Terrain Map Request(s)

[Kegg_Works]

Hey all,

I don't know about you, but one of my favorite things about using Trainz is the Surveyor part of the game. I love to build routes and maps, creating interesting and unique terrain for both prototypical and freelance railroads. However if you are one, like myself, who LOVES mountainous terrain with a twisting, winding right-of-way... you have your work cut out for you when editing the topography of the landscape. And especially so if your line climbs up to a high elevation.

I posted a thread a few months back about installing the HOG textures and program used to generate terrain for maps in Trainz. For the life of me I just can't figure out how to do it, and I don't have enough spare $$$ to invest in one of the more user friendly programs for this purpose. And that's why I've posted this thread.

Right now there are two real life routes I have in mind. Both of which wouldn't be terribly large and could probably be used in the same route. Though the one I'm currently fixed on is the Verde Tunnel & Smelter RR. Which ran from Clarkdale, AZ to Jerome, AZ to the West. the line is twisty and winds its way through some VERY rugged, arid terrain and this line also used some hefty 2-6-6-2 Mallets to haul the ore from Jerome to the relocated smelter in Clarkdale. (The smelter was originally in Jerome, but copper deposits were discover directly beneath it. Hence the relocation.) The line also used a number of 0-6-0 switchers to help operate the big pit in Jerome as well as operate at the smelter. Here are some photos of the engines and a photo of one of the many sharp curves along the line.

The line closed in the early 1950s, but started in 1920. Which replaced the earlier 3ft gauge line that accessed Jerome. The United Verde & Pacific. (more on that in a minute.) For a standard gauge RR is was a VERY steep and VERY crooked line, wich would make watching 2-6-6-2 Mallets very amusing to watch as the boiler would swing out to the outside of the many curves on the line. Grades I would guess would vary between 2 to 4+%. Again, that's a guess. Only made my looking at the route from Google Earth. Sadly a portion of the old line has been destroyed by modern day activities. So some guesstimation might have to be made as to where the roadbed lines up.

So that's the first idea, the second is the earlier narrow gauge line, the United Verde & Pacific. It was ironically longer, just a touch over 26 miles and ran in an East-West direction. I've heard of a number of railroads claim that they are the "crookedest" RR in the world... but honestly I think the UV&P takes the cake! Although the first half of the railroad is almost strait, with some VERY long, gradual curves. But once you pass the mid-way point, the ROW is all over the place! Following along the rugged and seated slopes of Woodchute Mt. The only engines used on the line were some very husky, chunk, squat little 2-6-0s. The locomotives featured a pair of sand domes that were of equal size to the steam dome. they crowded the boiler so much that the bell was mounted on top of one of the sand domes. Here's a photo below.

As a side note, I think this would make a FANTASTIC model for Trainz!

What is amazing is that Virtually the entire route is still in tact. The line ran from Jerome Jct. (what is today Chino Valley) west to Jerome. I think the reasons for why the line used 2-6-0s exclusively was because of the tight curves. One of which is 140%! It would make an interesting route on its own, but even with both lines featured together could make one interesting operation.

I normally don't make requests, I really don't like to. but I think that if these routes, or even just one of them, would be very fun for anyone. One could easily make their own rendition of the line(s) if they wished if the terrain maps were available.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this will inspire someone!

PS: As another informational note, part of the VT&S's tracks are still in use, by the Verde Canyon Railroad.

 

[Vern]

Invest in a copy of Transdem. If you are serious and committed to building prototype mountainous routes (as I am) this gives you everything you need to set up a DEM'ed and mapped terrain ready to work on. Yes Transdem is payware but set against the cost of buying Trainz, the hardware to run it on and an internet connection to be online, it's chump change really.

 

[steamboateng]

The $35 is negligible, considering the time saved in pushing terrain verts; not to speak of Trandem's accuracy and ease of overlaying maps and satellite imagery!

 

[JCitron]

And to add to this...

You can download the actual DEM files for the are from the US Geological Survey National Map Server along with actual topographic maps from the period you are interested in modeling. Using TransDEM, you can piece the maps on the underlying terrain in and export the region as one route already to lay your track on in Trainz. It's well worth the investment and once you do this with real terrain, you'll never look back!

John

 

[mjolnir]

It's really not necessary to work from DEM, though I don't mean any affront to those who choose to do so. Depending upon how much of the surrounding topography one chose to model, one could do
the VT&S in as few as about three dozen baseboards estimated from the 1944 edition of the Clarksville topographic map (downloadable from the USGS map store site as map gda_5547708), though I've extracted a background image to real scale (the black grid is sized to Trainz baseboards) that is about three times larger than that. The United Verde & Pacific could be done in about 100 baseboards, using topographical map gda_5549376, dating to 1906.

By the way, in addition to having quite a number of curves in the VT&S, it also featured two switchbacks.

ns

 

[mjolnir]

For those wanting to examine the right of way of the United Verde and Pacific, except for a couple of miles at Chino Valley (Jerome Junction), the right of way still exists as US Forest Service road 318 / 318A. If you use Google earth, there are a few photos posted that show bits of the roadbed, and the surrounding scenery. The supporting branch for the VT&S, the AZCR (operating on the former Santa Fe Branch up the Verde river valley) still sees a couple of thousand carloads per year from the cement plant built to provide materials for the Glen Canyon damn, and operates an excursion passenger train, the Verde Canyon Railroad. For an idea of what would be involved inbuilding the route, check out the videos on Youtube, searching for Verde Canyon Railroad.

ns

 

[Vern]

It's really not necessary to work from DEM, though I don't mean any affront to those who choose to do so.

If the route creator was so hard up they can't afford Transdem, maybe yes, but having spent the early days of Trainz and MSTS creating terrain from scratch it really is the poor man's option. In addition if you want a decent distant mountain effect, not the toy train edge of the world appearance then you need to be creating terrain out to 5 or 6 km from the track (even if beyond 2km it's only painted with a generic texture). I spent over a month in (then) TS Tools painstakingly hand tracing 160 miles worth of contour lines for my MSTS Inlandsbanan route. No wonder I now need glasses for VDU and distance vision!

It is just so easy with Transdem and the high quality high res data now available (particularly for the US) that IMHO unless you are doing a "model railroadz" style project, no other method is worth bothering with.

 

[mjolnir]

Vern, I submit that there are cases where using the "old way" can be an advantage. One of these is where no DEM exists of a former alignment. Examples of this might e in the Tennessee Valley, and in urban areas, where subsequent development obliterated the features long before DEM maps were produced. If one wanted to produce the Lake Zurich (IL) and Wauconda Railroad, for example, no DEM is going to be useful. Parts of the railroad right of way existed in to the 1950's but all traces of it were obliterated by the late 1970's. Another one is in a situation like the Arizona Central / Verde Canyon in between Clarkdale and Davis, Arizona, where Trainz tools are not going to do justice to the job of producing a reasonably accurate facsimile of the terrain. (cf. <https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7191/7010695817_c385741881_z.jpg>). In this latter instance, a 3D modeling platform like GMAX, 3DS Max, or Blender, can be used to model the terrain as a trainz scenery object, and doing it the "old way" is a good start towards the scenery object production.