The "Loops" by gfisher

[Jhsullivan]

First I want to congratulate gfisher, whoever he is, for creating an excellent
rendition of one of my favorite "pieces" of railroad in these United States. This line is still in use, although the nearby Saluda Mtn. has probably seen it's last trains, and I would put the also nearby Clinchfield Loops as comparible.

The Southern line was built by the State of NC as the Western NC Railroad in the 1870s/80s using mostly convict labor. No mechanised machines were used, it being largely a pick and shovel route with mule powered scrapers etc., and so the grade is as much as 2.5% and the sharp curves near Coleman siding run to 18 degrees or more. Several tunnels were constructed and I may have the order wrong, but east to west, it was Point, Licklog, Jarratts, Ridge, Burgin, and Swannanoa.

The Cllinchfield line was built some 25-30 years later using equipment left over from the Panama Canal and other mechanised items, and so it's maximum grade is 1% and maximum curve is 10 degrees.

Gfisher left out Burgin Tunnel, if one is traversing west to east, but he includes quite correctly the old US-70 highway as it crosses over the entrance to Ridge Tunnel. He also left out Jarratts and Licklog, but these are both very short. The longest tunnel is Swannano, and the 2nd longest is Ridge. He also correctly put the Ridgecrest Baptist Assembly in it's correct location above and to the north of the west entrance of Swannanoa.

I would point out also that in the Andrews Geyzer area there is no tunnel as is seen in the simulation. Even so, the juxtaposition of the low and high tracks at the high or cinder fill is completely accurate.

Again an excellent route that I highly recommend.

My qualifications are 45 years in the railroad industry, most of it in the M/W department, 13 years at Southern, 21 years at CSX, and with Contractors ever since. At 71, I too play with simulators, mostly MSTS, but with it's essential demise I am looking at RW and TZ products. So far I prefer the TZ product, but I have to figure out how you can actually lay prototype appearing track from a generated map. I have Ziegler's terrain tools.

J. H. Sullivan
Florida, USA

 

[Euphod]

Mr. Fisher is a true American Trainz treasure who's routes rival and sometimes exceed the best of the renowned European route builders.

My advice to you: "Pimp" out your machine to it's highest possible specs, then download and enjoy each of his excellent offerings. I used to make routes myself, but after viewing his results, I gouged out my own eyes and vowed to never make another route again.

Really.

 

[gfisher]

You are quite right about the tunnels, as I was working from a very small diagram in Trains magazine and it was difficult to figure out just where all the tunnels really were. The particular tunnel I was using would only adjust it's portals by 90 degree increments, and at that time I didn't know how to make my own, so in at least one case I simply deleted a tunnel because I couldn't make it fit. Still and all I had lots of fun building it even if the tree planting became a bit tedious after a while.

 

[allenconnor]

Loops

This is one of my favorite routes. I live in Hickory NC which is not too far from there and I have been to both places many times. My computer has built in grafficks chip and runs the route fine.

 

[motorbreath]

Mr. Fisher is a true American Trainz treasure who's routes rival and sometimes exceed the best of the renowned European route builders.

My advice to you: "Pimp" out your machine to it's highest possible specs, then download and enjoy each of his excellent offerings. I used to make routes myself, but after viewing his results, I gouged out my own eyes and vowed to never make another route again.

Really.

Don't let Ed discourage you from building routes. Besides, he's probably 20 years older than you. Just kidding, Ed! I'm glad to see you are still lurking about.

Any how, I use George's routes quite a bit, especially The Loops. His routes are beautiful, and I am fortunate enough to have a machine that can handle them. His routes inspire me to bring my routes to higher standards. Use them for reference. See how he uses trees and ground textures and which ones he uses. If your machine struggles with his routes, avoid using any vegetation with the word "perfect" in it. They look nice, but the same creator of those has plenty of lower poly trees which I think look just as good for the most part.

 

[gfisher]

Besides, he's probably 20 years older than you.

I doubt it.

 

[motorbreath]

That's just a nod to Ed's self depreciating rants from the past. He's a wise guy, I'm sure he'll figure it out.

 

[Jhsullivan]

Loops

My machiine is pretty well pimped out. I run a Pentium Duo-2 with 2G of memory. I use a GeForce Card with 256M of Ram, and Windows XP-Pro. I
did notice a little jerk now and then, but I have the adjustments set to the max, same way I run MSTS.

