Hello fellow steam railroaders,

I'm participating in developing a basic set of instructions for museum visitors on how to operate a northern type steam locomotive of the 1930's. My task is to make the instruction list for starting the train, bring it to track speed, come to a full stop at a signal, start again, and come to a stop at the station. The Virtual reality experience is only going to be 3 mins long so its becoming less real all the time!

But I was wondering from you guys the correct procedure on what to do: ie: wait for the air signal from conductor, answer with two long blasts from whistle... and so on.

Many thanks!

I would think skip the signal stop, and you might be able to fit into the 3 minute cycle.

Hallo Steven,

Actually is was me who suggested the signal as a "challenge", the VR guys wanted to create a "crisis" Ie: cow on tracks or a car on a crossing, more like a potential disaster.

Tak skal du ha.
Rian

Even a Niagara in perfect adhesion conditions won't get to track speed in 3 minutes ... let alone stopped again. So either relax some of the 'assumptions' or be prepared to tolerate a lower speed.

As a short note: there will be two things to watch for as a 'go' -- one is that a visible clear signal indication will be required, and the second will be two 'peeps' on the communication whistle, telling you that the conductor has buttoned up and is ready for the train to proceed.

There will have been some interesting things required while the train was standing, and in the several minutes prior to the stop. For example, the engine will have been on 'blower' to keep the fire drafted, and the fireman (whose distinctive contribution to this you have not been mentioning) would have been working this 'strategically' together with some creative use of the injector to keep the engine from popping off. Some engines, like the PRR T1, might benefit from having the pressure 'reduced' at starting, with the expectation that the heavy draft will bring the pressure up to spec by the time the engine can start using it effectively without slipping, but the use of rapid pressure cycling can be an invitation to staybolt failure or other distortion.

Don't forget that if you release the train brakes too fast, the train may start rolling backward ... and you can't put them back on right away and have to try using the independent. You will want to model the effect of the two generally different 'styles' of starting: winding up the reverse as quickly as possible once the throttle is fully open vs. keeping cutoff comparatively long and modulating the throttle. (The latter may be preferable when the engine is working under slippery conditions ... which is a situation you might include in the model (rain, leaves, etc.) If the engine slips you would need to take appropriate response, but there may be lags between the time you, say, close the throttle and the time the engine responds, and if you overreact you may find yourself either stalling or repeatedly slipping. Just for fun you could model a Valve Pilot device, which would show 'matching needles' for setting the most efficient cutoff, and a booster (which trades quicker starting for decidedly more steam consumption as speed gathers, and has to be carefully idled, put in gear, not overspeeded, etc. 'lest harm befall'.

Might be fun to model this against an 'ideal' performance, or with some of the parameters 'sutomatically controlled' for a bit more simplicity. (The on-screen display might show a 'competing railroad's' train driven in an average way, so lackluster performance falls behind, but better acumen beats the competition...

Stopping the train in emergency, and power-braking to just the right part of the platform, are two other very intricate skills that will take a great deal of practice to do right, in ways that will prove very interesting to people who thought stopping a train is like a bigger version of stopping a car... and there is another lesson: if there is a car on the crossing at track speed, you will ALWAYS hit it with the train: an informative if grim lesson in the physics of the real world.

Don't forget to call the signals or you may get called on the carpet... ;-}

Of course, they have to start as a wiper and work their way up to running, which should eat up at least 15 minutes first. I'd rethink the parameters if i were in your shoes.

Were trying to get the visitors interested in the steam locomotive, not to drive them away ;)

The simulation will never be authentic, its virtual reality. Virtual means "almost", but with the average time that a visitor will have with this simulation, the time and duration of the operation will be unrealistic, there is no other way around it. But the basic handling of the controls and the interior of the cab will be very realistic and also there will be vibration and the feeling of the heat hitting you.

IMHO since the experience will be 3 minutes (I know that's a unrealistic time) I think its best to simplify the handling of the operation with the following controls: Air brake (independent and Automatic), Whistle cord, Bell, Throttle, Air reverse, and cylinder cocks. The steam hogger inside me wants to do so much more! But the museum guy inside me says I need to simplify for the visitor experience.

What do you guys think??

