Route Building - Prototypical or Fictional?

[Driver_Col]

As many of you will know, all but one of my routes are fictional. There are often discussions around here on the issues surrounding prototypical route building, and I really do not envy anybody attempting an accurate representation of a specific route. In fact I admire anybody who can come up with a good representation of an actual route, but I can also totally understand the "hair pulling" as progress can be painfully slow and slowed down further with the necessary research. These thoughts were on my mind this morning as I worked on a couple of my projects, but then an over-riding question presented itself:

How can I possibly relate to anybody creating a "rivet for rivet" copy of an actual route when I am working in the world of fiction? I wanted to share the answer to that question in the hope that a prospective route builder will not eliminate the possibility of a fictional route. In fact I would hope that a prospective route builder will see both perspectives as quite valid.

Somebody once commented in a Post here that my routes are the best model railway routes he has played with. I never thought of my routes as model railway routes, but that is exactly what they are. I started with Trainz when my "00" gauge model railway was just not practical due to inherent size limitations. I have no such limitations with Trainz!

When one plays with/creates/admires a model railway, the predominant factor must surely be the miniature sizing involved. I had great pleasure (and much frustration) making a railway station, docks, and then adding the lights and passengers, the luggage and the occasional policeman. When creating in Trainz, none of the personal satisfaction is going to be based on the miniature sizing simply because it does not exist. We can conclude therefore that the reasons a fictional Trainz route might be appreciated, are nothing like the reasons a "real" model railway might be appreciated.

So what's the big deal about a fictional route? It can only be rated by its realism, and such realism is the reason why I can relate to prototype users. A prototype route has major challenges due to the geography, urban areas, terrain etc in order to be convincing. A fictional route creator has to come up with exactly the same features but more creatively. While they are not bound by maps and photographs, they now have to visually justify everything. i.e A curving river can be a lovely touch to a landscape, but rivers must have a reason to curve. That reason must be considered when landscaping that fictional route. Likewise railway tracks are laid with many factors having to be accounted for in the real world. Again, while it is easy to just lay some trackwork and include some interesting curves and gradients, such curves and gradients have to be explained so that it all makes sense to a critical eye. The more one thinks about a fictional route, the more one has to admit that a lot of structured creativity is involved, and I am hoping that by just touching on a few important aspects, fictional route building can be seen as a very worthwhile option.

I am not going to take a position of putting a greater or lesser value on either perspective, but it would seem to me (from comments over the years here) that creators of fictional routes are often not given the credit they deserve for pulling together a pretty realistic "model railway".

Just some early morning thinking! Regards to all. Colin.

 

[Lataxe]

The non-fictional routes are interesting as representations of the past real world (or even the present one) but in practice they can be so big that it becomes impossible to fill in sufficient detail to achieve the sort of scenic realism that can be approached in fictional routes. Despite being fascinating, routes such as Settle to Carlisle and the East Coast Mainline can look a bit sparse because they couldn't possibly get all the details of the actual places in without years and years of extra work. In addition, journeys along such long routes can become tedious.

But it is a matter of taste and preference. There's no "better or worse", no hierarchy of worth, between the two approaches.

Fictional routes too can be attempted as "prototypical". Some go to the far ends of a f to achieve an absolute realism whilst others prefer to make something not necessarily historically accurate in every detail but sufficiently "like" somewhere to generate a remembrance of being in "places a bit like that".

On the other hand, one can go too far in ignoring the truly prototypical. Large numbers of out-of-period and out-of-locale assets can undermine any attempt at an authentic "feel" of a time and place. It's not always an easy balance to achieve. But fictional routes can always be amended, fixed, upgraded and generally pushed more towards content that fits better, historically.

