Cheap Railroad

Quick question, I've been searching Google for over an hour now and still can't find my answer. How do yall figure out the angle for a turnout? I either get mine too wide or to narrow
 
Its been awhile since Ive up-dated this thread. I took some what of a break from Trainz, but I started building an N scale Layout and in between waiting on stuff to dry I started working on this route again. Its pretty cool to me to look at all the pics Ive posted so far and to see how much this route has changed. Ive pretty much rebuilt most of the route. Ill have to get some more screenshots of all the other areas Ive since re-done but here is what Ive got so right now. Now I have re-redone the mine, the town outside of the mine, and have since started re-doing the main city of the route.

I dont know what you would call this track, but its function is a secondary line slightly longer than the mainline but with less of grade. When I first re-opened this route, all this was just blank baseboard. Got tired of looking at it so here is where Im at now.



















 
I missed your thread somehow, glad I ran across today:

You have great technique for drawing curves, waterways, and hills, everything looks very natural.

You spoke a while back about whether you should have added that large Wye? I think you'll find that Wye will work out perfectly for you when you start running your trains thru there, if for some reason you find you don't care for it, cut the part you feel you don't need and make it a Spur off one of the mains. But I have a feeling your going to use it more than you think.

You might want to give a little more space between the Main Yard Storage Tracks, the reason is sometimes when your working in the Yards if they are close together it might be hard to see some things as you look down the parallel tracks, things meld together in colors, rather than defining more of a separation of parallel lines.

When your trying to make trackage for your industries, take a ride on Google Earth or something similar, too see an overhead view of the tracks in your area that you live in. I think you'll find it surprising how the tracks look from TOP DOWN vs side to side view? Perception of the eye candy. What really helps me when I work on my Route is too look at Mapping details in Google too see how those tracks are laid out, and there are times, you'll see a plant, and wonder how the heck do they work in that mess of maze track puzzles, your mind will figure a better way to do it than they did. It all comes down to what makes you comfortable when you operate the Cheap Railroad.

Your Route looks terrific, you should be very proud of Cheap Railroad it exemplify's your talents, you'll find out that as you do more and more, things will come more natural to you.

I look forward to see what you create next!
 
I really appreciate your comment blueodessey, makes me happy and more confident in my route building to see someone other then me likes the look of this route. Here are some of the other places Ive re-worked on this route.

My favorite scene so far, mostly cause it was the time I realized I had a computer that could handle some scenery. Made me basically scan through all the work on terrain and track that I did a year ago and just finish the scenery up. Now the scenery aint finsihed and if someone see's somthing I could add or what not to make it more real, please tell me. Anyway enjoy the pics please and let me know of what you think.







My third or fourth or fifth or whatever attempt at building a town haha, all joking aside the best way I found to model towns was to use Google Earth and see how they were laid out versus how the track ran through them. This is the town of Misery. I named it that cause I had a centerfold out of a Summit Racing catalog and the name of the car was Misery. Seemed cool and I imagine working in a coal mine would be miserable so here it is. The town of Misery, just outside of town is Misery Mine. No screens of it though, looking at it now I want to re-design it using better assets.





Leaving Misery behind, we move on to some of the mainline Ive redone. Plus the south end engine facility.





 
Why does some times I go to type my sentences turn blue? I know its linking a web page or whatever but I aint meaning too.
Anyway, I did decide some things about this route. I want a self contained route, for endless run sessions. I also want it to be interesting and as realistic as I can get it but with functionality cause I like to play dispatcher. Also I chose to add passenger trains to the route just for some more traffic on the route. I did record a short clip of a test run I did this past weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=182Ils_PXQc


 
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Why does some times I go to type my sentences turn blue? I know its linking a web page or whatever but I aint meaning too.
Anyway, I did decide some things about this route. I want a self contained route, for endless run sessions. I also want it to be interesting and as realistic as I can get it but with functionality cause I like to play dispatcher. Also I chose to add passenger trains to the route just for some more traffic on the route. I did record a short clip of a test run I did this past weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=182Ils_PXQc



I wish I knew about the Blue and other colors that pop up to when I'm typing....I use Firefox. Hopefully someone knows?

Sounds good on the dispatcher part, may I suggest if your route is somewhat linear, then you might entertain the idea of adding a Portal at each end of the route as quick connection points, and or you can set up 2 portals if you like it, one used to consume Trains, or emit Trains, Portals are really cool in the different ways they can be utilized, they ( I want to be truthful here with you!) can be a pain if not set correctly......

A year & 1/2 ago, I downloaded a route, which I liked, and was playing it on a different computer, and was driving up a double main route, and this rogue Train passes me by, I'm shell shocked,, where the !@#$%^Y did this come from, a few minutes later another train, different type passes me. I stop my train in an emergency, flip to Roving Mode, follow this suspicious train into the mountains and see it go into Tunnel, I haven't ever seen, I then look to see where the Tunnel goes, nowhere! Then I decide to find out what this tunnel is?

I find it is a Portal, and after checking the properties, find that this one consumes trains, and 5 miles away the Other Portal I didn't know was there emits trains, every 5 mins, and the rest is history. That was my brush with Portals setup up by the Author! It also explained why the Route would slow down at times when the Portals activated Trains. Of course this was on my old Ipad that with Trainz Driver 2.........

Another thing I noticed on your Route, you allow some space with your Trees from each other, I think that is a bonus, as too many items on a Route (dense tree planting) can really impact your Frame Rates depending on how powerful and what version your Trainz used is?

You'll also find that as your riding thru your layout, look to see how line of site is from the Rail to the Edge of Route Tiles, one thing I like to do, is not see the edge fall off in dead space, so I try to raise the elevation of Tile edges or add Trees, buildings etc, where you can't tell where your land ends, as well it would apply to waterways too, where you see on some layouts the water falls off the edge of the tile ( which in case I would probably curve the water between 2 hills so it disappears behind one of the Hills.

I guess you would say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but like a good magician, slight of hand in how the lay of land is made can really make a difference, same too applies, not a good idea to put rails close to the edge of the tile, as I can easily see over the edge while I drive, into byte oblivion.
 
The scenery will eventually be expanded along the edges in some places for that reason. Right now I'm trying to focus on baseboards that are needed for track, so when I first re-opened this route I deleted any unnecessary boards that where blank. The area of the route that is dense with baseboards was the first and original part of this route, they were already done when I re-opened this route.
 
The scenery will eventually be expanded along the edges in some places for that reason. Right now I'm trying to focus on baseboards that are needed for track, so when I first re-opened this route I deleted any unnecessary boards that where blank. The area of the route that is dense with baseboards was the first and original part of this route, they were already done when I re-opened this route.

;) Copy that, sounds good, that is one thing I do with my merges etc, is cut off the Boards too, especially since I run on a Laptop with so so GPU.....
 
I do have to say I love K&L Steam Locos. Here is my latest addition to the fleet...





The city at the top of the last page, I decided i could defiantly do better. Here is my new start at it. Any tips on building a large city please comment. I need more buildings for sure. Small towns are easy for me cause thats where Ive grown up and still live to this day. Big cities not so much, I avoid them as much as possible.





This is looking down the mainline coming from the mine. Dont mind the buildings to the left, thats just a baseboard I used to place potential buildings on. Tired of constantly looking through the menu.

 
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