With the aging and pending demise as time wears on, of MSTS, I have been experimenting with both TZ and RW. I really don't like the distribution method for RW, in fact it stinks. Otherwise it is a very good simulator and I was able to lay 100 miles of quality track, working from a CSX profile, in less time than 20 miles would have taken in MSTS.

I am piddling with track laying in TZ and the only real fault I find is the rather
unrealistic looking turnouts. They work, but I prefer turnouts to look like turnouts and RW will render the frog, guardrails, etc. when one has made a turnout that is of reasonable angle, or it will give a meaningful error until one does. MSTS used fixed pieces, which can be a problem. The spline method is much better, but can lead to kinky track if one is not careful.

I can remember testing the rail forces at the curve below Coleman, which was 18 or 20 degrees, pretty sharp, and when the coal trains came out of Swannanoa Tunnel, you could hear the dynamics howling long before you ever saw the train.

This was the only route of Gfishers that I saw that was of a prototype. I have no interest in fictitious routes and of the prototype ones, I prefer those of routes I am familiar with. There does seem to be quite a body of work in place for TZ and that is tempting me.

J. H. Sullivan

 

[gfisher]

My Morristown and Erie and Eastern Shore routes are prototypical routes as well, and also the St Johsbury and Lamoille Valley (at USLW). I'm working on three or four others which someday I may finish.

 

[wklang]

This is probably a 'newbie' question:

I'm running TS2010 with CM 3.2.

In querying the download station (via Cm 3.2) for Routes and the string gfisher, nothing is found.

Is this because I'm running TS2010 and these routes are not compatible with this version of Trainz or is it that I'm making a bone-headed error in my query?

Thanks,

Wes

 

[CurlSnout]

This is probably a 'newbie' question:

I'm running TS2010 with CM 3.2.

In querying the download station (via Cm 3.2) for Routes and the string gfisher, nothing is found.

Is this because I'm running TS2010 and these routes are not compatible with this version of Trainz or is it that I'm making a bone-headed error in my query?

Thanks,

Wes

Hi Wes,

I just checked the DLS, accessed using the link at the top of this page. I checked all of the Trainz Versions boxes, entered gfisher in the Search Text box, checked the Username radio button, and selected Layouts for category. This turns up 23 routes created by gfisher, Mar 2004 to Nov 2009. On the other hand, if I limit my search by selecting only TS2010 for Trainz Versions, then the search turns up zero entries. So, perhaps your search is being limited similarly.

Hey?

Sam (in Oregon)

 

[wklang]

Thanks, Sam.

It never occurred to me that I could specify the version of Trainz in my query.

Wes

 

[jlpoulter]

In CM3.2 if I search the Download Station with the filter Author = gfisher, I get 360 items. Most of them for some reason are classified as MISC but in fact are all types of content including most of his routes. Adding a filter for Category = Routes narrows the results to only four items. All submitted in 2009. So the routes are there. You just have to filter for all his content and then hunt them out of the results.

I just checked CM2.0 and all of his content shows up with the proper categories so there appears to be a bug in the new CM3.2

 

[celje]

Are you talking about gfisher The Loops, kuid 106916:1102, made in august 2007, or exist new edition for ts09 or 10.

regards

 

[EdrickV]

There are a few bugs I've seen in CMP which may or may not exist in earlier ones, and most content showing up as Misc regardless of what it actually is, would be one of them. Once downloaded and committed the content should be categorized fine. You could also use the website interface to find the routes.

 

[lander]

Is anyone here running The Loops in TRS 09 or know if it runs ok in 09?

 

[titaniclover]

Run fine in TS2010, and did when I had TS2009.
I was missing all the tree's but that is me being lazy and not downloading all the deps.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[Isegrinns]

I´m admiring his handiworks, too!

Every time I take a look at "The loops", I have to summon all my willpower to continue on my own route... It will take years to get even close to that masterpiece!

But hey, everyone has to start someday. So who knows, if George changes his interests somewhere else (which I hope will never happens), there must be some people to provide some good routes, haha!

So get into it, make him proud of us!

Admiring & encouraging greetz
André

 

[lander]

Is anyone using The Loops layout with TRS 09? Will it run ok with 09?

 

[lander]

Is anyone using The Loops layout with TRS 09? Will it work ok with 09?