I'm hoping somebody with steam-era interest can point me in the right direction here. A lot of add-ons provide a WR 20-ton brake van - the type with a covered veranda at one end only. The specific variation I am after is: BR livery, grey (i.e. unfitted), or bauxite (i.e fitted) Able to show three lights on the rear (i.e. for unfitted trains) - whether they are dynamic or fixed on the model. I seem to have found every variation but this - most grey ones are in GWR livery, and BR ones with tail lamps only show one, which is not suitable for unfitted trains. There are also some listed as TOADs in the West of Scotland Lines when they are actually standard BR brakes. I'm sure one must exist somewhere! Thanks in advance. H
The Tail Lamps as dynamic in the game so they don't appear on every vehicle, just the last one. The Side lamps would have to be done as Child Objects and I think would be there all the time. I don't remember seeing a freight with all three lamps on the Guards Van in the game.
I have traced back and the earliest with dynamic three-lamp arrangement I have are LNER ones style marketed by Rail-Sim about twenty years ago, long discontinued I suspect, so it can't be rocket science to make them work! Digital Traction's LMS brake vans work the same, West of Scotland Lines brake vans (two types) too. I haven't checked but I would expect the same of Digital Traction's SR Queen Mary brakes. There are more, I'm sure, like Woodhead . . . Malkey Mackay's BR CAO brakes have a choice of none, one or three fixed lights on one end, the latter particularly useful for static trains, e.g. an unfitted train in a loop that the player train passes. So I am afraid to say that whilst you may not have seen such in the game, you haven't lived! Must get out more . . . The only complication I can think of, hardly insurmountable, is that on a GWR-type brake the side lights would always be mounted at the veranda end of the brake, for obvious reasons, regardless of which end the main tail lamp was. Perhaps developers have avoided this because they don't really appreciate or understand that. Iron Horse House did that on BR brakes, not the common way guards did things but not irregular, so there can't be a technical issue preventing it.
Only if the lamp nearest the mainline could show a White instead of a Red Just because I have not seen a Three Lamp GWR Brake Van in the game might be because I'm not sad like you to look for them. And most of the routes I run don't have GWR Brake Vans on the trains But you seem to think it cannot be difficult to have the lamps so get making them.
Charmed, I'm sure. I was hoping somebody would come along who actually knew about and used three-lamp brake vans, but perhaps there are only a few of us who play in that era - perhaps they are there but afraid to respond when some forums are monopolised by people who impose their views heavily. Nevertheless, there seem to be many developers that produce three lamp vans, I think the next sensible thing to do will be to contact one of them to see if they would be willing to produce a WR one as a variation - my initial question was to eliminate the possibility of one such already available before doings so..
Adding extra fixed brake lamps to a guards van isn't difficult if you can find a brakelamp asset that you like. Then just add it as a entity as one would a sound or a particle to the van's .bin file. Making it selectable is a great deal more complex as that needs a bunch of lua scripting and a link to a keyboard map. I have made some keypress operated assets for loco's but never managed to get such things working for wagons.
Thanks - I don't doubt it can be done with a bit of thought because many years ago I lost a lot of hair trying to fix the tail lamps on the DT Mk1s (some appeared on the wrong end of the coach) with about a 50% success rate, but I really don't want to go there again as I am now old enough to want to retain what's left on top. Meanwhile, I have already heard back from one developer who says he will produce one for his next release that justifies the inclusion of a WR brake. For now I have plenty of BR ones I can use. Best regards, H
