North Central Colorado

Hi Woody,

For a map of the railroads, you can refer back to page one of this thread. You requested an engine roster....... I can post one later this week. That will be included with the route when uploaded, but I'd be happy to post one early. There's been a couple changes for the GWR lately as they've acquired a couple newly painted engines from the Hudson Bay Railway. Here's one switching up in Fort Collins at the UP interchange.

Notice the Port of Churchill logo:



A side view...... I took enough shots to do a future reskinning:







I can't tell stories like WCL, (unless it's about his cousin) but I'll share a little trivia about this sign:

This sign says "Sinnard" , that was posted in this little industrial spot called "Sinnard, Colorado" back in the early 1900's:






I discovered, however that this sign's history goes back much further, originating from an unincorporated area from southern Colorado called "Abeyta". The railway, I think the old Colorado Midland, was rerouted away from Abeyta, Abeyta became a ghost town, and the sign was brought up here and used for the Sinnard sign. That shows you how resourceful (or cheap) the Colorado & Southern Railroad was. Notice the flip side of the sign showing Abeyta letters bleeding through:

 
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Another Sinnard sign shot:





In front of the stockyards looking north east:








Working south of the tracks, the focus this week is on the Centennial Livestock Auction area.

Jadebullet, you might recognize the American Furniture Warehouse logo on the sign to the south. Jake Jabbs still has his TV commercials going on the local stations. Shoot, nevermind, there isn't enough clarity in this pic to make out the logo.
The furniture showroom is just to the south of the freeway ramp:










 
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Added more cattle pens today:








These kind of angles are always fun in 3D:



Before we head west from here along the Black Hollow branch back up to the BNSF North Yard, work continues along a short spur that winds around to the south. This takes us to the large Hydra Trucking Warehouse for unloading general goods. One of the session routines will include deliveries and 3 tracks for picking up empty box cars for a return trip to the yard.
 
Awesome!:eek: I especially like the texture work and the track in the last group of shots. Are those textures and track your creation?
 
Hi Steve and Sethmcs,

Thanks for viewing and feedback.


For the track textures, I take digital shots from overhead looking straight down. The main difference in the tracks between BNSF, UP and GWR is the ballast color and age/condition of the rails and track plates. Three main sets of track were made giving attention to these differences. Subsets of the tracks include new/ old rails and ties, oil stains, grain spills, sand, weeds and some with no ballast to blend in with the terrain. Recently I experimented with lowering the pic resolution on a few different tracks and so far the detail is still pretty good. For specialty track, like the grain or oil spills, I'm going to leave them at a higher res.

Its pretty much the same for textures. Taking digital shots of the ground from about 6 1/2 feet overhead, straight down, and then tweeking them into usable texture files, trying to keep the resolution down without comprimising the image. That's still a work in progress by itself.
 
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Wow Jim, most impressive work there!

I look forward to seeing more of your HBR reskins. That's some shiney power! The cattle yards look especially realistic, too bad TS2009 doesn't support moving cows. Thanks for sharing the trivia about Sinnard and the history of the sign and also how you make your textures. On the sign, that is pretty amazing that they brought a piece of wood from a defunct town for the sign.

:hehe:

I noticed from MS Virtual Earth some of the buildings are in 3D. Makes it that more realistic when comparing with your route. I think yours looks more real indeed!
 
Hi Bryan,

Sorry for the way I worded the description of the Hudson Bay engines.
Those pics are the real engines. I took a bunch of pics at different angles usable for doing reskins. I'm pretty sure that the shine of the metal will still look ok for TRS.

The Sinnard/Abeyta sign is an old rusted piece of metal. Back then it seems like the RR's didn't throw anything away, they always found some way to reuse stuff. The GWR up here is still like that....total pack rats.
Some of the "junk" they have in piles at the Loveland sugar factory goes back a long way and they are very protective of it.

