SNCF Grand-Confort passenger cars Version 1.00 Please read carefully!! Authors: Kriss44, BB25187, http://BB25187.eu/ August, 10th, 2008

History

Model

Installation

Copyrights

Thanks

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Successive versions:

Version 1.00 - 10 aoùt 2008

History

So called "Grand Confort" passenger cars were ed in the late 60's and delivered in the early 70's. They aimed to be incorporated in fast passenger trains, including newly created TEE. Contrary to former TEE cars, the body was made of ordinary steel. The livery was derived from the one already applied to CC6500. The tilting system which was envisaged at a time, and motivated the shape of the body, was finally never installed. Five different diagrams were defined to make homogeneous consists: A8u, A8tu, A3rtux (bar), Vru (dining car) and A4Dtux (generator). The cars were delivered to Paris-Massena (SW) and Paris-Ourcq (E) and assigned to trains from Paris to Bordeaux and Toulouse on the one hand, and Strasbourg on the other hand. Last units were withdrawn after year 2k.

Bibliography (in french)

• Les archives de la DEV, Tome 2, ISSN 1267 - 5008,
• Correspondances Ferroviaires, Les Trains rapides mythiques, Hors série 1/2006,
• L'Encyclopédie des Voitures SNCF (seconde édition), Editions La Vie du Rail.

The model

Voitures et états reproduits

This pack includes a set of cars in two different liveries, one based on metal grey, the second one based on light grey. Both correspond to the initial "TEE" period. The five diagrams are available. Several variants are proposed for each car, with different orientation and seat colors.

Cars for either southwestern network or eastern network

At a time, all cars are assigned to the same network (either SW or E network).

It is possible to change the network thanks to two dedicated batch files:

• running_Tx_Est.bat applies textures corresponding to eastern network,
• running_Tx_SO.bat applies textures corresponding to southwestern network,.

Listing

The table below lists all the variants available, with corresponding .WAG file name.

Passenger view

Only A4Dtux and A8u benefit from a specific 3D for passenger view.

Sounds

To ease installation, those car make use of standard MSTS sounds ("genpasswagmodern.sms"). Since the quality of those default sounds is not very high, I strongly reommend to install the GSound available on Virtual-Train website. This pack replaces most MSTS default sounds. It is thus not necessary to modifiy the .WAG files to take those new sounds into account. The different stages to install those sounds are listed in the dedicated section named "Installation" below.

Graphic load and LODs

This version implements basic LODs, which are likely to be improved in forthcoming releases.

Furthermore, I strongly recommend to make use of the MSTS undocumented feature which allocates more memory to the game. This can be enabled by just adding option -mem:xxx to the MSTS alias/shortcut, with xxx being the half of your RAM capacity.

For instance:

• If you have 2Go de RAM, use -mem:1024,
• If you have 1Go de RAM, use -mem:512.

Installation

Basic installation

This one is fully automatic. It creates the following folder in your "TRAINSET":

• SNCF_GC_VL: contains 3D, textures, .WAG.

It contains several subfolders:

• SOUNDS: contains some extra sounds (file .WAV only),
• Doc: contains this documentation.

Sounds: installation of the GSound pack by Virtual-Train

More realistic sounds can be used if you install the "GSound" pack by "Virtual-Train". To do so, please follow the stages below:

1. visit the Virtual-Train website http://www.virtual-train.org/, the go to "download / miscellanous",
2. download the file GSound.zip,
3. unzip GSound.zip in a temporary folder,
4. run the installer, taking care to specify the correct path to your MSTS installation if needed.

That's all! It is not necessary to modify the .WAG files!

As a conclusion...

Copyright

• Those cars can be used as freeware. None of the components (3D, textures, sounds, ...) included in this pack can be used for commercial transaction.
• Please do not modify, distribute or reuse any of those components, even partly, without my explicit approval.
• Using this pack in commercial transaction is prohibited!

Contributions and thanks

• I would like to thank the persons below:
  • Christian, alias Kriss44 who was my TSM teacher, and also for his technical advises,
  • Peter Hanslip who gave me the information about PolyMaster that can make such a model working in MSTS,
  • Hervé, Philippe, Pascal, for the test of the vehicles.

Contact

Website: http://BB25187.eu/, personal messages on the following forums: ASW.