This mod now requires Loco Mesh Modifier. Make sure you've installed it before submitting a bug report.

This mod changes the wheel arrangement of the S282 to any of these:

• 4-4-0 American
• 4-4-2 Atlantic
• 4-4-4 Reading (pronounced RED - ing)
• 4-6-0 Ten-wheeler
• 4-6-2 Pacific
• 4-6-4 Hudson
• 0-8-0 Eight-wheel switcher
• 0-8-2
• 0-8-4
• 2-8-0 Consolidation
• 2-8-2 Mikado (which I've altered the look of, although you can switch it back to the vanilla look in the mod's settings)
• 2-8-4 Berkshire
• 2-8-0 High Speed Consolidation
• 2-8-2 High Speed Mikado
• 2-8-4 High Speed Berkshire
• 4-8-0 Twelve Wheeler
• 4-8-2 Mountain
• 4-8-4 Northern
• 0-10-0 Ten-wheel switcher
• 0-10-2 Union
• 0-10-4
• 2-10-0 Decapod
• 2-10-2 Santa Fe
• 2-10-4 Texas
• 4-10-0 Mastodon
• 4-10-2 Southern Pacific
• 4-10-4
• 0-12-0 Twelve-wheel switcher
• 2-12-0
• 2-12-2
• 4-12-2 Union Pacific
• 2-4-4-2 Duplex
• 4-4-4-4 Duplex
  

Wheel Sizes
Version 1.1.0 added new wheel arrangements where the drive wheels and valve gear have been scaled up or down. In the future, I might make custom valve gear with the correct animations and proportions, but for now you'll have to deal with the cursed valve gear.

A larger wheel size means a higher top speed, but lower tractive effort and lower tonnage.

• All x-4-x locomotives have 82 inch drive wheels (~40% bigger)
• All x-6-x locomotives have 72 inch drive wheels (~30% bigger)
• The high-speed 2-8-2 Mikado has 67 inch drive wheels (~20% bigger)
• All x-12-x locomotives have 47 inch drive wheels (~15% smaller)
• The regular x-8-x and x-10-x locomotives have the stock 56 inch drive wheels
  

Duplexes
Version 1.2.0 has added duplex wheel arrangements: a 2-4-4-2, and a 4-4-4-4. They have four cylinders, and the rear two are simulated separately from the front two. They are based on the PRR 5550 T1 project and have Franklin B2 rotary poppet valve gear. Here are some notable simulation changes:

• Minimum and maximum cutoff on the duplexes has changed from the default 5%-90% range to a range of 1%-75% to match the PRR T1.
• Cylinder size decreased from 21.65" by 28" to 21" by 27" (yes, the stock pistons are 21.65 inches in diameter. I have no idea why Altfuture chose such a strange value)
• Weight increased from the default 125t to 175t
  

These changes give the duplex about 1.5 times the power of the default S282, about 1.4 times the weight, and make it slightly more efficient per ton hauled (although you'll still go through water quite quickly).

You will find that the front wheels slip slightly easier than the rear wheels under acceleration, and lock up slightly easier under braking. The idea is that there is less weight on the front engine than on the rear engine.

Derailing
As of 1.2.0, wheel arrangements with less leading and trailing wheels (0-8-0, etc) will now derail at lower speeds. Wheel arrangements with more leading and trailing wheels (4-8-4, etc) will derail only at higher speeds. But be careful with the 4-8-4 etc: the tender and cargo will still derail at the same speed.

Stats for nerds (like me)
Here is a table of each wheel arrangement, its approximate factor of adhesion, its estimated tonnage (assuming 1130 tonnes for the stock S282), and its tractive effort. The greater the factor of adhesion, the less the locomotive will slip.



Compatibility
This mod should be fully compatible with most mods, including the Gauge mod and Skin Manager. It's mostly compatible with Chinese style steam locomotive exterior conversion kit, if you're willing to put up with a few things looking strange. I haven't found anything that it isn't compatible with; if you do, let me know in the "bugs" section of this page.

Installation

Windows:
Drag the downloaded zip file into Unity Mod Manager like any other mod.

Linux/Steam Deck:
As of v1.2.8, the mod should work on Linux and the Steam Deck without any extra effort. (Thanks to Piotrenewicz on Discord for doing the testing on Linux!)

Updating
The auto-update doesn't always work for this mod. I've fixed this in newer versions (1.1.0 and up), but if you're upgrading from an older version you might still run into this issue.

To update, first uninstall the mod, then download the new version and drag the zip file into Unity Mod Manager.

How to change wheel arrangements
By default, this mod will choose a random wheel arrangement for every S282 that spawns in.

If you want to change wheel arrangements:

• In the comms radio, scroll to "Wheel Rearranger" and select an S282.
• Scroll through the list of wheel arrangements until you find one you want.
• Select the S282 again to confirm your choice.
  

Settings
If you don't like the default options, there are some settings you can tweak.

Open the in-game mod manager settings (by default, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+F10), and you can change whether you want randomly spawned S282's to be altered, as well as some options for some of the wheel arrangements (I couldn't decide which versions I liked better, so you can choose).

How does this work?
This mod doesn't rely on Custom Car Loader. Instead, it copies and pastes parts of the existing S282 at runtime and moves them around.

For the locomotives with different sized drive wheels, I'm just scaling the drive wheels and valve gear.

I'm also altering the physics of the locomotive for the different wheel arrangements. Locomotives with a higher axle load on the drivers (from having either fewer drivers, or fewer leading/trailing wheels) will wheelslip less. Locomotives with larger drivers will have a higher top speed but less tractive effort. Locomotives with smaller wheels will have more tractive effort but a lower top speed.

Will you add other wheel arrangements?
The wheel arrangements listed above are the only ones I could find that looked vaguely plausible on the S282.

All others either:

• would look too strange (2-6-0, 2-4-0, 4-14-4, etc.)
• or would take too much effort to add to the game (e.g. articulated locomotives)
  

Nerdy details about the wheel arrangement names
You may not agree with the names of the wheel arrangements I've given. I've tried to give the names that were historically most commonly used in the US. There was no official standard for the names, so there are multiple correct names for many classes. Many railroads didn't use any of these names, instead making up their own class designations.

Some people call a 4-8-0 a Mastodon, or a 4-4-0 an Eight-wheeler, or a 4-10-2 an Overland. These names were used, but were not as common in the US as the names I've listed here. For instance, 4-8-0's were usually only called Mastodon's by the Central Pacific Railroad, and almost everyone else called them Twelve Wheelers, so I've picked the name "Twelve Wheeler".

Southern Pacific and Union Pacific both made 4-10-2's, and had different names for the class. Southern Pacific made more of them, so I'm using their designation of "Southern Pacific" rather than Union Pacific's name of "Overland".

Then we get to the names of the 0-x-0 classes. Some historical sources call these x-coupled, as in six-coupled or eight-coupled. But often they also use these names for other classes as well. So "eight-coupled" might also be used for 2-8-0's and 2-8-2's. As far as I can tell, x-coupled really just means "it's got x drive wheels, all coupled together." So a 4-8-0 is an eight-coupled, but a 4-4-4-4 isn't.

I thought about calling the 0-8-4 a "Forney eight-coupled", but this mod's 0-8-4 looks nothing like a real Forney, despite sharing the same wheel arrangement.

Source code
You can get the source code here.