Colorado Narrow Gauge?

[RepublicDC9]

I just accidentally discovered that there is a wealth of Colorado Narrow Gauge assets available on the DLS.

And having recently become fairly proficient at building layouts with Surveyor 2.0, I'd like to try my hand at something completely different for me - a Colorado Narrow Gauge layout to share on the DLS.

Can anyone recommend a good narrow gauge track to use for this project - something that looks old, weathered, and typical of the era?

And perhaps a well-done layout on the DLS with the same basic theme you enjoy to try for inspiration?

Thanks!

 

[DandRGWk36]

If you want something from the D&RGW I would recommend Cumbres Pass on the DLS. I do have some missing assets on it, but it still looks nice!

-DandRGWk36

 

[rick1958]

Colorado71 has his Georgetown Loop route. Nice route with nice textures

 

[OddRails]

I beleive there is a Durango to Silverton route on the DLS. I thought it was done quite well.

Also someone recently posted about a Mears route from Silverton to Lake City. I had quite a few missing assets on this route, including unfortunately the track. I don't spend much time chasing missing assets. I replace the ones I need and ignore/remove the rest. I used user "Shortline2" (Linda's) NG3 tracks, including to replace the missing ng30 trackage. (oops!)

I don't know what track to reccomend. Linda's track has been around for quite a while, so there may be newer track available. Her NG2 and NG3 tracks work for me.

 

[Thad09]

Trainzforge has lots of DRGW related rolling stock and various rail weights of ng track

 

[wreeder]

What track to use is based upon when you are modeling. Pre-1900 track was mostly 33 or 35 pound track with the ties laid directly on the ground. Wash outs were very common so the crew would slide the track out of the way and then fill in the wash out and slide the track back in place. So over time, dirt and weeds would built up to where the ties would be buried. The D&RGW used 55 pound rail after 1900 until they converted to standard gauge in the 20s. Look for track by Curtis42, he has some nice looking track.

 

[dangavel]

Uintah railway, alpine tunnel route ,both Colorado ng. I'm currently working on an extension of the latter to crested butte. There's not really any track that really looks like genuine ng track , it's all too regular and has too much ballast , I usually use one of pencils tracks and drop it down so it's almost flush to the ground or I use a fill underlay and drop track into that .

 

[RidderDansk]

I just found this thread. I am a lifetime fan of Colorado Narrow Gauge, though not as informed as many on Trainz. In my youth, I was fortunate to have been able to Jeep and hike many of the abandoned grades of former railroads that I would read about and model at home on small HO and O scale layouts and now in Trainz. The Rio Grande Southern, Uintah, Little Bookcliff, and the three Silverton Railroads.

The aforementioned Silverton Railroads of Otto Mears by Trainz author tftlmt that I downloaded recently came with over one hundred missing assets and I spent over two weeks manually replacing the missing track. When a route is submitted, it would seem appropriate that it be submitted as a complete package, but that is not the situation, as it was designed and implemented to be far more complex and broken than this, for many reasons. The route does capture the look and feel of the Silverton area, it is just very disappointing that the nature of Trainz is that missing assets seem to be a requirement, even track which is a core element of a train simulation. It would seem logical that if the creators of Trainz can identify and mark out the missing track with white so perfectly, there should be the capability of replacing missing track as well, but that seems not to be a priority ("when something is broken, ignore the problem and leave it broken" seems to be the motto).

I prefer the procedural narrow gauge track by PhilSkene, which is too neat, as mentioned previously, for Narrow Gauge, but it does look nice. When locomotives and rolling stock look near new, why not have decent looking rail. Good maintenance lends itself to good revenue.

Best wishes with your Trainz endeavors. Despite all the grief I have experienced with missing assets, Trainz still offers a lot of fun times. Asset Management could have been handled differently, it seems. In sixteen years, there has not been one route I have downloaded that has been complete. Missing Assets is not what keeps me interested and definitely leaves a bad experience where Trainz is concerned. But then, I am the problem because my interests in railroading is not mainstream.

