Also knowing my luck the FEF-3's assets are probably all read-only anyway so I probably wouldn't be able to modify those tenders if I wanted to.

I've also been renumbering ALL of the challengers, both the default version, black version, and gray version to represent every member of the class in its correct livery. Additionally work has started on modeling an additional class of the challengers known as 4664-5 on UP official records. These engines on the outside looked the same as the other 3900s but Union Pacific completely reworked the boiler - the only thing they didn't change on the class it appears were the cylinders and the wheels The Challengers provided in the payware pack on Steam would be identified as 4664-3/4.

The Cab-Forward is pretty much done, it just needs scenarios. I've been just a tad bit distracted with school starting up again, trying to catch up on the Donner Pass UP era project and this new business with the GTEL tenders. The Cab-Forward mod is coming - in a while that is.

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[dtrainBNSF1]

Also messages I'm trying to send out are getting stuck in the outbox folder. A message I tried to send 2 weeks ago is still sitting in the outbox and hasn't been sent. This hasn't been a thing until recently. What exactly is the outbox for anyway?

[buzz456]

If whoever you sent it to has not looked at their messages it will stay there showing you that the recipient has not read it. You and I got our messages back and forth right?

[dtrainBNSF1]

If whoever you sent it to has not looked at their messages it will stay there showing you that the recipient has not read it. You and I got our messages back and forth right?

Just checked. My response to your message went through.

[dtrainBNSF1]

So a while ago a post was made asking about water flowing from the Challenger's tender into the boiler - even after the injectors were closed.

A strange thing about the Challenger water usage: When I need to fill up the boiler, I use the HUD. The boiler fills, I turn of the water on HUD and ....water keeps coming out of the tender. I've tried the manual shut-off for the Live steam injector (I) and the Exhuast injector (O), but nether one works. The water just keeps running out of the tender and I can't shut it off.

This morning I finally figured out how to solve this issue.

2 preliminary steps:
1) Man up and start firing manually if you haven't already.
2) Man up and shut off the F4 HUD if you haven't already. The F4 HUD overrides any key command you use for firing manually. Also in terms of boolean values, firing with the F4 HUD always acts as 1 or 0, all or nothing. There is no in between, which can mean inefficient use of coal/oil and water. You want full control over your controls as fireman, so shut off the F4 HUD.

Due to the fact that the Challenger (and the Big Boy) does not have animated water gauges (the water gauges don't reflect what's actually in the boiler) you will need the F5 HUD open to show you how much water is in the boiler.

When the scenario begins:
1) Go ahead and open up the injector on the fireman's side (I believe that is the I-key). This will not cause water to begin flowing from the tender into the boiler nor will it increase steam usage, rather it completes the connection between the boiler and the tender. You will hear something whir on; ignore it. On real runs I've seen of 3985 from the cab the fireman goes ahead and leaves this open for the duration of the trip.

2) Go about your regular startup routine to get the engine started down the mainline.

3) After a while, it will be time to fill the boiler with water (I personally don't let the boiler get lower than 75%; I've heard others say not to let it drop below 60%). At this point don't press but tap the K-key. Water will now begin flowing from the tender to the boiler. Tap K a few more times to increase the rate until water is entering the boiler fast enough to replenish the water that's being used in the boiler. The rate will increase the more you hold down K. I suggest tapping to make smaller adjustments to this rate so that you don't end up filling the boiler too fast and so that you don't end up using too much steam when filling the boiler. If you need to reduce the rate, hold down shift and again tap the K key to reduce the rate.

4) When the water level in the boiler reaches about 90% press and hold shift+K until the F5 HUD shows that water has stopped flowing from the tender to the boiler. It is important that you do this first. If you press I again to close the injector before stopping the water flow water will continue to flow, but not to the boiler. It goes nowhere and is wasted. So leave the injector alone until after you have completely stopped the water flow. Once the water stops flowing you can now either shut off the injector or you can do what they do in real life and leave it open until after you reach your destination.

The same procedure is to be done with the driver's injector, using O to open/close the injector and L and shift+L to adjust the water flow rate.

I'd say read the manual, but the manual doesn't cover the actual operating procedures of the Challenger (what's the point of a manual if it doesn't do that?)

[Ericmopar]

UP uses knuckle couplers on those auxiliary tenders.

