Huh? I can hear everyone saying. What do I mean? Well to put it simply that sometimes our personal routes, I know that mine did, can become quite unwieldly.
The fact that Surveyor allows this is truely amazing, but this is our downfall at the same time. I have found that the route can become more of a chore at this size to work on, and quite frustrating to troubleshoot when there are problems. I found myself troubleshooting all kinds of weirdness because the computer couldn't keep up with all the assets and the AI became dumber than they usually are.
Granted I learned a lot about Surveyor, signaling, interactive industries, and many other aspects while working on this, and I intend to incorporate my lessons into future creations. The other thing too with routes this size, it becomes more difficult to keep to a theme if one has been set. I found that my Enfield and Eastern was beginning to wander off course and end up going nowhere even as I tried my best to keep it on track. It became like the giant model railroad that eats up a whole basement and has everything in it from giant mountains to seacoast cities with random branches and loads of redundant trackage all over the place.
So having said this, I'm thinking and planning a new route on a much smaller and more easily managed scale. This route will be a mere 8 or 9 miles instead or 89 miles long, and will have only a few industries instead of several dozen. This will be either a tourist railroad or a small shortline or former branchline connected to a mainline between a couple of portals instead of the lengthy route with 8 portals and 40 AI trainz.
The new route, in the making, is the Pinehurst and Nutting Lake which is named after two areas in Billerica, MA. At one time the Billerica and Bedford (narrow gauge) ran through this area and these became summer vacation spots for the city folk from Boston. The tracks are long gone, along with the later Bedford branch of the B&M, but the names are still there on the map. My P&NL will be more fictional line that has a single connection on one end and terminates at Nuttling Lake.
In my mind, this was once part of a longer line that was cut back during the Great Depression. At one time this branch was known as the Epping Mills branch, but traffic dwindled down until the single customer, a large textile manufacturer, burned to the ground during a suspicious fire and then the tracks were pulled shortly afterwards when a bridge was washed away during a hurricane.
The route will be set during the current day with small motive power and interchange cars with the still to be determined mainline carrier at Pinhurst Junction.
When this route is completed, I hope to upload this one to the DLS as it will be small enough for download unlike the E&E which is too big to fit even on a CD-R. I won't delete the route, but may infact resurrect parts of it in future creations.
John
The fact that Surveyor allows this is truely amazing, but this is our downfall at the same time. I have found that the route can become more of a chore at this size to work on, and quite frustrating to troubleshoot when there are problems. I found myself troubleshooting all kinds of weirdness because the computer couldn't keep up with all the assets and the AI became dumber than they usually are.
Granted I learned a lot about Surveyor, signaling, interactive industries, and many other aspects while working on this, and I intend to incorporate my lessons into future creations. The other thing too with routes this size, it becomes more difficult to keep to a theme if one has been set. I found that my Enfield and Eastern was beginning to wander off course and end up going nowhere even as I tried my best to keep it on track. It became like the giant model railroad that eats up a whole basement and has everything in it from giant mountains to seacoast cities with random branches and loads of redundant trackage all over the place.
So having said this, I'm thinking and planning a new route on a much smaller and more easily managed scale. This route will be a mere 8 or 9 miles instead or 89 miles long, and will have only a few industries instead of several dozen. This will be either a tourist railroad or a small shortline or former branchline connected to a mainline between a couple of portals instead of the lengthy route with 8 portals and 40 AI trainz.
The new route, in the making, is the Pinehurst and Nutting Lake which is named after two areas in Billerica, MA. At one time the Billerica and Bedford (narrow gauge) ran through this area and these became summer vacation spots for the city folk from Boston. The tracks are long gone, along with the later Bedford branch of the B&M, but the names are still there on the map. My P&NL will be more fictional line that has a single connection on one end and terminates at Nuttling Lake.
In my mind, this was once part of a longer line that was cut back during the Great Depression. At one time this branch was known as the Epping Mills branch, but traffic dwindled down until the single customer, a large textile manufacturer, burned to the ground during a suspicious fire and then the tracks were pulled shortly afterwards when a bridge was washed away during a hurricane.
The route will be set during the current day with small motive power and interchange cars with the still to be determined mainline carrier at Pinhurst Junction.
When this route is completed, I hope to upload this one to the DLS as it will be small enough for download unlike the E&E which is too big to fit even on a CD-R. I won't delete the route, but may infact resurrect parts of it in future creations.
John
