Modern rail vehicles for pak128.britain-ex

[freddyhayward]

Also Vladki, is there any info on the class 387 having only 10 first class seats?

[Vladki]

Also Vladki, is there any info on the class 387 having only 10 first class seats?

I have not travelled in it, so I dont know.  I remember adjusting capacities for some trains and trams by looking at walkthrough videos from railway fans, but this one does not seem to be the case.

Jundging from the schemes on wikipedia - the first class area (if provided at all) spans 3 windows in the last car:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_387#/media/File:Gatwick_Express_Class_387-2.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_387#/media/File:Great_Northern_Class_387-1.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_387#/media/File:Cambridge_-_GTSR_Great_Northern_387123_empty_to_depot.JPG

There are also some photos, that suggest that the comfort in 1st class is the same as in 2nd class.
According to this photo the first class has at least 22 seats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_387#/media/File:The_1st_Class_Interior_of_Gatwick_Express_387218.jpg

[jonbridg]

Finally made some more progress on the Stadler FLIRT range, after some setbacks upgrading Ubuntu to 20.04...


This is the regional bi-mode variant and is available in formations of 2- to 6-cars, with 960kw or 1920kw power-packs, and optional 'bistro' car or trolley-service. I can see these being popular trains - even limited to 960kw the 2- and 3-car FLIRTS can keep time with contemporary DMUs, while at 1920kw a 2-car can outpace some EMUs!

I have coded the power-pack cars as motor vehicles (with tractive effort adjusted to compensate) which makes different power options (including batteries or even fuel-cells) much simpler to implement.

A few more tweaks to make, including adding Greater Anglia livery...

[freddyhayward]

Will these include 2-car EMUS? A phenomenon on bridgewater-brunel after the 2010s is electric branch lines reverting to DMUs because of the lack of any EMUs fitting within 2 station tiles, and 2-car DMUs being almost as fast and just as cost effective as 3-tile EMUs anyway.

[jonbridg]

There are 2-car FLIRT EMUs so yes, if that's what people need. The Stadler Metro (think Merseyrail's new Class 777) could probably be made to fit into a 2-tile platform as well, and has the advantage of dual-voltage capability.

[Mariculous]

Yes, ingame that's really needed.
Imo it's not that much about the need for two tile trains but moreover about the need for low capacity EMUs 2 or 3 tiles is not that important.

[jamespetts]

Finally made some more progress on the Stadler FLIRT range, after some setbacks upgrading Ubuntu to 20.04...


This is the regional bi-mode variant and is available in formations of 2- to 6-cars, with 960kw or 1920kw power-packs, and optional 'bistro' car or trolley-service. I can see these being popular trains - even limited to 960kw the 2- and 3-car FLIRTS can keep time with contemporary DMUs, while at 1920kw a 2-car can outpace some EMUs!

I have coded the power-pack cars as motor vehicles (with tractive effort adjusted to compensate) which makes different power options (including batteries or even fuel-cells) much simpler to implement.

A few more tweaks to make, including adding Greater Anglia livery...

That does look splendid - shall look forward to those being incorporated. Apologies for the delay in replying.

[Mariculous]

The 2-car bi-mode seems impossible
It doesn't have a pantograph on the roof :O
In Simutrans it's just an ordinary diesel variant anyways, so no need for a pantograph.

Great work anyways!

[jonbridg]

The 2-car bi-mode seems impossible
It doesn't have a pantograph on the roof :O

It's a battery-diesel bi-mode Yeah, it's a placeholder until I get around to drawing a pantograph-driving-car graphic. Progress is somewhat non-existent at the moment whilst I relocate to Cornwall for a new job. When I'm settled in I hope to complete the above and make a start on the 145km/h commuter DMU variant bought by Transport for Wales (TfW), which I guess will be a bit lighter and accelerate better than the bi-mode at the expense of top speed (and seating capacity, there being more doors to speed-up boarding).

TfW have also ordered a very similar 120km/h commuter OHLE/diesel/battery variant. Many of its advantages such as discontinuous electrification and regenerative braking aren't coded in Extended, but its USP could be EMU-style acceleration over short distances - anyone have ideas how this could work with the current code? I get the feeling they should be restricted in range somehow because of the batteries, but the diesel engines could be kept running to charge the batteries - and in Extended these effectively have infinite fuel. Then there's the question of what the power should be set at...

What do you all think?

[jamespetts]

Apologies for the late reply: I have been preoccupied with other matters of late. I do hope that your Cornwall relocation and new job are going well.

I should note that it is planned eventually to code for bi-mode vehicles, although it may be some time before this is possible; but having graphics representing these so that it will be easy to encode them properly when the feature comes to be added is a good idea, even if the benefits of these vehicles for the present are somewhat marginal. I would suggest coding them as one of their various modes for the time being, with comments in the .dat files showing what the data would be for the other modes.