Activity development
1) The two trains start as separate trains, couple together and decouple later in the game . After that of course such trains can couple to other trains, and so on.
2) The coupling train becomes an “Incorporated” train after coupling, that is it has no more cars or locomotives (they all become part of the coupled train) and is a sort of virtual train. In this phase it is not shown in the Dispatcher information HUD. It will return to life when an uncoupling command (automatic or manual) is issued.
3) To become an “Incorporated” train, the coupling train if of AI type, must pass in its path before coupling over a Waiting Point with value 60001 (the effective waiting time is 0 seconds); such WP is not necessary if the coupling train is the player train.
4) For the coupling train to couple to the rear of the coupled train there are no particular requirements; if however you want to have very short runs from coupling train start to coupling moment, it could be necessary to insert a couple of reversal points in between, or else the train could stop and avoid coupling. Please don’t disdain double reversals: they are sometimes the only way to limit the authority range of a train.
5) If the coupling train has to couple to the front of the coupled train, obviously a reversal point is needed for the coupling train: it must be laid somewhere under the coupled train, or even farther down in the same track section; also in this case there can be a problem of authority, that could require that the coupled train has a couple of reversal points after the point where it waits to be coupled.
6) The incorporated train has its own path, but from coupling to decoupling point it must pass over the same track sections of the path of the incorporating train. The incorporated train must not have waiting points nor station stops in the common path part (the coupled train instead may have them). If there are reversals within the common path part, they must be present in both paths.
7) At the point of decoupling the number of cars and locomotives to be decoupled from the train can be different from the number of the original train.
8) The whole train part to be decoupled must lie on the same track section. After decoupling, the “incorporated” train returns to being a standard AI train.9) Manual decoupling (for player trains) occurs using the F9 window;
automatic decoupling occurs with the 4NNSS and 5NNSS commands (see previous paragraph); the first one has to be used when the part to be decoupled is at the rear of the train, and the second one where the part is at the front of the train.
Originally Posted by PeterB
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