Should long road bridges be illuminated with streetlights?

[JonMyrlennBailey]

I have a span over a reservoir on a route map set in California. This bridge is over a body of water and is a two-lane undivided highway. The bridge is about 1,600 feet in deck overall length. Would a bridge of this size be normally lit at night in the real world? This road bridge is in a rural, not city, setting.

I have seen short road bridges and overpasses in California without any fixed lighting provisions. It seems that all the longer bridges have light fixtures for the roadway.

Some Trainzers here reading this might be DOT traffic regulations experts.

 

[pware]

You have said it yourself.

I have seen short road bridges and overpasses in California without any fixed lighting provisions. It seems that all the longer bridges have light fixtures for the roadway.

If the bridge is in an isolated location, perhaps without powerlines, then it would probably not have lighting. Maybe the local county cannot afford lighting. If it is in an urban area and pedestrians use the bridge (does it have a sidewalk?) then it would probably have lighting.

Most street lights in Trainz (I have not checked out in TANE yet) do not cast their light pool onto other scenery objects such as buildings or bridges, so your concern may be totally unnecessary.

You seem to worry far too much over very minor details - just my opinion.

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

I have decided to light my bridge over a reservoir. The fictitious Patton Reservoir, just a few miles east of the town of Tehachapi, named after my favorite American war general, with an "Army Corps of Engineers" reservoir access road entrance sign, I built myself as a mod to the packaged route, Mojave Sub, has a park area on its shores, a fictitious marina and fictitious residents who live around it. It will need imaginary power for those things anyway. Perhaps the fictitious reservoir/water resources authority of Kern County California, is willing to spend imaginary tax dollars to illuminate the fictitious highway bridge. A longer bridge over water just looks more impressive lit at night anyway. The fictitious railroad bridge running parallel to this highway bridge side by side is not illuminated but has telegraph poles/telephone lines strung across it. The Mojave Sub now run by BNSF/UP, I believe, used to be under the auspices of SP and ATSF, and my very own imaginary version of Mojave Sub is supposedly owned and operated solely by SP. Southern Pacific locomotives dominate my route. There are a couple of Union Pacific and Santa Fe locos too and a couple green BN speeders since no orange SP speeders are available.

I have decided to use "peron lampa 5" by hottrainz on account of its pretty, green decorative lamp post and that even though the light globe emits a yellow halo effect (diffusion), it casts no light pool. I hate light pools in Trainz and most light content on posts or towers include them. They are annoying and do not act like real-world light reflected on the ground at all. On solid ground, platforms or slabs, I sink the lamp posts or towers low enough, using the height tool, so no light pool is visible. On a bridge span, I can't do this since the light pool hangs off the edge of the deck and the deck is relatively thin so I have to use one of the few light-pool-less street light content available.

 

[wilts747]

Many of road bridges in the UK/Europe are lit particularly when it is important that the driver is aware that they are driving on a bridge or over an obstical. The street and security lights I've used in T:AME can all be height adjusted to get the appropriate glow on the road, etc. Hold down the Shift key to get fine height adjustment. Peter

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

The trick to putting lamp posts on bridge decks is not to have the light pool hover above the road. If the post is lowered too much, it might protrude below the deck. If the light post is too close to the edge of the span, part of the light pool might hang off the side of the deck and that would also look stupid. Some bridge content has the lights built in already. I tried modifying the light effects on "light mod 2" in edit config.txt. I removed the "night" (not "nightmode") parameter and that turned the light fixture completely off: no halo, no globe glow and no ground light pool.

I have not figured out how to get rid of the light pool on streetlight content while still allowing the fixture to be lit (or glow) at the top of the post.

Again, light pools in Trainz are so phony looking: unrealistic. Light cast on road surfaces should be scattered, diffused nicely and softly, evenly spread out.

 

[SailorDan]

Again, light pools in Trainz are so phony looking: unrealistic. Light cast on road surfaces should be scattered, diffused nicely and softly, evenly spread out.

Don't use light pools cast by lamps. Add a night mesh to your bridge. Then, whether or not the light pools look good is entirely up to your artistic ability in creating the textures for the night mesh. It's all under your control.

 

[JonMyrlennBailey]

Yes, it is all under my control. It was just most convenient for me to select street lamp content that cast no light pools in the first place. I don't know how to create meshes for content anyway and that might be more involved than I care to get into. I can modify other people's content to my liking sometimes by changing config parameters or deleting files from the content folder like sound files, for example. Other than that, I don't want to get any deeper on the learning curve or buy extra software for authoring home-grown content.

With Trainz, I like to insert other people's content and tweak it just a little if I can. I work with content that is already available "off the shelf" to the best of my ability.

Somebody else busted their brains, pocketbooks, the tendons in their keyboard and mouse hands and valuable time to make this scratch-built Trainz game content available to me and I thank those good folks very much. That's all.

 

[leksie]

trainz lover meets a (trainz) elf , the elf say's , you are lucky that you meet me .
You may do a wish .
Oké , so build me a bridge from holland to england .
Euhh , yes , ........ aii , that's a lot of work , i have to build lot's of bridge supports , is'nt there anything else you wish ?
Yes , then give me a wife who is'nt whining .................................


The elf , what kind of streetlight's do you want on that bridge ?