Ideas about tracks and engine power supplys

[zzarr]

Hello!

I wounder if it's possible to make an system for handeling overhead wires and 3:rd rail systems?

So, a line can be unelectryfied, have a overhead wire, have a 3:rd rail or have both over head wire and 3:rd rail.

And trains can have more than one power source, sample the FL9



It can use a 3:rd rail as power supply or the main diesel.

Think the eurostar trains can use both over head wire and 3:rd rail.

I hope some one more out there like my ide.

Greetings / Zzarr

[White Rabbit]

I like this idea, but it would be more useful to have cost differences for electrified and normal track, so players can choose to go with the cheaper 3rd rail, or save space with more expensive caternaries, so the track costs should have a higher priority at the moment.

[zzarr]

Your right.

The diesel must be more expensive.

But for a sample the France TGV set that can run on both 3:rd rail and overhead wire.
It's weeker and slower (200 km/h I think) running on 3:rd rail system than running on overhead wire (300 km/h).

Running costs on engines

1. Sheepest, 3:rd rail.

2. Overhead wire (you gain more power and therefor must pay more)

3. Diesel, expencive.


Deploying costs

1. Sheepest diesel trains don't need any kind of wire only rails.

2. 3:rd rail is the sheepest electric supply.

3. Overhead wire most expensive.

So, in the case with the FL9 engine it should automaticly toggle to 3:rd rail when possible.

Greetings / Zzarr

[peter1138]

Well, catenary el-rail and mixed consists have already been implemented.

A mixed power engine currently isn't possible, though.

[bobingabout]

peter, do you mean that if you have a double headed engine, either diesel-electric or electric-diesel that it can run on both electric and normal tracks?

and if so, the HP that the engies provide is taken into account?

[peter1138]

Yes, if you have a diesel and an electric engine, running on electrified rail will give you full power, and running on ordinary rail will just give the diesel's power.

[zzarr]

I thought it shall toggle between electric and diesel.

The FL9 (in the first message) toggles between diesel and electric, it makes it less laud on electrifyed tracks in ex. New York and more flexible as it isn't pendent of the 3:rd rail.

That was that I whanted, but there are engines that uses both electric and diesel at the same time too.

Greetings / Zzarr

[SM9T8]

I'd love to see third rail, it should arrive in the thirties, but at that point with EMU's only. Third rail isn't paticularly cheap to set up because it's DC it has to be fed into the track many more times than on overhead lines.

[suit]

aah no further railtypes

normal rail, electrified rail, monorail and magelev - its enough

maybe monorail and maglev should be merged and become available earlier

so the conversion from rail > monorail > maglev isnt that annoying anymore

[peter1138]

Monorail and maglev (and electrified railway) arrive when the first engine of that type arrives. So making them come earlier is just a case of using a vehicle set that starts them earlier.

I don't know if such a set exists though...

[bobingabout]

the good thing about standard and electric rail is that normal engines run on both. this allows upgrading to be easy, since the only hard part is the engines themselves. (untill someone comes up with a way to be able to quickly comvert railway to monorail to maglev.)

[MagicBuzz]

Personnaly, I think other types of tracks should be usefull as well.
In fact, 2 new tracks types :
- Tracks with wooden sleepers
- High speed tracks

I mean, the early ages tracks were quite cheap, but wasn't able to handle fast trains. By exemple, near my grand mother's house, there is an old track where trains can't run faster then 60 km/h. These tracks don't need a lot of maintenance, so they are cheap to set up and cheap to use. They can't be electrified.
Next, the current common tracks use concrete sleepers. Then are more expensive to set up and use, but can handle faster trains. Up to 200 km/h. These tracks can be electrified or not.
The last tracks are high speed tracks. Commonly known as "LGV" in France, but they are used also for German ICE train. These tracks are very expensive to set up (arround 1 000 000 000 € for 1 km IRL) and need very expensive and everyday maintenance. Then can be electrified only, and can handle any speed (more than 300 km/h -TGV was tested on these tracks at 535 km/h 10 years ago-). Anly high speed trains can use them also.

I would love to see these tracks in OTTD, espcially the LGV style. I mean, 1 000 000 000 € for 1 or 2 tiles should be very hard to set up, but could gain a lot more money than classic rails, as it is IRL as we could use fast trains.

