hey is there a good route with high altitude track in it

[john2002]

I imagine trains going to extremes up there. Derailing would have a funny falling effect

 

[Vern]

If I hadn't got distracted by the Bermuda Railway, one of my other projects is a "might have been" fictional narrow gauge railway in the mountains of southern France, which climbs to nearly the maximum height limit (3000m) allowed in Trainz with a pretty much constant 5% grade either side of the pass. However it will probably be a month or two before I work on it in earnest again, while I'm bitten by the "island" bug.

 

[cascaderailroad]

I wonder how many miles of track would be needed to make a 1% gradient route that goes from -3000m, to +3000m ?

 

[john2002]

i believe donner pass and mojave sub and i might make my own

 

[cascaderailroad]

Anyone can crash a train:

http://vid525.photobucket.com/albums/cc339/cascaderailroad/KickingHorsePassWIP.mp4

 

[activerail]

I've been working on a sim of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad for some time. The Cumbres Pass area exceeds the 3000M limit of Trainz and so I had to use TransDEM to lower the elevation of the whole sim. When you get about 3000M things get really "squirrel y"....leveling track, adding trestles, etc.

 

[oknotsen]

I wonder how many miles of track would be needed to make a 1% gradient route that goes from -3000m, to +3000m ?

3000 - -3000 = 6000m

Assuming 1% gradient is a 1% angle, entered into this website (with B being a 90% angle) the result is 343792.13m or 343.8km or 213.623 miles or 478 baseboards.
If you mean 1m rise for every 100m travelled, the calculation is rather simple: 6000 / 0,01 = 600.000m or 600km or 372.823 miles or 834 baseboards.

 

[Mousefart]

3000 - -3000 = 6000m

Assuming 1% gradient is a 1% angle, entered into this website (with B being a 90% angle) the result is 343792.13m or 343.8km or 213.623 miles or 478 baseboards.
If you mean 1m rise for every 100m travelled, the calculation is rather simple: 6000 / 0,01 = 600.000m or 600km or 372.823 miles or 834 baseboards.

A 1% grade doesn't refer to angle degrees.

1% = 1 ft rise for every 100 ft forward.

3% = 3 ft rise for every 100 ft forward

etc, etc...

 

[dragonharh]

I made a very steep moution in Dragons Pass V4.7 the grade it 16% at some points and clims almost to max hight in trainz, I never got around to finshing it. Something woth looking at.

 

[oknotsen]

1% = 1 ft rise for every 100 ft forward.

In that case:
600030m or 372.841 miles or 834 baseboards.

 

[cascaderailroad]

Unless it was a gradually offseting, series of terrace's, like a never ending folding over itself, dogbone, spiral loop route, with thousands of tunnels.

 

[nimec]

Try Wyefield Junction 2a release April 2012. Free ware off the DLS. Some of the best hill country you will see in Trainz. Not a big routé and no signalling but still a good single track route. Cheers

 

[JCitron]

I know you were probably expecting this answer...

You could always get TransDEM and download DEMS and images from the Earth Explorer http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ which will get you maps from nearly any place in the world. If you are looking for strictly US you could always go for the USGS National Map Server http://nationalmap.gov/viewer.html.

These, along with TransDEM, will give you the raw maps to work with and build your routes. With this you'll be able to build what you want, but the caveat is you'll spend a lot of time. And I mean a lot of time getting things the way you want. You could go one step further and download the historic topographic maps for the US areas you are interested in. These will give you ROW instead of "----" lines. You can overlay these on to a TransDEM generated terrain ready for following.

John

 

[activerail]

To build on John's summary of TransDEM, there is a "simple route" creator that allows you to trace the tracks on the topo maps. TransDEM then allows you to place track on your sim that follows the route you created. Saves a lot of time and allows you to work on track gradient, etc.

 

[Zeldaboy14]

I made a very steep moution in Dragons Pass V4.7 the grade it 16% at some points and clims almost to max hight in trainz, I never got around to finshing it. Something woth looking at.

Don't forget about Doom Coaster 5 dragon! That has high altitude.

 

[dragonharh]

Right 99% grade don't cout at steep james.