What else you will or may need

The readme notes indicate a loco and seven freight cars are required to run the five activities bundled with the route. All are available at Train-Sim.com. Included in the list are:

WAG1700.zip
FORD1006.ZIP
PRR79612.zip
VTR177.zip
VTR176.zip
NYC69809.zip
EL85842.zip
WAG5240.zip
soo3bay.zip
Corning.zip
WAG2640.zip

There are also some WAG-specific freight cars, a 132-ton GE center cab diesel loco, F7 A-B carbody diesel units and an observation car available at Train-Sim.com. Just search for “Wellsvile”. I found:

b&s22.zip
bs6192.zip
wag103.zip
wag203.zip
wag1700.zip
wag2300.zip
wag2640.zip
wag3208.zip
wag4001.zip
wag4003.zip
wag5240.zip
wag7020.zip
wag8019.zip
wagx3710.zip

If you like activities, there is a pack of 20 at Train-Sim.com. They require the installation of MSTS-Bin, v1.7 or later, which you can get here.


Problems and fixes

Missing WAG.con. The basic route comes with five built-in activities. Judging from a thread at the Train-Sim.com forum, I’m one of a small number of people who could not run the activities because a WAG.con consist could not be found. I reinstalled the route and still could not find it. So I created my own WAG.con using the loco and seven freight cars the author said were required to run the activities. That solved the error message, but several of the activities still appeared problematic because the required locomotive was unknown. I’m assuming that the WAG consist in these instances is used as an AI train or something in the yards, and that the operable loco is, in my case, not installed. Unfortunately, I don’t know what that loco is.

Error in WAG plow car. There is a minor coding error in the WAG snowplow. The error and instructions are displayed by ConBuilder and the error is easily fixed. This car is one of the extra cars available at Train-Sim.com.

Error in WAG boxcar 4003. Another extra car available at Train-Sim.com is boxcar 4003. It’s very nearly the same as car 4001, except that it produces an error message because the specified shape file cannot be found. This also is easily fixed simply by renaming the shape file to the one that’s called for.

WAG rolling stock names. Some of the extra rolling stock is identified in ConBuilder by WAG, some as B&S, and others by who knows what. I renamed all the WAG equipment to include WAG at the start of the name. Generally I name rolling stock by equipment type and detail (such as construction or length or capacity or horsepower, etc.) then by road name and number and then by any other useful miscellaneous detail. Thus a Central Vermont outside braced boxcar numbered 43022 is named BX-OB CV-43022. The code as it appears in the car’s .wag file is:

Name ( “BX-OB CV-43022” )

Be sure to make any changes using Notepad or some other text editor. DO NOT use word processors like Word. You do not want any hidden formatting or other coding to sneak into the file.

Winter not supported. ‘Nuff said.


Anomalies

A few other things to note, but not to worry about: First, when in Explore Route mode, you will notice the option to start at various locations. The starting point of Ansonia is actually Wellsville.

The other point worth mentioning is that when using the B&S Observation car, I got an error message. I ignored it and everything was just fine.


Other trains I like using here

Before I get into my actual operation, let me just mention some other consists I like to use with this route. First, any of the various doodlebugs would be appropriate. I like the Ohio River & Western numbers 61 and 62 because they are subdued in appearance. If you like color, the ATSF, MStL or FJ&G 340 cars are nice. The doodlebugs can be used to haul a second passenger car or a few freight cars.


Dead Man’s switch! The default setting for this switch from Genesee to Hickox is for the siding (straight ahead). The 2-car mixed train led by the MStL doodlebug is about to find itself at a sudden dead end.

Next, for steam I like the SOL Prairie. I use the tender from the undecorated version if I want to keep to the WAG system.

I also like the Central of New Jersey 4-4-0 Camelback with a string of CNJ coaches for passenger service.


CNJ camelback in action.

All items are available at Train-Sim.com.


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Article and screen shots ©2009 Alfred Barten. All rights reserved.