East Broad Top Route

[axis3039]

So the idea is to have some version of the route be releasable by the fall. I don't want this version of the route to be like the others where progress stalls and the route never sees the light of day. But with that said, the progress on the route is hit or miss honestly. Some months we get alot done, and others, nothing at all. But we still intend to finish both versions. I myself am more interested in the Common carrier operations than I am with the tourism side of things. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting and riding the train, but there's alot more to the EBT than just the current operations. And that to me is alot more interesting. Asset wise, currently it's all Ben Dorsey assets. I'm not going to give away too much but, there are certain "things" in the works, of varying types. That's all I'll say about that...for now. But further on down the road, you'll see an update that will divulge my secrets.

As for work remaining to be done on the tourism side of things, we still have a ton of work to do in order to release the route going all the way to saltillo. The only completed scenes at this point, are pogue trestle, Saltillo pond scene, a mostly completed 3 springs made by yours truly. I'm not the best town maker, but I think it looks pretty good. However other than those, it's all blank DEM and trees. So depending on progress, we shall see what gets released and when.

 

[rick1958]

So the idea is to have some version of the route be releasable by the fall. I don't want this version of the route to be like the others where progress stalls and the route never sees the light of day. But with that said, the progress on the route is hit or miss honestly. Some months we get alot done, and others, nothing at all. But we still intend to finish both versions. I myself am more interested in the Common carrier operations than I am with the tourism side of things. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting and riding the train, but there's alot more to the EBT than just the current operations. And that to me is alot more interesting. Asset wise, currently it's all Ben Dorsey assets. I'm not going to give away too much but, there are certain "things" in the works, of varying types. That's all I'll say about that...for now. But further on down the road, you'll see an update that will divulge my secrets.

As for work remaining to be done on the tourism side of things, we still have a ton of work to do in order to release the route going all the way to saltillo. The only completed scenes at this point, are pogue trestle, Saltillo pond scene, a mostly completed 3 springs made by yours truly. I'm not the best town maker, but I think it looks pretty good. However other than those, it's all blank DEM and trees. So depending on progress, we shall see what gets released and when.

I couldn't agree more... The mines to M.U. with the mines, tunnels and bridges will be a lot more interesting. I'm 67 and have been riding the tourist train longer then I can remember. First with my parents, then on my own as an adult. To be honest. I've riden it so many times, it falls into the it-is-what-it-is file. I'd love to see the EBT end to end.
Just a thought... thinking out loud... for the script writers out there... I wonder if the Timber Transfer could be made to swap NG trucks on STD cars?
Reminiscing: "Back in the day" the EBT was a different world. Everything was open to self tours. Shops and roundhouse. It was very easy to spend half a day, wondering around, "unleashed". Sorry for the derail...back on topic.

 

[axis3039]

So I've been fighting with getting the grading right from Saltillo to Robertsdale now for about a week. I have several grading charts and the 1917 evaluation maps but the issue is that each grading chart has different grades and at different places. So with that being said, I have laid out my best educated guess for gradients and the tracks now officially extend to Robertsdale. However I will put a PSA out there saying I can't guarantee that the gradients are 100% correct (even going of the grade charts) and may have to be fudged a bit in certain places. Issue is that no matter what radiant short you follow, when you lay out the track with the grade specified they do not line up properly with the DEM. It ends up being to high. So I believe that the chief engineer's grading chart is the most accurate. However I have determined that the grades are more than likely the ruling grade, rather than a continuous grade. It has gotten me into trouble specifically from pogue onward. In fact, if you follow the grade as a continuous grade from Pogue all the way to Saltillo it ends up being 10 m in height off, which by the time it hits robertsdale was 50 m off in height. I have adjusted the route in make this better, however too much work was done between Pogue and Saltillo that wouldn't allow me to easily redo the grades. So the fix I made was making Saltillo flat and resuming the grade after the wye. It does follow the specified 2.7% grade all the way to Kimmel. However after Wrays Hill Tunnel, the grades will fluctuate from the official gradient chart to some degree.

 

[axis3039]

As promised, I have uploaded this month's update video. It shall be posted below. Enjoy!

 

[rick1958]

As promised, I have uploaded this month's update video. It shall be posted below. Enjoy!

Looks fantastic!

 

[steve180]

As promised, I have uploaded this month's update video. It shall be posted below. Enjoy!

Beat me to putting it on the forums lol, the route looks really nice, looking forward to getting my hands on the modern era version of the route. I have done some work on the 1950s version of the route, I need to get back into the flow of working on the EBT route; I'm getting tired of working on the northern part of the route, too many farms and not enough coal lol. Looking forward to providing some updates on the dev work I've been doing.

 

[axis3039]

Hello everyone. Sorry it's been 2 months since I have posted anything about the route. Work is still very much ongoing woth plenty of updates being made to the route. I should be making a video about them in roughly a week or so. However until then I'll just summerize what has been done.
1) three springs town is noe about 80% complete with only the southern part of town still left to complete.
2) Saltillo has been completed and looks as good as three springs.
3) Alot of work has been done in between the towns of three springs and saltillo. Most importantly the forest scenes now look complete and pass my visual appeal test. Also the pond scene has seen some updates aswell.
3) Due to lag concerns, several things have been updated to make the route run smoother. First being an all new grass pallet. This accomplishes better performance and looks better imo.
4) 2nd major thing done with performance is a completely new tree pallet for the backgrounds. The background trees are now all 2d trees rather than 3d ones. This saves a ton of performance on the route and is a greatly welcomed change to the route.
5)The town of Orbisonia is finally getting the proper rework it has needed for a while. It was stripped down to nothing and is being reworked. It now looks like a proper town (Well half of it does anyway). The other half remains baron, at least for now
6) The blacklog narrows branch and trolley lines has now been base detailed. I'd say it really only needs a few other things before I call it completed.
7) Not route update related, however an update in terms of release. So the new plan for release is that I hope to release the Kovalchick era (1960 through 2011) version of the East Broad top at Christmas time. This version of the route will release via the Huntington Shops. For clarity, this version will be the 4.5ish miles from rockhill to Colgate wye. It will include the trolley line to blacklog. Unfortunately there is just too much work to do in between Pogue and Saltillo for me to be able to finish in such a short amount of time. I want it to be the best I can do, not half-assed for the sake of time.

