Hide overhead wires - suggestion

[Hannes44]

There was a discussion a long time ago about hiding overhead wires over those parts of a route that are not electrified. The last I heard about it was a method of making non-electrified track "static" in the *.w files. There even existed a small program ("Hidecatenary" or similar) to do that in a more efficient and easy way. As this is a common problem, I'd suggest the OR team could find a practicable and less dangerous method to differentiate between electrified and non-electrified track, in collaboration with Goku maybe, so that there is overhead wire only visible over electrified track. Thank you!

[coolhand101]

I also mention this over at ET. There are a few UK routes that use both electric and non electric track. Obviously, the route authors have laid down overhead wire gantries for the electrified sections, but as soon as you hit non-electric track, the gantries are gone but that pesky wire is still there.

A simple solution would be to toggle the overhead wires on/off in game. Perhaps the wire toggle on/off could also cut the power for the player train, so you must have the wires toggle on for power. Wouldn't matter for diesels or steam.

Thanks

[Hannes44]

That would be a tolerable compromise for existing routes, although non-electrified sidings etc still would show the unwanted overhead wire when in electrified mode.
For building new routes there should be a better solution!

[coolhand101]

That would be a tolerable compromise for existing routes, although non-electrified sidings etc still would show the unwanted overhead wire when in electrified mode.

Yes having a mixture like that it would, just like in MSTS. However, i wouldn't be to concern driving pass non- electrified sidings with an electric train.

Perhaps one day for existing routes, OR can apply the wire over the track if a OLE 'gantry' type shape is specified in the W file.

That would be the best solution for existing routes.

Thanks

[eric]

There is an answer --- don't rely on the game to provide your gantry wire. Use CatMaster to add it as scenery objects.

When I built the IRM route, I used CatMaster to place my poles and wire over the electrified track, and painstakingly deleted out the wires and poles that didn't belong.

[cjakeman]

Perhaps one day for existing routes, OR can apply the wire over the track if a OLE 'gantry' type shape is specified in the W file.

That would be the best solution for existing routes.

Why not add your suggestion to the Open Rails roadmap?

(There are instructions - top left card - which include posting a suggestion via email.)

[coolhand101]

Why not add your suggestion to the Open Rails roadmap?

Yes, I wanted to make sure first, if there was a better method for existing routes.

Another thing i notice with wires. If the route has it's own shape for the wire. OR will not show the wire on the track with superelevation, as the default wire in the TRK file is hidden.

So i created a track profile with a wire. Now the superelevation track has wire. However the route has also non-electrified track, so on this track, there is no wire, but as soon as you approach a curve with superelevation, the wires appear in mid-air. Same thing applies with 3rd rail track.

Easiest solution is to disable superelevation, but it is a very welcome feature to miss out on!

I'm unsure if you can create two track profiles in a route for SE?

Thanks

[Hamblin]

I would like to bring that issue up again.

There are some german routes which have the issue of overhead wires showing on parts of the line where they should not be. Namely Pro Train 25 and 26. Occasionally there are overhead wires popping up at parts of the diesel routes - which of course looks ugly.

These routes are non-electrified for the most part and therefore served with dmus, however the big stations where they end/start have overhead wires. Therefore it would look odd to set the overhead wires height to 1km - it would solve the issue with the wires on the diesel parts of the track, but it would not look right at the big stations. Setting the route non-electrified does not solve this problem either.

I guess the issue is because Open Rails interprets it different than the original MSTS where the OH wires should come up. Of course reworking the routes should solve it, but it would be nice to have an option in OR to detect where overhead wires should be and where not.

[Vince]

There is no way to have parts of a route with wire and other parts without in BOTH MSTS and OR! Never has been.

There are add on's that will do this. HideWire is one and CatMaster is another.

The only other way to do this is to have a manually placed catenary system using static objects for the wire and the support system.
I find it odd that you bring this up again. Why? Didn't you read this entire thread? It has already been explained to you.

regards,

[csantucci]

As far as I know OR supports Hidewire, and I don't see where it should behave differently from MSTS in supporting that. If there is a specific example demonstrating the opposite, it would be nice to have two pictures, one with MSTS and one with OR, showing the different behaviour.

[Hamblin]

There is no way to have parts of a route with wire and other parts without in BOTH MSTS and OR! Never has been.

What? There are a lot of routes with non-electrified branches aside being mainly electrified.
I haven´t seen that issue in MSTS yet - only in Open Rails.

I find it odd that you bring this up again. Why? Didn't you read this entire thread? It has already been explained to you.

Yeah, I read the thread and no, there was not much explained. The mentioned Catmaster didn´t bring up any usable search results in the form or Google. No download link, nothing.

Now you mentioned HideWire, which wasn´t the case before(and I found something to download). So I don´t see any problem with bringing up this issue again(hopefully this solves the mentioned route issues). Forums are made for discussion(and asking and answering questions), and not everyone knows all MSTS/OR tools by heart, so this shouldn´t be a big deal.

I will test that out and hopefully it has the results I need. If not, providing pictures for the OR team(or other things) should be possible.

[Rick-MONON]

Here is Catmaster

Go to Search Files and search by File name for: catmas.zip

[eric]

Let's be clear about the purposes of the forums... yes they're for discussion. We're also adults, and expect people to do a basic amount of their own research i.e. use the file library and the search function to seek out other discussions on the forums.

Your question isn't new. It's been asked about once a year for the past ten years, and in all that time, the answer has been pretty much the same: the game engine isn't smart enough to know which track sections are electric and which aren't. The more accuracy-driven route builders have taken the extra step to make sure that wires and poles are added where they belong, and not added where they're not.

There are three pages of threads on Hidewire. It's an end-all utility that will make the route somewhat uneditable once you run it, and also destroys most switch animations. You can undo it, but only if you save your backups.

I've used Catmaster and was happy with the results. It's what was used for the forum-famous Milwaukee Road electrified routes in the library, and is somewhat easy to use out of the box. It's even better if you learn the geometry and study how to use it.

[csantucci]

What I feel is a problem is of how to structure comprehensive and clean game data. The info about presence or not of catenary should be added to the .tdb and/or .w files. The .tdb file wasn't modified up to now for OR, and there is a certain reluctance in doing it, because it is a very basic (and critical) file. In case of .tdb file the additional info could be put at TrackNode level adding a new line, that is a TrackNode would be either fully electrified or not (which is not always the case in reality). In case of .w file there would be a new field to be added within TrackObj blocks. This would allow for a finer definition, but would not solve the case where on a switch one way is electrified and the other not.
Moreover it should be evaluated how to manage cases of routes with two physical types of electrification (e.g. catenary/third rail), and cases of routes with two or even more different voltage/current electrification types (AC vs DC etc).
After defining which is the best way to add the info, the new TSRE route editor should be integrated, and as last point OR may be integrated with the new function.

[eric]

All valid examples of the complexity at play, Carlos, and why I think it's a fairly dangerous and perhaps unproductive rabbit hole to go down.

At the end of the day, what is gained by making it part of the track definition? Making it impossible for an electric to go down a non-electric track or not be able to use voltage/phase the locomotive isn't equipped to handle? Maybe procedurally draw wire and/or poles?

As a route builder, I'm not a fan of procedural wire or track. I like being able to maintain visual control of the content I produce, which is why I went the Catmaster route to begin with, and finished up by building and using WFH to achieve the same visual end in what I consider to be a slightly less complicated manner.

Aside from some added operational reality, I don't see a lot of added benefit for the the level of complexity this might add to route building.