Route Of Your Home Area For Trainz?

well some day, if and when i've learned how to do the thing of bringing dem's into trainz baseboards, two things i't LIKE to do, well one is the nevada county narrow gauge that used to run bettween colfax and grass valley and nevada city in california. it stopped running less then a decade before i was born and its old right of way, minus rails and ties other then on bridges, was still in place as a place i used to go walking a lot when i was growing up in colfax. the other, is to just start with dem's of real places and make/create my own narrow gauge routes and services there.

the 2000ft elevation =/- 600-800ft in the sierras, within 50-80 miles of the donner summit corridor, in northern california, my home stomping ground so to speak, i'd like to do this there and other places as well.

though again my primary intrest is not in recreating the past or present, but what is see and couldbe shouldbe and maybe, hopefully in at lest some cases might just come to be.

you know, when that day comes, however near or far off it might be, when the car, at least as we know it today and for the past 50 years, is no longer entirely practical for most people.

=^^=
.../\...
 
JimDep -- Very ambitious! I'd be very interested to check out your work.

I was considering the Ski Train or perhaps some of the old Denver & Rio Grande.

Besides Caboose Hobbies (which I know has just about everything related to the railroads) do you have any good resources for photos and maps of this area?

Thanks.
Mike
 
Back in February I uploaded the Cumberland to Connellsville route to the TPR download depot. The distance between Cumberland Md and Connellsville Pa is about 100 miles, and includes the B&O RR, and the Western Maryland Connellsville subdivision. I am about an hours drive from Connellsville Pa. It is a DEM generated route.

If you’re interested in checking it out, you’ll find it here: http://trainzproroutes.com/downloads/index.php?act=view&id=792

I’m presently working on the Western Maryland Thomas subdivision, which runs from Cumberland Md to Webster Springs WVa, over 200 miles. This route includes a branch from Cheat River Junction, south of Elkins WVa to Durbin WVa. At Durbin the WM interchanges with the C&O. I added a portion of the C&O to Cass WVa so that I could include the Cass Scenic RR.

Since the B&O’s West End Division (CSX’s Mountain Division) parallels the WM for about 30 miles from Cumberland, I decided to extend it to Grafton WVa so that it would include the Seventeen Mile, Cranberry, Cheat River, and Newburg grades. Each of these grades is in excess of 2.5%. This portion of the B&O is over 100 miles long. The Thomas Subdivision is primarily coal and timber railroading.

I used Transdem 1.3 to generate the terrain in 3 separate maps, and the merged them to form one map. Rails, roads, and waterways were laid out using Transdem’s UTM tiles.

Main lines and branches total over 400 miles. The route has almost 2800 baseboards, and the CDP file is around 110 MB. It’s being designed in TRS2004, but will also work in TRS2006.

Scenery wise the route is very similar to the Cumberland to Connellsville route. I’m hoping to have it completed, ready to upload, in about a year.

Regards, Joe
 
Main lines and branches total over 400 miles. The route has almost 2800 baseboards, and the CDP file is around 110 MB. It’s being designed in TRS2004, but will also work in TRS2006.

Scenery wise the route is very similar to the Cumberland to Connellsville route. I’m hoping to have it completed, ready to upload, in about a year.

Regards, Joe

Wow, and I thought I had a lot of track to lay. Best of luck in your endeavor, Joe.
 
Hi Mike,

Try this link for the Rocky Mountain Railroad club. You will find some info on
the Ski Trains

http://ra.nilenet.com/~wlg/Rocky/news.htm

You also might try the RR museum in Golden. They have a library there and very knowledgeable staff. I need to make a trip there myself.

For me, the Fort Collins and Loveland museums have been very helpful.

The main resources I'm now using are some railroad maps that a BNSF foreman from the North Yard in Fort Collins loaned to me a while back. These maps cover the area I am modeling in great detail, including all elevation and grade changes. The earliest map is from 1933, of the Greeley and Fort Collins subdivisions. These maps disclose the where-abouts of abandoned tracks that I otherwise wouldn't have known existed, being they are now mostly paved or grown over with vegetation, along with the tracks are the industries that existed at that time.

Once unrolled, one map can spread to over 20ft! The latest map is from the 1970's (Front Range Subdivision - Longmont to Fort Collins) which works just fine for my current day route.
Combining the maps, Google Earth, Virtual Earth, books, hours of home video and pictures, I've got some pretty good reference material.
 
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The main resources I'm now using are some railroad maps that a BNSF foreman from the North Yard in Fort Collins loaned to me a while back. These maps cover the area I am modeling in great detail, including all elevation and grade changes. The earliest map he loaned me is from 1933, of the Greeley and Fort Collins subdivisions. These maps disclose the where-abouts of abandoned tracks that I otherwise wouldn't have known existed, being they are now mostly paved or grown over with vegetation, along with the tracks are the industries that existed at that time.

Once unrolled, one map can spread to over 20ft! The latest map is from the 1970's (Front Range Subdivision - Longmont to Fort Collins) which works just fine for my current day route.
Combining the maps, Google Earth, Virtual Earth, books, hours of home video and pictures, I've got some pretty good reference material.

Another good source for old maps is http://www.historicmapworks.com. I have found track that was abandond 95 yrs ago on maps from this site.
 
...twenty feet of route map...time to model railroad!

:cool: Hello Dap,

One important task, if possible, is to have these maps copied, if by Staples or Office Max, to preserve these documents!
 
I just started work the other day, on two lines that are very close to where I live (a suburb of Toronto, Canada). One goes by my folks home (about 5 mins away by foot) and the other is about a 10 minute drive by car. I don't want to get carried away with the project (I want to have something completely finished and then go from there). See this thread for details:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=28684
Hope you all get around to finishing your routes! :) I'd love to try them out...

:wave:

Gisa ^^
 
Try this link for the Rocky Mountain Railroad club. You will find some info on the Ski Trains

http://ra.nilenet.com/~wlg/Rocky/news.htm

You also might try the RR museum in Golden. They have a library there and very knowledgeable staff. I need to make a trip there myself.

Thanks JimDep. Very useful information. I've been to the museum but I should take my 5 year old out there again. We usually just go when there's an event (and too many people to really enjoy ourselves).

Another good source for old maps is http://www.historicmapworks.com. I have found track that was abandond 95 yrs ago on maps from this site.

Likewise Dap. Every bit helps.

Thanks.
Mike
 
well i'm mostly more interested in imaginary narrowgauge futures, but if i had the four dems baseboarded or the day comes i learn how to do that, for the colfax, chicago park, grass valley, and nevada city quadrangles, i'd like to see, i don't know if i'm ambitious enough to do, the nevada county narrow gauge that ran between colfax and nevada city in california, that i used to walk the right of way, track long gone, when i was growing up in colfax.

the sp's 'hill' (donner summit) between roseville (cal) and sparks (nv) was the line i grew up on, as mentioned elsewhere, more or less litterally, but i'm more interested in modern and future narrow gauge passinger service (as a possible transportation option when the automobile becomes no longer practical for most people, a day that will come, though probably not in what remains of my natural lifetime) then north american standard gauge freight opperations.

=^^=
.../\...
 
well i am making the hudson line in ny city. I am also making metro north west of the hudson port jervis line which is in my area. NY City and upstate new york.
 
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