Fighting? I'd rather call it a constructive discussion (albeit quite animated
)
Memories, memories... I eventually ended up drawing the engines I was talking about, both with pantos up and pantos down
Perhaps we could avoid having both 3rd rail and catenary on the same square: we could have engines, however, that should be able to keep running from a catenary-powered square to a 3rd-rail-powered one, although at a *very* limited speed (like 5 km/h). Let's think of this: if a line of track is electrified with catenary up to some point, and with 3rd rail from there on (this could happen at stations, for instance), an "amphibious" engine should be able to reach the last catenary-powered square, slow down to a really low speed, transition to the first 3rd-rail-powered square, change the sprite (visually, the panto goes down), and then speed up again. Of course, other electric, non-amphibious engines could not proceed further. Diesels and steamers would instead continue as if nothing happened.
This actually happened in the Maurienne mountain line in southeast France.
Would this be achievable?
Michael Blunck wrote:Well, we won´t have to work out a detailed scheme beforehand. This can be postponed until new sets are using new rail types, either as stand-alone track sets or integrated into a rail vehicles set. The only thing needed would be a unique label in case compatibility should be achieved
Well, maybe it's a bit too early to establish a new rail types scheme with all the details. What I meant was that, if we had at least some rough guidelines, we could prevent weird effects such as having narrow gauge trains running on monorail tracks, as Foobar was mentioning.
Every set would have its own peculiarities (rack rail in the Swiss set -I definitely agree with Michael, this is a must- , threephase catenary in the Italian set, and so on), but there definitely are some widespread track types, such as third rail, high speed etc. that could be coded the same way across the sets. This would ensure some degree of compatibility.
I agree that using the same labels might be a good way to solve this.
Concerning the Crampton engines, well, it's true we don't know whether the max speed of 120 was ever reached during normal service. Maybe we could code such engines with a max speed of 100 km/h or even 90. However, their low power would cripple them so much that such a high speed could be reached only when pulling very few cars on a straight, flat track. Plus, they would be really expensive to buy.
I agree that a max axle weight of 16 tons for 1830 would be a little bit too much. However, we are "limited" to 16 track types including monorail, maglev and the various electrification systems: this doesn't open up much space to define new track types. We have to keep in mind that, for instance, PLM's class 121 engines of the 1870's had a max axle load of 14.8 tons, so they will need a track they can run on. And the Atlantics of 1900's max axle weight was about 18 tons so, again, they will need a suitable track.
To be more accurate, we should start with a max axle weight of about 12 tons in 1830, then define another track with a max of 15 tons in about 1870, and then one with a max of about 18 tons around 1900. Then we would need a max of 20~21 tons around 1930, when the big steamers start getting introduced (the French 241's max axle weight was a whopping 20 tons). This would cause a wide proliferation of track types; that's why I proposed a simpler scheme.
Of course, each set could define its own tracks with their specific limits, but it would be nice if there were some degree of uniformity at least across railroad-wise similar countries (it would improve compatiblity).
Bavaria also had early Cramptons but neither am I able to find such high max speeds (instead 70/80/90 km/h) nor would it be a sound assumption that passengers trains would indeed having travelling by that speed.
