Snow High Valley Distr Ctr (High Resolution 950x532) Approx

Southern1581 · Sep 6, 2016

I'd say from personal experience that doing it that way is the best way to do it. The route continues to look better than ever blue, keep at it.

blueodessey · Sep 6, 2016

Busy day ahead, lets get those main lines cleared for new Traffic

Evening all, Thanks for the kind comments,

CN Train #2527 has just been cleared to move up one block and meet CITY OF HEREFORD at Lovette Canyon Spur, Passenger will clear and then CN 2527 will move up one more block behind a Freight waiting for Yard Clearance.,

In this Bridge area we have new Local Dispatcher's office added with Chief Dispatcher to regulate all local Traffic and Harbor Master Trains coming thru as well.

CN #2527 is advancing as permission is allowed.

Passenger is doing a reverse move into Lovette Cyn with Amtrak Power on rear acting as lookout. Nice old Tree here, amazing and it still is doing good.

Passenger's thought we were going to make them ride the Strange equipt today, MOW crew had a good laugh on that one, we just told them this is what we use to smooth out the Tracks and keep them safe. They appeared much relieved and I had to keep a Straight face to keep from busting out laughing!

MOW has gotten permission to meet Passenger on Dual main Tracks, will take #1, he will have #2 Main.

Passing by Passenger Set now, he just cleared the Tunnel, and we got our switch lined into the Clear for us to go, our speed is only 25MPH as this equipment is 2 Million or more $$$$$$ and we don't want to buy or break it!

That's about it for now, I got a lot of Switching to do in 3 key areas, have a good night all!

maruffijd · Sep 6, 2016

blueodessey said:
Thank you maruffijd,

I'm just trying to do my best to keep folks interested with a touch of comedy and side of seriousness sprinkled here and there.

It's working. I'm just as interested as I was on post 1. It's like waiting for the next show of one's favorite TV show.

blueodessey · Sep 7, 2016

Headed to the main yards

Well are last peace of MOW is leaving Lovette Canyon at Warp Speed of 25 MPH an hour, and he will meet up with CN 2527 and hook a Joint to make one consist, since we love lots of Freights headed that way. I'm happy to saye Signals and Switches are spot on.

Well this Corn Field meet is going to work, LOL, CN #2527 will pull ahead of the Lovette Canyon Spur switch and will hook it up.

Yes I know, something big and Yellow is over hanging the Cargo Flatcar, yes it was planned and we have enough Clearance, looks a little odd, but all is safe, and those Railroad Foamer's, ( I'm sorry I should have said Rail Enthusiast's) will probably be snapping lots of Photos if they around to see this oddity before we sort in the Yard.

We've got everything looking good, however you can see across the Valley I have unfinished Textures in the Hill to due, been really busy in the Canyons and Mountains behind this shot.

We headed down the fields here, and shortly ahead will see the back of 40 car freight stopped ahead, but it's no problem as we have a Diverging route to the Yard, will just keep our speed at 20 MPH.

blueodessey · Sep 7, 2016

Field Trip with NYC Steamer

:hehe: We are viewing from CN #2527's Cab, and the one ahead is NYC Steam Engine #2479, little bit of everything for my Friends, we r going to Leave CN and come back later to it. I promise you.

Man she is running perfect with a good head of Steam, :mop::mop:we are going to take quite a Trip, you all just need to patient as I'm going to take her thru some other parts haven't seen before. We are going over a normally Dry Wash area but when we have storms, this area floods and empties out the Ocean.

Nice of Steam as she is moving at 45 MPH with .5% Grade here I believe, nothing she can't handle. And She'll pull with the best of them!

Grade is 1% or little more but gentle as it was designed no problem to get over it. I had reworked a lot of these Curves and straightened them out with good Grades.

Coming round the Curve she is on .70% Grade.

Beautiful shot of the Bay here, my problem is, I need to add another BaseBoard and throw in the Water, as you see the fall off edges, now I could put some low hills around the edges, like i've done before, but you know, you can only cheat so long and it catches up, becomes to mundane, and I like my areas to look unique as I can.

That dark mark line in the middle of water is just some shallow ground after adding the baseboard, and I need to drop the height down.

