So what I'm trying to do is build a tourist railway route, but for some reason or another, it always somehow becomes 'out-of-control' in one way or the other. I'd like to place the route in the Southeast, but I don't want to deal with grades and forested areas. Urban areas, such as cities, I want to stay away from. However, I prefer to have the tourist railway 'based' in a small town so that I won't have to spend time adding building after building. I plan on having the tourist railway begin in a small town and meander to an interchange with a freight railroad where the train or locomotive turns around and the train returns to the small town. I know that this may not be easy to understand, but I'd like some advice on how I should do this.
Help Building a Tourist Railway Route
- Thread starter jordon412
- Start date
You've described the Strasburg Railroad almost exactly! The steam loco starts out backward towing the passenger cars from Strasburg, Pennsylvania. It makes about a 20 minute run through corn fields and farmland in Lancaster County and ends up in Paradise, Pennsylvania. It stops there right next to the Norfolk Southern/Amtrak mainline. The loco then runs around the train and proceeds forward in front of the passenger cars back to Strasburg. It's about a 3.5 mile run each way.
StrasburgRailRoad.com
Andrew
Well, yes and no. I was envisioning using the ends of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, then making up the rest of the route between the two ends. However, the East Chattanooga end on the prototype is in a very tight footprint, so I want to enlarge it. The buildings will be different also.
Just a suggestion, why not visit this site: http://www.abandonedrails.com/ and choose one of the many abandonded routes (or part thereof) that suits your requirement. Then invent a back story to explain its evolution or revival into a preserved railway.
Waters & West Point Railroad Museum
The Waters and West Point Railroad Museum is based on the abandoned route between West Point, Mississippi, and Waters, Mississippi, in the suburbs of Columbus, Mississippi. I tried to make the route the track as close to the prototype, but I decided to remove a small section between the station in Waters and the rest of the route because it passes thru suburbs of Columbus, since I'm trying to create a more 'scenic' route. A 10-stall roundhouse, restoration shops, locomotive servicing facilities (i.e. coal shed, water tower, sand, diesel fuel pump, etc.) and a turntable large enough to turn a large 2-8-2 are located within the wye at Waters. The 4-track yard makes up one leg of the wye, another leg of the track connects to the interchange with a double-track mainline. The third leg of the wye goes behind the roundhouse and then comes up next to the yard and then connects to that leg of the wye. At West Point, there is a reverse loop to turn the complete train around (I hate seeing a observation car being the first passenger car after the locomotive). The radius is 125 meters for the reverse loop, which is pretty sharp; however, if you measure the diameter of the curved leg of the wye at Grand Junction at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, it comes to about 165 meters. At about the halfway point, there's a passing siding called 'Vail', where shorter excursions, powered by diesels travel to. The diesel runs around the train and pulls the train back to Waters. Between Waters and Vail, the railroad travels across several bodies of water, including two bridges over a lake, which the tracks travels across one bridge onto a island in the lake, then another bridge to get across the rest of the lake. The town of Waters is represented as a small town, not a suburb of a Columbus, though a 4-lane highway passes thru the center of downtown Waters. West Point is also represented as a small town. Rolling stock included a variety of freight cars, plus coaches, a diner, and an observation car. A tool car and auxiliary tender rounds out the rolling stock. The steam locomotives are a 4-6-0, 2-8-0. 4-6-2, 2-8-2. Diesels are an EMD E8, two GP9's, an ALCO RS-3, and a F7 A-A set.
