Topic: 1870-1890's carriages lack class definitions

[jamespetts]

My apologies for the errant commit: I spotted a commit when looking into this from some time ago that looked as though it ought to have been merged, but I must have corrected this manually in the past.

[Spenk009]

I also note that there is a commit with a commit message, "Update on 1870s LBSCR carriages, with two additional carriages made available", but the only thing in that commit is a removal of all the constraints on one of the LBSCR 6 wheel carriages. I presume that this was not intended? May I ask what was intended here?

I thought I had made a large set of changes, but became very confused within the command line interface in git, so I believe I ended up resetting everything before committing. The changes I made were brought together over several weekends, so I'm uncertain as to what I was really doing.

as there was no distinction between suburban and long distance carriages in the 1860s

I misinterpreted the post by basilicafields. I thought that Stroudley's suburban carriages would be different to the standard carriages in use.

I may be assuming too much Git competency here

I'm not very good with these things. For a while I believed I had understood github's system, but this is proving very wrong indeed. I'll try to learn correct handling, making contributions when I notice issues I could fix.

[jamespetts]

Thank you very much for your work on this - don't get discouraged at some initial problems. For reference, the normal command line workflow for Git (assuming that you are not changing branches) is:

(1) make changes to the files;
(2) [only if any new files have been added] "git add --all" to add new files to the staged commit;
(3) "git commit -a" to commit all your changes to your local repository;
(4) type out the Git commit message in the text editor and then CTRL+W to save and CTRL+X to exit; and
(5) "git push origin master" (or substitute "master" for the name of the branch if you are working on a branch other than the master branch) to push your changes to the remote repository.

To merge in changes to your local repository from the remote repository (you do not need to do this with changes pushed from your local repository to the remote repository), just type "git pull origin master" (or substitute "master" for the name of the branch if you want to merge in changes from a branch other than the master branch).

You may need to tidy up your repository a little with some slightly more sophisticated techniques that even I would need to look up now that there are some issues with it, but, once you have done that, the workflow is very straightforward.

As to the suburban carriages - Stroudley's suburban carriages were indeed different to the others; but these came in in the 1870s, not the 1860s. Craven was Stroudley's predecessor, and his carriages (from the 1850s and 1860s) had no distinction between suburban and long-distance. Does this clarify matters?

I hope that this assists.

[Vladki]

LBSCR 6-wheelers seem to be fixed by the 22 April 2019,commit
There is similar rendering issue with LSWR 6-wheel mail as reported here https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,18822.0.html

[Freahk]

Is it intended that most passenger carriages from ~1880 on are third/low class only?
It is pretty hard to build a train around 1880-1900 (don't know about later) that provides carriages for higher classes.

[Spenk009]

I had originally taken this task upon me. I loaded up a game for 1880:

• L&TSR: Has dedicated first and third class carriages with a composite first and second, but no dedicated second class carriage.
• Districts: Have three classes, but no composites.
• LBSCR four wheel: Has first, second and (brake only) third class carriages available.
• Four wheel coaches: Have a plethora of different coaches available.
• LNWR six wheel (radial): Have a first and third and a tricomposite available.
• Midland six wheel: Only have third class.
• LBSCR six wheel: Has a variety of first, second and composite classed carriages available.
• LSWR: Has a third class and one type of first/second composite carriage available
• GNR six wheel: Only have third class
• Midland eight wheel: Has a third class and one type of first/second composite carriage available
• Metropolitan eight wheel: Has dedicated first and third class carriages with a composite first and second, but no dedicated second class carriage.
• Midland twelve wheel: Has only third class aside from a first/third composite carriage available.

All listed carriages are available all throughout the 1880s, except for the LSWR carriages (discontinued in 1886). The only carriages not rendered in the transparent workflow are the GNR 6 wheel carriages.

There is a balance between accuracy and playability, which I don't wish to move. Can I ask which carriages should be added, whether they require adaptation visually and what differences they will have to the ones available prior?

[Freahk]

Well maybe my post was a little bit unclear.
In 1880, everything is still fine as carriages from ~1975 are still available for a few years.
However, after ~1880, most of the newly introduced carriages don't serve second/first class or they don't serve mail, so in ~1890, it will be very hard to create a train with mail and second/first class that is still available for at least the next 10 years.

In 1890 you have the following options:
You can take the Metropolitan eight wheel coaches, which don't have mail carriages.
GNR six wheel cars only have third class.
Four wheel coaches available until 1911 don't have mail, mail is only available until 1894 for these.
LBSCR six wheeler have first class only available until 1892, other classes will be available until 1901.
New LBSCR (1889) cars only have third class.
GWR corridor cars only have third class.
Others won't be available after 1897 at all.