Lataxe

 

[GaryReggae]

I love the creative freedom in building fictional routes and 90% of my Trainz work is on fictional routes. Prototypical routes are great as well in a different way but do take a lot longer to create. I like being able to extend lines gradually and work on different parts of the map, as well as other smaller maps as and when I have the motivation. Still a lot of space to fill though! I have downloaded several fictional UK routes such as Dintdale Road, Midshire and Rosworth and LMR South 1960s and enjoy have the freedom to add rolling stock that fits the theme and era whereas I tend to stick to the route's rolling stock for prototypical routes.

Kind regards,

Gary

 

[Driver_Col]

The non-fictional routes are interesting as representations of the past real world (or even the present one) but in practice they can be so big that it becomes impossible to fill in sufficient detail to achieve the sort of scenic realism that can be approached in fictional routes. Despite being fascinating, routes such as Settle to Carlisle and the East Coast Mainline can look a bit sparse because they couldn't possibly get all the details of the actual places in without years and years of extra work. In addition, journeys along such long routes can become tedious.

But it is a matter of taste and preference. There's no "better or worse", no hierarchy of worth, between the two approaches.

Fictional routes too can be attempted as "prototypical". Some go to the far ends of a f to achieve an absolute realism whilst others prefer to make something not necessarily historically accurate in every detail but sufficiently "like" somewhere to generate a remembrance of being in "places a bit like that".

On the other hand, one can go too far in ignoring the truly prototypical. Large numbers of out-of-period and out-of-locale assets can undermine any attempt at an authentic "feel" of a time and place. It's not always an easy balance to achieve. But fictional routes can always be amended, fixed, upgraded and generally pushed more towards content that fits better, historically.

Lataxe

Some good thoughts there Lataxe. Many thanks for sharing. I think I might suggest fictional for anybody's initial route in Trainz. It can then be within whatever restraints are dictated by the individual's patience! There are many posts which express frustration while tackling a non-fictional route, and some individuals have clearly just given up which is unfortunate. Trainz must be fun, and so keeping goals of route building into a healthy/realistic perspective should be paramount. Regards. Colin.

 

[Driver_Col]

I love the creative freedom in building fictional routes and 90% of my Trainz work is on fictional routes. Prototypical routes are great as well in a different way but do take a lot longer to create. I like being able to extend lines gradually and work on different parts of the map, as well as other smaller maps as and when I have the motivation. Still a lot of space to fill though! I have downloaded several fictional UK routes such as Dintdale Road, Midshire and Rosworth and LMR South 1960s and enjoy have the freedom to add rolling stock that fits the theme and era whereas I tend to stick to the route's rolling stock for prototypical routes.

Kind regards,

Gary

Hi Gary. Yes, fictional Routes can certainly have a lot of appeal. My routes have all developed over the years both in overall size, and in additional trackwork and interactive industries. I do like taking an existing Route and expanding it in some way. However, prototypical/non-fiction routes can also treated with a similar perspective. For example, my Leeds to Sheffield route often tempts me into extending it further north and/or south. Given the age of that Route, it badly needs an overhaul in order to take advantage of the latest textures etc., so an extension as well is really not likely to be happening this year! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Regards. Colin.

 

[JCitron]

I have worked on both, Colin and to be honest I find fictional routes to be the most enjoyable. The issues I have with prototypical routes are that I can never find the proper assets or there's that famous lack of information for the region I'm modeling. With a fictional route, you can create a world that's just as prototypical as the real world by creating and working out details that are similar to the real world. You don't need to model the rivets and threaded bolts or worry about the incorrect placement of some track because Trainz doesn't allow a bridge at a certain angle. You can build it and create the gist of the real world by reproducing the physical details and giving the world a purpose.

Ah, the purpose; that purpose for everything to exist fictious or real. There has to be one for the railroad, cities and even the terrain to exist. Why does a river follow a certain path as you pointed out? Using my area as an example, the Merrimack River has a high bank on one side and a flatter one on the other as it follows the Merrimack Valley from New Hampshire to Newburyport and Salisbury, MA where the river empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The river valley also became an early manufacturing center in the Industrial Revolution with many big mill cities such as Manchester, Lowell, Nashua, Lawrence, and even Haverhill cranking out goods and hiring thousands of people. Most of the cities manufactured textiles with Haverhill making bricks and shoes. The bigger cities also had power dams that still exist today with some now turned into hydroelectric dams.

