Route Design Help

[SemperFy]

Hello. I have a problem. I am at a blank right now, and need a jump start. I cannot lay down a decent route....

It's not that I don't know how, it's just that I can't find inspiration on how to lay it down in a way of which appeals to me.

How do you guys plan out your routes? [Fictional Routes].

 

[Dermmy]

Nearly all of mine are inspired by articles in model or prototype magazines.

Andy

 

[leeferr]

I don't know that there's a way to describe how to design and implement a route. Everyone has a different way of going about it. I think that you first need to decide what type of route you want (small, medium, large, etc), industrial shunting, long freight and /or passenger runs, flat to rolling farmland, hills, mountains, etc. You also need to know what era you want for structures and rolling stock.
I usually start by laying track with a vision in my head of what kind of vistas that I want as I lay track. I then work my terrain to the track. I also try not to work on more than 2 or 3 blocks ahead of blocks that are mostly finished, but not detailed. I also advise placing your signals on these partially finished blocks and test them as you move along on the route.

 

[SemperFy]

Alright, thanks fr the replies Leef an Andy.

I think I'm starting to get an idea in my head now..

 

[Mr_D]

There were several good threads on this in the past before the big tragedy. Obviously there are about as many ideas as there are creators. As I recall, most everyone did agree on having some sort of theme before you begin. In other words what do you want the route to do? Passenger lines, freight deliveries, interactive industries set up in strings and so forth. Then you need to determine if you want a point to point or some sort of circle arrangement. Then there is the idea of what kind of terrain. Many have done well by using some of the track plans for large model train layouts only putting them into a larger (real distances) scope.
One of my favorite creations was done by using pictures from calendars, magazines and books. I created the route but use the pictures to create the detail in certain areas. It was a fun way to do it I think. Personally, I like to put it on paper...at least the basic track plan and elevations.
Like many creations, coping an original with variations leads to ideas of your own, so why not try a track plan with pictures from a rr mag first.

 

[Gandalf0444]

What I do is loosely base it on a reall rr, then I look at the geography etc, and create a route that is similiar to a reall thing,but is totally made up and then I go back and change things that I don't like.Or by just using things that I have seen in movies,tv etc.

 

[Athox]

Here's what I'm doing with my current route. The reason I'm doing this is pretty obvious; it's a big city with lots of tracks, and it's messy. It's a fictional route of course.

You may think I'm weird for doing all this, and I am. :hehe:

1. Geographical map
This is a map of the city (pen and paper, quick and dirty, or you can plan it bigtime if you have some hefty scenarios in your head). The map includes, but is of course not limited to: rivers, stations, industries, tracks, tunnels, bridges, the biggest obstacles (like maybe there's an "old" area of town that the track had to be built around, or a mountain in the middle of the city... oops...). You can of course make this as detailed as you want, I choose to ignore the fact that something is double-/quadrupletracked at this point. Just one line where tracks go, and a small symbol for stations (like a square for big ones and a circle for small ones... also I use a triangle for industries). You can put names on stations and industries if you have room.
A map is probably useful in all routes, not just cities, to give you an overview of what you want.
I like to draw different versions of central points. Say a track doesn't come into the city from the east, but instead north east, would that give a different setup, etc... but then again I'm weird, remember?

2. Function map (probably not needed for very simple routes)
There needs to be a system to the web of tracks, so every line (scenario obviously) has a certain function, and either the tracks were built for this function, or the function had to adapt to the current tracks in some way. This is what the route map is for. Basically you can make it look like a subway map, where each route is one line, and several lines can go parallell between a few stations even if there is only one track, etc. You probably know what I mean.
This is a good place to take notes on each function too, regarding adapting to current track system, etc.
Also, this map may take a lot of time to get right. Use a pencil or an eraseable pen.

