Open Rails & Track Nodes

[marklester01]

Back on The MSTS Wagon ( so to speak ), you'd have to have invisable/"hidden" Track Nodes every so often thanks to a bug within the Program that made you break the train/un-couple for nothing if you didn't go past any switches for a bit. Example's like coming out of a rocky valley or mountain area to an industrial switching area or vice versa, & if it didn't have those invisable Track Nodes your train sometimes ( even with the 5.4e.7N double couple settings ) would basically be like,"Bye,bye" Another's @ a Port where you'd pull the train all the way around & would come back to the same track ( such like The AL Port on NS Birmingham Route ). Do you still have to worry about this in ORTS as well?

[baldwin]

no need for extra track nodes in OR, and proper strength couplers work fine. Loops still need a bit of special care to make them work, mainly signalling.

[geepster775]

In fact, MSTS routes that have hidden track nodes are starting to screw with OR activities that involve lots of AI in both directions on a single track, because hidden nodes allow AI trains to pass the last siding thinking there is a passing loop at the hidden node. So activities need to be nursed (AI's specially timed) to avoid deadlocks at hidden nodes. Built-for-OR routes should NOT have hidden nodes. And true OR users can't dump MSTS-built routes soon enough.

The free Scenic Sub route had a standoff between AIs in the stack train activity. There are 2 zero degree nodes between Leavenworth and Winton that produces a standoff between opposing AIs just as the player is passing through skykomish. As the player slugs it out upgrade, you can afford to switch to AI9 and back it up 2 signal blocks and get it in between the switches at Leavenworth in order to clear the standoff. If you don't catch it early, too many trains queue up in both directions that one passing siding can't fix.

[dcarleton]

I noticed the same exact thing.

How ironic -- The free demonstration route for convincing the community to migrate from MSTS to OR gets hobbled by an unnecessary MSTS workaround!

[R. Steele]

Can anyone provide a method to remove these "hidden" switches using TSRE?

[joe_star]

Can anyone provide a method to remove these "hidden" switches using TSRE?

1. Identify their location from trackviewer or msts AE. In MSTS AE they will appear as nodes in the middle of a stretch of continuous track.
2. Remove all interactives (signals, mileposts, speed limits from track node to track node covering both sides of the "hidden" node
3. The hidden node consists of 2 x 1m points, 2 x 1 m straights and a 3m straight. Delete all these and replace with a single 5m straight
4. Replace all interactives as before
5. Auto fix all your paths with track viewer as they WILL be broken after removing the hidden nodes