WIP Recreating a branch from late 1800s/early 1900s input appreciated

shinoda2005

New member
Hi all,

I'm working recreating the CNW branch that ended in my town. After changing hands to DM&E in the 80s the rails were removed in the mid 90s. I'm making it from the late 1800s/early 1900s which is when this area would have been prairie. It's now farm land. I have no pictures of the line between towns from this era to go off of so I'm just making a prairie as best I can. I'm my own worst critic so any input on on my work so far or any suggestions on how to make it better would be appreciated.

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Looks good so far. How about putting it on the DL and I will run it and let you know. I love that era.
What is the equipement ?
 
I agree, looks nice so far. One thing of the bat i noticed from the screenshots are the tracks. To me they seem to be more modern heavy, thicker (132lb) rails. For the turn of the century I'd suggest using lighter railed track, possibly Pencil42's track, on the DLS. I'd also suggest testing out Pofigs speedtrees vs built in ones to see how you like them, theyre pretty popular with Trainzers to say the least.

And make sure to check out hobbyman350's buildings on the DLS as well, very appropriate structures for that time

Also, what is the locale of your route? I'm going to guess Iowa? As far as photos from that area and time period go, Ive found that use of historical aerial photos to be useful.
http://www.historicaerials.com/?javascript=&

Even though it only goes back to 1937, most likely most of the buildings and roads were there at the turn of the century, and there are also historical topo maps going back to 1891
 
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I agree, looks nice so far. One thing of the bat i noticed from the screenshots are the tracks. To me they seem to be more modern heavy, thicker (132lb) rails. For the turn of the century I'd suggest using lighter railed track, possibly Pencil42's track, on the DLS. I'd also suggest testing out Pofigs speedtrees vs built in ones to see how you like them, theyre pretty popular with Trainzers to say the least.

And make sure to check out hobbyman350's buildings on the DLS as well, very appropriate structures for that time

Also, what is the locale of your route? I'm going to guess Iowa? As far as photos from that area and time period go, Ive found that use of historical aerial photos to be useful.
http://www.historicaerials.com/?javascript=&

Even though it only goes back to 1937, most likely most of the buildings and roads were there at the turn of the century, and there are also historical topo maps going back to 1891

I will look up those tracks, thanks for the suggestion. I was just looking for something that was jointed rail and that was the best I found. I'll also look into the other speedtrees. I could also use some more buildings so I'll look into those as well. It's actually in southeast Minnesota so it's quite close to Iowa. I actually found that site last night and sadly I couldn't find much for the area sadly.
 
So I seem to have run into a snag. It appears that my graphics card can't handle it if I use too many of the prairie grass splines. The options as I see them are getting a better card, lowering the details or using less or different grass. I'd rather not buy a new card just for this. I like having high details and the grass I'm using works very well with the route. I used some other stuff but unless you're close enough to it, it doesn't display. Other than maybe cutting back some land or changing the topography, anyone have any ideas to help with this?
 
I wouldn't think of a new graphics card as only a solution to the grass. It'll certainly benefit you (apart from the wallet :hehe:) in many other aspects, in terms of your games and overall system performance. It really depends on how much time you spend on the PC doing graphic-intense things, though.
 
I've made some changes to try to get a good landscape that doesn't render graphic cards useless. What do you folks think? One side has some stand-alone tufts of grass while the other side doesn't other than that they're painted in the same way with the same textures.

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View from the cab...

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My suggestion would be to raise the Roadbed a certain number of feet. Natural Prairie Land was notoriously uneven, and even today you can find roadbeds accross them that are more Embankment laid through the grass then anything else, at least from pics I've seen and what understanding I have of them. Not saying Flat On Land was never done, but /shrug. If it was laid in the 1880's then this probably wasn't a slap dash affair and they would've made efforts to protection the road bed, such as raising it above the surrounding land by probably somewhere between 1-3 feet. You might get a better idea of this if you try to visit the old RoW wherever it still exists unmolested (Farmers like to make things theirs). If it lasted until the mid-90s though this was probably a fairly well laid RoW though, thats over 100 years.....

Also the Billboard shrubs (Believe me I know ALL about the lack of decent shrubbery in this game) really contrast poorly against the Grass. Im assuming thats Grazzy (JR) or something similar from JVC?

-Falcus
 
My suggestion would be to raise the Roadbed a certain number of feet. Natural Prairie Land was notoriously uneven, and even today you can find roadbeds accross them that are more Embankment laid through the grass then anything else, at least from pics I've seen and what understanding I have of them. Not saying Flat On Land was never done, but /shrug. If it was laid in the 1880's then this probably wasn't a slap dash affair and they would've made efforts to protection the road bed, such as raising it above the surrounding land by probably somewhere between 1-3 feet. You might get a better idea of this if you try to visit the old RoW wherever it still exists unmolested (Farmers like to make things theirs). If it lasted until the mid-90s though this was probably a fairly well laid RoW though, thats over 100 years.....

Also the Billboard shrubs (Believe me I know ALL about the lack of decent shrubbery in this game) really contrast poorly against the Grass. Im assuming thats Grazzy (JR) or something similar from JVC?

-Falcus

The rail bed is now a bike path. The rails were torn out in 96. I biked it before it was fully paved and it seemed pretty pretty flat while following the contours of the land for the most part. The prairie is now farm land so I can't say how the topography was back then compared to now.

Yeah they are JVC shrubs. I'm going to remove them and just keep the grass splines by the rails. It would be nice to get better plants in general in Trainz.
 
Looks good so far. How about putting it on the DL and I will run it and let you know. I love that era.
What is the equipement ?

I can upload it when it's more complete. Right now the line isn't complete because I'm making sure the bridges are correct.
 
The problem you get with Trackside grass, particularly on flat land, is that when you lay down 1 or a few splines of it, and it just dissapears, the sudden lack of it is really hard to hide. I use tons of Grazzy where Im working atm, but I have a treeline about far enough away to not need trimming by Rail Crews more then once every few years, so when I throw down some shrubs at the feet of the trees and texture the ground right you can't tell the Grazzy ever stops. I don't have a solution for ya either unfortunately, being out on the plains. But its one of the lamentable issues with Trainz. I will say that with T:ANE so far, I would feel pretty confident in laying down acres of Grazzy if that was one of the only notable Terrain features. But /shrug.

As for the Roadbed, hey, if it was flat, it was flat. Not what I would expect, but then life rarely is XD. Im sure local geography would have played a huge role in all of that, which I am entirely unfamiliar.

I like alot of things about your route regardless of finer modelling points, and will await its release.

-Falcus
 
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