sloughs? bayous?

[bl4882]

Hello all,

Can anyone refer me to routes on the DLS that feature sloughs or bayous? I am ready to scenic a route in central California that features an extensive network of such and would like to get some ideas on how best to represent them. My search of the forum was not productive, but that may say more about my search skills than it does about the forum.

Thanks,
Bernie:wave:

 

[SuperFudd]

I am no help but, please tell us more about your layout.

 

[fredg]

I might suggest looking at layouts by gfisher. He does a super job on depicting the scenery you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[bl4882]

Hi Fredg,

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll do a search as soon as my eyes open . I did stumble on a small route by Tokkyu soon after my post. He renders the general scenery very well, but I don't particularly like the Trainz water. Not his fault, just a limitation of the program. All those sharp angles make it look too unnatural.



Hi Superfudd,

Well, you're practically a neighbor. I hang out in Campbell. My route is a 75 mile stretch of the Espee Coast Division running from San Jose south, timetable east, nearly to Chualar and including Spreckels, just south of Salinas, and the defunct sugar plant. There are serious yards at Salinas, Watsonville (a truly bizarre yard), Santa Clara (Newhall, two yards in one), and San Jose (College Park), plus the Cahill Street (now Diridon) station. I'm just putting in the track at College Park and when I am done all the basic track will be in. I am using Fishlipsatwork's terrain.

It is a versatile route, with important branches to Los Gatos, Moss Landing, Monterey, Tres Pinos, New Almaden, and Spreckels, and a stretch of the Western Pacific from Milpitas to downtown San Jose. Because Fishlips did not shave down his terrain there is an opportunity to try to replicate the Pajaro Valley narrow gauge railroad - anachronistic but fun . There are two huge industries, one the Spreckels sugar plant that used to produce about 7500 tons of sugar a day during the beet campaign (should make a good scenario) and the other the lime rock quarry at Logan. I've stuck it in a mid-50s time warp so there is still plenty of single car load traffic, mostly food packing with hundreds of PFE reefers, together with the dawn of diesel freight and intermodal. My hope is to make it part of a set of a half dozen noncontiguous routes stretching from approximately San Luis Obispo through the East Bay and on over Donner Pass, maybe with the Peninsula line including one of those new cable car SF routes coming on the DLS. Projected completion date is End of the World. THINK BIG!

Anyhow, my slough issue is with the Salinas Valley, also the irrigation system Claus Spreckels built. As of now I've learned a lot about Tranz track, but need to turn my attention to scenery. I think I also need to get some sort of a handle on asset creation, since the focus of most Tranzers seems to be post 1980, which is a whole different world. As a life-long HO scaler I did my share of kit bashing and scratch building, but I am amazed what guys like Ben Dorsey and others can do with bits and bytes.

What are you working on?

Bernie

 

[SuperFudd]

Like WOW Bernie. Most ambitious!
Slave Driver and at least one other have said they intend to build a full scale route from Stockton to Milpitas and San Jose, as I recall. You may want to check with them about a joint venture.

As for what I am up to, not so much, compared to you. A year or two ago I released to the DLS my Niles and Hinton. It has a compresed version of Niles Canyon and the "full sized" yard at Hinton West Virginia. Yeah, I know, wierd. It uses only built in stuff.
Since then I have been working on my Niles, Hinton and Winchester. It is a rework of my Niles and Hinton merged to a major rework by me of Puffernutter's Winchester County. It is ~99% complete. It has been for several months. At one point I thought I had lost it but, after a few months, I realized I had not. A long story for some other time.
I need to tweak some signaling and confirm permission from puffernutter to release it. Still no 3rd party stuff, only what comes with TRS2006. I supose I should release it before TRS2009 happens.

Don

 

[bl4882]

Hi Superfudd,

Yes. Niles & Hinton. It was one of the first routes I downloaded. Very nice work and a fun layout to operate. Your whole area up there near Niles, CA is a hotbed of Calif. rail history, too.

Please do PM me if you find something interesting, particularly as it relates to pre 1980 railroading. I'll do the same if you like. BTW, you may find this site interesting http://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/a_sp.html

Bernie

 

[SuperFudd]

Interesting indeed. Thanks!