Here's a satellite view of the actual roundhouse and surrounding area:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5006685,-88.4124571,301m/data=!3m1!1e3
The Waters and West Point Railroad Museum is based on the abandoned route between West Point, Mississippi, and Waters, Mississippi, in the suburbs of Columbus, Mississippi. I tried to make the route the track as close to the prototype, but I decided to remove a small section between the station in Waters and the rest of the route because it passes thru suburbs of Columbus, since I'm trying to create a more 'scenic' route. A 10-stall roundhouse, restoration shops, locomotive servicing facilities (i.e. coal shed, water tower, sand, diesel fuel pump, etc.) and a turntable large enough to turn a large 2-8-2 are located within the wye at Waters. The 4-track yard makes up one leg of the wye, another leg of the track connects to the interchange with a double-track mainline. The third leg of the wye goes behind the roundhouse and then comes up next to the yard and then connects to that leg of the wye. At West Point, there is a reverse loop to turn the complete train around (I hate seeing a observation car being the first passenger car after the locomotive). The radius is 125 meters for the reverse loop, which is pretty sharp; however, if you measure the diameter of the curved leg of the wye at Grand Junction at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, it comes to about 165 meters. At about the halfway point, there's a passing siding called 'Vail', where shorter excursions, powered by diesels travel to. The diesel runs around the train and pulls the train back to Waters. Between Waters and Vail, the railroad travels across several bodies of water, including two bridges over a lake, which the tracks travels across one bridge onto a island in the lake, then another bridge to get across the rest of the lake. The town of Waters is represented as a small town, not a suburb of a Columbus, though a 4-lane highway passes thru the center of downtown Waters. West Point is also represented as a small town. Rolling stock included a variety of freight cars, plus coaches, a diner, and an observation car. A tool car and auxiliary tender rounds out the rolling stock. The steam locomotives are a 4-6-0, 2-8-0. 4-6-2, 2-8-2. Diesels are an EMD E8, two GP9's, an ALCO RS-3, and a F7 A-A set.
Here's a satellite view of the actual roundhouse and surrounding area:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5006685,-88.4124571,301m/data=!3m1!1e3
That sounds like an interesting route.
You might want to include static locomotives and train cars as well. You can turn the components to scenery items, which will mean assembling them afterwards because scenery items can't have bogies. It takes a bit of fiddling in Surveyor to put the body back on the bogies but it's doable and looks pretty good too.
You might want to include static locomotives and train cars as well. You can turn the components to scenery items, which will mean assembling them afterwards because scenery items can't have bogies. It takes a bit of fiddling in Surveyor to put the body back on the bogies but it's doable and looks pretty good too.
I would have replied sooner, but the cable (and internet) has been out pretty much all day until about thirty minutes ago. From what I heard, a car crashed into a power pole, knocking out cable and internet for several area providers. My Mom told me that she saw about eighteen trucks from various cable companies (at least three! (that it cable providers)) clustered around one power pole. So to keep me busy, I decided to install some other computer games (Railroad Tycoon 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 and both expansion packs) and spend some time on those. I've been meaning to install those programs for a long time. I usually have both Trainz (not in full screen) and the Forums pulled up at the same time, which I search while Trainz autosaves the route. I'll get back to working on it tomorrow after I get home from work, about 8PM. Let me tell you, rarely is the power out for this long. I already had Trainz 12 and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and it's expansion packs installed on my computer. Anyway, only program remaining to install is Trainz 2010: Engineer's Edition.
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generalman
Renowned L&N Fanatic
From the sounds of it, not only similar to the Strasburg, but you've also described the Kentucky Railway Museum's operational base. They run regular (2 or 3 times a week) tourist trains along about 10 miles of the L&N's old Lebanon Branch, from the museum's headquarters in New Haven, then up the tracks one town to Boston. If they run a diesel operation they have a unit on each end, therefore one pulls the train to Boston, and the other pulls the train back to New Haven. If the trip is ran by 152, (or at least when she was running), when they got to Boston they would uncouple the train from the locomotive and run the engine around the train on a strip track, then pull the train back to New Haven tender-first. It truly is a great operation to observe.
As for building the route in Trainz, I'm not sure exactly, but I believe it's about 10 miles. There's only 2 towns: New Haven and Boston, neither of which would be hard sense they're like every other small-town where the large buildings are right down main street. The museum is right in the middle of New Haven, and the tracks cross the main road right at the front of the museum. There are some large antique buildings right next to the tracks. The part of Boston which is seen from the tracks would be the Marathon station, (where passengers have a short time to go buy some ice cream or something while the crew prepares to turn around), and there's a large hill to the West side of the tracks where US-62 comes down from Elizabethtown and crosses the tracks. If you look to the East hard enough you can see the Elementary/Middle/(I'm not sure which one) school. As for the rest of the route, it's really just all farmland. There's a couple of rural crossings, a few tree spots, then acres-on-end of corn, soybeans, and tobacco.