Lots of work to do everywhere I look, but hey that's all part of deal.

Have good evening and thanks for coming by to visit.

blueodessey · Sep 8, 2016

Field Trip with NYC Steamer II

Evening Folks,

Well our NYC Steamer is headed over Lovette Bay Bridge, we have a boat leaving our area after Dropping Supplies and Diesel to Local Industries up River. It's a beautiful day and everything is running well so far.

We are headed up the coast here, with Grades in the nature of 1.00% -2.3%, I've got a seasoned engineer on the Train. And Weather is perfect for now.

:'( Oh heck didn't I say we were have a smooth uneventful trip, wouldn't you know, we went into emergency here, I was just talking to the Engineer over Channel #3 Local dispatch, we don't allow Cell Phones unless is extreme emergency with someones life at Stake!

Thank god he doesn't have a derailment, just got a broken Car Knuckle, and has spares on the Train, probably 45minute Delay by the time the Conductor walks up from the Caboose to replace it.

We only lost 35mins, and we are backing up the front 1/2 of consist too reconnect and do a quick Brake Test to see all is ok.

Engineer felt something on the Train, and noticed his Train got mighty short in the back, he figured, well he hoped he just lost a Knuckle?

Conductor was able to Radio up to him all the back of Train was on the the Tracks, so it didn't appear to be any Wheel Problems or Smoke seen, all good for us.

Well I'm happy to report we are back under movement and headed thru some Farming Community towards are next way point. We don't have any opposing Traffic yet, But there is some Passenger Trains scheduled to meet us later.

Were taking the main out this Spur, which gets us headed in the Right Direction we want to go. There's lot of Switches out in the Farmland area we serve, so it's important we don't make a wrong turn and end up in another county opposite our intended way of travel, we eventually our headed to Montana Rail Link line.

That's about it for now, I had one of my Vehicles go down today, so it got it towed to the Mechanics today, news isn't very good, going to need the Credit Card for this repair! :'(

Have a good evening and thanks for dropping by to my place.

Southern1581 · Sep 8, 2016

Looking good and good story work as usual blue! Sorry to hear about your vehicular troubles, hope all goes smoothly getting it repaired.

I'm curious, why is all of the text in your posts hyperlinked to hostthenpost?

blueodessey · Sep 8, 2016

Copy that, and I spoke with Mechanic later today, probably Fuel pump gone bad (got contaminated with dirty gas over time) and Intake Manifold is either Cracked or leaking, but with 200K on it, I really can't complain, it has been a faithful companion getting reliably from State to States, from A to B with narry but one breakdown in 14yr's that I can remember, so will see if it's time to say so long, or is it fixable within Cash Reason?

I don't know why my Text Hyper Linked, I don't understand it really, maybe someone can help me to figure out what I'm doing, or doing wrong?

grazlash · Sep 8, 2016

Looking good Blue. Nice pics and hope your car troubles are soon over.
cheers
Graeme.

blueodessey · Sep 8, 2016

Maps and needed changes, how it all came together.

Thanks for the good wishes on my Vehicle, I'm just waiting for the Mechanic to call me back with final results for needed repairs, and then I'll make my decision on whether I fix or get rid of my favorite Vehicle? It is just so expensive now to buy a new one!

Update. 4:00PM Just got a call from my Mechanic, intermittent Electric Fuel Pump Failure, that's the news I didn't really want to hear, so it only means one thing, I have to retire this vehicle.

One good thing, they are interested in buying and fixing it.

OK onward and upward,

So this is going to be about Map Views, what I have, where I'm going Etc.

I tried to draw some colored Circles to show the areas I'm referencing here. Below, Red Circle is the area I dug for River Extension from Lovette Mtn to Lovette Beach, Yellow Circle is the area I need to work on and is the Beach and Harbor area.

You'll see some mottled black protrusions there at the L Bend of Base Boards (BBS) and I need to drop the depth to fix that, I also want to make changes and improve some areas of the harbor, haven't decided what or where, yet. Need to experiment on the area.

