Just did a compile to test and noticed that you can not place any Steam or diesel trains on the rails . I tested a few cars and they place ok . there is no error

I pulled commit ae2b848 and placing engines works .Use this as a starting point . if i have time ill narrow it down to the actual code

thanks for pointing this issue out, i tried a few different trains and the forney of all things threw the error, got me a full stacktrace, I'll see about having this, and a few other issues i needed to handle, done within a few hours.
scratch that timeframe, this is related to a git push by one of the contributors, I'm gonna have to get their help fixing this mess.

Compiled with fixes , a new issue any engine or car rides up into the air when it encounters a barrier as seen in the images

shouldn't be a new issue, nothing in regards to those systems has changed in quite some time.

Eternal should I open a new issue with the cars riding up on the barriers and close this ?

you can, but it won't be receiving a fix until the rewrite anyway. Far as I know it's been around since 1.6, and I have no clue where the issue stems so i couldn't even begin to try and fix it.