PS : and I don't like (hate) Maglev and Monorail, as they have some limitations that don't come with OTTD :
- Extremely expensive (far more than LGV)
- Impossibility to design complex systems as crossway are impossible, and switch very hard or impossible to design (then require slowing down a lot, like 10 km/h)

I think it should simply replaced by new types of realistic tracks.

[MacLir]

Personnaly, I think other types of tracks should be usefull as well.
In fact, 2 new tracks types :
- Tracks with wooden sleepers
- High speed tracks

Wooden sleepers? Sorry, I only have a limited vocabulary when it comes to the construction aspect of rail systems. From your statement, the only thing that I can think of that could be considered a 'sleeper' is the tie. Looking this up, I, at least, assumed correctly. Now, I'm wondering what you think the brown strips under the standard and electrified rail in-game are? They look 'wooden' to me...

High speed tracks? Just out of curiosity, what do you consider 'high speed'? Standard rail runs 64-200 km/h, electric 160-266 km/h, mono 304-336 km/h, and maglev 400-640 km/h. I don't know what is consider 'high speed' in France, but here in America, those upper speeds (listed for electric, mono, and maglev) are considered 'high'.

PS : and I don't like (hate) Maglev and Monorail, as they have some limitations that don't come with OTTD :
- Extremely expensive (far more than LGV)
- Impossibility to design complex systems as crossway are impossible, and switch very hard or impossible to design (then require slowing down a lot, like 10 km/h)

I think it should simply replaced by new types of realistic tracks.

Limitations that don't come with OTTD? Everything that can be built with the standard rail can be built using both Monorail and Maglev. Extremely expensive? Didn't you just suggest that LGV be 'extremely expensive'?

New realistic types of tracks? Monorail isn't realistic? Funny, I must have been dreaming that time I rode one... Not to mention the fact that millions of others who have been to Disney Land/World in Florida, have also been dreaming when the rode the Monorail there. Oh, and lets not forget the recent 'mythical' wreck of a maglev train in Europe. (Where escapes me at the moment.)

I don't even consider myself a railroad 'hobbyist' let alone an authority, yet I still knew that the tracks are realistic in OTTD...

[MagicBuzz]

I used the word "sleepers" for the french word "traverse" as suggested by Microsoft Word 2007 asking for standard english translation, using railroad definition and correct english, not americanism

tranverse
feminine architecture traverse beam or girder; ladder: rung; railroad sleeper, Americanism tie; (also chemin masculine de traverse) short cut

But ok, i'll continue with the word "tie".
For electric track, the current wood ties is totally unrealistic. I wonder how far America is in stone age about railroad, but wood isn't used in Europe since 30 or 40 years. Now we use "béton armé", that you could translate as "concrete". It can handle much heavy weight, more vibrations, and it is totally indeformable, so the tracks remains absolutely parallel, that's not the case for wood ties. Wood prevent using tracks for high speed.
And for me, high speed, it's like French TGV, German ICE or japan bullet train. Not 266 km/h, but 300/320 km/h or more (german ICE was validated for 330 km/h in commercial use in the past weeks). France should build a TGV for China in the next years that will be able to run up to 360 km/h then, so there is currently not known speed limit for this type of tracks.
And high speed tracks are absolutely different from classical tracks. You speak about normal electrified rails used at 266 km/h, I'm pretty sure it's not classical rails, but high speed rails. HS rails means a lot of difference in curves and electric system. Train pantos can't get power from the wire at 300 km/h like for 200 km/h. And you need like 20 more power to got 250 km/h to 300 km/h than 0 km/h to 200 km/h. So if you use classical wires and panto for high speed, you'll just bleed the wire because of too much power.
That's not for no reason the LGV needed as much work to be created than the TGV itself. And that's not for no reason Alstom is present on most high speed tracks building sites.

Next, monorail and maglev exists, I know that, you didn't dream. But monorail switchings are almost impossible to design, it need an enormous infrastructure. It's not a limitation of OTTD, but a real life limitation. For maglev, it's possible, but trains must slow down a lot. May be in the future, there will be better systems, but currently not any ingeener have any idea of how to do better. That's why it can't be used for complex network systems, at least for several decades.