When I experiment, I make it a habit to save the File to a new name temporarily so if I goof something up, or the Sim Crashes in Surveyor Mode, I have the original till I'm satisfied the Route Changes are what I want, I had Temp New Files for upwards of 2 Months at times, mainly due to past horrible mistakes on editing, learning etc and couldn't go back to original.

Remember I did a lot Copy and Paste Textures, so in one blow, you see numerous repeats in the Yellow Outline, so I will level the whole area, Texture with one Color, safe the file, then go back and rebuild the hills, then recolor as appropriate for my tastes, and it will look a lot better than what it does now.

Here is a Closeup view, and you can see where I really messed up.......Who knew?

This the Harbor Master Merge, (thank you Phil Skene) amazing builder of Routes! The Red section is an add on (BBS) for connection tracks.

Then straight down at bottom from red Circle, the whole back edge, and bottom 3 Squares, is all added on too, on bottom Right end of Route, you see all straight gray color, which is my light default Charcoal color, so I know easily the new and unfinished areas to go back too later. At least it works for me.

This is the whole system map here, you can see Lovette Ski areas on left, and smaller Aurora (Infrared Bobs) routes which are really cool mtn Routes he built and I merged and integrated them as I wanted to make my Route really diversified.

The large Green Zigzags Tiles are Montana Rail Link if I remember, and it was 300 mile Route, I had to cut it 50% of what it was, because Laptop couldn't handle the Size, Frame Rates just Snail speed slow. I made a lot of changes in Tracks and signaling, added Portals for connection points.

Was thinking more stuff about Montana Route when I got it, and cut it back, later on, I went and trimmed a lot of Baseboards on the Edges, because, it is high mountains inside, you can't see over the mountains, because your down deep in the Gorges and Valleys, so it to me is wasted Boards.

However, later on I added some parallel track-age in parts on edges so I added rows of Single BBS's here and there, but with Mountain ridges on the edge, so you couldn't see a quick drop off when traveling thru those back side Mountain areas.

Black Lines is where we have been working a lot, White Line is Texture issues caused by me, Red areas are Harbor and beach areas I want to change, and Add more (BBS) for water extension, so you won't see the sudden drop off as you drive the Coast Route from yesterdays Pics.

blueodessey · Sep 9, 2016

Field Trip with NYC Steamer III

We continue out trip now towards Montana Route, this area here is Aurora Valley area, all back woods and Farm area, the one problem I have is I need to put in another Route Track back to Montana Mains, I have to go and switch back a little further up, and to change direction of my Train.

Nice view of the Valley, but I need to do some work in back 40ty here possibly, could just be my video card.

Engineer tells me we need to take on some water here, as we are pulling string of 45 Cars + Caboose, you know, that thing you see missing on Intermodal Trains and most everything else, just kills me, I like my Cabooses, on the Trains, don't car what they say, I'm old fashioned and that's all there is too it!

But you better be good on the Trottle and Air, Brakes etc, or your going to have one pissed off Conductor calling you on the Radio as to why you threw him out of his seat with the Jerkiness.:hehe:

Getting spotted for some Water here.......

Just right and here comes the Water for our Thirsty NYC Steam Engine, she runs perfectly, and Strong too.:udrool:

Passing under a Rural Highway overpass here. Some Folks wave at us as we passed by, they snapped some great shots of our Steam Cloud, what a great day in the Country, Clean air and beautiful site for now.

blueodessey · Sep 9, 2016

Field Trip and Water Fill ups for my NYC Steamer #2479

Wanted to throw some extra pictures in here for your eenjoyment, tomorrow I will be out looking for a Car with the Mr's Bleu,, so I will probably tired to put up pictures,,,,, after haggling lower prices with the Sharks at the Dealerships, and I'm the bait of course, you know how it goes, I don't need to tell ya.

I was proud I could have the dexterity to shoot the Pics and show the Train getting some Water here.

I threw in some on the other post, they got a little out of order, sorry about that....

All loaded up here and ready to head out, took about 5 mins to fill her up.

Headed thru a small canyon area here.

Crossing one of two River Bridges here. We need to go a little further then do a reverse move and shove about 1 mile back, and change main Tracks then we are headed to Montana Rail Route next.

