I'm really enjoying the longer and more complex switching activities in TSW3, including the need to be aware of and, in some cases, cope with AI traffic that sometimes affects the driven consist's movements. Barstow Yard Switching is one of several sessions that require "yo-yoing" from one end of the immense Barstow Yards to the other and back again while paying attention to other, higher-priority switchers. However, the final action of this session presents a challenge that seems unsolvable. Here's the situation as the driven switcher approaches its next-to-last destination: The driven switcher seems to have the right-of-way, based on the apparent switch positions, but before the driven switcher can reach this destination, and AI train with higher priority begins moving toward its destination, taking control of the "crucial switch", which must be set to the left for the driven switcher, but to the right for the AI train. Because the AI train has a higher priority, the driven switcher cannot reach its next-to-last destination and thus cannot complete the service. Using save/resume feature now available in TSW3, I tried everything I could think of to complete this session -- to no avail. Help, anyone?
It's in the title of my post: Barstow Yard Switching 1, but it's a Timetable Session, not a Service (also in title of my post).
I just played the service and it worked out for me without any problems, the player switcher pair passing the "crucial switch" to reach the second but last position at about 17:03h.
Good for you! I'll be giving this one another try sometime soon. Just out of curiosity, how close do you tend to stick to the speed limits? One of my faults is that I'm too cautious (or perhaps I'm just a slow poke?)
Tbh, I rushed it a bit, because I wanted to get to the point you described and see. So I slipped over the line a couple of times, but I should say about 95% was below speed limit and the rest not more than up to five clicks above occasionally. But the coupling and uncoupling I did quite fast (skipping my usual routine of stopping before the coupling, opening the couples, stretching the train after coupling, and so on), also the shunting (setting/checking switches while the train is accelerating from standstill, stopping as soon as the end of the train is on the mark), I have to admit to that. Still there is a limit to rushing, since you have to wait for trains to pass and signals to switch at a couple of points in the service.
Yes, it works. But you do have to stop and wait for an AI consist to pass near the end, which means stopping well in advance of the red light. I used the 2d map to plot the path of the AI train.