To Ben Dorsey with love... (aka bendorsey)

[steamdrivre]

I've just spent the most wonderful time looking through and downloading a number of your assets from the DLS.
Unfortunately, I only had time to look through the last 500 most resent endeavors of your 1900+ total. (I'll restart on page 21 next time I visit... or is it 22...)

Thank you very much, Ben, for your continued support of Trainz.:clap::Y:

Very sincerely,
Rick

 

[Midland]

Ben Dorsey?

Ben Dorsey?


Oh you mean the Bridgemeister!

Yeah right on! Great stuff dude!




Cheers

Nix

 

[HawkeyeFultz]

I agree, and also thanks for the custom assets. Ben's made a bridge for me upon request, and might I add, a very excellent job

Tim

 

[bendorsey]

Thanks for the kind words gents.

So far this weekend I've made 35 different Scherzer Rolling Lift Bridges. All single track and relativly small but I will be making some double track versions, some longer ones, and two double-leaf ones (two spans back to back or front to front). There really were a few like that. Might even make a few 3 ft gaugers. I have info on a 3 ft gauge one that was on the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn RR (circa 1903) with a 31 ft span.

On to number 36,

Ben

 

[steamboateng]

As I noted in a Surveyors and Route Buiders thread the other day, I think your bridges are great.................Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh...............
By the way, while we got your undivided attention, would it be possible for you to............
convert several of your bascule type lift bridges to fit Mike 10's road with sidewalks.....
make a variety of wooden piers 5 to 40 meters wide and 20 to 80 meters long. You have a knack with wood pilings............
I'm well into modeling the Chelsea and East Boston (Mass.) waterfront, circa 1950, on a DEM base. Sure could use some wooden piers to fill those Chelsea Creek mud flats!!!!
After the railroad consolidation era, this area was served by the Boston & Albany (NYC, PennCentral, Conrail and CSX) and Boston and Maine (Guilford) railroads. It supported seaborne general cargo traffic for a number of years, untill the developement of RoRo and Containerized facilities at Mystic Pier across the river. Chelea Creek was, and still is Boston's largest receiving port for tanker shipping (industrial,home heating ,diesel and gasoline products). This is a suprisingly ineresting area to model, with a rich and colorfull railroad and shipping history.
Regards........

 

[bendorsey]

I can't convert any of my Bascule bridges because I haven't made any Bascule bridges (yet), lol. I can certainly convert some of the others for you but I need to know exactly which bridges you want converted (names or kuids) and the kuid of the road you want me to use.

Ditto the piers. How tall? Do you want rails on them? Some with and some without perhaps? What orientation for the rails (lengthwise - crosswise)?

I have made a few piers but not nearly as big as what you have in mind.

Mystic (as in Mystic Seaport in RI)? If so I've been there and toured the seaport including the Charles W. Morgan. Quite interesting. When I was in the USCG (way back in the dark ages) I was stationed in Groton and New London.

Ben

 

[steamboateng]

Ok bendorsey, you got me. I call a bridge hinged on one end and lifting at the other a Bascule bridge.........mainly 'cause I don't know what else to call it.....a lift bridge?........c'mon....that's too easy!
Anyhow, you call it a lift bridge, and that's good enough for me (I don't know the difference).
I reference your KUID 2-210518:1200:1 Lift Bridge #25
" " :1201:1 Lift Bridge #26
" " :1186:1 Lift Bridge #11
Apply road with sidewalks, KUID 52519:37060, by mgreen48
Such bridges would match and enhance my Boston Ruote, in progress.
The variuos piers I mentioned don't necessarily need track. Most wooden piers in that era didn't use tracks due to increased car lengths and weights. I have a 1946 USGS map of the area. No tracks on wooden piers are shown.
A height of 5 to 10 meters is satisfactory. The Surveyor height adjustment tool would place them as required, Water texture will hide lower piles.
I thank you for your response. I'm sure other trainzers doing waterfront layouts would appreciate these items as well.
I was refering to Mystic Pier, located in Chalestown, across the river from Chelsea.
Mystic Seaport is in Mystic, Conn. R.I is up the road a tad from there. I am a supporting member of Mystic Seaport. Having spent the better part of 30 years as a Merchant Mariner (Engineer) sailing about the planet, I find it necessary to pay homage to my humble roots.
Oh yes, the Coast Guard. Used to talk with you guys all the time. Ran shipboard machinery inspection tests for you often. Took all my qualification and upgrade tests at Boston Coast Guard Base. When you were stationed at Groton, did you spend any time at the CG Academy? Met many of those guys, Tossed a beer with a few.
Thanks again.
Regards :hehe:

 

[bendorsey]

Got the info written down. Have a few projects ahead of you (the only thing larger then my pending projects pile is my booboo bin, lol). Be a week or two.

I was an ETC in the USCG (specializing in Loran A and C). Only time I went to the Academy was to quaff a few brewskis at the chiefs club. Most of the time I was on an island in the middle of nowhere (Alaska) with a girl behind every tree. Trouble was - no trees. Pretty up there tho.

My father-in law was a merchant capt during WWII. Got torpedoed 3 times on the Murmansk run.

Catch ya later.

EDIT: (a few minutes later). Out of curiosity I look at the two bridges and we have a problem. These are moveable bridges. I can attach the road kuid to the movable part but it won't move when the bridge is activated. Something in Trainz won't allow it. What I could do is attach it to the non-moving parts and use an expanded metal texture on the solid deck and sidewalk parts. Cars would actually cross on invisible road. Sorry - Trainz rules - not mine.

Ben

 

[steamboateng]

An expanded metal draw sounds good to me. Actually, New England winters require an open grid construction. It's quite prototypical in the northeast. I know. You live in Florida. Let me refresh your memory. The nasty four letter 'S' word is.............
Don't use Loran anymore. All is GPS now. Used to go slumming once in a while, eventually work my way up to the wheelhouse. Those guys just stand there looking at a monitor with a white line on either side. Boss sets the ships course into a computer, steer between the lines. A sextant is a peice of 'emergency' equipment these days. Took a sun line at noon time so they didn't forget how to do it.
Never did get to see those trees in Alaska. Took a bunch of Marines to Norway one Febuary, back in the days of the 'Evil Empire'.................
now, now..........gotta watch myself...........don't want to go spouting sea stories 'mungst a tribe of landlubbers on a virtual rairoad site!
Regards

P.S. It was WWII sailors that schooled me back in my cadet days. Sailed with a few Mirmansk survivors in the 60's. Scary!!!!