Got our Red over Green which is the way we want to Proceed, I think it is Aurora Yard we headed over by, will just come reverse move iinto the area, then Switch to Montana Main #1 dependent on Train meets, not sure yet, Dispatcher knows we are out here, and will advise when we get turned around.

blueodessey · Sep 9, 2016

Harbor Expansion with Map overview

Well my mind was tired of Car Shopping, so I needed some Trainz diversion before I retire for the night.

I thought I would show you how I change an area and the steps I take to accomplish an Idea I have, everyone does their's different depending on Style and Technique.

Recall I said we had some land/ocean end of view drop off issues, looking at the Map over view below, my assumption was I could add 1-2 BBoards and that would do it?

Murphy's law kicked in, While looking at 2 new BBoards, it was quite apparent it just wasn't going to do the Job, added 1 more, and then a final 4th, now I think were in business, at least for tonight.

Midnight is approaching so off to bed for me, and thanks for dropping by.

Good Friday Morning to all.

Looking across the bay you see the new land, and sloped hills in the foreground.

This is looking from another angle, we see more slopes, nothing special, What I do is set my depth tool on the controls and use large to medium Diameter Draw Circle and try to move it in unusual patterns so I get random look.

I'll color the whole area in Dark Grey, then change colors for Textures in later, as I still need to finish the hills out, as this is in rough layout for now.

This is a view from the new area added. You see the water height difference of 15 feet which works out, and I might even drop the Land further down in some areas to make the water look different in spots.

This is view from the other end of the Harbor, I have a lot of Hill masaging to do, till I get the look I want, and have no idea what that look is, as everything I do comes out different and I never know till I finish.

I know it sounds funny but that is the way it works for me, and like you all, I might come back and make several more adjustments from runing the trains, as it looks way different when your in the Cab versus this wide open view.

I hope that makes sense.

This is a view from the Port Harbor area where Transloading items occurs.

Just with the Ruff in look of new area added, it already looks much better, you don't see the water dropping off into oblivion like before, I also downloaded the Tug Boats I saw in another Screenshot, I want to place some of them here for Staging, but I'll probably need to add a lower height pier to accomodate the right look and feel for a Tug tied up for Tranloading, will see if that works, if not we only see the Tugs far out in the water as if they are going to another Pier Facility.

blueodessey · Sep 10, 2016

Evening all, it's been productive day in the buying a car day. I was successful and now it is a relief to say, I feel good having some wheels under me again. Things went as they should, and I can say all the research I did on vehicles this last week paid off in spades.

Now to the Project at hand,

First? Since I need to do some texture modifications, and since I don't see thru water to well, I write down the depth of ground to water level. Drop the water below the Grid marks and away we go.

Before when I changed the Texture color beneath water it would come out fair, but as in anything mechanical with an untrained Mouse Hand, I would over color the areas into adjoining areas, and cause a lot touch ups to incur at my behest! After a while, I figured that dropping the water below Grid make the changes in Texture and voila! It was simple, why did it take me so long to figure that one out!

So below all the blackened area is where the Water will cover once I finish matching Textures and Smoothing some areas.

Cross view of existing Harbor and new area.

This is as far as will go on this side, and I'll need to raise the edges on the left side so will be noticeable drop off.

This is a view of the other end, and I have a lot of smoothing to do.

This is long view over here, I might do some pier building on bottom left side, so I can load n unload Tugboats?

This is a view from Mountain top across valley. Will wit and see how it looks after the improvements.

blueodessey · Sep 10, 2016

Harbor Expansion with Map overview II

Good Day all,

Busy day for me, lots of things to do, so look at picture and now you'll see I've blacked out the whole harbor area, and leveled the bottom to minus 20 feet. This is where I'll raise the water back to level with the Coast and Pier areas.

Close in view here so you can see how I painted and where I stopped the color in relation to Grid Lines.

Update: Something else came to mind here? I need to write notes sometimes when I make these Pictures, as I have so many ideas when I'm working on it then I forget half of them LOL, late at night my Brain goes to Sleep.

Anyway, I want to add some Sand to part of low shallow area of the Hill as it hits the Water on the lower middle of this Picture , make it kind like a Sandy inlet, here?

