New Castle Northern WIP Thread

[Southern1581]

Decided to make an individual thread for this so I could stop raiding the Model Trainz thread.

I would give a history for this RR, but that's not really well thought out yet, so I'll start with the RR itself and its roster.

The New Castle Northern RR (reporting mark NCNO) is a Class 3 RR operating in Western Pa and Eastern Oh. The NCNO operates roughly 70 miles of track between New Castle and Mingo Junction, with an additional 10 miles of branch lines.

The RR also maintains an all EMD roster of 58 units of various types and heritage.

The NCNO Roster:

Number(s)......Model......Heritage
380-388........GP38-2......Ex-CR, UP, BNSF
440-444........GP40-2......Ex-HLCX, UP, SP
501..............GP35.........Ex-NS
600-602........SD45-2.....Ex-CRR
709-725........SD40-2.....Ex-HLCX, UP, BNSF
895-899........SD45........Ex-ATSF
1515-1516.....SW1500....Ex-HLCX
2673-2679.....SD50M......Ex-UP
2989-2990.....SD60........Ex-CEFX
3121-3130.....SD40T-2...Ex-UP

The RR is being represented in a 2 baseboard model RR type route. All features have yet to be decided, but thus far we have a small hump yard (CSX interchange), a coal mine, and a Caterpillar plant.

Screenshots:

Enjoy!

 

[Southern1581]

Nope. Nothing shady going on back here....

 

[Southern1581]

Been busy lately, trying to work on this route, get the 2 NCNO SD60's skinned, and do my summer work for school.

However, I have gotten work done, today me and conrailfan got on skype and were able to get part of the layout signaled up. Currently the layout is signaled with safetran signals, but these are to be replaced later with G type signals.

Testing the signals today are SD40-2 723 and SW1500 1515 leading a short mixed freight.

Passing around the reversing loop through town.

After clearing the yard, the units are able to open up the throttle. The short freight roars past the coal mine throttling up. Quite a sound to hear.

Crossing a bridge at a soon-to-come scene.

 

[Bluewater]

I wish I had the patience, not to mention the skill, to do something like this. Epic work!

 

[Southern1581]

Thanks man! Now I need to drag conrailfan back into skype cause some of the signals aren't working...

 

[conrailfan1999]

Thanks man! Now I need to drag conrailfan back into skype cause some of the signals aren't working...

Well nice screenshots! Sounds like we will have to redo some signaling.

 

[Southern1581]

Most notably part of the loop and the coal mine approach. I've tested the westbound signals, need to test the eastbound signals.

 

[Bluewater]

How do you stay focused on something like this? I've tried a lot of different things from planning it out to just putting down whatever comes to mind that makes sense for that region and nothing really seems to work...

 

[Southern1581]

I have no idea, it probably helps that I'm not really focused on the project. I can go from playing trainz to playing world of tanks to watching seananners to listening to dubstep very, VERY quickly. But I am very anxious to get this done because I'd say it's my first actually good route, and I want to get to the finished product.

 

[Southern1581]

Got some more work done in the town, there's now a plastics plant there. 4 axle power only in this spur as 6 axle power won't make it through the curve.

Also, we finally bought HLCX 1516! After being leased to us for 12 years we finally bought her. Here she is switching the plastics plant on her first run in NCNO blue & black.

Rolling in to pick up the loaded hoppers.

Hooked up (yes, I know there's a block in a road and the fence is blocking it, I'll flip the gate before the next screens).

Headin home.

Same shot from the drug dealer's view.

I like the drug dealer cam, remind me to use that perspective more often.

Anyways enjoy!

 

[AMTRAKwannabe]

Why not try yukonzooms fences and gates? They're on the DLS, 'YZ Fence' and 'YZ Gate' I think

 

[Southern1581]

If he has an animated gate I'd definitely like to use it. I'll take a look.

 

[Southern1581]

Nearly forgot, soon to appear on the NCNO...

 

[Southern1581]

Thanks for the tip wannabe. I like this new gate much better. Gonna stick with the old fence though because I like the run down look of it.

New gate installed.

 

[NSguy999]

Nice! (10 characters)

 

[Southern1581]

Thanks!

You'll notice that there is a major lack of coal hauling pictures in this thread, which is odd because that make up a good portion of the NCNO's traffic, coal hauling. These pictures are absent because in order to avoid wearing down their SD40-2's excessively, the NCNO always runs coal drags with at least one higher horsepower loco to add more tractive effort and share the load, usually either a SD45, SD45-2, SD50M, or SD60. There are 17 of these above 3000 horsepower units on the NCNO roster, and to this point all were unrepresented.

