Software Beyond Entertainment

[AuzGnosis]

Dear OpenRails your project page clearly states “You use Open Rails entirely at your own risk. It is intended for entertainment purposes only and is not suitable for professional applications.” While we are not intending to use the software purely for entertainment but rather brain-storming out some design issues in a long-term conceptual art-work we are quite happy in accepting all & any thence associated risks. But your understandably wise warning has raised the question of what professional applications you are aware of what would be better suited software to my task. The New South Wales Government railways ran trials of their AD60 Garrett over the Blue Mountains in the 1952 that we had hoped to model as a bench-mark to compare the cryogenic vapour locomotive [CVL] I have been developing of the last decade. Peter Newell’s website http://coalstonewcastle.com.au/ provides all the route data, and his discussion of the OpenRails physic modelling for steam-engines would be a suitable proxy for us to scope the challenge. Unfortunately Peter Newell’s Contact page is currently throwing “403 error” upon hitting enter. Details about the CVL development are online at http://www.auzgnosis.com/pgs/auzloco.htm while the series of print-work for the Cryogenic Vapour Locomotive. Patent Simulacrum conceptual art-work are at http://www.auzgnosis.com/pgs/cvl=prnts.htm

Shawn Gray
PS: I did try send this from the OpenRails contact page, but after typing it in the form then hitting enter I only got a blank page with all my text encoded into the Url??

[steamer_ctn]

Unfortunately Peter Newell’s Contact page is currently throwing “403 error” upon hitting enter.

I have just tested the contact page on the website, and it appears to be working ok.

If you wish to contact me, you can try a PM to me initially.

Thanks

[AuzGnosis]

Okay Peter's, www.coalstonewcastle.com.au/contact/ is working fine at the moment. Now just the waiting game.
Many thanks to you steamer_ctn.

[cjakeman]

But your understandably wise warning has raised the question of what professional applications you are aware of what would be better suited software to my task. The New South Wales Government railways ran trials of their AD60 Garrett over the Blue Mountains in the 1952 that we had hoped to model as a bench-mark to compare the cryogenic vapour locomotive [CVL] I have been developing of the last decade.

Hi Shawn,

I'm sorry you had trouble with the Contact form at OpenRails.org. Those messages are forwarded to me as a member of the Open Rails Management Team.

Your project sounds very interesting. Hope can I help you?

[AuzGnosis]

G’day Chris,
I assuming that you have followed the two links on the my earlier post you should have a sketchy appreciation for whole task. A carbon-neutral railway locomotive to match Australia’s futures challenges from climate change. North America, Far East & European researchers into hydrogen powered trains will meet those lands requirements, but without unrestricted inexhaustible water supplies hydrogen economies simply are just a non-starter.
The New South Wales Government railways AD60 Garrett was a large steam locomotive specifically commissioned for heavy freight across this dry landscape on a twisty winding rural network designed then built to 19th century standards (when Australia serendipitous unbeknown to the new settlers was enjoying the wettest century in the previous millennium).
So Chris, first up are you aware of any professional applications (I should be chasing) that what would be better suited to me for simulating historical steam locomotives performances over the NSW network (as Peter Newell has already crafted routes of same for OpenRails).

2# Is there any AD60 garretts suitable for Open-Rails that you would recommend? Like-wise harder & more obscure we would also be interested in repeating the simulation with a French ~ Algerian CFA 231-132BT garretts that were the model for the proposed NSWGR AC38 passenger express garratts (that orders were cancelled in late 1930s due to the outbreak of WW2).

Many thanks Shawn Gray

[conductorchris]

Simulation software can simulate different things. You have to know what questions you are asking in order to get good answers.

Specifically, there are DRIVING simulations and there are simulations that model the timing, interaction with trains and energy consumption. And there are dispatching simulators. In a professional context the driving simulators are used to train engineers/drivers and are most similar to open rails. The simulators that model schedule performance don't have any graphics of consequence (you can see a track schematic and see the green rectangles representing moving trains, but that's it). They have all physical characteristics of tracks, all the signals and the physics of the particular trains. You press go and watch network congestion develop. Or not. And get an idea of how a schedule will perform.

The key thing is the physics data you input for the locomotive. You have to know that in advance; the simulator needs that as an input. There could be a model of the Garrett locomotive for open rails that doesn't have the physics right - skills in graphics and 3-d design are a different skill set than understanding water and coal consumption and so on.

