Trainz Dreamz

[Approach_Medium]

Hi;
I am curious to know what other Trainzers "dream" about in regards to your expectations and desires for Trainz.

I would like to create a series of prototypical routes that covers the entire USA!
Linked by iPortals, I know this is actually possible, but I don't think I have the time to complete such an ambitious project.

I have been working on several areas of the Northeast USA, including New Jersey, New York, eastern PA, and most recently, Vermont.

My dream would be to be able to move freight or passengers from any point to any other point in the USA where current railroads exist.

I have been working with the USGS Seamless Server to get my DEMs, Google Earth to get my reference images, Transdem v2.0 to generate GeoReferenced maps to overlay the DEMs, then trace routes for railroad, road, and rivers.
Finally, I export the files to TS2010 to create what will eventually become the route itself.

There is a lot of work involved, as you can see, so perhaps if I can create the base routes, I can upload them to DLS and others can add the textures, buildings, track details, etc.

Working with GE maps, I sometimes get images that are detailed enough to place switches (crossovers, sidings, etc) while other areas give me only enough detail to place the rail line and industries, but not enough to know how many tracks, location of crossovers, etc.

For my CSX River Line (Newark NJ to Selkirk NY), I was fortunate enough to get high-res maps from Google Earth and MS Bing to place switches, and even some signals.

Like a real model railroad, this is a project that I will never finish, but as I move forward, I can have fun running trains.

Doing this is getting me kind of itchy to go on a real rail trip, but Amtrak doesn't go all of the places I would like to visit by rail. So I have to be satisfied to view on GE, or drive to accessible locations and take photos.

What are your dreams for trainz?

FW

 

[wheelnrail]

Thats... quite an ambitious project you have drempt up, but I like it .My dream, Combine all Colorado routes (including narrow gauge) into one giant iPortal session. That would be saweet!!

 

[RRSignal]

To have the entire SEPTA system built, including some now-defunct lines.

 

[William0d0]

To have the entire SEPTA system built, including some now-defunct lines.

That would be sweet.:udrool:

 

[cascaderailroad]

OHH WOW ... this sounds like a great project ! Remember to back up your route in case of catasrophic failure. So many routes have been lost, all because of no DVD-RW backup.

Is it just Septa, or is it NEC, Zoo, and Harrisburg line ?

Right now I am downloading all the locos and railcars known to US & Canada...and backing up my local folder to a 1Tb external hard drive.

My route came to a screeching halt when I heard of the upcomming unsupport of 04/06...I dream of completing it...this year ? ? ?

When I dream, I am altering config files, and running Trainz in Cab mode in my REM sleep, then I awaken and find it was only a dream.

I dream of the Mt Tamalapais RR, the Mt Lowe Rwy, the COG Rwy, the Mauch Chunk Switchback RR, the Reading Gravity RR, the Allegheny Portage Inclined Plane(s) RR, the Horseshoe and Muleshoe Curves, the Tehachapi and Williams Loop(s) ...etc...

 

[RRSignal]

OHH WOW ... this sounds like a great project ! Remember to back up your route in case of catasrophic failure. So many routes have been lost, all because of no DVD-RW backup.

Is it just Septa, or is it NEC, Zoo, and Harrisburg line ?

Right now I am downloading all the locos and railcars known to US & Canada...and backing up my local folder to a 1Tb external hard drive.

My route came to a screeching halt when I heard of the upcomming unsupport of 04/06...I dream of completing it...this year ? ? ?

When I dream, I am altering config files, and running Trainz in Cab mode in my REM sleep, then I awaken and find it was only a dream.

I dream of the Mt Tamalapais RR, Mt Lowe Rwy , the COG Rwy, Mauch Chunk Switchback RR, and the Reading Gravity RR ...etc...

Just the SEPTA Reading-side stuff right now. I want to begin work on the R-3 West Trenton, but decided to learn Blender first since I'm definitely going to have to make some assets myself. There are already two people developing NEC routes, so there isn't much point to me developing that right now.

Don't let the removal of support for 04/06 faze you: Aside from taking Auran at their word (for now), I have recently fixed over 500 assets to make them TS2010 compliant and, believe me, nearly all are easy as pie. I have run into maybe 10 assets that took me more than 5-10 minutes to repair and all of those were just because I had to figure out what to do. I have not run into an irreparable asset yet. Full 2004-2010 compliance will be achieved. I'm even running out of stuff - when the mood strikes, I download stuff off the DLS that I don't even need just to see if it needs fixing!

P.S. Good times riding the RBM&N in Mauch Chunk...er, I mean Jim Thorpe...

 

[Approach_Medium]

My NJ/PA route includes the Lehigh Gorge, all of Reading, Allentown to Harrisburg, and the branches to Hazleton, etc. The problem I have is trying to create a truly prototypical route with the assets available in Trainz.
I have never been good at artistic creation, so I don't think creating assets is for me, but I do fairly well with texturing.

I have more or less given up on true prototype. I just create the prototype terrain from DEMs, and try to get all the track where it belongs. I will put cities and towns in their correct locations as well, but they won't look like the places they represent because of the lack of buildings available.

Sometimes, if I find an existing route on DLS that is in my plan, I will DL it for the purpose of finding what buildings and textures were used.
One thing I found is that if I try to build a large route with too much detail, it is unplayable due to hardware restrictions.
But having to work on a slower system that is 5+yrs old, any route I create and upload should be playable by most everyone else.