View from across the Valley here and you see the Distant hills at the back of BBoards, I will rise the very back of the hills a little bit here and there to make it look more natural.

Another view from different angle here.

Overhead Map here to see as it looks now with Water reintroduced to area I was working on (Red outline).

Yellow outline area of to upper right of Picture, I will probably move as this was a Merged Route connection between the Black and Yellow Outline perimeters. The Aqua Outline is beginning of ?Harbor Master area.

Update: Just remembered something here, if you look at the inside edges of Red Outline Water area, you'll see the water has a lighter color inside along the Coast, I used a Dark or Medium Green for bottom Color in Water, so I'll need to Drop Water down and color in the new areas about 15 Feet from where Water touches land in to get that effect.

I will experiment more with Water by change Depths and bottom colors to see what I get out of it, so the water is not just one mundane color through out,,,.,Definitely a WIP detail here.

I'm by no means an expert in this, just trying to do my best.

:udrool: Look at it now with Water added, amazing the change isn't it? Harbor looks much more natural, and all we have done is added, BBoards, dropped the land, raised the hills, and Water. Now you wait till I finish the Hills curves and smoothing, then add Color and Texture, some small weeds or whatever I put in over there, and Voila, I think will have a nice view. Hmmm I think I'll add an assortment of Palm Trees on the far side.

Wish all you folks a nice and pleasant weekend, and thanks for coming by to see my Photos. Comments are always welcome.

blueodessey · Sep 11, 2016

Harbor Expansion with Map overview II (Color and Shape Hills in distant views)

Evening all, I just finished doing a lot of Texture, some plants and House Etc.

It's quite late and the eyes are getting sleepy,

I expand on this more tomorrow, giving you some the things I do for the effects you see below.

:wave: Night now and thanks for visiting my place.

Have a blessed Sunday all.

Update for Sunday 11:00 PM PST

Went to Church and prayed for the Victims of 911 today, and for the Families who lost there Loved ones. If any of you did, your are in my Prayers as well. Wish all of you a good week ahead.

Lets go back to the project here,

So in the picture below, you see what is call Grid Mode, or others refer to it in Wired Mode, basic mode, Etc, and I would think some of you have not ventured into this mode ever? So why would you?

Several reasons, #1 You can see things like water, Train Cars, Railroad Tracks that have been left buried below the Grid lines for an sundry of reasons, lots of times, clicking the mouse wrong, and believe it or not, you have move something at a distance, and buried in the hills ahead.

You've been positioning a Signal and Dragging along the Tracks or trying to Click on it, and it disappears, so you grab another one, which you might not have known, you over one of your Train Tunnels underneath, and now that signal is in the Tunnel! Yes that's how I found out weeks later after doing a major texture and Signal or Sign or end of Track Object placment!

In fact I went driving in tunnel with Train and couldn't figure out why my Signal aspects where off, when I found an End of Rail Object on main line in long Tunnel, and it derailed my Train I was waiting for on other side of Mountain range.

Is it fun getting the Object out, not always, and sometimes I've had to lower the Ground to the Tunnel Depth to get the Mouse to lock-on on and delete the little Bugger!

Yes I'm aware you should use Route layers for locking your items in a named layer, so it can't be affected by your work in the area, unfortunately for me, that would involve lots of time with all my merged Routes of which this one is comprised of at least 6 Routes.

So what I'm saying is go into your route after you have finished and turn on Wire Mode, and see if you have:

Extra Dead Tracks, Train Pieces, Water isolated from areas you don't need it to be,, and anything else down their, clean it up. I've found old Bridges and Roads, even People Figures down there, usually in Mountainous areas, just think Trainz as a rule has to keep inventory of every single item in your route when you work and play with it! Less is more by cleaning up what you can't see here.

Now look here in this picture, what have I done wrong, that is blatant with the Water?

I've gone way over the borders, so that's extra Baggage, but that is normal when filling in area with water, no big deal, now what I do is go and cut the extra water squares out around the edges just like you would with Extra Base Boards not needed on Routes.

