Rail improvements for ATS

[haulinmass2077]

- Currently trains are able to brake extremely quickly and unrealistically. I saw an NPC vehicle get stuck on a track and the train stopped like it was a sports car. I'd much rather it slowly came to a stop and if it hits the car, so be it.
- Would be nice if there was an animation for lifting shipping containers off the truck and onto a train carriage (where applicable).

this and more freight cars please

[Tails]

I hope Canadian National Railway also gets added in ATS since parts of this company travels through Midwestern and southern US states.


map of Canadian National Railway track routes this company takes.
[ external image ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_National_Railway

[flight50]

I've seen the weirdest thing today while just searching youtube for train acceleration video. Check out this video. Its a very odd way to support a trailer. You are completely dependent on the frame of the trailer to support the center load..........assuming they are loaded of course. SCS, please don't do this, lol. Keep the piggy backs as they are more common. Road railers are not the norm at all. This seems to only be select companies.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[SmokeyWolf]

@flight50 Triple Crown as of late they are a shell of their former self. At the time the road railers were ground breaking. They downsized a lot as their main customer was/is the auto industry.

[akima]

Trains make some really cool sounds when they are passing by, accelerating or coming to a stop with metal wheels grinding on steel rails. There's an opportunity to improve the ambiance by adding some of these sounds.

Side note: The Sounds Fixes Pack mod is one of only two mods I use and it greatly enhances and tweaks the soundscape. There are a number of train related sound tweaks/enhancements in it (including changes to the crossing bells).

[BattlePeasant]

The train makes a grinding noise when it changes trajectory, usually at turnouts. When driving in a straight line, there should be no grinding. I don't want to hear it every time at the railway crossing.

[plykkegaard]

It depends on the condition of the track and the speed of the train

Back in the eighties I was employed by Copenhagen Stevedore Company, some days I drove a bus other days I assisted with shunting on the companies area, mainly contanies or cars dsitrbuted by train

[BattlePeasant]

The main source of squeak is the rotation of the bogie relative to the railcar body. The railcar body rests on skids and they creak strongly in turns.

[flight50]

The train makes a grinding noise when it changes trajectory, usually at turnouts. When driving in a straight line, there should be no grinding.

That's a very false statement. You can watch several train videos on youtube and hear trains grind/squeal at certain points on the track. Its just as @plykkegaard stated. It depends on the condition of the track. There are spots on straight lines that are prone to sounding off contact points just like a curve. There are curves that can be perfect and you have no noise. Sound is not depended on straights or curves. You may want to watch a few videos though. This statement is not accurate at all.

I'll help ya out with one video. I'd think its impossible for every car to have the same squeal and sounds. It boils down to what they are riding on as a particular section of track just causes them to make noise. There is no such thing as a smooth even track everywhere. Sometimes, you can see over some sections of track, the cars jump or wiggle due to imperfections in the track. Friction on the track is going to happen as speed and weight has factors to what you encounter.

Watch on YouTube

[Gloriousnse]

Greetings!

I'm a rail enthusiast and railway modeller who has been playing ATS for a couple of months now and saw this, so thought i'd throw my own part in.

*Personally the biggest distracting thing for me is the modelled hoppers - there is a grey covered one which definately looks like it's based on a US prototype, but appears much too short/squat in height - and a brown one (or is that open?) which I think is a reskinned Russian one from ETS2 which that doesn't look particularly like US examples. Both just jar visually for me, and when they appear together they just look a little absurd.
Covered hoppers form a huge percentage of the North American fleet, and having two examples that jar visually I don't think helps. (The US covered hopper and boxcar both seem to turn up in ETS2 as well, but that's for another thread!)
The boxcar, container well car, tank car all look great in proportions and finish by contrast.

*I've noticed there are US style 3 bay open hoppers and (low, scrap/steel traffic) gondola's modelled in some places in-game, but I don't think they appear in trains? Can they be made to do so? That would help with the car variety in mixed trains, and allow for block coal trains using the hoppers (Wyoming in particular ships many, many unit coal trains!)

*Is there the capability to do more than one skin on some of the models, again to increase the variety without damaging speed too much? Somebody mentioned above putting the opposite paint jobs on the two main default loco's which would come under that - as we go East we will get into territory where BNSF and UP don't dominate so much also? (KCS in Texas?)

*All US freight cars should nowadays carry reflective patches (usually yellow, but sometimes white) on the sides - in the same ways as the crossings being reflective and the arms being lit, this gives some really great effects when they pass by headlights at night and would be a very cool addition.

*Train lengths, i'm using a mod to increase these at the mo which mostly helps, I can understand there needs to be a balance for the stock game tho. It would be nice if adding multiple loco's was a capability somehow.

*Sounds are key - i'm using a mod for this which seems pretty good for crossing and horn implementations alone! Just hearing distant train horns across a town even if you aren't near a crossing helps immersion!

*The use of a generic small rail terminal which handles literally everything from cars and automotive to steel is a bit atypical - suspect a reasonable compromise but it does sometimes give you some odd terminal arrangements when you try and visually expand it!

("Russian" cars here...)