Hi,
Richard has done a nice job of the route updates, in general. However, I feel that he may have been pushed into publishing the updates before they were fully ready by some of the comments made previously. I have been discussing things with him and suggested a few signal additions or changes but he published the route files before letting me see what changes he had made. This would have avoided publishing these errors.
As Tomnick says, the signaling is 'technically' OK. However, because of the layouts that Richard wanted at certain places I accepted these as long as basic signalling worked as far as driving trains was concerned.
In the case where speed restrictions are concerned these are mainly down to driver's route knowledge. You should know these before signing the route knowledge card. In BVE this is rather overlooked. Advanced warning ramps etc only come in under certain conditions and according to rules and regulations. My aim on learning a new route was to learn the 'slowest' speeds first then let the maximum speeds take care of themselves. Anyone can drive fast but you have to know when to slow down, and stop.
Most of the signals on the route work fine, but the worst omission is a distant signal for the spit signal taking you into Collier's loop. Richard placed an AWS ramp on the viaduct but hasn't included a distant signal to go with it. Because you are going into the loop (freight route) you should have a 'buzzer' at the ramp and not a bell as you will not know which signal is cleared until you see it, which you don't in this case due to the tunnel mouth. But also you can't run straight into the loop without a signal check. Normally you would be checked down until approaching the split junction signal, but in the case of BVE it would be acceptable simply to have a 'yellow' signal and be prepared to stop at the control signal, the fact that it is aready clear for the loop is OK as you should be almost stopping by the time you see the signal.
Running into the terminal station isn't correct either as, again, you wouldn't have a clear signal to run into the deadend platform without having a distant signal check (with AWS buzzer) before hand. There should be a distant signal to bring you down to a stop, or near to a stop, for the signal prior to the station and for taking the 'branch' line at Collier's Stone Station. Wherever you have an actual 'stop' signal be it semaphore or MAS you must have a 'yellow' distant check. Peronally I didn't care for them as in fog or falling snow you could easily miss the stop signal. But I also agreed with the reasoning behind this in that if a driver received too many 'warnings' over a short distance they could also equally get confused, therefore in this case they knew exactly why they were getting a warning.
In the case of Collier's Stone the signal prior to the final signal could be a Stop signal with a distant arm below it. This was common when signalling was very close together in built-up areas of semaphore working.
Tomnick is also correct in that AWS is mostly only placed at Distant signals on lines such as Scourenton is based upon and the actual 'stop' signal doesn't necessarily have one.
There are a few anomilies with timings, in that Richard has added the correct bmp timetables but not made some corrections in the Timetable Editor or perhaps made a typo. In the case of 2C45 (156) he shows an arrival time at Dockcroft as 12.02 but departure as 12.1330 instead of 12.0330.
With 7H59 (37) the timings should be: 15.5700 - 15.58 departure and 16.14 arrival at Collier's Loop. Those with a Timetable Editor can make these changes themselves but others will require the correct Route Files.
I am having a strange problem with the Class 31 file! (1Z05) in that while the Starting departure time is 07.0815, which shows as correct in the route file, whenever I load the file up the clock starts at 00.002. I entered the route file into the Timetable Editor and deliberately deleted the two timings and retyped them again and saved the file. When I next loaded up the file it started up with the correct time on the clock. However, when I loaded the file up again a bit later the clock returned to 00.002. No idea what that's about!!!!
Whatever. I hope that this is a lesson to those who keep badgering authors to get their route or updates out as quickly as possible. Just wait a bit and you will get a route with as few errors as possible.
Outside this Richard has produced a very good route.
Cheers.
Bill.
