Hello everybody,
As Geophil ( thank you Roland for giving the necessary information to other Trainzers ) mentioned in his answer #9, I'm busy with a tram-train route. The tramroute goes from De Panne to Knokke ( vice-versa ) and is 65 km long.
My first idea was to make the original 1885- 1895 route Oostende - Nieuwpoort going inland to Diksmuide. However, my major problem is - making the assets myself. My drawing skills on paper and computer ( blender, Gmax ) are very poor. I get my better results ( that is, for example a simple house ) with google sketchup ( with the help of tutorials ).
Luckily, I have a lot of help from fellow trainzers ( worldwide ):clap: - otherwise my semi-realistic route would have stayed on the drawingboard.
Within several coastal cities ( Knokke, Duinbergen, Zeebrugge, Blankenberge, Oostende, Koksijde, De Panne ) a railwaystation is also present. So my railwayroute goes from Knokke, Duinbergen, Zeebrugge, Oostende into the direction of Brugge and De Panne, Koksijde into the direction of Gent.
Up to now - 75 % of the line Knokke - Zeebrugge has been done and 100 % of the track ( tram ) and 75 % of the track ( train ) has been placed by using Roland's great Transdem tool. All tram stopplaces have been placed.
I have been busy for 2 years now, and restarted 3 times ( because I wasn't satisfied with the result or because my skills were not good enough or Trainz could not execute it. The route is being made in Trs2010 - I tried a conversion to TS12 ( but having the merging issue in TS12, I decided to continue in TRS2010 ).
I still have to do a lot of work - trying to make the route as realistic as possible, with trams, trains, ships, helicopters, airplanes, etc etc ...
@ Carr : during my search for information and if I'm not mistaken, an old map of the original route can be found in Raymond Vancraeynests book - De tram maakte de kust. ( the tram made the coast ). I have no copy of the book, but I know someone who has. I can always ask if I may borrow the book for a couple of days and if the map is available, make a photograph of it.
Screenshot of the route :
http://home.scarlet.be/klan1703/FOTO.html - info of tramways in Belgium :
http://trambelgium.atspace.com/
Best regards
Kurt :wave: