I want to get brave and start a private island project.

JonMyrlennBailey

Well-known member
I want to create a fantasy railroad on a tropical island based on a real-world island.

Is there a speedy way to create all the correct topology and texture based upon an actual island without countless hundreds of man hours of measuring and tamping ground?

The island, of course, will be surrounded by water, the Pacific Ocean.

There will be a main city and a few small towns around island which I will develop. The will also be an improved airport, for jet planes, and improved infrastructure as paved roadways. There will be a deep sheltered harbor with shipping docks.

This will be a large-scale "virtual floating Disneyland" of sorts. Trains will carry people all over the resort island. I want an island at least 15 miles long or wide.

I would just like to take a section of a world map like Google maps and instantly translate it into a Trainz map with most if not all the topology and texture instantly done.

How do professional route developers develop routes based on a real-world map? This might require some content creation software.

Yes, I want to drive a loco with an ocean view.
 
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Is there a speedy way to create all the correct topology and texture based upon an actual island without countless hundreds of man hours of measuring and tamping ground?

I would just like to take a section of a world map like Google maps and instantly translate it into a Trainz map with most if not all the topology and texture instantly done.

How do professional route developers develop routes based on a real-world map? This might require some content creation software.

Buy TransDem:
http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/transdemTrainz_Engl.htm
 
Buy TransDem:
+1
Then take a look at St Kitts as a template, island has a railway line that circled the entire coast at one point, with a couple of branches, a dock spur and plenty of scope for both passenger and freight (sugar cane) operations.
 
There is one island which had railroads, which might be close to what you seek, although it's not tropical. Isle Royale, the US National park surrounded by Lake Superior had copper mining activity on the island in the late 19th Century, and did have railroads operating on the Island, although not quite so extensively as you propose. The Island is about 25 miles or so long, by about 5 miles wide, or so. A modest investment in TransDEM would make the task of developing the terrain fairly straight forward.

ns
 
So ... you want to create Australia ?

There are several Hawaiian and other blank island DEM's on the DLS


Yes, I could create an island from a template.

Inserting palm trees would make it tropical.

Of course, I want to use a real island on which no trains exist.

I want the challenge of laying tracks all by my lonesome and grading them as well as adding infrastructure.

Smooth Spline makes that easy. Instant cut and fill! I might want the element of trestles, bridges and tunnels also if my island were to be mountainous, have high sea cliffs or have volcanoes. Some islands are flat while others are hilly. I want a hilly island with some flat spots to have a small family farm, a jet airport and a horse stable.

I think I would develop this in TANE.

My fantasy is that if I were a multi-billionaire, I would buy small "magic" paradise island with a Disneyland-like RR loop I would have constructed. My RR would be standard gauge. A sort of train hobby layout with operating full-size trains.
 
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I've toyed with a similar concept using Lundy Island off the coast of England as my subject. I haven't got very far with it though, other than laying some track and installing a big intermodal dock.
 
Not sure Lundy is big enough for that...one of the Scottish islands like Skye would be better, loads of land and very few had railways. Skye did have a 2ft gauge quarry tramway at one point although this has long since been abandoned.
 
I started and stopped and started again and stopped again a Bermuda Railroad route. There was once a railroad on the island which is long gone with much of the ROW turned into dirt paths or built on. I used an orthographic image pasted down upon some SRTM data imported into TransDEM. There's that catchy program again - TransDEM. I highly recommend it for projects such as the one you are looking at.

John
 
Not sure Lundy is big enough for that...one of the Scottish islands like Skye would be better, loads of land and very few had railways. Skye did have a 2ft gauge quarry tramway at one point although this has long since been abandoned.

Lundy Island is pretty small. It would require some very tight curves on the main part of the island. All I got done was a sort of 2-step "ladder" along the East coast bringing the track from sea level up to the main part:

View attachment 1134 (click to enlarge)
View attachment 1135

The entire length has about a 3% grade!
 
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I just looked through my collection of Fishlips DEM islands. I four candidates that might work. The original files are on the DLS under "fishlipsatwork". I found 4 islands.

