Removing deep negative items

[landnrailroader]

Today, I was cleaning up the C&TS route I am working on, having finished 90% of the track and roads. Using the errors & message tool, I had no problem selecting an item and jumping to it, but sometimes these were pretty deep, appearing as only a speck and so I would use the transform tool to raise the item into view. That is when I discovered an issue. If you move the item to a positive elevation value, then future edits will not show the item in the errors window when you use that tool. Since the C&TS has a altitude range of about 2500 feet with a mean altitude of perhaps 7,000 feet it is easy to make this mistake. Then I tried the same method on the Kentucky Div. of CSX/L&N that I am also working on and since it is relatively much flatter, I discovered a rule. When you transfer an item vertically, so as to make it visible enough to delete, do not exceed a small negative value. Lets say you have an item that shows -3200 for it's negative elevation (meters of course). Transfer it up by 3000 which leaves it at -200 meters and now it can be seen and deleted, BUT, if you cannot find it, you can jump to it again and it will probably be visible. If for some reason you don't find it - like the wife calls you to dinner -NOW OR YOU CAN STARVE- then it will still be at the new level if you save and minutes, hours, or days later it will still be there when you jump back in again.

Jerry Sullivan

[eric]

I did add a "DeepUnderground" setting in TSRE v8.005 which allows you to set this at any value which makes sense for your route.

If the mean is 7000, setting it to 6000 should work and keep the items at a floor of 6000 feet..

v8.005 has been out as a release candidate for over three months with no serious issues raised, and is now in the File Library.

[landnrailroader]

Eric,

I found the candidate version and downloaded it. What I do is create a new folder for each new release, & then delete the oldest version. I had been using another version for a year or so and it was fine. I am going to check a few things in it's startup values - for one thing, the bounding boxes were in bright red which is easier for these 86 year old eyes to see than this light purple in the new version. I use this multiple folder method mainly because I have not seen any instructions as to how it should be done. I hope that I can also create at least basic activities in order to check the integrity of a route. Otherwise, I use Track Viewer to check continuity.

I hope you are prepared for winter in TN. Not usually as vicious as that of northern IL but you will know when it arrives. Some people you meet will remember the blizzard of January, 1951. I was only 12 then, but I remember it WELL. Walked to school that morning in cloudy & cold, about 25F which was fine. School shutdown about noon, snowing to beat anything we ever saw before and it was 10F and dropping. By the time it was done it was -12F, over a foot of snow, and then while still below zero, it started to RAIN. Then we had 12"+ of snow with 6"+ of ice over it. There was white stuff in the shady areas till March.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Eric,

I corrected the object selection color but for some reason I am not seeing any markers. I checked every thing in the parameter file and all marker related items appear to be correct. I checked those against the release I had been using and they were the same so?

One thing I have noticed is that if I can clearly see the outline of the selection box for an object, I can usually select it easily with the mouse and then I usually want to delete it, if it is buried deep. Some exceptions are small objects like a 1M track piece, or bridge rails. I have also found for those tiny little objects if I just move them up so that they are still underground by 20-50 meters, they are then easily seen. So this, to me, is an improvement. I'll keep using my earlier version to edit with until I find out what the issue is with markers.

Jerry