Now there is still a bunch to do on the route before it's releasable. So my hope is that I can finish all that stuff by Christmas. However I'm not guaranteeing that it'll be done by that point. Fingers crossed though. As for the switch on websites, the decision has been made for several reasons, however the main reason for doing so is personal to nugget trainz and will not be discussed here. Everything else will remain the same as before. It will be free. And I really do think you will all enjoy it. And my hope as thst it brings joy and entertainment to everyone who downloads the route.

I thank you all for your patience with the posts and should have more to come soon!

 

[rwk]

I started my own route several years ago using the DLS DEM but haven't worked on it in a while. I actually was going to do a what if scenario if the railroad restored more of the track beyond the 4.5 miles used in the tourist era, but now that is becoming a reality with the new ownership and the extension toward Saltillo. I'm looking forward to your route, but that is a long wait. I think I got track up past Colgate and some track toward Pogue, and I merged an Aughwick bridge module to the route from a third party site. I also built the Rockhill Trolley Museum line including the extension that they built. The late Ben Dorsey made almost every EBT building which helps a lot. It's just a matter of research to place the buildings in the correct spots. And Ben made EBT excursion cars, open and roofed. And whitepass or somebody made EBT coaches. I used an EBT 3 ft track from Trainz Forge which looks really good. I actually like Steve Lerro's Orbisonia station better than the Ben one for some reason, it looks more accurate.

 

[axis3039]

So my original goal was to finish to Mt Union by Christmas for common carrier era operations. Completed all the way to just shy of the yard and mapped out the entire yard. Even had some custom assets made for it, but Mt Union presented some challenges that I was not able to undertake at the time and still needs a lot of research and clever building tricks to finish. So I then moved on to the Saltillo expansion. Been working on that since about beginning of August. It's come a long way since then and I'm very proud of my work. However there is just too much stuff left to do in order to release by Christmas and take comfort in saying I gave it my best. So with that said, that why I've made the decision to cut back on the route to the Colgate to Orbisonia section only. Well that and the trolley line. I will say it is kinda sad knowing that 1/2 a years work will not be included in the release but that's not to say it's gone. Just not finished. As for assets I am using all the Ben dorsey assets plus a few kitbashed buildings in the stead of ones that were never made. Track wise, you'll be happy to know I'm using the Trainz Forge trackage as well so it will look the same as yours on that front. There is something else being worked on by my friends at the huntington shops. But I won't spoil anything, you'll have to wait until Christmas to see what they've been up to. As for the station, honestly I forget which one I'm using, but I picked based off coloring.

 

[OddRails]

The Mt. Union yard is certainly a challenge. It has narrow gauge, standard gauge and dual gauge trackage.

 

[axis3039]

Honestly, given the books and other references I had, that was the easiest part. Don't get me wrong, a total pain on my ass. It's essentially 2 yards built dirextly on top of each other to mzke the dual guage effect, but at least it's accurate to what's there. The biggest challenges for me with Mt Union in terms of the yard is that I now realize thst the whole yard was on roughly a 1% grade. Additionally there are 3 different zones/levels to this yard if you will. The lower yard by the engine house, the middle yard/mainline and narrow guage car stagging, the upper yard for the standard guage car stagging, a 2nd lower yard for the standard guage car stagging after they will filled with coal, and a finally the NARCO spur which was the lowest part in the while yard. Now to the best of my knowledge that's the layout of the yard. The reason for all this leveling and the grade throughout is becuase a vast majority of car movements were done via gravity switching with a brakeman riding the cars and applying handbrake as needed (A really cool feature I actually hope to incorporate into the route). The EBT cars on JR actually have a built in handbrake script to them which would make the gravity switching possible. However if that doesn't pan out, you'll just have to switch with engines. Due keep in mind that even though the yard is "dual guage" it still functions as 2 separate yards.

Anyway that's the easy part because I know what to do. The bigger challenges for me will be deciding what to do with all the industries in Mt Union (for example, the 3 Refractory plants, and the PRR tie treatment plant). There are very few current buildings in trainz that would make that task easy. Trainz Forge has brick kilns which I've definitely put to good use, but as far as the other plant buildings go, I'm on my own, and have to get very creative on the kitbashing side of things. Also finding blueprints for those industries to possibly make custom assets was a losing battle as well. So until i cant find proper blueprints, I wont be able to whip anything up in blender. The other challenge I will have with Mt Union is actually the town itself. Mt Union is locally known as bricktown, and for good reason. Alot of the houses and industries there were made of brick, becuase of the industries, and finding good assets in trainz to properly showcase the town. Additionally larger towns and cities are very hard to do in trainz. You make it too detailed, and the gane lags to hell. On the flip side, adding too little detail makes it look incomplete. As as someone who just started making towns go, I dont trust myself with such a huge task at the moment.