Open Rails is pretty good and there is not any significant reason it isn't capable of professional use - but you'd have to make sure the route is super accurate, the physics are super accurate and you did a bunch of tests in real life to confirm that the results in the simulator are accurate. Then there is the matter of liability, which is probably the biggest reason that disclaimer is there. In many ways Open Rails is actually better than some of the professional simulators (depending on what it is you are trying to find out).

Christopher

[AuzGnosis]

G’day Christopher
Love your opening wisdom

Simulation software can simulate different things. You have to know what questions you are asking in order to get good answers.
Christopher

In our initial quest for baselines what we find immensely useful would be traces, logs of the physics for runs over two or three of Peter Newell’s routes (listed on Peter’s coalstonewcastle.com.au website). With both of the garretts ( NSWGR AD60, CFA 231-132BT ) hauling both in-turn typical 1940s rolling-stock, then another run over the same route with modern day variations of rolling-stock. (As is new wagons with better breaking whatever).

The Cryogenic Vapour Locomotive [CVL] concept at the simplest level is a re-imagining of the historical steam-engine conventions, with nitrogen as the working-fluid combined with hot-salts or other thermal storage techniques as the heat source. No sane advocate of alternate technologies should ever argue that batteries et al will deliver the same order of energy densities as fossil fuels once could. In the CVL’s case (like many new battery electric vehicles) a prominent strategy for getting more range out of the vehicle is regenerative breaking. The CVL’s other major feature is a (projected) thermodynamic efficiency around 90% (compared to pre WW1 steam trains up to 15%, or average internal combustion engines about 30%).

But at this stage without determining data from real routes with typical loads we do not have any way of judge how suited the CVL maybe to particular tasks, if at all. The extremely promising case because of the regenerative breaking is capturing enough energy running down the mountain with fully loaded train of rock minerals that the then empty train may get back up to the top of the mountain again (for the next load down) consuming only the onbord-stored-energy captured during the previous down-run. While that sounds implausible historically in Wales (UK) early last century tram-ways were delivering coal from high in the mountains down to the ports with such a system of just cables & pulleys.

All the best. Shawn Gray

[conductorchris]

I don't know if Open Rails can give you a log of energy consumption.

But I have worked with simulators that can.
What comes to mind is LTK Engineering's OnTrack simulator. That is a proprietary setup and get ready to spend some real money, but if you want the best data, that would be my suggestion.

Christopher

[AuzGnosis]

G’day Christopher
Checked out the LTK Engineering website very interesting stuff. LTK have set-up a branch office for South Pacific at North Sydney (only 2 hours each-way by train from here in the Mountains). LTK’s webpages about TrainOps® LTK’s proprietary operations and electrical network simulation software (TrainOps Operations, Traction Power, Train Control & Traffic Modeling) was very interesting indeed, especially in raising hopes (that with a backer or two) we maybe able to simulate a historical scenario of the electric traction network & operations over the mountain in the early 1980s (that previously I had judged to be a futile hope). Anyway while historical simulating of coal-train’s regenerative breaking on down hill run hauling (one or more) passenger trains simultaneously up the mountain would be a strong strand for any future business case we are not at that point yet. Currently we are are a few steps earlier in our strategic plan attempting to get a feel for what the our benchmark (NSWGR AD60, CFA 231-132BT) steam garretts could be capable of, thence the CVL (of similar size & weight) with reciprocating power has to be designed to achieve as our minimum expectation.
As to “ if Open Rails can give you a log of energy consumption.” who should I try to contact? I already have projected managed the development of Expert Systems in my days in our State Public Road Authority for applications similar to what TrainOps does for rails. So if OpenRails does not yet have a logging function it does seem to hard to find a few competent programmers here (self included) to write it.

All the best. Shawn Gray

[baldwin]

Open Rails does have a logging function specifically for steam locomotives. It records power output and fuel used along with other data pertinent to steam locomotives, currently in 5mph steps. This was coded by Peter Newell, so he would be the best person to contact on this matter.

[AuzGnosis]

Open Rails does have a logging function specifically for steam locomotives. It records power output and fuel used along with other data pertinent to steam locomotives, currently in 5mph steps. This was coded by Peter Newell, so he would be the best person to contact on this matter.

Oh this is great news. It was the fact that Peters' website Coals-to-Newcastle had all the routes we interested in investigating in the short-term that original twigged our interest in Open Rails. Will definitely be dropping Peter a line within the next few weeks.

Many thanks mate for the great news.