PC Sherman Hill's Ai Timetable Is Broken

I wanted to do a thread like this for a while as I feel like this is something that I need to get out, but now that I was finally able to get my pdf timetable on Sherman Hill out, it's time for me to deep dive into something that really bugged me about this routes timetable.

Now going into this, I knew that making pdf out of Sherman Hill was going to be challenge, especially when considering that it usually takes an hour and a half to nearly two hours to complete one full line run from Cheyenne to Laramie (and back) with some stopping around Hermosa along the way. But during the process of making it, I discovered that this route has one massive problem that made the turned the process of making the pdf into a complete and utter nightmare...

...the AI timetable on this route is broken.

What I mean by this is not in the fact that services get stuck at red signals and what not, but rather in the fact that when services are driven by the AI, they have doing some strange things that make this a painful timetable to tackle, and I have four keys issues with the AI timetable that I want to bring up here, and they are...:

1. Trains departing before they should (range from a few minutes to a few hours)

Let me set the scene, I spawn into the route walking at Cheyenne depot at 11:55 in order to catch the 12:11 westbound Intermodal service to Laramie. I find that it arrives at the start point outside Cheyenne depot at 12:05, which isn't too bad. I mean it's got about 5 minutes before it's due to leave so that's plenty of time to get sat down and prepare for departue, or if you want to drive to service, plenty of time to get set out beforing setting off...

...oh, wait it can go early...

Not kidding here, about a minute after arriving at the start point, the service doesn't bother waiting around until it's set start time, it just sets off on it's own accord. I've even tried if it was possible to start driving the service from around that time, and from the image you see below, it seems like it is.

Unfortunately at the moment, it is impossible to take over from a nyservice from spawning in walking on this route, as you cannot set the reverser as the key is both out and the reverser is set in the forward direction, in a place that is impossible to put the reverse key in.

But regardless of that detial, my point still stands about services being able to go early before they are ideally suppose too, and part of the reasoning is that with these services, they do not have a set start time in the scheduling, unlike other routes of it's kind that came before it. For comparsion sake, here's a service that does have the 'wait for service to start' instruction (funnily enought, it's the sand train from Granite Quarry on this very same route).

...and here it what the schedules on most of the through trains on this route look like.

So as you can see, the 'wait for service to start' instruction is completely absent here, which could partly explain why this is happening, but I don't think it's the main reason as the why this is happen as this has been much more common place in many recent routes we have been recieving and it doesn't seem to affect the timetables of some other routes all that much.

But here, the problem might be more related to the AI spawnpoints/portals as they seem to be just spawning whatever the first train that comes into them, depending on what time you spawn into the route and I have another much more extreme example to explain this.

So I again spawn into the route, this time at Laramie at 7:55 in order to catch the 7:56 eastbound Manifest train to Cheyenne via Red Buttes. As you see just about from the map down below.

Now as it pointed out in the image, there shouldn't be another eastbound service for around an hour and an half, and this is from me checking the timetable, which states that the next eastbound service is due at 9:30. So if that's the case then...

...why do I see this train spawning right behind it???

This is something that I found completely baffling, so I decided to wait around Laramie for it to come to the start point in order to see what the service is, and you wouldn't believe what I ended up finding here...

It's Automotive service that not suppose to show up until 10:59!

And if you look at the clock in the bottom right hand corner, you will see it is only 8:08, so this train is spawning in nearly 3 hours ahead of schedule. Also, it's worth mentioning that the next eastbound train after that 7:56 Manifest is not even a Automotive train, but a Ethanol train, so this service is spawning at completely the wrong time. I also found out that this particular service also keeps spawning at whatever time you spawn in after 8:00 up until it's suppose to show up at around 10:59, regardless of whether it's suppose to show up or not.

...and believe me, this is not the only case here. Down below are a bunch of other services that are spawning in much earlier than they should, some are only by a few minutes, while others are meant to be hours away, and these includes service starting at both the Cheyenne and Laramie ends of the route. I also put in a time that I spawned in walking in order to active that service at that time. So without further ado, here are some more examples.