As for backing up, I currently back up my entire Trainz folder to a USB HDD once a week. It's only 300GB, but I do less frequent backups to DVD's, so I think I'm safe.
I did lose one route I was working on for quite some time due to a HDD crash that I should have seen coming. I was getting errors about failure to flush cache in Windows Server 2000, and should have been paying more attention to administration, but didn't and paid the price.

Having multiple projects in progress simultaneously helps to keep me from getting bored. Right now, I'm creating maps in Transdem. Tomorrow, I may be working on my most complete route, adding buildings, etc.

Dreams: I have had dreams that incorporate what I have been doing with Trainz before going to sleep.
These dreams get very interesting sometimes, despite their weirdness.

FW

 

[RailRunner154]

To have more amtrak assets, especially amfleets.

 

[jadebullet]

Reading Shamokin Division--Got DEM
Reading Bethlehem Branch--Got DEM
Philly to Reading to Port Clinton--Needs DEM for parts
Reading's crossline. --Got DEM

 

[mattm]

More Australian NSW content, particularly in the area of Cityrail routes. I would build these myself, but i am not yet confident enough with my abilities in surveyor to contemplate tackling a real world route.

Matt.

 

[rwk]

fwassner, how much of the Lehigh Gorge route do you have? Do you have the Reading and Northern route to Pittston and beyond? Allentown to Harrisburg (ex-Reading main), do you also have the NS (ex-LV and CNJ track) route from Allentown to Newark, NJ? My route has all of the Reading and Northern's routes plus NS from Manville, NJ to Harrisburg, PA and Allentown to Lehighton and Hazelton and the Chapman/Fogelsville branch as well as Kutztown and Pennsburg branches of the East Penn RR. Not all of the track is in on the NS toward Harrisburg and east of Phillipsburg, NJ yet or on some of the Reading and Northern branches including the entire Pottsville side past Port Clinton, no track or scenery yet or in Hazelton either. But, most of the main is in from Reading to Mehoopany and beyond Mehoop for several miles which is Lehigh Railway, LLC leased from Norfolk Southern. I'm also doing a seperate Scranton railroads layout with Steamtown/DL to Portland, PA and Carbondale, PA and CP to Sunbury, PA and Binghamton, NY. Both layouts are massive, Scranton GND file is currently 526 MB, and the other route Harrisburg-Manville and Reading-Jim Thorpe-Scranton-Sayre is 1.18 GB.

 

[strench707]

More Australian NSW content, particularly in the area of Cityrail routes. I would build these myself, but i am not yet confident enough with my abilities in surveyor to contemplate tackling a real world route.

Matt.

Ya know its good to ease yourself into it but maybe if I were you I'd go ahead and get started and recreate a short Australian route or test out doing a tiny piece of the CityRail network.

The only way you get there is by starting with something and building up from there,

Davis

 

[bchester]

It had taken almost 4 years but I had managed to recreate the entire C.P.R. Prairie region from Thunderbay Ontario to Moosejaw Saskatchewan with the main focus of Winnipeg and all the branch lines connected. In that time, I only managed to lay track and install the industries along the way but never had the time to texture or apply any other type of scenery so there were great expanses of grid. Worked great though, no lag or stutter at all!

I moved from Winnipeg to Victoria in October and sadly lost the development box I had that on. At first I was not concerned since i new I had multiple backups on hundreds of DVDs and several spare hard drives which as it turned had to be left behind in a storage facility due to space constraints. The storage facility was flooded when a neighboring building caught fire the resulting water damage ruined everything in the locker. I never new DVDs would peel and blister if they get wet.. and figured that Hard drives would be impervious to internal damage but after paying a massive price to a data recovery team I found that the hard drives too were ruined.

Ah well - that is the way of dreams.

Now, on to the railways of Vancouver Island!

Bricey

 

[Approach_Medium]

To have more amtrak assets, especially amfleets.

You've got my vote!

FW

 

[Approach_Medium]

Reading Shamokin Division--Got DEM
Reading Bethlehem Branch--Got DEM
Philly to Reading to Port Clinton--Needs DEM for parts
Reading's crossline. --Got DEM

The Reading-Philly-Allentown-Scranton-Harrisburg is a real nice route to do. There are so many branches that make it interesting.

One thing I found when downloading DEMs from USGS seamless and opening/combining in Transdem, is that you need to select carefully. Grabbing too much DEM will cause Transdem to run out of memory (on my 3Gig 32bit system).
So what I have been doing is selecting only the area of DEM that will actually be used to create the Trainz route (2bbds each side of track), and this allows me to grab many more miles of track.

Also, I found that, when first opening a DEM downloaded from USGS Seamless (the .tif file), changing the default grid from 10m to 20m will get you a lot more DEM without running out of memory.
Of course, I won't get the accuracy of the 10m grid, but at this point I don't think I want it anyway. All I am looking to do is get a rough copy of the prototype. I can play with it once I have created the route in TS.

Then, if you have a 64bit system with 8Gigs, then go for the 10m grid.

At this point, I am hoping that TS2010 will handle larger routes than TS2006 or 2009 did, but I probably shouldn't count on it.
When I create the .gnd file in Transdem, sometimes I am frustrated by the fact that TS will not import the file because it is too large.
Then, the only thing to do is cut out part of the route and try again.

I have not had much luck with merging routes in TS (any version), so I am going to use portals to connect various sections of my mega route.

FW

 

[PereMarquette1225fan]

To have the entire SEPTA system built, including some now-defunct lines.

That'd be a dream come true.