A LARS and ProtoLARS tutorial – configuring LARS interactive industries and freight cars

1. INTRODUCTION:

Real railroads generate income and profits by moving products from one location to another. Trainz can simulate this using interactive industries and freight cars. Some interactive industries, for example, the coal mine, are built into Trainz. Others are available on the Trainz Download Station.

This tutorial describes how to configure LARS and ProtoLARS interactive industry tracks, and how to make interactive freight cars work with them.

There are three essential components to interactive industries:1. Products, for example, grains, minerals, liquids, containers, pipes and vehicles.2. The interactive industries that produce and consume products.3. Interactive freight cars that carry products.

Both the LARS and ProtoLARS industry tracks allow freight cars to be loaded and unloaded with products. The differences between LARS and ProtoLARS are:• LARS will only load or unload products to the individual cars that are stationary over the track.• ProtoLARS will load or unload all the cars in a train providing just one car of the train is stationary over the

section of track for a specified period of time.• The locomotive need not be coupled to the train for ProtoLARS to work.• In Surveyor, the height above ground level of the ProtoLARS track can be adjusted

Full details about ProtoLARS is given on the TrainzProRoutes web site, and a do-it-yourself kit to make a ProtoLARS industry is also available there.

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2. TEST TRACK:

The following diagram shows a test track to demonstrate how to configure LARS and ProtoLARS:

It uses my “LARS IndustRail” and “ProtoLARS IndustRail” track. Both are available from the Download Station and both will load and unload 80 industrial products, including containers, TOFC, tubes, pipes, beams, rails and vehicles. Be warned though, the download for these is a fair size if you have not installed any products before – from a clean install it is about 55MB, with the 20ft and 40ft containers accounting for a large proportion of this.

Because the products used by both industry tracks are the same, downloading one gives you all the products needed by the other. If you do not want to use either of these industry tracks, others are available on the Download Station.

The principles described below will apply to all LARS and ProtoLARS industry tracks.

The bulkhead flat car was available from USTrainz. It can now be downloaded from RRmods.com. Other interactive flat cars from the Download Station can be used, or use the default “PRR FM flat car”. This has similar characteristics to the bulkhead flat used in this tutorial.

In all my routes I use the yellow markers to show the presence of interactive industry tracks. In this test track I have also used wooden blocks to indicate the location of the interactive track sections.

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3. SETTING UP THE LARS TRACK TO LOAD:

In this tutorial we will set up the tracks and cars to load and unload a Panzer tank on the first flat car and a Sherman tank on the second flat car.

In Surveyor, click on the “Objects” flyout, then on the “?” button:

Click on the LARS track. A new window appears.

In the new window, scroll down to the vehicle section – it is near the bottom.

Find the section with the Panzer tank.

In the “Produce” line, maximise the values for “Rate” and “Initial”. To do this, click on the value next to “Rate” and a new window opens. Press and hold the “1” key and the value in this window will be set to the maximum. Click on the tick and the maximum value allowed for “Rate” will now be fixed. Repeat for “Initial”.

Repeat for the Sherman tank.

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When done, click on the tick to close the window:

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4. SETTING UP THE LARS TRACK TO UNLOAD:

Go to the section of LARS track that will be used for unloading.

Open the Objects flyout, click on the “?” button and click on the section of LARS track:

A new window opens. Scroll down to the Panzer and Sherman tanks.

Using the same procedure as above, in the “Consume” line maximise the value for “Rate”. Leave “Initial” at zero.

When done for both tanks, close the window by clicking on the tick.

Well done – you have just set up the LARS tracks to produce and consume Panzer and Sherman tanks.

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5. SETTING UP THE FLAT CARS TO CARRY TANKS:

In Surveyor open the “Trains” flyout, click on the “?” button and click on the first flat car. A new window opens:

This window shows the products that the car has been configured to carry. Note that tanks are not included.

You will also notice that there are designators “Max Load 1”, “Max Load 2” and “Max Load 8”. These refer to the maximum number of the particular products that the car is configured to carry, for example, one 40 foot container or two 20 foot containers.

It also provides information about the attachment points for loads. It should be assumed that the attachment point for “Max Load 1” is probably in the centre of the car; for “Max Load 2” there will probably be two load attachment points, each one quarter of the way from the end; and for “Max Load 8” there will be eight attachment points along the length of the flat car.