Today however I have finally completed one of the 3 models. As of today I can add NCNO SD60's to my trains.

The first round of SD60 pics features NCNO SD60 2989, one of the two SD60's. The 2989 is leading NCNO SD40-2 723 and FURX SD40-2 3000, on a very heavy and long loaded coal train out of Kelly Yard.

Rounding the curve next to the coal mine.

Throttling up.

Rolling by the coal mine.

Rolling through the crossing.

Crossing the thus far unscenicked bridge and heading up grade in run 7.

Struggling upgrade towards the valley curve. This train is going 22 mph at this point in run 7, due to a combination of the .5% grade and the length and weight of the coal cars.

Rounding the curve and cresting the grade. (I am aware of the issue with the red radiator fans, and unfortunately to my knowledge there is currently no solution. This problem is only at zoomed out levels of lod)

Coasting downgrade towards the much less completed side of the route. Shots gives an overall view of both the train and much of the layout itself.

Enjoy!

 

[Southern1581]

Not a whole lot going on for the route at the moment, I've been adding some hills between the valley curve and the coal mine, and there's now a decent sized passing siding on one side of the peninsula. Screenshots coming soon, I wanna finish some of this area up a bit more before I show it.

 

[Southern1581]

Back to the pix. Currently most of the work is taking place on the two yards of the model RR. Kelly Yard is the small 5 track hump yard on the east end, and Heather Yard is the much larger yard that occupies the layouts other reversing loop. Heather Yard is going to look cool once I finish it, hope to get some shots of that area up soon. As for Kelly Yard, she's been done for a while, I'm just busy try to get the scenery in as it does occupy basically all of one side of the room.

Now for the shots. I'll type the general summery of what's going on up here to save me effort later. Basically we have a large train taking out from Heather Yard heading west to Kelly Yard. Once the train gets there, the size difference between the two yards becomes obvious. A train that would take up one track in Heather Yard occupies 2 tracks in Kelly Yard. As a result the train has to be pulled up and broken into two sections to fit it into Kelly Yard. As a result we have to cut NCNO 2990 from the consist because of size constraints. The 2990 is set out and the crew flips the 717 around and finishes the job.

 

[Southern1581]

Haven't posted in a while, a lot's going on around here especially with tomorrow being my 16th birthday, but that doesn't mean that nothing's happening.

Unfortunately much of what's happening is on the side of the layout that is basically unscenicked.

In addition to that, I'm working on a bunch of skins for this route (wouldn't want you guys to have the route then not have any toys to use on it ). Among these releasable skins are NCNO SW1500's 1515 and 1516, a boxcar (soon to be quite a few boxcars), a SD40T-2 123" snoot nose, and perhaps some widecab GP's and who knows what else. I wanna get a solid content pack going.

In the mean time the updates. Here's what's going behind the backdrop:

-There is finally a roof over my layout! Now I don't have to worry about rain frying my electronics...
-The CAT dealership I placed on the other side of the layout near Heather Yard has had the track work installed.
-Across from the CAT dealership another 3 spurs have been laid for an industry to be decided.
-All of the temporary Safetran signals I installed have been replaced by Type-G tri-light signals. All of the thus-far installed track work has been signaled. The signals have been tested and work properly.
-A large chunk of the hills planned for the peninsula have been completed and are awaiting textures and trees.
-Most of the Kelly Yard area has been textured. The grass and shrubbery is still going in at a fair pace.
-The town town at the reversing loop is nearing completion.

And skins:
NCNO boxcar 270565: Complete
NCNO SD40T-2's 3121-3130: In progress, 5% complete.

That's all the progress to report, now for some screenshots to show that this project still has a pulse.


And a couple of shots of the completed boxcar skin I was talking about.

 

[Southern1581]

Not a completely dead project. Just mostly dead.

The majority of the work at the moment is going on around the Heather Yard area, and some scenery work around the valley curve. The valley curve is still far from completion, but I'm getting pretty close with the Heather Industrial Spur. I have 5 sidings hooked up to it and 4 industries total. There's still room for at least 2 more industries in the back of the spur, but until those industries go in the back of the spur is serving as storage space for the NCNO.

I am working on a SD40T-2 123" snoot skin for the NCNO, not making a whole lot of progress as I'm still figuring out the PSD. One of these days though.

I ran a test session with a pair of SD40-2's to test the Heather Spur, switching out cars in the spurs, clearing out the storage tracks, then taking the train to Kelly Yard.

So now, a whole bunch of screenshots!