3. Track map (mainly for central areas with lots of tracks to keep track of (heh ))
This is the map where you actually draw each single track piece. It does neither have to be geographical or proportionally correct. In fact, it's best if it's not, because this map is intended to give you an overview of the tracks themselves, and it's best to postpone the details until you're actually building it in surveyor. The eyes work better than the brain in this situation.
Here's an example of a similar map. I don't know the technical term for this type of map, but it's one you can often see in control rooms.
Anyways, our track map does not necessarily contain signals (again, this is best to decide while building), mainly because it's not proportional to the "real" route. It may, however, contain direction markers.
A great tool when making this type of map is grid paper.

It's always easier to have maps when you're making routes, instead of going from stuff in your head, because your ideas may change over night, and then you don't remember why you did this and that, and it was probably something brilliant, but now you forgot, etc...

I will post some pictures of my own maps for each of these three categories once my camera is recharged (should take half an hour).

-A

 

[Athox]

Example maps, as promised. With comments.

Here's a geo map of my fictional city Bridgeport, which is planned to be the humongous capital of a proportionally smaller island (still to be planned out). The topography is in my head, so I didn't include it. But you can probably see that the orange track going up towards the north is in a hillside (thus the turns).

As you can see, I include the station names here, in the form of numbers (due to space). It's probably good to have when planning the route map.
The green lines are mainlines in and out of the city (also has some inner city traffic, and some freight in the outer parts of town), the orange lines are inner city (yes it's a play on words... wee...) lines only, and the blue lines are freight only (to avoid them getting mixed in with the passenger traffic in the city center).

This track map is for the inner city trains only, as all other train types have a pretty clear path (either green or blue lines on the geo map).

It's pretty strange compared to a subway map (and it's not supposed to be that!) in that it has lines that physically connect, but I think it does the job. I didn't put numbers on this one, but if you study it enough, you can see the connection to the geo map. The colours are not related in any way.
It shows that I need room for 7 inner city trains (the turquoise line has two, going in opposite directions in the loop). Now that I know the level of traffic that will merge with the longer distance passenger trains, mostly high speed trains, but also local trains going to nearby cities, I can construct the track map and decide the amount of tracks that should exist.

Track maps This is a lot of work. Made with an eraseable pen. You can see traces of erased track

Again, note that these are not correctly distanced tracks, neither between junctions nor stations. In fact I use as little space on "clean" track as possible. That's not what the map is for.
I use small lines between the tracks to show a platform. If you see at the central station (1) there are 4 double platforms + 2 double for inner city trains on the right side.
Now, I knew that I'm going to be using fixed timetables for the inner city trains, so I can to some extent keep them from clogging up the central station, so I made a separate section for them.
With this type of map, you can slice up the track sections so that they can be placed wherever you want them. This way you can get _a lot_ of track info on one page. You can see that the 'ends' are numbered or marked with a big letter (I use big letters for tracks that continue on a separate sheet of paper).

It's a science, really. And I should be researched on. Good luck with having a normal life on the side!

Edit: Looking at them now, I noticed some stuff needs to be altered because I see some potential traffic jams.

-A

 

[seward]

I have, in over four years of being involved with Trainz, only ever built one route from scratch. This is an Island, that fictionally lies "somewhere off the West Coast of England".

Actually, it is two small islands joined together by a re-claimed strip of land, and I had a lot of fun with doing this in Surveyor. Firstly I drew rough outlines of both islands and added the main towns. I then filled in with more details like hills, valleys, farms, villages ect. Then I linked all the towns (and most of the villages) by rail. Eventually all my towns had their own rail link to each other, on "South" island I made a very rough "circle" (for continious running), closely following the coastline, then built some inland routes around the hills, and sometimes through the hills.
The re-claimed land was great fun to do, as it meant draining the water and raising the land to a workable level. (I did try a couple of bridges at first, but these would have had to be too long, and in reality wouldn't have been a viable option.
"North Island has very different features to the South Island, and both "Islands" have their own charecter and atmosphere. It is a very worthwhile experience creating your own world like this, in fact, I know of no other programme that gives you the complete freedom to do so, other than Trainz.
Just experiment, until you find what works best for you. I can promise you one thing. You'll enjoy it, and also learn a lot about Trainz in the process.