Why are all trains so nice and shiny?

A while back there was a battered, weathered class 31 external in development. I got very excited about it but alas it never materialised.

So my question is why aren't there more weathered and dirty trains out there? Is it because developers don't want there nice new externals soiled or users don't want to drive a manky train?

Personally I'd love nothing more than driving a really filthy class 153 that hadn't been though the train wash for a while. I appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

Id love to make a "weathered" train, i did give it a try a while back but it didn't really hold well downloads wise compared to the clean version

And what about realistic cabs?


From left to right: Duty roster, printed ersatz timetable (as the timetable screen on the right is defective), La (catalogue of temporary speed restrictions and other anomalies) special issue for modernized Erfurt main station, brake docket, La, ZLaB (compilation of La-corrections).

*take cover and run*

mrknowitall wrote:Id love to make a "weathered" train, i did give it a try a while back but it didn't really hold well downloads wise compared to the clean version

Cheers, that's interesting to know.

Quork:
I'm surprised you can see all your dials! Is it normal to have THAT much paperwork, or is it German efficiency going into overdrive? (or to do with your training?)

I'd certainly love that train cab even if I couldn't see anything!

That looks even more untidy than MY desk!!! And that's an achievement in itself.

I think it is a national characteristic of Germans to be accurate and well ordered. That's why many who come to live in Ireland don't stay long.
Of course, the Irish builder/repairman/phone installer is precise, he says he will come Tuesday.

( He just doesn't say which Tuesday! )


On topic again, it can be more work to get a realistic dirty train than to build a fresh-from-the-paintshop one.
I do offer two varieties of the 201 loco, one of which is considerably grubbier than the other. Dirty carriages present particular difficulty with my methods of producing textures as they aren't a single image, rather they are built in layers. This means airbrushing the shite on afterwards, not impossible but challenging to get right for several reasons.

Well we did set it up a little bit

You wouldn't need to have your brake docket visible, just in reach (so usually below the La), and you don't need to have your duty roster anywhere near as long as you remember where to get off However, the rest of paperwork was necessary in this particular case, which inspired us to do this photo. Normally, you neither need the printed timetable (as I said, it's a substitute for the defective electronic timetable, something quite seldom), nor the special issue La (it is issued only when there are great changes to infrastructure; a totally re-constructed big station, in this case), and the La corrections (the ZLaB) also seldomly contain something of relevance to you. Or in other words, that leaves only the La on display.^(img1) If there aren't any entries in the La for the route you're on (which is rather seldom, in a big network like ours there is always some work going on somewhere) you have no paper;^(img2) and the same goes for the future, as the La (and the ZLaB) are going to be integrated into the electronic timetable. As a matter of a fact, the functionality is there and it has been tested already; but it will take some time before it will make it into regular operations.


img1 (me at work )


img2

A bit unrelated, but what kind of traction is that?

I think German routes use 15 kV, 16 2/3 Hz (50/3 Hz) dnes 16,7 Hz.
We have that also in Czech rep, onlz on one route though.

That's right @ Dexter. It was 16 2/3 Hz earlier (and is on some few routes still); but 50 Hz is a harmonic of 16 2/3 Hz, which lead to high idle direct current on one of the phases in synchronous transducers, resulting in higher thermic stress and thus higher losses, abrasion and costs. With a little change of 2% towards 16.7% that problem was banned.

To be more exact, the first (paper-rich) image and the second one (with me driving) are on a class 101 locomotive (electric, three phase AC asynchronous engines, 220km/h max, 6.4MW, 300kN, ADtranz, 1996-1999), the third one is on a class 401 ICE EMU (1 pure power car [basically a class 120 loco pimped up heavily], up to 14 [usually 12] trailer cars, 1 power car again) (electric, three phase AC asynchronous engines, 280km/h max, 9.6MW, 400kN, SIEMENS + Krauss-Maffei and others, 1989-1993).

I didn't mean the voltage, but loco which I already suspected was a 101, and I guess I was right (well, mostly)