Bellisseria SLRR Travelers Group

[PrudenceAnton]

Today we went out on a wonderful tour in Northeastern Bellisseria with Conductor Alessandro Cintoli and ventured through the Chalet-themed regions and the Newbrooke-themed regions. We ended up passing 4 other trains and had 2 trains filled with passengers along the route. Talissah Xenga captured a lovely gyazo during our trip. 

Conductor Radioactive Rosca followed in the train behind ours, picking up extra passengers when the first train was full. Or a hapless passenger accidentally fell out of our train...

The former Bellisseria SLRR seems to have gone inactive so we started up a new group today and already have 50 members.  These include passengers and Bellisseria Conductors so they can send out notices to eager travelers to join their tours along the beautiful Bellisseria SLRR tracks.  If you'd like to join our group, log into world and use this group key.

Bellisseria SLRR Travelers
secondlife:///app/group/ae6edeee-5618-83dd-2f66-b3acdbeec898/about

[Raspberry Crystal]

This looks like a lot of fun! Are you getting a feel for what times the group will be most active?

[PrudenceAnton]

5 hours ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

This looks like a lot of fun! Are you getting a feel for what times the group will be most active?

We have 8 Conductors now in the group, so I am hoping we might get train service over more time zones. I'll update here once I find out what times the various conductors can do their train tours.

Edited December 30, 2023 by PrudenceAnton

[PrudenceAnton]

The Bellisseria SLRR Travelers group is an open-enrollment group for all Second Life residents to join. If you are a Train Conductor running routes along the Bellisseria lines, contact one of our officers to assign you Conductor tags. Conductors can send out notices about their available travel schedules.

Travelers, please check the notices for available Tours in Bellisseria!

Bellisseria SLRR Travelers
secondlife:///app/group/ae6edeee-5618-83dd-2f66-b3acdbeec898/about

[Martina Voxel]

I love the idea. As I m conductor too, I will be happy to drive for you on these beautiful tracks of Bellisseria. My trains are mostly old timer Steam Railcars from Bibian.

I know a lot work have still to be done (mostly on switches, signals), but it will be done, just letting them time to do.

[animats]

9 hours ago, Martina Voxel said:

I know a lot work have still to be done (mostly on switches, signals), but it will be done, just letting them time to do.

Yes, the switches and signals need work.

In practice, everybody uses phantom trains that pass through each other. Solid trains do work, but they are rare.

There's no good way to detect train presence for an entire block. Either you need active responses from all trains (the automatic trains on Heterocera do this, and there's a control center with a map in the tower at Cretopia Station), or you need detectors in each section of track, reporting to a trackside controller at the interlockings at both ends.

To make it work realistically, each siding would give you a green signal for exit only when the track was empty all the way to the next siding, and one branch at the next siding was empty. Then you could drive solid trains without conflicts. Sometimes, though, you'd be stuck "in the hole" waiting for someone else to free up the track section ahead.

For a real world view, see "Rail Cow Girl" on Youtube. Long cab videos from a train driver in Norway. Norway's rail system is almost all single track with occasional passing sidings, and you can see how a real railroad like that works. Opposing trains meet at sidings; the first one goes on the side track, the other one goes past, and the side-tracked train comes out.

It's do-able, and would appeal to the tiny number of people who read Model Railroader.

For now, I'd settle for someone making a track inspection vehicle that finds places where the guides are out of spec or switches are broken, so you could reliably drive phantom trains without derailments at broken switches.

[Love Zhaoying]

15 minutes ago, animats said:

In practice, everybody uses phantom trains that pass through each other.

That's pretty cool, like "ghost trains" in a movie!

With the ghostly conductor, menacingly asking, "Tickets, please!"

Edited January 4 by Love Zhaoying

[Raspberry Crystal]

13 hours ago, animats said:

Yes, the switches and signals need work.

In practice, everybody uses phantom trains that pass through each other. Solid trains do work, but they are rare.

There's no good way to detect train presence for an entire block. Either you need active responses from all trains (the automatic trains on Heterocera do this, and there's a control center with a map in the tower at Cretopia Station), or you need detectors in each section of track, reporting to a trackside controller at the interlockings at both ends.

To make it work realistically, each siding would give you a green signal for exit only when the track was empty all the way to the next siding, and one branch at the next siding was empty. Then you could drive solid trains without conflicts. Sometimes, though, you'd be stuck "in the hole" waiting for someone else to free up the track section ahead.

For a real world view, see "Rail Cow Girl" on Youtube. Long cab videos from a train driver in Norway. Norway's rail system is almost all single track with occasional passing sidings, and you can see how a real railroad like that works. Opposing trains meet at sidings; the first one goes on the side track, the other one goes past, and the side-tracked train comes out.

It's do-able, and would appeal to the tiny number of people who read Model Railroader.

For now, I'd settle for someone making a track inspection vehicle that finds places where the guides are out of spec or switches are broken, so you could reliably drive phantom trains without derailments at broken switches.

This reminds me of playing with OpenTTD, quite an old game now but the signals really work and it is ever so easy to wind up in a complete jam with trains stuck in sidings.
With the ghost trains passing through each other, does this work for the passengers as well?

[animats]

2 hours ago, Raspberry Crystal said:

With the ghost trains passing through each other, does this work for the passengers as well?

Yes. If an avatar sits on a phantom object, the avatar also becomes phantom and can go through things.