Cargo weight revamping

[Gumboots]

Hey I was just winding up for the night and had an idea, so gave it a quick test.

The tiny shopping trolley express cars pre-1850 always look a bit silly to me, and even in that era a real passenger car was bigger than that. I had thought about doing them as doubles, but later express cars can't be doubles anyway (length gets too much for uneven track) so wasn't keen on that idea.

Then I had a brainwave. Use two of them, but siamese them into one bigger car. This is actually pretty close to how they were back in those days, although they often had three curvy little coach units stuck end together instead of the two I've used. This way is just easy use of the default skin and looks pretty good.

So anyway these are about right for size and styling, and not that hard to make. Hmm.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I tried a triple (based on period illustrations that may have been done without ever actually having seen the thing) but I ran afoul of the length point. I like the double far better than the hokey-dokey how quaint single that may have seen service for all of 3 years.

[Gumboots]

Ok, since we're thinking along the same lines...

Not exactly sure if these are an improvement for game purposes. They're more historically accurate, in that early pax cars generally were "triples" as far as I can tell from surviving examples in museums, but I'm half-inclined to think the "doubles" are a better-looking unit for RT3.

[RulerofRails]

I would vote for the doubles too. The crescent piece in the original design doesn't suit my eye too well. The triple is a bit too much of that IMO. I would also consider how it looks size-wise compared to what the "B-era" will be. More specifically, how it looks when mixed in with a few "B-era" Mail cars. Guess the double might match up better for this?

[Gumboots]

Yeah the double is better for that. In fact just on visuals, it may be better to just have all express cargoes changing over at the same time. It's going to look a bit odd having premium pax services in cars that are antiquated compared to mail and troops. If anything, you'd expect it the other way around. I could do that too (switch the group change dates) but maybe having express split into two groups isn't worth the hassle.

I don't think it'd make much difference to overall gameplay if all express were grouped together. Troops hardly exists in most scenarios anyway.

Edit: Ok, have to decide on something and stick with it so I can get this stuff usable. I'll stay with the same proposed groupings and change dates. Will also stick with doing the minimum of modelling and skinning at this stage.

Once it's all usable it can be tested for playability, and any necessary changes to eye candy can be sorted out later once I figure out what the best option is. They're not hard to do, but if I try to think of them all and deal with them all now getting this to the testing stage will take forever.

So, stick with default "single" pax cars for A era for now.

[RulerofRails]

Agree that the express may be better not to split the eras. Because they're a special case, time and effort permitting, they could even have extra eras to get the same result, so for example, one could use the single A-era and then the double. Then go to B-era, with Mail changing at the same times. I agree, Troops don't count for much on most maps.

But agree with sticking to basics for now.

[Gumboots]

The only points that are really off with the default cars are the A to B change (whopping difference in size and style) and the C to D change (ye olde timber packing crate to nifty tin cans), with the latter being E to F in the new scale. As you suggested, the combination of updated mail and troop cars with older pax cars which will look a bit odd for a ten year period.

Restyling mail and troops at the problem points so they look distinctive, but not too modern compared to pax/dining, is all that's needed to fix things. For example, using a Pullman troop sleeper for the F era will work. They weren't used outside the US and Canada, but they're a good generic troop car for that period and will do the transition between timber/clerestory and modern styles nicely. Plus pax cars in the 1925-1950 period were generally more modern looking than the default pax C, so I'm sure it will all work out with the proposed change dates and groups.

By the way, here are some actual examples of three early pax cars and one mail car. The "crescent" side styling is used on two of the pax cars and the mail car, although it's not quite the same as the RT3 default A. The German pax car being different presumably reflects national or local tradition for horse-drawn carriages, which is what the early express cars were modelled on. They all use single doors for each compartment, instead of the double doors on the RT3 default A.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Gumboots, you're correct to assume that local carriage-making traditions dictated the style of the PAX wagons. Continental designs took their cue (more or less) from the long-bodied, bus-like diligence (which very quickly abandoned the compartmented carriage arrangement in favor of carrying more passengers), while the English designs (and those places with strong economic and cultural ties to the UK and its class system) took their cue from the short, light park drags and fast coaches that traveled on and off the tramways in pre-steam Britain. AFAIK, the sort of PAX we see Era A of RT3 never existed in any significant use past the first 3 or 4 years of rail service. Even Stephenson's Rocket pulled a strikingly different PAX wagon.