Another reason for this, I have a Laptop with Integrated Video Card and most of us don't have a High End Desktops with Blazing Cross Fire Dual Card Videos costing $$$$ to run our routes so lean where you can do it helps with the Load on CPU and Video Processes.

You more than welcome to comment correct me if I am wrong on this?

Here I redid the hills, and made small area below, dropped some Palms and other Trees, small house, put a little Italian boat out front, I need to seed it some with Grass and Shrubs, which I'll do tonight if I get a chance, there is also a Back channel behind this small hill which makes it a small island near the Coast, I might put a small bridge to Mainland to connect it, have to experiment and think about that?

Colored in the low hills in back end of Base Boards , not finished by any means, one thing I want to mention, and I see this on other Routes, the reason when I first put an area in with Base Board Grid Lines, I will cover the whole thing in Grey Granite or similar, because later on when I mix texture colors and I have the color about right, I find spots with Grid Lines showing thru in spots, and it messes it up when I have color out the Grid Line, then I have to go back and re touch the other Colors in the area and, at least for me, never come out well, very frustrating to me.

I'm sure others have much better way of doing it, but this works well for me. Anyway, possible some small dirt roads and Weeds, few trees to be added, I will be looking from across the bay, where the trains run, so distance in view will allow for less items on the horizontal view points, plus my Video Card cuts off views like Mountains at a certain distance with the LAPTOP.

Just another view of the bay, and it looks so much better with the 4 Baseboards added as a Strip, we have fixed the Drop off view here.

Over head map, now you see all the Black fill line where before I added water, now you really see a difference, and I think it looks pretty good.

I do have a problem area to contend with, which is upper Left Quadrant of this picture, I'm just not sure what I going to do with that area, it will be land, I don't want any more water, but I don't know if I want it be Industrial, Mountains, or just meadow land with Cattle. However I have other spots in the Harbor area that I need to finish, so I'll need some time to digest it.

blueodessey · Sep 12, 2016

New Road n Bridge cut in for Island Tourists (Train Eng #5536 with Passenger Car)

Busy Busy day with things for Mr's Bleu, so only part of Pictures are ready for today's review.

This is a Beach Run and we have to Turn the Train on Wye to head back down the coast for some

Italian VIP's coming in today....

:udrool

id a lot of Texture and I made some progress.

I apologize for this, but I wanted to leave something in here for today.

Have a good week ahead and a Great Monday morning.

Update: 9:00 PM Monday Night.

Well folks it has been a very busy day around, lots of things going on, I can't find my P Sheet for Old Vehicle I'm selling off, spent 1/2 the day looking in my paper files, so it looks like I be seeing the Traffic Division for new Paper work to sell the old Coot. LOL.

Murphy will find the paper work about a week from now........

Ok, so lets head down to the second picture and will pick it up from there!

We brought in a NYC special for VIP's coming from Italy and there paying us (Rail Road) good for nice days tour around the countryside and renting my house on the Island.....OOPS? Shooooooo!!!! I never told I had a House on the little island, it's a big secret....( only in my dreams folks, its called Trainz Land, where you dream up whatever your heart desires.

Ok, enough fictional bragging, are Train is stopped in Farm Silo area and it has a WYE, will back it up from here and turn it around, stopping to pick up the VIP's from my Little island around the corner from here.

We've started the train reverse move into the WYE at the back of this Picture.

Wanted to show you the new Dirt Road I put in below, it goes over to the Island in the Back. It came out nice after a lot of Spline Work bending and twisting things to fit, and moving the Farm Field Black Fence slightly more to the right to allow for Road clearance.

Now the WYE is just to the Right, and to the left following the new Dirt ?Road we cut in yesterday, yup, my Railroad Dozer's work fast when we hear VIP with lots of Money to spend are coming to ride on our Railroad, you bet your Skippy will get the Elbow Grease a moving or else!

I f you follow the Road over to the island, you'll also see the new Stone Bridge laid across to connect the my Island to the mainlined access etc...

This picture is a little out of sync order, we came in of Beach side of Lovette Pier area, so we needed to change Main Lines at the Switch behind the last car, then reverse back on Right side Main Line here to get turned around.