Turning Boxcars into Storage Buildings

[jordon412]

For years, old boxcars have had their frames, couplers and trucks removed and turned into storage buildings that are placed near the railroad's maintenance shops. Here's a way to simulate it in Trainz.

You'll need the following assets:
1. boxcars found in the 'Trackside Accessories' category on the DLS. I use Snper297's 'Static Boxcar' series and whitepass' 'Boxcar'.
2. Some sort of invisible track. I use the built-in 'Track Invisible'.

Now that you have the items, here's what you do:
1. Make a section of invisible track that's near where your railroad's equipment is maintained. You can make it as long as you want.
2. Place as many boxcars as you want on the invisible track.
3. Now the most important part: LOWER THE TRACK UNDER THE GROUND BY -1.35 METERS. This will cause the trucks and couplers to disappear below the ground.

And there you have it, a nice row of storage sheds waiting to be filled with all sorts of stuff your railroad needs to work.

Here's another:
1. Download magicland's 'Static P70'
2. Make another piece of invisible track and place the 'Static P70' on it.
3. Lower the track by -1.3 METERS, NOT -1.35, below the ground. Like the boxcars, the trucks, couplers, and the steps to disappear below the ground.

And one more:
1. Download 'wheels2', made by whitepass and the 'Wheelstop Type SG' from the DLS.
2. Make another piece of invisible track and place as many wheels on it, with the wheelstops at each end of the track.
3. Lower the track by -.30 METERS. Unlike the P70 and boxcars, this will make it look like the wheels are laying on the ground.

If you have any like this, go ahead and post it here.

 

[JCitron]

You can also convert the assets to a scenery items which I've done for a museum setup. I then placed, also converted scenery items, bogies underneath. The only thing that didn't come off in the process was some couplers, but I could live with that. This is a great idea though as I too have seen many, many retired boxcars converted into garden and farm sheds out west. Some of these even had their old road names on them. It was great seeing Great Northern, Santa Fe, and other roads, complete with their slogans on the cars. Some were in really great shape while others saw better days. There were even plenty of old wooden cars out there as well.

John

 

[johnwhelan]

It's nicer if you just have the boxcar that way you don't have to have the extra polys for the bogies etc. Talk nicely to the content creator and perhaps they'll knock off the unwanted bits but leave the texture and mapping.

Cheerio John

 

[jlp1551]

I used a length if rail only track and placed some wheelsets on them. Found a small crane and put in at the end of the rails with the wheelsets. A rip track is next to the wheelsets. The crews have a place to store the wheelsets and a convenient way to get them to where they are needed!

 

[JCitron]

That's a good idea Jeff.

Here's a boxcar with a new lease on life.

http://binged.it/1g5Mtwv


One of many you can find using Bing and Google Earth. I saw many of these while traveling across the Midwest over the past 6 years. This one is a bit west of Lawton, OK.

John

 

[xcrossi]

I just edit a v1.3 boxcar to a BI scenery
Cloned for my own personal use.
kuid <kuid:260530:100215>
username "Static C & O Boxcar"
kind "scenery"
trainz-build 2.9

mesh-table
{
default
{
auto-create 1
mesh "40ft_boxcar_body/40ft_boxcar_body.im"
}

shadow
{
mesh "40ft_boxcar_shadow/40ft_boxcar_shadow.im"
}
}
rotate-yz-range 0,360
category-class "BI"
category-era "1960s;1970s;1980s"
category-region "US"
thumbnails
{
0
{
image "preview.jpg"
width 240
height 180
}

1
{
image "40ft_boxcar_art/40ft_boxcar_art_icon.texture"
width 128
height 64
}

2
{
image "40ft_boxcar_art/40ft_boxcar_art_512.texture"
width 512
height 512
}
}

kuid-table
{
}

 

[xcrossi]

bendorsey has 23 converted old passenger and boxcars w/smoke and cribbing supports.
kuid2:210518:8487:1 thru 8509:1