When using the smooth spline function in 2004, the roadbed is always much too wide. Is there a way to get the roadbed narrower, without having to play with the terrain height tool? One of the few complaints I have with the sim is the inability to have the main line elevated in relation to sidings and yard tracks, and the boulevard of earth one ends up with when crossing low spots in the terrain. (hard to get a narrow cut as well) I have been using the terrain tools to shave off the excess width of the roadbed but that is a lot of work on a route of 140 boards or more. It seems as if the grid spacing affects the behavior of the terrain. If thats the case, can the grid spacing be halved maybe? I do love this sim, and wont loose any sleep over this issue, but it would be nice to cut the width of the roadbed in half. I hope I am making sense to those reading this, but in case I am not, visualize prototype trackage running along a hillside. The "ledge" the track is laid on will be kept as narrow as possible to keep earth work to a minimum. Same applies to fills and cuts. Again, it"s not a big problem, but I figured I would ask anyway. Thanx much!
I know exactly what you're talking about and this has always been a frustration for me too.
There are some things you can try outside of upgrading to TS2009, which has a 5m instead of 10m grid. As you said, the grid size has a lot to do with this problem.
Use a road spline to flatten the ground instead of the track.
Take a piece of rad and place it along the roadbed and lay some in a zig-zag pattern along the slope. When you're done laying roads, use the tool to adjust the terrain to the spline height (I can't remember what it's called). This in will flatten your ground and make smooth slopes.
Look for some gravel and grass-covered embankments. RailCentre, among other content creators, made some of these. They're pretty good. What you do is lay your track and slip these underneath them.
Use a retaining wall. I've done this in a few places where I wanted the yard trackage to be lower than the mainline.
Lay the track at your specified height and use one of the terrain tools to dig on either side of the tracks. I do this all the time to profile the trackbed so it doesn't look like it's flat on the ground like a model trainset. When you're done profiling the grade, "walk" along the line to ensure there are no gaps under the track. If there are, carefully fill them in with the terrain tool set to your track height. This can be tricky, but it works pretty well.
Anyway enjoy Surveyor. You'll find yourself immersed in the building aspects of Trainz more than anything else. Right now my personal route is over 90 miles long and includes both DEMs, lots of custom baseboards, and selected imports from the community.
John