I use the MS Virtual Earth too, but I can't get the 3D part to work. What would be in 3D is whited out.

After finishng the Hydra Trucking Warehouse just to the south, if you follow that branch back up to the NW, and go a couple miles west of the railyard, you'll see what I have left to complete this section of the route.
Thanks for you feedback.
 
Man Jim...Thats looking better and better every day....keep up the good work buddy :wave:
 
JimDep said:
Hi Bryan,

Sorry for the way I worded the description of the Hudson Bay engines.
Those pics are the real engines. I took a bunch of pics at different angles usable for doing reskins. I'm pretty sure that the shine of the metal will still look ok for TRS.

The Sinnard/Abeyta sign is an old rusted piece of metal. Back then it seems like the RR's didn't throw anything away, they always found some way to reuse stuff. The GWR up here is still like that....total pack rats.
Some of the "junk" they have in piles at the Loveland sugar factory goes back a long way and they are very protective of it.

I use the MS Virtual Earth too, but I can't get the 3D part to work. What would be in 3D is whited out.

After finishng the Hydra Trucking Warehouse just to the south, if you follow that branch back up to the NW, and go a couple miles west of the railyard, you'll see what I have left to complete this section of the route.
Thanks for you feedback.
Click to expand...

I think you must have mistaken what I was saying. They're shiney as in a good way as in new-looking. I like that. Too bad more locomotives aren't kept in better repair / maintenance like that.

Ah that might explain why they kept the sign. Being metal back in those days it probably meant having to order a new one from far away. Maybe?

For MSVE 3D settings; click on the upper right, it's an icon above "Print". If you go into "3D Settings" (button in center bottom of window) Click "Quality" and put a tic in each of the boxes; depending on whether you want to see local weather for the area or not...you can leave that one blank. Ok that and it should be set. If not I'm not sure what next step to take to get your 3D settings.

Best of luck to you!

:Y:

PS: Oh and yah I was exploring around the area in MSVE. I saw that railyard you were referring to and even followed it west further into Ft. Collins. Pretty cool. Very typical Western terrain.
 
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I had those boxes checked and the buildings that should be in 3D are still whited out....not sure what's going on with that. Thanks for trying :)

You're right about ole' Jake, Bulldog. This guy is a Colorado institution.
I left the area for a few years, came back and he's still going strong.

Remember the joke about why you shouldn't bend over to pick anything up at American Furniture Warehouse?
 
Not on this forum but yes I do remember. The guy wants people to sacrifice all of their beer money for the furniture. :D I actually met him a few years ago and he's a trip. Nice guy but I wouldn't want to be in a negotiation with him. :D
 
"Not on this forum" :D:D:D:D:D:hehe: .................. ya, you're right....what was I thinkin. :eek:

I'm sure he is nice guy and a very shrewd businessman.
I thought Jake's furniture commercials were bad until I got to New England and got bombarded with Bob's Furniture commercials out of Massachusetts..........

Oh, man......now THOSE are bad.
 
Sorry for the late reply Jim,
Thanks for getting back to me! Those grain elevator shots are very nice, I actually had to study it...thought it was real! Seems you have drawn a fairly regular fan club! Maybe we should make a website..."JimDep's North Central Colorado fan club":p Keep the shots coming! I'm always on the lookout.


Woody:)
 
Sometimes I feel the whole forum is for BSing. Well, not all the time.
Anyway,
how long have you been working on this? 2-3 years is my guess and I'm sure its not even close to done, believe me I know how that goes!
 
I've been working on this, I think, since the summer of 2005. I've had to restart a few times and since have subdivided it up, although there is a master route of the entire area, but too big for uploading at the current time. For the overall area, there is a long way to go. For the north Fort Collins area, hoping to get it wrapped up soon. Thanks for your interest.


Just a quick update:

Working on more livestock auction structures and backgrounds.
I'm hoping to get this area done by tomorrow evening.

I'll post more while finishing one area and moving on.




 
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