 

[dangavel]

I just found this thread. I am a lifetime fan of Colorado Narrow Gauge, though not as informed as many on Trainz. In my youth, I was fortunate to have been able to Jeep and hike many of the abandoned grades of former railroads that I would read about and model at home on small HO and O scale layouts and now in Trainz. The Rio Grande Southern, Uintah, Little Bookcliff, and the three Silverton Railroads.

The aforementioned Silverton Railroads of Otto Mears by Trainz author tftlmt that I downloaded recently came with over one hundred missing assets and I spent over two weeks manually replacing the missing track. When a route is submitted, it would seem appropriate that it be submitted as a complete package, but that is not the situation, as it was designed and implemented to be far more complex and broken than this, for many reasons. The route does capture the look and feel of the Silverton area, it is just very disappointing that the nature of Trainz is that missing assets seem to be a requirement, even track which is a core element of a train simulation. It would seem logical that if the creators of Trainz can identify and mark out the missing track with white so perfectly, there should be the capability of replacing missing track as well, but that seems not to be a priority ("when something is broken, ignore the problem and leave it broken" seems to be the motto).

I prefer the procedural narrow gauge track by PhilSkene, which is too neat, as mentioned previously, for Narrow Gauge, but it does look nice. When locomotives and rolling stock look near new, why not have decent looking rail. Good maintenance lends itself to good revenue.

Best wishes with your Trainz endeavors. Despite all the grief I have experienced with missing assets, Trainz still offers a lot of fun times. Asset Management could have been handled differently, it seems. In sixteen years, there has not been one route I have downloaded that has been complete. Missing Assets is not what keeps me interested and definitely leaves a bad experience where Trainz is concerned. But then, I am the problem because my interests in railroading is not mainstream.

I'm guessing you've never made a freeware route and tried to assure that every single item that is used is available on the DLS. its almost impossible to do, as
1. It severely restricts what the creator can achieve, because for reasons that vary, a number of creators are reluctant to put their assets in the hands of NV3.
2. So many assets are now packaged in DLC routes, necessitating huge downloads, often to just provide a few missing items a complex route with many buildings roads etc simply cant be built without resorting to using items contained in packages. of course , all these items are classified as 'unknown " when in reality NV3 is perfectly aware of what each kuid represents, but I very much doubt that they will ever make users lives easier by identifying missing kuids that they have on their servers within CM .
3. Each version of trainz has a different set of 'built in ' items , so if i make a route in trs 2019, some items will not be available in TRS 2022.
In the early days many of the best NG creations in particular were hosted on external websites and even now a hell of a lot of NG items have never made their way to the DLS.
The only way to ensure that you have a complete set of assets is to make your own route and substitute what is missing , you also really need a copy of every train build, as later ones are killing older inefficient assets, for instance I think I will have to replace every sage brush in the Uintah route as the latest version of trainz can't handle their file size, even though they ran perfectly well in earlier builds.

 

[RidderDansk]

I'm guessing you've never made a freeware route and tried to assure that every single item that is used is available on the DLS. its almost impossible to do,

Great guess. For two glaring reasons: 1) It was never my intent. 2) From my first download from the Download Station when I was introduced to Missing Assets, I knew that creating anything to share online was never going to be my desire to foist similar results upon others. That said, as I persisted in learning and using Trainz in 2009 until today, I did respect Auran and later N3V for the customizability of Trainz, something lacking with other Train Simulators.

Granted, there are many shortcomings with Trainz, but everything has its limitations, which is why there are compromises. But one thing I never compromise on, what I present to others. If I can't ensure that I offer my best, I simply will not put it out there. Trainz is not compelled by such constraints. Even when offering paid subscriptions.