For a good example of what Yanks saw on the rails in the 1830s and 1840s see this YouTube video: John Bull: Riding the Rails

And for the UK 1830-1850 era, see this YouTube video (about the 40 minute mark): Britain's Greatest Machines With Chris Barrie - S02E04: Trains - The Steam Pioneers

Then, if you're really feeling driven, watch "The First Great Train Robbery" (1978), loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855. The film puts some of the finest (then extant) mid-Victorian rolling stock on display.

And the default Era B PAX wagon... well, I am sure some American movie-makers have made that seem to be the norm, but the truth of the matter is that for most of the period between 1850 and 1900, that design was not the norm, even in the USA. TBH, between 1850 and 1900, your Era B caboose looks more like what most nations saw riding the rails as a PAX wagon than the hump-spined thing in RT3. The shape seen as the default Era B PAX wagon, Dining Car, and Mail Car in RT3, is a definite anachronism created by Hollywood using whatever rolling stock was cheap and available for making period films.

About the mid 1860s, in photos chronicling the American Civil War, you start to see a headroom raised section in photographs and illustrations, but it is very boxy affair, not curved down at the ends, even then it is not the norm. It becomes the norm about the time that interior lighting and safe travel by rail at night becomes the norm, so about 1880. The PopTop devs thought it important enough to hard-code an event for acetylene lights into the EXE, but then threw that distinction to the wind by having interior lighting in Era A coaches

The devil is in the details

[Gumboots]

None of that surprises me. It's easy enough to ditch the clerestory and remodel the early pax cars. Cargo car models are very simple. Even doing the LOD's only take a few minutes. It's all the other stuff that chews up time. So yeah, get this schemozzle running and testable first, then think up best generic eye candy for all eras.

TBH I don't even really need to test this weight scale. I know it will work. It's just slightly lighter express, plus some variation in freight weights, along with more frequent changes that don't wallop your locos so hard. So the main part of it will be tweaking loco stats to give best balance, not testing the scale itself.

[Just Crazy Jim]

A rough draft of the idea slapped together for you in a single archive. My own rude attempt, well below your level of work, but it will give you an idea of what I have seen in the photographic archive of rail. Not ready for immediate use per se, but enough to get the idea communicated.

Also included in the archive, my own rough idea for a proper barrel-based Era A tank, the tub-sort being Era B (which reminds me I need to finish that beast).

[Gumboots]

The tanker is good, if anyone ever finds a use for a tanker in that era. You've gone and shrunk the intermediate rings on the barrels though, so those extra verts and faces are just making the barrels rougher. They would actually be smoother with just the two central rings and the ends. Or just boost the intermediate diameter a bit so it approximates a convex curve.

The others don't have any difference between A and B eras, so I was loading them all up and thinking "Hey they're all the same". But yeah I get the idea.

[Just Crazy Jim]

The tanker is good, if anyone ever finds a use for a tanker in that era. You've gone and shrunk the intermediate rings on the barrels though, so those extra verts and faces are just making the barrels rougher. They would actually be smoother with just the two central rings and the ends. Or just boost the intermediate diameter a bit so it approximates a convex curve.

The others don't have any difference between A and B eras, so I was loading them all up and thinking "Hey they're all the same". But yeah I get the idea.

TBH, I am not used to a system that puts the shading on the verts instead of the faces. In most render engines I've worked with, less verts = rougher, rather than the reverse. But here after, I will follow your advice and regard it as law.

I meant to stretch the B era units fractionally or do away with the tailboards on the A units. I couldn't decide, so rather than stall with indecision, I sent the lot. In early stages, in addition to the side cargo door, box cars often had a mid-line passage door to allow conductors/railroad police ease-of-entrance. This was later dropped in favor of a rooftop trapdoor for inspection as the mid-line passage door also allowed ease-of-entrance by everyone else. In Europe, the mid-line doors were dropped at a later date than in the USA, I am guessing it's probably owing to the different distances between stations, more frequent occurrence of tunnels and low-clearance bridges passing over the tracks. In all, for most of Europe, the distance between stations is smaller on average than it is in the USA. Now, much more so than it was formerly.

