Steam Locomotive Problems

[harryadkins]

MSTS BIN has been a great addition, but I am having coupler problems that seem to be related exclusively to steam locomotives. Several of my steamers will not couple with the rear coupler, similar to the older problem with front couplers. I was working with one of the NALW UP 4-8-4's last night and was unable to get it to couple to a train of 7 UP smooth side passenger cars. While experimenting, I was able to couple to the same train with various diesel locos, but none of the NALW steamers or several other steamers in my library would couple to the train. I installed the bincoup.zip update to the passenger cars, but the steamers never did couple. Has anyone had any success dealing with this problem?

[Bill Hobbs]

The tender coupler rather than the passenger car coupler is the one you need to look at. The lead car's coupler determines the behavior of the coupling the the next car. Check the coupler settings and bounding box on the loco's tender.

[drjoe]

Change your couplers on the locomotive and tender. Start with the locomotive couplers that are in the pre-Bin part of the package. Put the freight car couplers on the tender. Even steamers can use the automatic values, and they should fix your problem.

[Turbo Bill]

Also I think Mike Simpson has set up RR to put the Turbo Bill Passenger type couplers on the steam engine to remove slack and the special RR short car coupler for the tender. Again, though it sounds like you have some bounding boxes hanging out over the couplers. So you have many options to try out before you've exhausted everything available to you.