[dtrainBNSF1]

UP uses knuckle couplers on those auxiliary tenders.

I may change the texture so that it's the tight coupling again because that actually renders. Remember that knuckle couplers can actually be uncoupled by the player. I want these tenders to remain permanently coupled. What I'm going for is the illusion: I have 2 versions of the UP Challenger tender: one with 52000 gallons of water in the blueprint (that's the initial water amount plus the additional water available in 1 auxiliary tender) and one with 80000 gallons of water (initial water amount plus 2 auxiliary tenders).

In real life there's a connection between the water supply in the tender and the supply in the auxiliary tenders. This can either be left open (the loco has access to all the water of its tenders and the auxiliary tender(s)) or it can be closed (the loco has access only to the water available in its tender; it has to stop somewhere and let the crew open the connection to refill the tender mid-trip). This tender mod I'm working on creates the illusion of the first case, where the loco has access to all the water without needing to stop. The sim can't access tenders that are not directly connected to the player locomotive, hence why I've added so much more water to the variant of the Challenger tender. To create the effect of having the increased water capacity from the auxiliaries (and to keep players from possibly using the edited Challenger tender to take a stroll down the line with 80000 gallons of water without the auxiliary tenders) I'm going for a permanent connection between the tender and the auxiliary tender(s).

I'm weird, I know.

[buzz456]

That's why you fit in so well here.

[dtrainBNSF1]

Looks like I got beat to the punch.

http://www.railworksamerica.com/index.p ... k-repaints

[jalsina]

I may change the texture so that it's the tight coupling again because that actually renders. Remember that knuckle couplers can actually be uncoupled by the player. I want these tenders to remain permanently coupled....

I don´t know. Maybe the knuckle couplings can be modded to deny uncoupling individually.

[dtrainBNSF1]

I may change the texture so that it's the tight coupling again because that actually renders. Remember that knuckle couplers can actually be uncoupled by the player. I want these tenders to remain permanently coupled....

I don´t know. Maybe the knuckle couplings can be modded to deny uncoupling individually.

I wouldn't even know where to begin modding that sort of thing. To me that sounds like something that's decided by the core code.

[jalsina]

I will take a look later and post if I find something

[buzz456]

I may change the texture so that it's the tight coupling again because that actually renders. Remember that knuckle couplers can actually be uncoupled by the player. I want these tenders to remain permanently coupled....

I don´t know. Maybe the knuckle couplings can be modded to deny uncoupling individually.

I wouldn't even know where to begin modding that sort of thing. To me that sounds like something that's decided by the core code.

I've never tried this since I don't know why I would but can you just uncouple a steam locomotive from the tender just like any other car?

[dtrainBNSF1]

I've never tried this since I don't know why I would but can you just uncouple a steam locomotive from the tender just like any other car?

In real life you can. I don't believe you can in Train Simulator.

[dtrainBNSF1]

Friday I received a letter from the C&O Historical Society in response to an inquiry I made about the K4 "Kanawha" locomotives. They assured me that because mechanically the K4s were the same as the NKP S-2s (the only real difference being that the Kanawhas were equipped with boosters) that the K4s could do anything S-2s could do.

Which then takes me to a correspondence I had with the FWRHS last Summer about NKP 765's top speed. Most sources will tell you that berkshires had a top speed of 70mph due to a rule of thumb that a steam locomotive's top speed can be estimated as 1 or 1.1 x driver diameter (in inches). However this rule does not do the NKP berks justice (or any locomotive from the Super Power era in fact) due to improvements to the valve gear, better lubricants, etc. The FWRHS informed me that back in the day the NKP berks topped 90 on a semi-regular basis and that they themselves had had 765 pretty close to that before, but not in recent history. I figure that in order to do that the true top speed of these engines without a load on level track has to be somewhere in the vicinity of 100mph.

Last summer I mentioned that I believed that I had found a way to get a berkshire over Horseshoe Curve and through the Allegheny tunnel with a loaded train without inflating the initial tractive effort. The only way I got it to work was after I had the locomotive set for 100mph running light engine, so in Train Simulator at least it seams that there may be some merit to this line of thinking.

In short when I get around to developing the next version of the NKP berkshire mod, plus the anticipated C&O Kanawha, Pere Marquette, and Erie Berkshire mods they will each be set with a top speed of at least 100mph.