Freeware aside, which is done for the love of the hobby. Software development is an extremely expensive endeavor, which is why I actually do subscribe, despite all the misgivings I have with Trainz. My subscription means I support what N3V is ultimately creating, but that does not mean I support what N3V is overlooking. The music and literary fields responsibly curate their fields. N3V has chosen to turn its back on curation. Thus, missing assets (I understand those who assemble routes do not have "control" on what is assembled, but that could have been addressed by Auran and later N3V and was not) and noncompliance to standards in many instances are the general outcome (no thumbnail and description and obscure nomenclature are the tip of the iceberg).

 

[DandRGWk36]

I beleive there is a Durango to Silverton route on the DLS. I thought it was done quite well.

Also someone recently posted about a Mears route from Silverton to Lake City. I had quite a few missing assets on this route, including unfortunately the track. I don't spend much time chasing missing assets. I replace the ones I need and ignore/remove the rest. I used user "Shortline2" (Linda's) NG3 tracks, including to replace the missing ng30 trackage. (oops!)

I don't know what track to reccomend. Linda's track has been around for quite a while, so there may be newer track available. Her NG2 and NG3 tracks work for me.

There is. the one I use is DurangoToSilvertonTane_1895_ver.3 on the DLS. there are a few other ones, but it takes about a year to download with my crappy download speed of 4.80kb/sec.

 

[meatloaf747]

There is. the one I use is DurangoToSilvertonTane_1895_ver.3 on the DLS. there are a few other ones, but it takes about a year to download with my crappy download speed of 4.80kb/sec.

Have you considered buying a FCT. Just think of all the power you would save if you could download a route in 5 to 10 minutes, rather than taking a year to download, without a FCT.
I think it works out around 70c (US) per week (over a year) for a FCT. ($36 US divided by 52 weeks)... As a suggestion, try buying a FCT for a month. See how you go!!!

Cheers, Mac...

 

[Frank_Dean]

Accessing a FCT is easy for people in the developing world (North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.), but for people in South America, Africa, and Asia, it's not so easy because a bank card or PayPal must be linked to a bank card.
Have you ever wondered why the Steam gaming platform is so successful, even with the sale of Trainz?
Aside from the lower prices, it has many different payment methods that are easy to access. Some of these payment methods don't require a bank card or an associated account. Very young people who don't have bank cards can purchase prepaid cards for the Steam store for a fixed price (10, 25, 50, or 100 dollars or euros), which are sold in any commercial establishment.
If N3V Auran had some type of these prepaid cards, perhaps its sales would increase.

For example, Steam cards, I've seen them for sale in stores or general stores, where you can buy them physically and carry them in your pocket.
https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/selectgiftcard?

 

[RidderDansk]

Accessing a FCT is easy for people in the developing world (North America, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.), but for people in South America, Africa, and Asia, it's not so easy because a bank card or PayPal must be linked to a bank card.
Have you ever wondered why the Steam gaming platform is so successful, even with the sale of Trainz?

What I have learned in my sojourn in this beautiful world is that everything Humanity has created could have been created in an infinitely more equal and gentle and loving manner were it not for Human Nature. And that is the travesty and gross failing of Humanity and why life is so challenging. As the creator of the comic strip Pogo so brilliantly defined the problem many years ago: "We have met the enemy, and he is us". All for the sake of greed and ego of a privileged few. Not everyone is blessed to win the genetic lottery. Nor have natural resources been distributed evenly around this world. And Human Beings aren't universally naturally predisposed to share openly based on need.

 

[SanJuanPacific]

If you wanted to build a route, I would highly suggest the Chili Line from Antonito, Colorado, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, as it has never been done in Trainz before and unfortunately wasn't preserved, as it closed in 1941.

The best track can be found on Trainz Forge, and it comes in several variations with various rail weights and ballast colors. I am making a narrow gauge portion for my route as well, and the track looks very nice. That and some other items, like a narrow-gauge trestle pack, can be found there too. https://trainz-forge.com/scenery If you haven't seen @dangavel and his marvelous Timber Ridge Railway revamp, I would use that as a basis, as all of his assets are on the DLS and has a wide variety of assets to use as inspiration.