BIll
 
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I started and stopped and started again and stopped again a Bermuda Railroad route.
John

I wondered what had happened to the project, at one point I think there were three of us working on a Bermuda route but sadly mine foundered too. I will restart it one day.

Re the Scottish islands, I often thought about doing a fictional route on Skye following the coast from Armadale to Kyleakin with a branch off towards Portree in the north of the island. This could even be linked by bridge (in lieu of the ferries 0r latterly road bridge at Kyle) to the mainland stations at Mallaig and Kyle of Lochalsh.

Another island with interesting railway system was Jersey, two distinct routes but not too onerous as a first project. Again started a couple of times but foundered.

Re Isle Royale, out of interest I tried looking for information on the rail network but very little I could see on the web and not shown on any of the historic topo or Perry Castaneda maps either.
 
I started and stopped and started again and stopped again a Bermuda Railroad route. There was once a railroad on the island which is long gone with much of the ROW turned into dirt paths or built on. I used an orthographic image pasted down upon some SRTM data imported into TransDEM. There's that catchy program again - TransDEM. I highly recommend it for projects such as the one you are looking at.

John

Hey John, It's funny you said that. I started and stopped, then started and stopped the Bermuda Railroad as well. After researching all the history I just got into 25% of it, when T:ANE came along and I haven't touched it since.

I'm creating a bit of local (Australian) stuff lately; and it's a pity Bermuda may have to wait a bit longer. I might try importing it into T:ANE and see where it takes me.

Cheers mate!
Roy
 
I spend way too much time in Google Earth, looking up totally uninhabited islands

Near New Zealand there are many, in the middle of nowhere, that one could buy, or raise his own flag, and claim the island in the name of "ME"

https://www.google.com/maps/place/D...1bca4ab10f2187!8m2!3d-50.6071131!4d165.972561

https://www.google.com/maps/place/C...28e73e76efeea!8m2!3d-52.5162544!4d169.1552342

I just checked those islands out. I think they are ideal to run a train service on both of them.
Cheers,
Roy3b3
 
Isle of Wight?

I've done part of the present route - so has at least one other, I believe. But using the system as it was in steam days would be good.

Ray
 
Not forgetting the Isle of Man, parts of which have been done in older versions of the sim. To the best of my knowledge no-one has attempted the entire network as it once was, or the Manx Electric/Snaefell Mountain railway. The former ranks among my started but abandoned projects, part of the problem being it is such a unique line building in standard gauge or using generic trams doesn't really do it justice. The SMR with its 1 in 12 gradients would, I fear, be for show only.

Further afield (for JMB and others), the Canary Islands don't have any railway systems (apart from a newly opened town Metro on Tenerife) and could offer an interesting challenge for the budding Surveyor. Try and find a route up from Puerto de la Cruz or Playa des Americas to the base of Mount Teide. Or Lanzarote with its arid desert landscape.

On the subject of Spanish territory, the Mediterranean islands also have some railway systems. Majorca still has the much loved Soller Railway along with a more recent Metro style line and old maps reveal a one time much more extensive network.
 
Hey John, It's funny you said that. I started and stopped, then started and stopped the Bermuda Railroad as well. After researching all the history I just got into 25% of it, when T:ANE came along and I haven't touched it since.

I'm creating a bit of local (Australian) stuff lately; and it's a pity Bermuda may have to wait a bit longer. I might try importing it into T:ANE and see where it takes me.

Cheers mate!
Roy

The same happened to me - T:ANE came along and so did the Hoot Toot and Whistle (HT&W) and other projects. I too keep thinking about the Bermuda route as well and may give it a go as well in T:ANE. I still have the base files so it's only a matter of importing the data and starting again.

John
 
I just checked those islands out. I think they are ideal to run a train service on both of them.
Cheers,
Roy3b3
Besides the fact that the average temp and weather is probably pretty cold, windy. and stormy, being so close to Antarctica ... meaning there are no crops, and probably no mining resources ... so people could not live there ... so a passenger railway, or a freight railway would be totally ludicrous
 
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