Gaps in Rail?

Hi all,

I am constructing Hull Train Station and have hit a problem. There are 8 main lines and as they exit the station building they come closer together (if that makes sense) while curving to the right. I have added the .rail commands so the rails head towards rail 0 and added a curve function. But when I add the curve function it creates agap in the other rails. Am I missing something really obvious? (photo and rail details attached below)

Track order (.rails):-

1 2 3 4 5 6 0 8

h t t p:/ / img825.imageshack.us/img825/9507/hullparagongaprail.jpg
(Photo taken from looking at rails 1&2)

Thanks in advance,

Phil

Hm, seems like all of the objects are doing that - if you are building in 25m blocks, you have to make the objects a bit longer... 25.25 let's say.

The block length is measured along rail 0, and if you have rails on the outside of a curve of rail 0 or if you have rails not parallel to rail 0, the rail objects need a bit longer.

You will always get problems with gaps in diverging rails. Depending on the gap size it may be possible to create longer rail objects. Sometimes it is possible to use a small .freeob "gap filler" made as a short rail section of a mtre or two. It is seldom straightforward.

Most standard rails are made a bit longer than 25 metres, but sometimes that won't help enough. When the rails, dikes or walls are far away from your driving rail 0 you will get gaps (I have this problem now!).

This is true and could be solvable

Would this be because on a curved section of track, the "outside" rail is longer than the "inside" rail, i.e. if you have a section of track that curves to the right, then the left-hand rail will be slightly longer than the right-hand one (as you look at it). Does this make sense.........?

It does, John.

Yes, I'm having this problem at the moment too, a little tweaking here and there is going to be needed me thinks, my shots of West Horton Tram haven't shown many examples of this yet but theres more than I first realised when having a closer look earlier today!

Tom

There must be a standard formula which applies to this - curvature of rail measured in degrees from straight; overall length of the piece of track; lengths of outside and inside rail. Maybe we ought to start googling.......!

It is perfectly possible to establish the length of outside rails in a curve, but you won't like to make longer rails for every situation. I have short pieces of rail to fill those gaps, which can be used as free objects to fill the gaps. However, it is far easier to mask those gaps with other pieces of scenery (shrubs, trees, a train)...

Thanks for your reply guys.

I have really hit a brick wall with the curved rails. I can extend the platforms etc to compenstate the 'gap' but how can you make longer curved rails than 25m?

I am really stuck and cant really do much else on my route

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Phil

but how can you make longer curved rails than 25m?

There isn't an easy answer to the problem. You need to work out the curves mathematically and calculate the vertex positions of the rails and the ballast, all centred in the same way as a switch generated rail object would be. This is quite difficult even for experienced object builders and few would be up for it. It isn't really a job for beginners.
The "fill-in" section approach may be easier to do.

You could use a scaleall command to make a 25m rail object longer along the z-axis. This would also change the radius of the rail object somewhat - no time to do the math right now, but I think if you scale the object by a factor x, the radius should change by x squared - so that needs to be taken into account when you generate the 25m object. You may also need to adjust the coordinates of the textures to compensate.

It's the bloody maths that does for me every time. That's what happens when you spend the time in maths class looking out of the window at the railway line that went past the school, instead of getting to grips with higher geometry.