RHKluckhohn
Active member
Well, yes, it has been near two years since my last post on the Fond Du Lac line and you may well be excused for thinking it's a dead letter. I got involved with other things for a time.
Work has continued sporadically, however, and it's been more consistent recently. Landscaping is now complete to Mile 140 and is reaching the south town limits of Mayville. There've been some improvements also in Iron Ridge scenery -- the anachronistic corn harvest (it's June) has been changed to an early-ish haying, which is not all that early, really, I passed a new haying near Schrag, WA, the last week of May. And that's desert.
Among other things I've been studying the changes required by migrating to 12. Certain LP assets have been changed unhelpfully, particularly the concrete 90[SUP]o[/SUP] road intersections and grade crossings and the Rock River highway bridge. The invisible road and rail have been replaced by something unavailable on the DS. Why just those? Why those at all? An oversight? I've temporized by modifying the assets to use Auran components for myself but will work to replace them with proper substitutes. Thank goodness, the 15-degree crossings are unaffected - so far.
The :0 and :1 version notes say "the trackage is stable." Well, mostly. Part of the replacements (above) involved the crossings just west of Mayville depot and in the process the CN box in some sessions got dislocated. If you've created your own sessions using Mayville track 2 and update the route, that will be a caution. Sorry. I've cleaned up my sessions and will update them same time as the route. Another area so impacted is Seneca Foods at South Mayville. Careful study in Google Earth shows the dock track clearly extends through a door in the building and I intend to effect that directly (that will permit a more accurately-sized warehouse on the site.) I do not think there will be any further industrial trackage changes. Version :2 does include a half-mile passing track through Nasbro so two- or three-train operation is now feasible and the 25 mph between Nasbro Road and Rustic Road has been eased a bit within the right-of-way so passenger equipment can go through at the 25 MPH limit.
CNW downtown trackage has been revised; the crossovers have been compacted and a do-not-enter blocks eastbound traffic from crossing over, so now all eastbounds run through the depot. Sessions have been modified accordingly. Hopefully this will eliminate blockages for at least three hours, perhaps entirely. EB trains hold at the crossing if the depot block is occupied.
Persistent blockages at the SOO-MILW crossing were the product of wrongly-set ASB assets. Ver :2 sessions are now running reliably without the trigger check and reducing the grain train to 32 cars from 44 lets it run at ~25 MPH. WB SOO trains now just have the orders "Navigate via SOO -FDL Track 2">"Navigate to SOO_To Oshkosh."
ASB Crossing control has been installed at the MILW-CNW Oakfield branch crossing. Advance signals are installed on the MILW and the ASB triggers set so those signals will clear before the train reaches them, if the crossing is clear.
Signalling revisions: signals eliminated at the portals. They obscured the approach of spawned trains and served no useful purpose. Various intermediate signals removed for the same reason. Signals within yard limits at Mayville and Iron Ridge have been tweaked, so be alert.
The doors at Warehouse Specialists have been numbered; this features in a new session "Beat the Clock" which is 90% developed.
The South Mayville camera has been eliminated; I never found it useful.
If you would like to have version :2 please let me know and I will get it up on the DS.
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Work has continued sporadically, however, and it's been more consistent recently. Landscaping is now complete to Mile 140 and is reaching the south town limits of Mayville. There've been some improvements also in Iron Ridge scenery -- the anachronistic corn harvest (it's June) has been changed to an early-ish haying, which is not all that early, really, I passed a new haying near Schrag, WA, the last week of May. And that's desert.
Among other things I've been studying the changes required by migrating to 12. Certain LP assets have been changed unhelpfully, particularly the concrete 90[SUP]o[/SUP] road intersections and grade crossings and the Rock River highway bridge. The invisible road and rail have been replaced by something unavailable on the DS. Why just those? Why those at all? An oversight? I've temporized by modifying the assets to use Auran components for myself but will work to replace them with proper substitutes. Thank goodness, the 15-degree crossings are unaffected - so far.
The :0 and :1 version notes say "the trackage is stable." Well, mostly. Part of the replacements (above) involved the crossings just west of Mayville depot and in the process the CN box in some sessions got dislocated. If you've created your own sessions using Mayville track 2 and update the route, that will be a caution. Sorry. I've cleaned up my sessions and will update them same time as the route. Another area so impacted is Seneca Foods at South Mayville. Careful study in Google Earth shows the dock track clearly extends through a door in the building and I intend to effect that directly (that will permit a more accurately-sized warehouse on the site.) I do not think there will be any further industrial trackage changes. Version :2 does include a half-mile passing track through Nasbro so two- or three-train operation is now feasible and the 25 mph between Nasbro Road and Rustic Road has been eased a bit within the right-of-way so passenger equipment can go through at the 25 MPH limit.
CNW downtown trackage has been revised; the crossovers have been compacted and a do-not-enter blocks eastbound traffic from crossing over, so now all eastbounds run through the depot. Sessions have been modified accordingly. Hopefully this will eliminate blockages for at least three hours, perhaps entirely. EB trains hold at the crossing if the depot block is occupied.
Persistent blockages at the SOO-MILW crossing were the product of wrongly-set ASB assets. Ver :2 sessions are now running reliably without the trigger check and reducing the grain train to 32 cars from 44 lets it run at ~25 MPH. WB SOO trains now just have the orders "Navigate via SOO -FDL Track 2">"Navigate to SOO_To Oshkosh."
ASB Crossing control has been installed at the MILW-CNW Oakfield branch crossing. Advance signals are installed on the MILW and the ASB triggers set so those signals will clear before the train reaches them, if the crossing is clear.
Signalling revisions: signals eliminated at the portals. They obscured the approach of spawned trains and served no useful purpose. Various intermediate signals removed for the same reason. Signals within yard limits at Mayville and Iron Ridge have been tweaked, so be alert.
The doors at Warehouse Specialists have been numbered; this features in a new session "Beat the Clock" which is 90% developed.
The South Mayville camera has been eliminated; I never found it useful.
If you would like to have version :2 please let me know and I will get it up on the DS.
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