Along with these manufacturing cities came early power canals, shipping canals and later the railroads with the Boston and Lowell being one of the earliest having been chartered in 1831 and completed in 1834. The Andover and Wilmington, later Andover and Haverhill, and Haverhill and Portsmouth became the Boston and Maine, also chartered around the same time, became a fierce competitor to the B&L. The main purpose of the B&L was to provide transportation between the namesake cities because the Middlesex Canal, called that because it existed wholly within Middlesex County, used to freeze in the winter. The Boston and Lowell had the charter from the Massachusetts legislature to operate exclusively but that didn't last long and then there were the "fights" a la Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon with the B&M eventually building its own mainline because they were tired of waiting at Wilmington for hours for permission to move on to the B&L because the B&L owned the connection and controlled the rights to the line.

My Enfield and Eastern is a representation of this area. The line runs from a port called Eastport and connects various mill cities and communities along a river valley. Eventually, probably in the next century, I may reach Enfield and the route will be "completed". On my route, there were two competing lines with the old Enfield line becoming a secondary line that follows the river valley while its original competitor served the wealthy communities. The two eventually merged and created the route today. There are a number of branches and divisions and there are various industries still operating and served by the railroad. In addition to modeling active branches, I've included some abandoned ones with a couple of them becoming rail trails and others are intact, but tree covered.

The terrain is a combination of hand building, imported height maps, and some TransDEM generated terrain with topographic maps. Using some creativity, I've taken one area and put in a rail line where none existed before. This took some surveying and planning to get the line to follow the terrain properly and a few tries and re-routing to get the tracks where they are today. With the roads in place where they are for real, I worked the tracks in along them and between them creating crossings and intersections, and if I never said anything no one would know that it was a pure fake.

The thing is, Colin do what you want to do. No one is telling you that a fictional route is worth less than a real one. They both have their purpose just like the rail lines that they represent.

 

[clam1952]

Some fictional routes, such as Dearnby and Colin's look more realistic than some Protypical routes and more care has been paid to things like floating track and roads.

 

[Driver_Col]

Hi Malc & John - Cannot disagree with anything either of you wrote. I am sure that we have all come across fictional routes that raised the question "Why did they bother?", and of course there are also non-fictional routes that pose a similar question. The basis for any credible route is surely in the appropriate detailing. My goal with my routes has always been to do my best to create the "atmosphere" of the area being depicted and, as you both know, that goes way beyond laying track, and adding signaling and station buildings etc! Regards. Colin.

 

[neville_hill]

I've had a go at creating prototypical (eg Mold and Denbigh) and fictional (eg the Dearnby series) and I've found the experiences quite different, although the goals were the same (realism and truth to period). There's a lot of fun as well as headaches in prototypical work in doing all the research and then finding the right assets, especially if you're not an asset creator yourself. It can though be very rewarding when the detective work brings to life something (or somewhere) that has otherwise become lost.
As has been said, to make fictional work convincing there does have to be a reason or at least a possible explanation for everything; there has to be what I think of as 'a narrative.' Again, devising these is a challenge but also part of the fun to be had. The other major recurring problem, if you happen to be modelling late steam is getting enough dirty or weathered assets - locos and rolling stock as well as landscape objects. Unfortunately (for me) I can't use many brilliant assets because their cleanliness shouts preserved or model railway! A bit of reskinning can be tried but not if you want to release a DLS-only route.
One other thing worth mentioning is camera viewpoint. Model railways tend to be observed from above and so high-level cameras are ok, or even a requirement. If you're trying for realism then helicopter shots need to be avoided and cameras need to be in realistic earth-bound positions. However, when we inform users that a route should only be observed from track-level we introduced that other old chestnut: do we reduce the detail away from the tracks? That's another eternal conundrum.