Note that some cars will have attachment points stacked vertically rather than along the length of the car. These are used to load, for example, sheet metal and tube products on top of each other.

If we are loading a large object like a tank, obviously we want the attachment point in the centre of the car.

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Click on the “+” under “Max Load 1”. A new window opens:

Scroll down the window to the Panzer tank, highlight it and then click on the tick to close the window.

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The Panzer icon should now appear as a product that the car will carry:

Click on the tick to close the window.

Well done, you have now configured the first flat car to carry a Panzer tank.

Note: if you want to delete a particular product, click on the “x”.

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To see how the tank looks on the flat car, click the “Trains” flyout, click on the “?”, click on the car, click on the small Panzer tank icon, a larger Panzer icon appears below it, click on the “0”, a new window opens, set the value to “1”, and close the window by clicking on the tick:

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The Panzer appears on the flat car:

If you want to commence with the flat car loaded, leave it in this state.

However, for this tutorial set the flat car to the empty state by making the value “0” in the window that sets the number of the product.

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Repeat the process for the second flat car, but set it up to carry the Sherman tank:

Well done, you have configured one of the flat cars to load a Panzer and the other to load a Sherman tank.

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6. DRIVER:

Jump into Driver by pressing Ctrl-F2.

Drive the train forward until both flat cars are between the markers. The flat cars will load when the cars are stationary:

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Note: By way of interest, the Panzer tank is fitted with narrow caterpillar transit tracks to keep it within the railroad loading gauge. The normal full width tracks are also carried on the flat car. Note also the tie down chains:

Drive the train forward to the unloading track. Stop with the flat cars between the markers. They will unload.

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7. SETTING UP THE ProtoLARS TRACK TO LOAD:

Now set up the train on the ProtoLARS track.

Note: ProtoLARS can be fragile because of memory demands. I recommend saving after configuring each ProtoLARS industry track.

In Surveyor, click on the “Objects” flyout, click on the “?” and click on the ProtoLARS section of track that will be used to load the train. A new window appears:

At the top of this window are options for the “Start delay”, “Load method”, and “Load/Unload interval”.

The first sets the time period that the train must be stationary before the train will load or unload. It must be absolutely stationary, with or without the locomotive attached, for loading or unloading to take place. For this tutorial, leave the value for “Start delay” at 1 minute.

The second selects whether all cars will be loaded or unloaded simultaneously or in sequence. The third value sets the time interval between the loading or unloading of cars if sequential loading has been selected.

For the purpose of this tutorial, level the setting at their default values.

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Scroll down the list to the Panzer and Sherman tanks. Using the procedure used before, set the values for “Rate” and “Initial” in the “Produce” section and “Load Amount” under “Load/Unload” to the maximum for both tanks. Leave all other values at default:

Click on the tick to close the window.

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8. SETTING UP THE ProtoLARS TRACK TO UNLOAD:

Move to the section of ProtoLARS track that will be used to unload the train:

For both tanks, in the “Consume” line set “Rate” to the maximum. Leave “Initial” at zero.

Set “Unload Amount” below “Load/Unload” to the maximum.

Leave all other values at default.

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9. DRIVER:

Jump into Driver and drive the train forward. Stop so that one of the cars is between the markers. Wait one minute. Both cars will load, even if one is not between the markers. Loading will also happen even if the locomotive is not attached to the cars:

Move forward to the unloading track. After one minute the cars will unload.

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10. FINALLY:

In this tutorial we configured one car to carry a Panzer and the other a Sherman.

We could have configured both cars to carry both tanks. Just click on the “+” and add the Sherman to the Panzer when configuring the freight car to carry products.

If we had done this, to select which tank is loaded onto a particular flat car, in Driver click on the Commodity Picker in the bottom right of the screen:

A new window appears. Select the Panzer from this window by clicking on it, then click on the first flat car. It will now load only a Panzer at the interactive industry.

If you do not want the car to either load (if empty) or unload (if loaded), select the icon that looks like a set of wheels with a cross through it, then click on the car. It will do nothing at an interactive industry.

Note: if the products selected in the commodity window will not “stick” to the freight car, the car has not been configured to carry that product.

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To see how LARS and ProtoLARS can be used in Trainz, try the sessions for “RiversideRailroadCo” and “IndustRail 1a”.

The routes and the sessions are on the Trainz Download Station.

Enjoy !~!

Phil SkeneAdelaide, South Australia

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