14:39 Westbound Super Fruit showing up at 13:20 after spawning in walking at 13:10

17:44 Eastbound Automotive showing up at 15:35 after spawning in walking at 15:25

8:48 Westbound Grain showing up 8 minutes ahead of schedule after spawning in walking at 8:30

Another westbound Super Fruit (This time at 17:37) showing up 7 minutes ahead of schedule after spawning in walking at 17:20

18:49 Eastbound Intermodal showing up around half an hour early after spawning in walking at 18:10

Another Westbound Super Fruit (at 20:35) showing up 15 minutes early after spawning in walking at 20:10

Another Eastbound Automotive (at 19:08) shows up at 19:01 after spawning in walking at 18:50

So those are all the examples that I could find for now, there are bound to be more out there that I haven't ran into yet and if I do find anymore, I will flag them up here.

So as you can see, this just makes the entire timetable incredibly random and frustrating to follow. It's why I ultimately gave up on trying to get accurate timings from the time the train left the start point and from the time the train got to the end point and just decided to get the timings from me spawning in walking around the time was due to get to an endpoint/when a train passed or stop at Hermosa. I feel like in the end, this is a problem that is more related to the AI Spawnpoints and more particularly, the dispatcher on this route as it seems to be just spawning in random whenever it feels like it, regardless of what time you spawn into the route walking and regardless of whether that train is suppose to show up or not.

...and this is not the only issue I found with the portals/spawnpoints on this route, as with the next issue that you will see...

2. Trains not even showing up at all

What's worse than a train showing up earlier than it should? A train that doesn't even show up at all! This happened twice to me. Firstly when I rode the 6:45 Sand service to Laramie, when I got here at around 7:57, there's normally the eastbound 7:56 Manifest that shows up at around the same time, and I got there to find that it was nowhere to be seen. Speaking of that service, I reven rode that one, which got to Cheyenne at around when the next eastbound service should show up at around 9:30, and I looked back on the map at Laramie to see if it had spawned and it hadn't. It was mowhere to be seen on the map.

I don't have images to show you this issue (mainly because I'm not going back through these service just to try and find this issue) but it just shows once again that the dispatcher for the spawnpoints/portals are broken and are either just spawning in random trains at whatever time, or are not spawning in trains when they should show up, probably because they already spawned in that train long ago, who knows with this timetable.

There are two more issues I want to bring up here, there not as major as the other two, but are still worth bringing up as they do badly impact the AI timetable here.

3. Train crawling up the hill at a snails pace

This is probably a result of Track 3 not being represented, but what's happening is that with the heavier freight trains (especially the likes of the Manifest's, the Grain's and the Ethanol's and especilly if it's going westbound), you will find them just struggling to get up the step incline. I remember when trying to get the timings for that aforementioned 6:45 sand service, I spawned into the route at 5:30, because I also wanted to get the timings for the 5:41 Westbound Manifest (As that overtakes the Sand train before it's due to depart) and let me tell you, it was struggling massively to get up the hill. It was going so slow, I could of easily ran faster than it. This is probably one service that either could have been cut, or have been rerouted via the less steep Track 3 if that had been represented.

Also keep in mind, that's just when the train is in AI mode. I would hate to imagine what it's like to actually drive that service. If anyone has tried to drive a heavy freight like that, heading west over Sherman Hill, I would love to hear how you got on and whether you had any troubles trying to get up the hill, because I don't think it's sounds fun from just looking at one AI service.

The SD70ACe's do not make any AI Acceration noises

This is probably as a result of using the Class 66 sounds from East Coastway, as that loco also has the same problem, but when an SD70ACe is in AI mode, the just constantly emits idle sounds. Regardless of whether it's accelerating, decelerating or what not. Not a massive issue, but one that really takes so much away from the immersion of this route and riding onboard on of these services while it's operating under AI.

So that's all of the main issues that I have been able to find on Sherman Hill's AI Timetable. If anymore show up, I'll be sure to flag them up here. But hopefully most of these issues can be addressed, because boy, this was quite possibly the most painful timetable make a pdf out of for the reasons that you have just seen and something that I really don't want to go through with any routes timetable ever again. Plus, I do think that if these issues are addressed, I actually think this timetable wouldn't be too bad. It actually got quite a bit of traffic running on it for a US freight route and there are stuff like the Chemical/Oils runs (which do work perfectly fine) that do this timetable alot more interesting. It's just that with these issues, they really take so much enjoyment out of this routes timetable here.