I'd agree with a previous point: Trainz is now so capable that most of us can happily indulge our own particular preferences and

 

[neville_hill]

......delete what we don't wish to use.

 

[Driver_Col]

......delete what we don't wish to use.

I made a similar comment when somebody downloaded one of my routes and then proceeded to complain about it. As I have noted on numerous occasions, I create routes and sessions for my pleasure and then choose to share them with anybody who is interested. If it does not meet an individuals expectations, then the Delete button is not too far away! Regards. Colin.

 

[KotangaGirl]

Having spent the past two years on and off working on prototypical Broad Gauge routes, - one in Cornwall and one in Somerset, - my view is that you really have to want to do it. Once I gathered up such information as I could find it was then the business of trying to represent the 1880s with what's available on the DLS. With towns, - and especially where I'm using selective compression for distant buildings it's only the shape of the rooftops that matters. Closer in care needs to be taken over not using distinctive regional building types that would never be seen in the area being modelled.
With railway specific buildings it gets a lot more difficult. Most Broad Gauge lines were built by independent companies which were absorbed into the GWR after they were built which means the railway buildings for each line tend to be uniquely distinctive. Trainz folk have said to me, 'Oh there's a lot of Broad Gauge era buildings on the DLS and Steve Flanders has got some too', - but if each of those buildings was laid out on a map of all the Broad Gauge lines you'd quickly see that they are from all over the map and were built by a number of different companies. I know some Trainz folk couldn't care less about such things and would happily jumble them all together, but I'm a bit fussier than that. Talk about making a rod for my own back.

So that is why I'm often quite happy to take one of Driver_Col's old routes and mess about with it until it suits what I want and looks mostly Ok as a freelance 'what if they did this and built it here' kind of line. So far I've placed 'Valleyfields' under the ownership of the GCR, Rosworth Vale became an ex-LNWR Borders line in early BR days and at the moment I'm turning Milbourne James SR into an ex-LSWR line. Fictional involves a lot less frustration and that says a lot in its favour.

 

[robd]

Whether a route/layout is fictional or prototypical (real?) I have to say, I admire anyone who attempts such an undertaking! Their patience, tenacity and sheer hard work of finding and, in some cases, building their own assets for layouts is admirable. I have attempted many layouts, both fictional and real, and they've all come to nothing - wastelands of disjointed random assets consigned to the "I will come back to this one day" category!

I say to all route builders... "keep up the good work"!

Rob.

 

[pware]

Paradoxically, I find building fictional routes much harder than prototypical ones.

With prototypical routes you have all the information - the track layout, right of way, distances, bridges, roads, names, etc - all available to you from various sources. You follow that plan, within the limitations of the program and the available assets. It is more perseverance and "leg work" than imagination, although some of the latter is still required.

With fictional routes you must rely entirely on your own imagination and the hardest parts are making what you create look "possible" and knowing when and where to stop.

My thoughts.

 

[Driver_Col]

Having spent the past two years on and off working on prototypical Broad Gauge routes, - one in Cornwall and one in Somerset, - my view is that you really have to want to do it. Once I gathered up such information as I could find it was then the business of trying to represent the 1880s with what's available on the DLS. With towns, - and especially where I'm using selective compression for distant buildings it's only the shape of the rooftops that matters. Closer in care needs to be taken over not using distinctive regional building types that would never be seen in the area being modelled.
With railway specific buildings it gets a lot more difficult. Most Broad Gauge lines were built by independent companies which were absorbed into the GWR after they were built which means the railway buildings for each line tend to be uniquely distinctive. Trainz folk have said to me, 'Oh there's a lot of Broad Gauge era buildings on the DLS and Steve Flanders has got some too', - but if each of those buildings was laid out on a map of all the Broad Gauge lines you'd quickly see that they are from all over the map and were built by a number of different companies. I know some Trainz folk couldn't care less about such things and would happily jumble them all together, but I'm a bit fussier than that. Talk about making a rod for my own back.