Regards
Rian

Have you considered creating "virtual" sex? No matter the digital replica of it, I don't imagine it could provide anywhere near the same experience as analog....... my guess is you'd be better off doing analog. Still, it does present an interesting academic exercise. Decades ago I recall an article in a model railroad magazine about live steam in Nn2-1/2 scale, with a cab and backhead of a scrapped steam locomotive set up to control those tiny little trains, so it isn't new. it would be interesting to see how much we can push the digital envelope in an artificial reality.

Come to think of it, there was a Mission Impossible episode in the 1960s in which a train ride was replicated in a static car, and we do use simulators for training airline pilots and locomotive engineers. There's a long history of this sort of imagineering it seems.

a lot of engineers I know are at best "hesitant" to put a train into emergency no matter what is on the tracks. Consider that you have a family of 4 in a car on the tracks and you have a mislabeled hazmat car in your train. The car contains something that can kill everyone in this town where they are on the track. Because you saw them late it is probably too late to stop with anything but possibly a emergency application and even that is not a guarantee. If that car derails it will spill the load creating the exposure needed to kill everyone. With a passenger train you usually do not carry hazmat. but where are the passenger and are they prepared for an emergency air brake application or are they going to be injured and how many as they loose their footing. That is why railroaders I know are hesitant to go into an emergency air brake application.

That said I do know of an SP engineer that put 20 cars on the ground in avoiding a grade crossing accident. He missed a fully loaded propane truck stuck on the tracks.


Robby Peartree

One key element of engaging visitors with an activity is challenge. If you dumb-down the simulation too much it will appeal only to youngsters or total newbies, and only for a while. If you're going to the trouble of creating other sensory inputs like heat and motion, why not create two or three visitor-selectable versions with different levels of complexity (duration increasing with complexity) to challenge different skill levels? The notion of limiting cycle time is valuable from both attention span and user volume standpoints, and from experience I would suggest that a cycle that's too long is also a turn-off (disappointment) for other visitors who have limited time at the museum and want to try their hand at it. Two suggestions for reducing that problem are including a time-remaining clock so those who are waiting for a turn can see how long it might be until they can get in, posting a sign that asks visitors to only take one turn at the simulator unless there's no one else waiting and having a short video loop 'outside' the 'cab' that describes the controls and basic operation before a user occupies the 'cab' and begins the simulation. That same video could also advertise the simulator to passers-by. Keep the longest/more complicated cycle to about eight minutes. If you need more time than that, you're looking at a real RR-grade simulator that would probably need to be ticketed to individual time slots for guests.

Very good points presented. The company that is doing this VR simulation is doing this project for us from a grant. They are only doing as much work that is covered by the grant. I never thought of a real loco cab that operates a model RR track, I've never ever hear of an application like that before.

(Feel free to correct)

But for a hypothetical typical start would be:

Await the Conductors air signal

Answer with two long from the whistle

Activate bell

Put the air reverse in full forward

open cylinder cocks

release automatic brake

release independent brake

proceed the open the throttle

[
Await the Conductors air signal

Answer with two long from the whistle NOT in a station you don't.

Activate bell

Put the air reverse in full forward

open cylinder cocks NOT anywhere around passengers you don't

release automatic brake

release independent brake

proceed the open the throttle[/quote]


P

Many thanks "P"

It all depends on how many parameters the program can handle. Yes, simplify, forget the cylinder cocks, let the fireman ring the bell (in actual practice, he often does). Two shorts on the whistle by the player is good. If he/she opens the throttle too fast, have wheel slip so they have to close the throttle and start again. This is probably as much realism at the start you need. As for a challenge, have them try to stop the train at a mark at the station. Then, a "grade"-- you spilled XX bowls of soup in the dinning car, xx number of passengers lost their footing. Make it fun, some will want to "try again" and improve their "score." This is probably enough detail for the new visitor/player. You could go for a more advance version later, incorporating cut-off settings, grade by fuel consumption, etc. But, the first one is just to give folks a "little" feel of what running a steamer is like.
3 minutes is really short in real time, but very long in museum visitors' attention span!

Why is the automatic air set? I have started passenger trains plenty of times and the only time I had to hold with automatic air was when a FA 4 died and 18 Stalled on the flat 3% grade on GCR.
In the thirties spot of railroads used graduated release to come to a stop. And yes I have used cylinder cocks in stations. If you walk around just before departure you can check your headlight and give a warning. That steam will cool off pretty fast.

Robby

The 1950 commute service on the pennsula service of the SP had somescheduals that the locomotive was required to accelerate and stop pretty quickly. You may want to study that operation.

Robby