Guys when I started my two routes was back right after I bought TRS 2004. So it had to be after 2004 since I never buy a new program until it has been out for a while. At that time there was no TransDEM, we went on line and down loaded the Tiger and other file from USGS or something like that, and used them with HOG to generate the maps. They showed the changes in elevation, and gave the locations of the tracks, roads, and water, in green, red, and blue. I worked on the harbor area first where the land was all flat. There was a lot of work there with two sorting yards, and other tracks running all over the place. Plus bridges and other buildings that didn’t exist on the DL station. I had to put off doing any thing else until I learned how to make what I needed with Gmax, so I am not a novice at this. I was 68 years old when I started and I am 76 now, well 77 next month. It was only recently that I started back working on my Home Town route, I had been working mostly on My Walt Disney World Route. I bought the TransDEM program, but have not got around to trying it out. Mainly because it doesn’t tell me in the tut’s how to get the files I need to use with TransDEM. It has been a while since I made a map, and I don’t remember everything I did at that time. Besides how would you like to start all over with a different map, and reinstall all that track, roads, and other content? All I wanted to know was if some one out there knew a easier way of making slops. The bmp’s in surveyor only works in line with the grid, and where I need the slop is not conveniently in line with the grid. Making my own would not help either for the same reason. It’s as bad as trying to bring a sloping bank up close enough to the bridge abutment with out the ground coming up in the road under the bridge. Well this is longer then I intended so I will end here, Thanks for trying to help.
} (another former Signalman, not quite 65)