So that is why I'm often quite happy to take one of Driver_Col's old routes and mess about with it until it suits what I want and looks mostly Ok as a freelance 'what if they did this and built it here' kind of line. So far I've placed 'Valleyfields' under the ownership of the GCR, Rosworth Vale became an ex-LNWR Borders line in early BR days and at the moment I'm turning Milbourne James SR into an ex-LSWR line. Fictional involves a lot less frustration and that says a lot in its favour.

There is certainly no "quick 'n' easy" way to create a route that looks representative of an era/region, and anybody who thinks they can do it in a few hours is being rather delusional. So glad that a number of my routes have fired your imagination! Regards. Colin.

 

[Driver_Col]

Whether a route/layout is fictional or prototypical (real?) I have to say, I admire anyone who attempts such an undertaking! Their patience, tenacity and sheer hard work of finding and, in some cases, building their own assets for layouts is admirable. I have attempted many layouts, both fictional and real, and they've all come to nothing - wastelands of disjointed random assets consigned to the "I will come back to this one day" category!

I say to all route builders... "keep up the good work"!

Rob.

Hi Rob. If you have a dormant route builder inside you as a result of past efforts, then perhaps KotangaGirl's experience might be of interest? i.e. Take a route by somebody else that holds your interest, and then modify it in a way that it reflects your efforts? Regards. Colin

 

[Driver_Col]

Paradoxically, I find building fictional routes much harder than prototypical ones.

With prototypical routes you have all the information - the track layout, right of way, distances, bridges, roads, names, etc - all available to you from various sources. You follow that plan, within the limitations of the program and the available assets. It is more perseverance and "leg work" than imagination, although some of the latter is still required.

With fictional routes you must rely entirely on your own imagination and the hardest parts are making what you create look "possible" and knowing when and where to stop.

My thoughts.

An excellent perspective. I think both Route building concepts involve a huge commitment of hours required (a typical route for me involves around 400 hours), but the use of those hours is quite different as you noted. Regards. Colin.

 

[JCitron]

Reworking a previously built route becomes another challenge because we want to keep the same things in-place we or someone else created. The prospect of building where something else already exists is actually very prototypical because we don't want to disturb what we already have or do so minimally if necessary. The railroads in real life didn't just blast through a town and level everything around them. The companies negotiated and purchased land, sometimes in exchange for stock ownership, and in other cases the towns themselves offered the railroads a place to run through because they wanted the service. Tewkesbury, MA for example, wanted the Boston and Lowell to build a branch through their town on its way to Lawrence, as they pushed their lines into Boston and Maine territory. (A la Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon). This played out throughout history both here and in the United Kingdom. Today, we have many abandoned branch lines because of these now redundant loops built upon request of the local towns. The railroads also didn't have a blank slate, meaning open grid, without forests, hills, grades and towns to work around and with. On one of my routes I was building, I tried building the landscape first complete with rivers, buildings, roads and other details then placing the railroad. The results were very rewarding, but the process was very, very time consuming, and the work required was similar to what we deal with when working with prototypical routes.

Squeezing in a small yard or extra siding, mill complex, or even adding on to an existing town can not only add to an existing route, but also increase complexity in the area at the same time. This is one of the things that I've run into as I've been renovating my old Enfield and Eastern. I rebuilt, and sometimes replaced baseboards but judiciously so not to lose the gist of the route in the first place. One area near one of my bigger cities required three or four tries and retries to get what I wanted to work and look how I wanted. The area is still a bit bare and I'm still adding in details and updating things, but the area has come a long way since the initial inception from nearly 20 years ago.