And that's why I think more realistic to have more types of classical rails instead of both monorail and maglev. Anyway OTTD is not TTDPatch, so having all of this is possible.
Thus, maglev would never be for goods transportation, as leviation requires a lot of energy, and goods are far too much heavy. Currently OTTD just accepts having a trains using maglev tracks with 20 coal wagons. That's just impossible, even in 100 years : that would requires far much enery as burning of the cargaison of the train !

[MacLir]

I think a lot has been lost in translation, foremost being the sarcasm in my post...

Whether you call them sleepers, ties, or those beam-thingys-under-the-rails, it doesn't matter. What I was pointing out was that most of your 'suggestions' are currently in-game. 'High speed' (by your definition speeds over 300 km/h) is implemented in both Monorail and Maglev. Whether or not pantographs can gather the proper power is also a moot point, this is a 'game' afterall...

Even you realise that the limitations for 'infrastructures' aren't there in OTTD, so why are you arguing that they are there?

Your basis for distinction between OTTD and TTDPatch elude me. Regardless of that though, when did I discuss TTDPatch? TTDPatch, as far as I'm concerned, is an entirely different game. (And one that I do not play.)

As for being clairvoyent or predicting what can be technologically possible in the next 100 years, I'll leave that to the people of those times.

What you are arguing for or against is lost to me. So, I'll end my part in that discussion here.

All that aside, the original post was asking about a 3rd rail and overhead wires with the ability to switch the availibility of those options on a standard rail. It has been posted that overhead wires are in-game and that you can convert a standard rail to an electrified rail. As well, the reverse is true.

[Brianetta]

PS : and I don't like (hate) Maglev and Monorail, as they have some limitations that don't come with OTTD :
[snip]
- Impossibility to design complex systems as crossway are impossible, and switch very hard or impossible to design (then require slowing down a lot, like 10 km/h)

You talk from your nethers, sir. The TransRapid is both a monorail and a maglev (as it fulfills the descriptive criteria for both), and somehow manages to have had full speed switches in operation since the first test track was built.

The Monorail Switch Myth - busted.

[Bjarni]

The Monorail Switch Myth - busted.

That page deals with switches only, not crossways. Also they look kind of expensive to maintain

[Brianetta]

Crossways are possible, with similar mechanisms - they can't be passive, though, unless you're usung a SAFEGE overhead monorail (in which case it's trivial).

Mnoorail switches are no more expensive to maintain than regular rail switches, and that's only because monorail is a less common technology.

[MagicBuzz]

Here is a small intervention from a SNCF enginer :

He answered to me just after I told him your arguments.

C'etait pour me faire reagir ?
Alors,
La technologie maglev/transrapid n'est pas encore au point (nombreuses pannes, supraconducteurs = technologie très chere, très fragile, etc).
De plus, c'est un système qui, pour le transrapid en tout cas, est a l'etude depuis près de cinquante ans (debut des années 60), et qui a deja fait 23 morts avant même sa premiere mise en service...
hum...
On ne sait pas faire doubler des trains, banaliser, espacer, faire demi tour, et on a des problemes de croisement a des vitesses relatives superieures a celle du son, les aiguilles sont une vraie usine a gaz, et le rayon de courbure exige de faire des gares de la taille d'un arrondissement Parisien...

Quick translation :

I was to make me mad?
So,
Maglev/transrapid technology still has a lot of lacks (many breakdowns, supraconductor = very expensive technology, very fragile, etc.)
Thus, it's a system, at least for transrapid, that is worked arround for 50 years (since the early 60s), and already caused 23 deaths before the first service...
hum...
We can't make trains pass each others, "banalize" (?), space trains, turn back, and we still have issues with crossing at relative speed higher than sound speed (sum of both trains speeds), the crossway are like hell, and the rail curves make the stations to be big as a 1/20 of Paris size (like 2 miles²)...

That's why he and I are very sceptic about the future of maglev.
http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php?con ... 0#t9960556

[Tron]

Here is a small intervention from a SNCF enginer :

I was to make me mad?
So,
Maglev/transrapid technology still has a lot of lacks (many breakdowns, supraconductor = very expensive technology, very fragile, etc.)

This guy is bullsh!itting. He doesn't even get the basic facts right: The Transrapid does not use superconductors. (There are maglev systems which use superconductors, but the Transrapid is not one of them)