#TRAIN DISPATCHER 3.5 UPGRADE#
#TRAIN DISPATCHER 3.5 SIMULATOR#

I learned to appreciate what Dispatchers face in real life, through my toy models. It is actually quite amazing some of the fun stuff siting hidden thereI have to see if they still work and have survived the upgrades in Train Dispatcher.ДЄnyway, it was good entertainment and heck of a learning experience. I just found those tracks I had built back then in my multi Terra bytes of backup and archives of everything from the last 30-something years.

#TRAIN DISPATCHER 3.5 UPGRADE#

I just got the 3.5 upgrade to Train Dispatcher.

It did not behave well when its apparent static array limits were hit. I borrowed a model that someone else had done of EL from Hoboken to Scranton and sliced it down to paste the portion beyond Port Morris onto my M&E model to integrate Scranton into it.ДЄlas, when I tried to glue the two together at Swift, I crashed Train Dispatcher. That is relatively sedate compared to the High Line. I built a second model of all of NJT's M&E West of Kearny interlocking all the way to Hackettstown. It was all for fun, but in the process I came to appreciate in great depth the complexity of dispatching the Penn Station to NJ tracks. In one model I even threw in service from Scranton etc. Even modeled the crazy plan NJT had of putting bell mouths under the Palisades to bring out a branch through a separate pair of tunnels to connect to the Northern Branch. The interconnections of events are not at all obvious prima facie.ДЄfter that I also modeled all kinds of alternatives that were proposed for ARC, the Secaucus loop, the absurd plan to send Midtown Directs out through Meadows and then up the Secaucus Loop and all sorts of things. Trust me there are things that can be figured out only if you have played enough with a model to see what happens. I showed him the results from playing with my little toy and he thought it was really cool. Finally one of the Amtrak techies asked me, how I figured something out enough to ask a specific question. Specifically they were questions about the choreography that has to be in place for the whole darned thing to flow smoothly. When Secaucus was being built I actually created a model for it based on documentation I got from the Citizens Committee meetings, and posed a few questions to Amtrak folks based on my random playing around with it.

Here is how I developed somewhat deep knowledge of the intricacies of the choreography on the High Line. Rather than cut and paste this post, this moderator opted to copy the entire post and duplicate it so that the post will appear in 2 different threads.Д¬lick to expand.While that appears to be an easy strategy, it does not work to maintain timetable compliant operation because some of the 'overtakes at Secaucus' are actually built into the timetable. MODERATOR NOTE: This post discusses 2 different topics and, at the suggestion of the poster, discussions regarding Train Dispatching Simulators were moved from this thread in the Amtrak forum to the Railroad Simulation forum/Train Dispatcher Simulation.

You cannot just change things because a train has shown up at a Home signal. The arrivals into Penn Station and routing to the correct platform track is carefully choreographed, and its effect stretches all the way back to Swift and even Dock and Rea. Little do they realize some of the mess that will befall them if they were not held. an NEC train held for an MTD or an MTD held for one or more NEC, and that inevitably leaves the folks in the train that is holding, fuming. To a casual observer it may appear weird that they are held at Swift while an MTD comes in ahead of you and that happens at times because of the timetable padding that exists in that area. You don t just do what you think works for you locally. At that point you play one of the alternate playbooks. If not you don't, unless something falls outside tolerance. If an overtake is in the timetable, that is what you do. It is absolutely critical to run trains in timetable order that are within tolerance to avoid a complete unholy mess.

#TRAIN DISPATCHER 3.5 SIMULATOR#

On dispatching the High Line through Swift, Portal, Lack, Erie, Allied, Bergen and onto A, I have played around on a train dispatching simulator using then current timetable, and Thirdrail you are absolutely right. Has that changed since I was last there? Of course a hapless new comer to the Secaucus labyrinth probably would not know to walk to the western end of the platform to find the escalators to that concourse. Thirdrail, as I recall the west end concourse at Secaucus across the lower level allows passengers to cross over from any LL platform to any other LL platform without crossing any barriers.

Train dispatcher 3.5