 

[Driver_Col]

Reworking a previously built route becomes another challenge because we want to keep the same things in-place we or someone else created. The prospect of building where something else already exists is actually very prototypical because we don't want to disturb what we already have or do so minimally if necessary. The railroads in real life didn't just blast through a town and level everything around them. The companies negotiated and purchased land, sometimes in exchange for stock ownership, and in other cases the towns themselves offered the railroads a place to run through because they wanted the service. Tewkesbury, MA for example, wanted the Boston and Lowell to build a branch through their town on its way to Lawrence, as they pushed their lines into Boston and Maine territory. (A la Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon). This played out throughout history both here and in the United Kingdom. Today, we have many abandoned branch lines because of these now redundant loops built upon request of the local towns. The railroads also didn't have a blank slate, meaning open grid, without forests, hills, grades and towns to work around and with. On one of my routes I was building, I tried building the landscape first complete with rivers, buildings, roads and other details then placing the railroad. The results were very rewarding, but the process was very, very time consuming, and the work required was similar to what we deal with when working with prototypical routes.

Squeezing in a small yard or extra siding, mill complex, or even adding on to an existing town can not only add to an existing route, but also increase complexity in the area at the same time. This is one of the things that I've run into as I've been renovating my old Enfield and Eastern. I rebuilt, and sometimes replaced baseboards but judiciously so not to lose the gist of the route in the first place. One area near one of my bigger cities required three or four tries and retries to get what I wanted to work and look how I wanted. The area is still a bit bare and I'm still adding in details and updating things, but the area has come a long way since the initial inception from nearly 20 years ago.

Hi John - That explains why, for all the really good routes on DLS, there are many which fit my earlier "why did they bother?" reaction. Of course we must not lose sight of the fact that Trainz is a game, which provides a broad platform for creators. Who wants to see Thomas (the Tank) doing 300mph over a 20% gradient hill? Not me, but other users of Trainz may differ in opinion!!! Regards. Colin.

 

[Lataxe]

Whether a route/layout is fictional or prototypical (real?) I have to say, I admire anyone who attempts such an undertaking! Their patience, tenacity and sheer hard work of finding and, in some cases, building their own assets for layouts is admirable. I have attempted many layouts, both fictional and real, and they've all come to nothing - wastelands of disjointed random assets consigned to the "I will come back to this one day" category!

I say to all route builders... "keep up the good work"!

Rob.

I too have made many, many routes that never get anywhere near good enough to be uploaded to the DLS. On the other hand, it's all practice and we can get better at it (at various rates of progress, however).

One way to add energy and pace to route building is to collaborate. When there's two or more at it, the resultant effort is often maintained better than if it's just you. And the synergy seems to also increase the pace of learning new things.

As a route gets bigger and/or more detailed, more collaborators can help. There has to be some discipline but also a degree of freedom about adding things. There also needs to be different skills or perhaps areas/subjects of interest. With Dearnby routes, Neville is not just a builder-craftsman but an artist; and he makes scenery second to none, for Trainz. I added some basic trackwork things, along with a bit of joinery (of several smaller into a larger route via intermediary building). Somehow Dearnby & District grew & grew, with a number of other collaborators coming and going in the process, to make vehicles with local names on them, specialist signals and various other parts.

Recently (with D&D V3) another sort of collaboration advantage emerged. The EIT session builder for the D&D V3 trainspotter session, pwjohnson, ended up contributing a lot to the route-level stuff, especially trackwork design and the placement/operation of points & signals - to work well with EIT, which is a properly prototypical signal control facility. Inevitably, the changes to trackwork and other EIT-related items spread a bit to the surroundings, so more route-level improvements were made.

I'm hoping that LouStarJogger will join us once more to make more stuff for D&D V3 future iterations. Maybe I can even tempt Neville back from his current other concerns! No one else has his magical scenery touch. Well, maybe Evilcrow, whose Scottish route reworked is now embedded in D&D V3. His level of scenic detail and quality is on a par with Neville's, I feel. What inducement could I offer him to give us a bit more for D&D, I wonder? The ladywife makes fantastic cakes but also teddy bears ....... .

Lataxe