A few years later, in 1895, things will be a bit better:
LNWR corridor cars have all cars that one could need but these are only available for 4 years (is this a typo?)
New L&TSR 6 wheel are available, which are available for 11 years, which is fine, however in 1895 only 7 years are left, which is not much but enough in case one needs more trains than expected on that line.


I don't know what exactly should be added as I don't know pretty much about british railway history.
However, without that in mind, I guess any of the following would solve the problem:
Create some Metropolitan or Metropolitan compatible mail car.
Create some GNR second/first class, may this be a combined car or two different cars.
Increase availability of some four wheel or compatible mail coach to 1911.
Increase availability of LBSCR six wheeler first class car to 1901.
Create some GWR corridor car compatible second/first class car, may this be a combined car or two different cars.

Increase LNWR corridor cars availability to be available for at least 10 years.

[Spenk009]

However, after ~1880, most of the newly introduced carriages don't serve second/first class or they don't serve mail, so in ~1890, it will be very hard to create a train with mail and second/first class that is still available for at least the next 10 years.

Thank you, this is a well placed description of the core issue. I think most (if not all) types of carriages have been added to the game, so we might best make a case for extending availability or improving selection with fictional vehicles.

I don't know what exactly should be added as I don't know pretty much about british railway history.

I am in the same boat. I also lack the literature to support claims properly, but I've now enrolled in a university course that I hope gives me time for other things and access to better resources.

Re-assigning old coaches for lower classes is the real life practice of the era, but this is difficult to mix if classes (inevitably) overlap. Immediate remedies are to play allowing purchases of obsolete vehicles or amending the pakset for oneself. If someone with good knowledge of the era's carriage selection could weigh in an opinion, we could see about improving the era.

[Elemental]

You can assign individual coaches different classes even if they belong to the same original class - you just can't do it while the convoy is assembled. As an example, using coaches with lavatory for higher class and compatible coaches without lavatory as third class often works well and offers comparable comfort differences to real higher class coaches.

Do it the following way: In the depot window, assemble a convoy including at least all the vehicles you want to assign a different class. Then reassign the classes. Now disassemble the convoy and rebuild it with only the vehicles you want to have the original class. Then reassign classes for them back to standard. Then assemble the convoy the way you actually want it to look. The individual vehicles will remember the classes they were last assigned. While this works, it is indeed needlessly complicated...

[Freahk]

Sounds extremely complicated but could work :/

[Ves]

Bear in mind that there eventually will come a new window where you can alter, amongst other, these things. It will be possible to select all vehicles of a certain type over your entire network and alter the classes for all those vehicles.

[Freahk]

Sounds like an awesome usability patch
I don't know how exactly this should work but It would be great if one could filter selected vehicles by its lines name.

When I look into the vehicle list, class reassignment would fix these gaps in passenger classes and a better UX would make this usable.
For many coaches in these years, there is not a huge comfort difference in between third class and first class anyways.

Side note: Simutrans extended has many really awesome features but many of these suffer from bad usability.

[Matthew]

You can assign individual coaches different classes even if they belong to the same original class - you just can't do it while the convoy is assembled. As an example, using coaches with lavatory for higher class and compatible coaches without lavatory as third class often works well and offers comparable comfort differences to real higher class coaches.

Do it the following way: In the depot window, assemble a convoy including at least all the vehicles you want to assign a different class. Then reassign the classes. Now disassemble the convoy and rebuild it with only the vehicles you want to have the original class. Then reassign classes for them back to standard. Then assemble the convoy the way you actually want it to look. The individual vehicles will remember the classes they were last assigned. While this works, it is indeed needlessly complicated...

Sounds extremely complicated but could work :/

I have been using the approach suggested by Elemental for a while. Like many things with Simutrans, it is mind-bendingly complicated the first time, but after a while it becomes second nature.... 

[jamespetts]

The reason for this is that I have not yet completed the very large scale work of adding passenger classes to all the various railway carriages in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. The early 19th century, second half of the 20th century and all of the 21st century (so far) are complete.

However, there are a number of railway companies whose carriages now do have a full set of classes in all years, as set out above, so there are always some railway carriages with multiple classes in any given era.

[jamespetts]

I have merged these two topics together as they were essentially the same topic. I should note that I am at present working on enhancing the GWR offering, which should bring multiple classes of GWR carriages to the pakset in all eras in which the GWR operated standard gauge trains.

[jamespetts]

I have now completed the GWR project: see here for details. We thus now have GWR carriages with full sets of classes (and liveries) all the way from the early days (circa 1850s) to the 1940s when the GWR ceased to exist as an independent company.