I reckon the Brewery makes beer and the Distillery makes whiskey, which are both likely to be in barrels at some stage. Then there's coruscate's Vinyard, which make wine (alcohol) which most definitely should be in barrels. Then there's the fact that about everything was shipped in barrels padded with excelsior/wood wool. My great grandmother had a set of china shipped from Britain to Rhodesia that way back in the late 1890s. And my grandfather told me that bottles of whiskey and wine were shipped inside barrels of wood wool. However, none of that relates to the tanker.

[Gumboots]

TBH, I am not used to a system that puts the shading on the verts instead of the faces. In most render engines I've worked with, less verts = rougher, rather than the reverse. But here after, I will follow your advice and regard it as law.

The barrels have 6 loops on them: 2 at the ends, 2 in the middle, and 2 intermediate loops. It's the intermediates that are the problem. Their diameter is too small, so they're sucking the barrels into a concave curve in profile. That's what I meant by "making things rougher". If they were removed the shape would be better, because it'd get rid of the concave and result in a slightly more barrellish shape. Or you could keep the same number of verts, but increase the diameter on the intermediate loops so they followed a barrel shape better. Which would be the smoothest solution.

By the way, we do have an alternative (beta) version of the export script which does use face normals, but in RT3 this gives flat shading instead of the curved approximation that Gouraud shading naturally gives.

I reckon the Brewery makes beer and the Distillery makes whiskey, which are both likely to be in barrels at some stage. Then there's coruscate's Vinyard, which make wine (alcohol) which most definitely should be in barrels. Then there's the fact that about everything was shipped in barrels padded with excelsior/wood wool. My great grandmother had a set of china shipped from Britain to Rhodesia that way back in the late 1890s. And my grandfather told me that bottles of whiskey and wine were shipped inside barrels of wood wool. However, none of that relates to the tanker.

Yup. I expect all that stuff would be shipped in barrels inside boxcars.

Anyway I have all the files together for the new express cars. Will just have to brave the Bong of Doom tonight and check they all work. Hopefully should have a pack ready tomorrow.

[Gumboots]

Woohoo! I loaded all the express cars, checked them in every era, and no Bong of Doom anywhere!

This must be a world record.

Everything appears to be fine. Pix attached. I did have a screenshot showing the consist in 1845, when you have the B era mail cars in conjunction with the A era pax and dining, but forgot to save it. It looks a little odd, but not too bad, and will do just for a test pack.

Attached pix show the 1895 and 1945 mixtures aren't quite as good as they should be for a final pack, but again good enough for testing IMO.

Give them a flogging. If there are any actual bugs*, let me know.

For comparison with the default express cars:

1830______A era 2.0 tons______Default A 3.0 tons
1850______B era 2.6 tons______Default B 7.0 tons
1875______C era 3.6 tons______" " " " " "
1900______D era 5.1 tons______Default C 13.0 tons
1925______E era 7.8 tons______" " " " " "
1950______F era 11.2 tons_____Default D 27.0 tons
1975______G era 15.4 tons_____" " " " " "
2000______H era 20.0 tons_____" " " " " "

Now, on to freight cars...

*Meh. Spotted a bug. Only minor though. Somehow I ended up with the beta version of the Blender export script still in my Blender add-ons folder. Maybe I was doing some flat-shaded models at the time or something. Anyway, this means the express cars, and the caboose that I posted earlier, were exported as flat-shaded. Nobody has noticed with the caboose, not surprisingly, and it's not really a big deal for express cars either. It will probably only be noticeable under some lighting conditions on the roof of the later era express cars, so I won't worry about it for the moment.

However, I will change my copy of the script to the smooth-shaded version for future exporting.

EDIT: The old RC1 zip has been removed. A new RC2 zip, with bug fixes applied, will be available shortly.

[Just Crazy Jim]

The mod looks fantastic, although one tiny bug: Troops are Mail Wagons in 1830 in an "any express" consist in sandbox mode. I know Troops aren't supposed to be available until 1848, but sandbox mode is weird like that.

Switching the availability date to 1800 fixed the display in the Interface and on the rails. In general game-play, though, the cars won't manifest until 1848 even if they have a start date set to 1800 in the CAR file.