Hope this gives you some more ideas.
As for building the route in Trainz, I'm not sure exactly, but I believe it's about 10 miles. There's only 2 towns: New Haven and Boston, neither of which would be hard sense they're like every other small-town where the large buildings are right down main street. The museum is right in the middle of New Haven, and the tracks cross the main road right at the front of the museum. There are some large antique buildings right next to the tracks. The part of Boston which is seen from the tracks would be the Marathon station, (where passengers have a short time to go buy some ice cream or something while the crew prepares to turn around), and there's a large hill to the West side of the tracks where US-62 comes down from Elizabethtown and crosses the tracks. If you look to the East hard enough you can see the Elementary/Middle/(I'm not sure which one) school. As for the rest of the route, it's really just all farmland. There's a couple of rural crossings, a few tree spots, then acres-on-end of corn, soybeans, and tobacco.
Hope this gives you some more ideas.
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Yesterday, after getting home from work, I decided to take a break from doing Trainz so I haven't been around that much the past few days (note: from 'haven't been around that much', my view of my keyboard was partially obscured because of a cat trying to get into my lap, causing a lot of misspelling.), so I didn't reply to this post. The plan for the diesel-powered trains to Vail is either using the Geeps or Alco for this train. The train from Waters to West Point is usually steam on the weekend and diesel on the weekdays. Coaches are used on the Waters-Vail trip, while the Waters-West Point trip is coaches, diner and observation car. The Waters-West Point trip also features an express car-turned-gift car. Also, I've got the network of roads at each town complete. Also next to each station is a small park in each town, which I'm working on in Waters. I've got a baseball field, a carousel, a fountain, and a several sculptures. However, I plan on getting rid of the sculptures and moving the carousel to where the sculptures are, then adding a large tree in the park. I'm thinking of the tree being planted as some sort of special event, i.e. the 100th anniversary of the founding of the city, America's Bicentennial, etc., or honoring someone, i.e. veterans, the founder of the city, etc. I have the city blocks measuring 75 meters x 75 meters, which should be adequate for Davesnow's city buildings. Anyway, I'm going to take some must-needed rest today from Trainz.
Now a quick question: Should I add a extra baseboard (or two) to either side of the baseboard that has the track on it? I'm wondering this because there are places where the track is close to the edge of the baseboard. I noticed that many of the routes included in Trainz 12 have extra baseboards on each side of the baseboard that the track is on and that some of them are completely sceniced (i.e. buildings, scenery, etc.) and some have just one texture on them. Should I add an extra baseboard on each side of the baseboard the track is on and add scenery or just a texture to the added baseboard?
That's a good question. What I do is add a baseboard on either side as a buffer and try to keep the track in the middle as much as possible. This will vary from a board or two on either side of the tracks, but it looks better then seeing a brown edge somewhere because the track is too close to the edge of the world.
What I do is, before cutting any baseboards away, get to the ground level using ALT+Y and crawl along and have a look around. If it appears that the ground will cut off, I keep the baseboards, if not I remove them, after making a backup of course in case of the inevitable whoops moment.
John
ray_whiley
Active member
A quick fix is to use backdrops and (if preferred) add extra scenic boards later - this gets something running more quickly!
Ray
Ray
It's pretty much stalled at this point. I might consider redoing it as a Model Railroadz, but that will result in starting from scratch. Right now, I'm working on modifying the built-in 'Norfolk and Western - Appalachian Coal' to be pseudo-present day, tough I've made changes to have it the way I want it.
You'll like the new Hinton Division that's in TANE. I've been testing the sessions for it and it's a really, really nice route, and way much better than the Appalachian Coal in TS12 by the same author.
John
MeowRailroad
CKRail
Which railroad is the Hinton division? C&O?
generalman
Renowned L&N Fanatic
Hinton Division is a C&O line in West Virginia.
Are there any of these on the DLS that I could get?That sounds like an interesting route.
You might want to include static locomotives and train cars as well. You can turn the components to scenery items, which will mean assembling them afterwards because scenery items can't have bogies. It takes a bit of fiddling in Surveyor to put the body back on the bogies but it's doable and looks pretty good too.