New to Route Building, would like some help

[Kegg_Works]

Hey all, first ever post on the forum so I hope this goes well.

I've been messing around with trainz for some time now, though due to certain circumstances I've been on a non-voluntary hiatus unto recently. I have TRS2006 and I'm hoping sometime soon I can upgrade to TRS2010. Anyway....

Ever since I first stated playing Trainz I've always enjoyed surveyor mode and making my own routes. Though none of the ones I worked on ever came to fruition, I'm picking that up again and having some fun with a few freelance routes. Almost all are narrow gauge and set in the American southwest. Though recently I've been developing interest in some smaller historical railroads that also have a small hint of obscurity. Or at least in my opinion anyway. It does take a lot of effort to hand form the terrain in Surveyor and trying to get things just right. Which isn't difficult for a freelance route, but it you want to make something based on a prototype operation that gets far more challenging! I've seen "blank" routes formed using the HOG utility and all this stuff about TIGER lines and HOG textures. I'm VERY interested in learning how to use these applications for Trainz routes.

The top two on my list are the Austin City Ry. of Nevada, interchanging with the Nevada Central. And also the Battle Mountain & Lewis Railway, which also interchanged with the NC. Bot lines are fairly short, the BM&L being only 11.5 miles long and the ACRy being much shorter! At one point I might try to virtually recreate the Nevada Central and merge the other two routes with it, but that's just a thought and no doubt asking for a lot of pain in the process.

Tempting to create these lines by switching from say Google Earth to Trainz and back again is tedious, difficult, and leaves a lot of room for inaccuracy. Is there anyone out there who can give me some help? I've been reading through a few other threads and tutorials, but I feel that somehow something is getting lost in translation. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Sincerely, Kegg Works

 

[KingConrail76]

General queries typically don't get answered, because they are too vague.

Please ask a specific question, be-it about the use of Terrain generating 3rd party software, or about route building technique, or anything else...just be specific in what you want to know.( or be specific about what you don't understand).

 

[JCitron]

Welcome to the forums, Kegg Works! Surveying and route building will become an obsession if you haven't noticed already.

If you are looking for prototype route building tools, you might be interested in the highly suggested and highly recommended TransDEM. http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteTransDEMEngl.htm. This is not free, however, it is priced quite inexpensively at a mere $33 USD or thereabouts with the exchange rate. There's a bit of a learning curve with it, but like anything else once you get the hang of it, you'll be sailing along fairly fast. One of the more recent additions to the program is the ability to import historical topographic maps located on the NGS website as well as the underlying DEM information from the NGS servers as well. The program will actually adjust, tilt, and match up the topographic image on the DEM, and produce a route ready for laying tracks on when the information is exported to Trainz format!

It appears that you have been going about this the right way by doing smaller projects first. This is something I always suggest to newcomers to this aspect of route building. Even when working on your larger projects, yes even 11 miles can become a mammoth of a project once you get into it, you need to work in tiny sections otherwise you'll end up getting discouraged and overwhelmed as you push along laying miles upon miles of track, placing trees, buildings, and everything else.

John

 

[Dap]

Hey Kegg,

Welcome to the fun world of prototype route creation. Ditto John's recomendation of TransDEM. http://www.rolandziegler.de/StreckeUndLandschaft/startseiteTransDEMEngl.htm . A few weeks ago I took the plunge and in less than a week, I had the terrain genertated and mainline track laid for a 95 mile section of the C&O in West Virginia. It comes with tutorials that walk you through the process. They were most helpful. Best $33 I've spent in a while.

David

 

[steamboateng]

Ditto all above. If your into recreating historical routes, then TransDEM is the way to go. The program is well worth the $$! USGS DEM data and USGS 'Historical' topo maps can be downloaded FREE, gratis Uncle Sam. The program will save you countless hours pushing terrain grids; its accurate, reliable and consistant.