[Gumboots]

Ok thanks. Fixed it on my copies.

Won't bother reloading the zip at the moment, since it's not worth another 17 meg upload just for a one byte fix for sandbox.

[Gumboots]

Ok, reefers. For some reason I ended up on reefers. Dunno why.

Anyway, AFAICT the default models bear no resemblance to any real life sizes of reefers. Since I had to make new intermediate eras, which meant messing around with models whether I like it or not, I decided I might as well make them into a roster that reflects real life reefers even if I don't go bonkers on skinning now. That way the mesh, which is the easy bit, will at least be set up for better results later.

Box cars were up to 25 feet in the mid 1850's, and reefers (at least in the US) had pretty much standardised at 36 feet by the 1870's. So I took a guesstimate and made a 16 foot reefer for the pre-1850 A era, and a 31 foot reefer for the 1850-1874 B era. If anyone has better information on sizes in the early days, let me know. At this stage I can make changes quite easily.

The A era is just the default B boxcar, slightly tweaked and with the default A reefer skin on it. The B era is the default B reefer, tweaked again, and B reefer skin. The C is taken from plans for a 36 foot car of the late 1800's/early 1900's. The D is a 40 footer in timber. E is also 40 feet, but with a steel body (this era is roughly when steel ones came in). F is a 50 footer, still with ice bunkers. G is a 57 foot mechanical. H is a 64 foot Trinity hi-cube.

Trinity have also built a class of 73 footers for BNSF. This could be used instead as the only real difference is increased body length, but AFAICT the 64' version is more common. The only one that requires any real modelling and skinning work is the Trinity. The rest can get by with minor tweaks to default skins for now.

Now that I've made my mind up on these I'll start getting them sorted.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Your figures are pretty much in accord with what I know. There are two types of reefer though to consider: "Ventilated" for cold weather and "Ice-packed" for not so cold weather. The ventilated sort came in two forms: One had openings near the roof-line at either end to allow cold air to circulate through the interior while in motion, the other had a sort of clerestory serving the same purpose (see image).

tiffany.jpg (29.65 KiB) Viewed 4242 times

As a consequence, these early reefer units were taller than any other rolling stock in a consist. One has to wonder how much steam and smoke from the locomotive ended up passing through these early units. That probably added to some of the rather strange efforts at smoke dispersal one sees in early locomotives.

By about 1880, the height gave way to a fan system that used a variety of linkages to the bogies to drive a fan at either end, resulting in later reefers being longer than any other wagon in a consist. Sometimes circulating cold air from outside, sometimes interior air over blocks of ice.

reeferdiagram.jpg (17.91 KiB) Viewed 4242 times

Alternately, there might be "wind-catching" traps on the roof of the unit that were opened or closed depending on outside air temperature. Edit: I was just informed that the traps were closed before entering a tunnel and opened again after exiting the tunnel. Some poor fellow had to run along the roof of the moving express train to open and close these traps. I shudder to imagine having that job.

reeferinside.jpg (13.14 KiB) Viewed 4242 times

In either event, reefers were considered express and equipt with whatever passed for high-speed bogies at that time.

About 1950, ventilated reefers gave way to mechanical refrigeration and the size difference and express distinction was more or less lost.

[Gumboots]

I'm not going to do the clerestory type. There are frankly so many types of freight car around the world over the past couple of centuries that you could go mad just cataloguing them, let alone trying to model them, so I'm just picking 8 representative examples that more or less fit the timeframe for that era. This will do for now.

The earliest "reefers" were basically just bog standard boxcars with some lumps of ice thrown in with the cargo, so I figure I'll model them like that.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I'm not going to do the clerestory type. There are frankly so many types of freight car around the world over the past couple of centuries that you could go mad just cataloguing them, let alone trying to model them, so I'm just picking 8 representative examples that more or less fit the timeframe for that era. This will do for now.

The earliest "reefers" were basically just bog standard boxcars with some lumps of ice thrown in with the cargo, so I figure I'll model them like that.

Very true that. Some rolling stock was strikingly different on each company's rails until American Car and Foundry Company more or less cornered the market on that sort of thing and perforce standardised everything. And who can blame you for not making more work for yourself?