MEP Deltic - Strange Behaviour (OR MG)

I am doing Part 3 of Mick Clarke's Mystery Tour, where you start off from Lincoln heading towards Sleaford with a Deltic on the front.

First part of the journey uneventful and the loco accelerating and behaving okay. However after passing through Sleaford and back on the line towards Spalding, found it difficult to accelerate, almost as if slipping though no visual warning of this though I did eventually get up to 80 MPH after crawling through the notches.

Now having departed March, cannot get above 15 - 16 MPH, loco will not pull at all. All brakes are released and initialised but notching up the expected speed just drops as does the actual speed, no slipping. The only thing that seems a bit odd is calling up the F9 operations window there is an unknown and unseen vehicle (with red identifier) in front of the Deltic which is in green and presumably should still be the front of the consist. Have I picked up and coupled some invisible item that was obstructing the track, maybe in the Sleaford area.

Update...

After coming to a stand at Cambridge, I could not move the train at all.

Tried uncoupling the mysterious object on the front which was then shown as "train ahead" on the Track Monitor.

Went into Alt-F9, didn't delete anything but clicked through the list. Returned to player train and suddenly off like a bat out of hell...

Must have been a gremlin!

Have I picked up and coupled some invisible item that was obstructing the track, maybe in the Sleaford area.

Yup - you tabbed into a 'blocker' at Sleaford, and collected it right on the nose. Don't tab at Sleaford, although it is quite a wait for the line to clear.

Martin

brace_2011 wrote:Have I picked up and coupled some invisible item that was obstructing the track, maybe in the Sleaford area.

Yup  -  you tabbed into a 'blocker' at Sleaford, and collected it right on the nose.  Don't tab at Sleaford, although it is quite a wait for the line to clear.

Martin

What exactly is a blocker Martin, as I've never come across the term before?

Somehow I managed to get rid of it at Cambridge on the way up to Barrington, but my Class 47 just picked it up on the way back through...

The only way I can think of to get rid of it is to stop at Ely put the signalling into manual mode and find a siding to dump its invisible self into before going back on the train!

A 'blocker' is (in this case) an invisible consist placed so as to render the player train's signal red.  Until the blocker moves out of the way the player is 'trapped' behind the red.  In this case it takes a few minutes (probably because of the DMU at Lincoln mentioned by Carlo in the other place)

The only way I can think of to get rid of it is to stop at Ely put the signalling into manual mode and find a siding to dump its invisible self into before going back on the train!

The only proper way to get rid of it is to start again and when you get to Sleaford DON'T tab through the red  -  wait until it clears.  This way you don't pick it up in the first place.

Martin

Appreciate the explanation Martin as it's just not something I've ever encountered, though it does reveal a weakness in OR signalling logic (don't know how it works in MSTS) in that it should not let you Tab past the signal.

"though it does reveal a weakness in OR signalling logic (don't know how it works in MSTS) in that it should not let you Tab past the signal"

I don't think so.  Sometimes you want to tab through  -  for example to collect stock from a siding.  Sometimes you don't  -  such as in this example.  As long as the activity author annotates the activity properly with regard to tabbing (and most do) there shouldn't be a problem.

Martin

brace_2011 wrote:"though it does reveal a weakness in OR signalling logic (don't know how it works in MSTS) in that it should not let you Tab past the signal"

I don't think so.  Sometimes you want to tab through  -  for example to collect stock from a siding.  Sometimes you don't  -  such as in this example.  As long as the activity author annotates the activity properly with regard to tabbing (and most do) there shouldn't be a problem.

Martin

Good point, hadn't thought of that. How do you (or the sim) differentiate then between a block that is correctly occupied by an oncoming or preceding train or a set of stock that you need to couple up, or the blocker. In the case of this activity, I don't recall there being a specific pop up message at Sleaford that the train would be held and don't Tab through. Guess this was all thought out 7 or 8 years ago so very much water under the bridge, at least I learned about blockers from the process though...