California Style Tunnels

[Conrail45]

Deleted Post

 

[Ferrous]

I just ran across this same quandry in response to a question Ben Dorsey asked, and unfortunately, the VMD tunnels do not have a builtin dighole function (ie they don't drill their own holes like other tunnels do). So, what you will need to do is search your downloaded content for something called "AJS dighole" or just simply "dighole". It's a tool that effectively makes one square of terrain invisible, so your tunnels appear "hollow", as you said.

Unfortunately, if you do not have a dighole (it'd be listed under the "objects" tab in Surveyor), you will need to wait until the DLS is back up and running to be able to get them (nope, they're not at TPR, just checked).

EDIT: Out of curiosity, what issue of Model Railroader did you get these plans from and what is the name of the route?

 

[Conrail45]

Deleted Post

 

[Ferrous]

Sorry for the long wait, I was just reviewing stuff and came across this.
The Model Railroader was the July 1999 issue, it followed a D&RGW train through the rockies on an unknown route.

-Conrail45

Thanks very much, I'm pretty sure I have that one.

*goes magazine-diving*

 

[Conrail45]

Deleted Post

 

[bnsf50]

You can make any tunnel dig its own hole. See the height tag in the snipit below. That value is not how high the tunnel sits above the ground as you might think but rather is the height that the top of the opening will be above the ground, in this case 8 meters. So if the height tag is at zero or less then there will be no hole dug. You want the value to be more than the height of the inside of the tunnel entrance but less than the top outside of the tunnel. A value of 7 or 8 works for most tunnels.

Snipit
kuid                            <kuid:38408:38001>
kind                            "bridge"
light                            1
casts_shadows                        1
length                            5
bridgetrack                        <kuid:36713:38802>
trackoffsets                        0.01,0.01
[COLOR=Red]height[/COLOR]                          [COLOR=Red]8[/COLOR]
rgb                            200,100,0
istrack                            1
initiator                        "CS_Tunnel02_bridge_start"
terminator                        "CS_Tunnel02_bridge_end"
endlength                        14.2319

 

[themnax]

my 2006 seems to have come with a dighole, but i haven't quite figured out how to USE it. i'd LIKE to be able to drill horizontally through mountains to place tunnels, as appearantly was its intention in 2004, but as far as i've been able to figgure or do with it, it just drills square, one grid piece, holes, streight down! not very useful. i haven't found a streightforward way to rotate anything in the virtical plane. so how in the heck are you supposed to use that thing? (other then for digging wells to the center of the earth)

=^^=
.../\...

 

[Ferrous]

my 2006 seems to have come with a dighole, but i haven't quite figured out how to USE it. i'd LIKE to be able to drill horizontally through mountains to place tunnels, as appearantly was its intention in 2004, but as far as i've been able to figgure or do with it, it just drills square, one grid piece, holes, streight down! not very useful. i haven't found a streightforward way to rotate anything in the virtical plane. so how in the heck are you supposed to use that thing? (other then for digging wells to the center of the earth)

Put one in the side of a hill. When you angle your camera horizontally, you should be able to see a hole not only to the center of the earth but also to the center of the hill. Place more digholes as needed to widen the hole. :wave:

 

[Shortline2]

Hi,

You need to fill that hole with a track spline looking like a tunnel, and use other bits and pieces most often found under the Scenery tab by maker of the tunnel spline (I presume that is).

If you don't fill the hole it is just a hole...

Even I with my mines need to fill that hole with a model, in my case most often with a head frame of some sort...

You need a dig hole for each entry of your new tunnel, meaning two - one for each end.
The Dig hole just makes 1 grid square see-through, nothing else - rest is up to you as the user.

Hope this helps some?

Best wishes

Linda

 

[bnsf50]

If you all would look in the 2006 V2 CCG on page 81, you will see confirmation of what I posted earlier, that the tunnel will dig its own hole. Even if somebody else built it you can adjust the height tag value so that it will dig its own hole at each end. Much simpler than having to make your own hole.

 

[bl4882]

Hello BNSF,

Did you mean page 188? I ask because I found something on signals on page 81 but a discussion of tunnels on 188.

Bernie

 

[bnsf50]

Hello BNSF,

Did you mean page 188?

Bernie

No page 81 is what is showing on mine in adobe reader, and Expert PDF reader. Anyway look at the page labeled kind: Bridge -Tunnel, in case you have a different version or print.

 

[bendorsey]

Hi Gents:

Linda (shortline2) is correct. All a dighole does is remove a small part of the baseboard allowing a blue abyss to appear. The tunnel portals must be large enough to cover the dighole (10 by 10 meters minimum). This can cause problems. Portals smaller then that look terrible unless you make rock faces part of the portal or add "wings etc to get it large enough to cover the dighole.

I've made a few. A search using dighole should turn them up and probably a goodly number made by others as well.

Ben

 

[bnsf50]

That is trues about a dig hole making a 10 x10 meter hole. That's why its better to use the height tag in the tunnel config file to dig the hole as you can at least adjust the height of the hole opening using this tag value, although it will still be 10 meters wide since there is no width adjustment. This is problematic if you make a tunnel more than 10 meters wide, you then have to use the dig hole to widen it and you're back to cutting out a 10 x10 meter hole again. Luckily most tunnels are not wider than 10 meters. I agree you still have to make the entrance more than 10 meters wide or use something to cover the hole up.