Snow High Valley Distr Ctr (High Resolution 950x532) Approx

Brookley Industrial Complex/C&W Carolina R.R. Port Royal Branch merged

Good Evening Folks,

I wanted to post this start of the morning but it was not to be, so here I'm am and here we go with 2 Route merge mania!

Author David Akridge Notes for The Brookley Industrial Complex is small route that is very loosely based on Brookley Aeroplex in Mobile Alabama. There are (7) Seven industries that are across the mainline from the Gulf Coast Railroad Yard. GCR is a fictional railroad serving the deep south. Check my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/trainzsessions/ for more information about session releases and updates for this route. All assets are on the DLS with the exception of the High Detail Track asset from jointedrail.com in their freeware section.



C&WC RR Port Royal Branch......Notes below.
==========================================================
Author "dericm" Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Port Royal Branch

THIS IS AN UNFINISHED VERSION... 98% complete. This will be updated as it is completed.

C&WC Port Royal Branch from Yemassee to Port Royal, SC. This route includes MCAS Beaufort and its trackage from my personal memories and photos.

This was part of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, then Seaboard Coast Line up until SCL was merged into the Seaboard Systems and then CSX.

This line is now abandoned and the Port Royal Railroad CO was the last to operate it. It ceased operations in mid 2000s. Custom rolling stock and content for the routs is on the DLS for Port Royal Railroad and CW&C. ACL, SCL, SBD, Amtrak, and CSX operated on this route.

This represents an accurate and detailed route from SCL /ACL track charts from the 1960s, 1970s, and from Google Earth. No DEM was used. All elevations and track locations were done accurately with GE and topographic maps.

This original route for the C&WC ran from Augusta to Port Royal, SC. It was an important shipping artery for getting goods to port in South Carolina. It's demise was a declining industry base, better ports elsewhere, and poor economic times for a short line with little or no traffic with in its 25 miles.

I have added several other free lanced industry that were not on this route to add traffic to it:
Gravel Pit
Power Plant
Lumber Yard
Freight Houses
Factories
Cotton Gin
Fertilizer Co.

Hope you enjoy it.
You will need all of Jointed Rail's freeware route dependencies, Pofig trees, SARXT signals, JR track from their site, and many other DLS content.

Support will be available on the Auran Trainz Forums.

Thanks to all the many content creators who made this route possible and a few beta testers too. With out the content this route would be nothing.

Dan.

We are going into the second part of the Merge as we start on night run with weather system coming in. This is the new mainline connection between the 2 Routes and we have put together a nice JUNK Train with all different types of loads.

Rain hasn't started so will see how we do tonight, our speed is restricted due to this mainline being new, and some possible settling of the road bed from Rain and or local flooding in some of the valleys.

From one Route to the other, we use a nice wide loop around the lower mainlines of the Port Royal Branch later on merging into the North Main lines.

I borrowed a lease Caboose, since I really don't know what the proper livery is for Port Royal yet, I need to check it out and see what power they used?

Inside our leased C&O we head around the final curve before our new crossover Rail Bridge.

We have one mid signal between the mainline connection and it shows clear as we do 35MPH........

We have 2 mainlines coming out of Port Royal,, what I did was since one of them was to Portal, I snatched a connection the other one, giving us a nice high speed transfer onto Port Royal Tracks. And it looks like the dispatchers have us lined up and we did skip a beat as we merge into the one of the Mains. Purty dark out here, in the middle of the country, no street lights, but our Loco has a strong light on it.. We just slowed and wanted to make sure everything was lined OK, since this is our first run between the new partnership

OK, we're on Port Royal Property now, and we have taken a secondary main, as we approach a Sorting yard.

Nice lake to our right, as we pass a Coal Transfer and load unit.

Looks like the rain hasn't hit yet, good for us, as we learn our new Route.

I added the Brookley Complex to this section of the Route, and I think it will work out terrific, the only thing I'm doing now, is removing some trees due to my GPU restrictions I always face, so far, so good.

Both of these routes are really great to play on, and I haven't run much of either routes yet, so will see what develops as I explore the Routes.

Thank you for coming by..........

Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Port Royal Branch II

Good Friday all,

So we are still headed to the destinations unknown on the new mainline, we don't quite have updated Transfer papers for the Loads. We got some rain on the Route but nothing to write home about and that's OK.....Will get a good storm in due time.

Looks like will be changing tracks ahead for different route.

One dark night out here, wonder if will see any Ghosts coming across the roads, they say they do on occasion, freaky huh! Glad we have a good light shining the way ahead.

We headed North to Freight station where will drop some of the loads off.

No Trains ahead, for now, we are the only ones here at the wee hours of the morning.

Hah, we have some precipitation coming down, will see where it goes from here.

We just got off the new Brookley Spur as we head down Charleston & Western Carolina Railway Port Royal Branch, towards our Freight stop.

Meanwhile the sun is the way up and the Rain has abated for now. Lots of open country in this end of the Route. And I we haven't seen it all, but later on will revisit some new areas, I love this route, the way it works out, there are North, South, East and West Directions that tie together at what I call the Quadrangle or AKA 4 Way meet, double/triple Diamonds..

Really nice looking Lake over there, wonder how the Fishing is?

Now now get ready to move on what I might think is the largest Route I've ever run. Come to find out, this route is not finished all the way, which is fine for me, I can do some experimenting with it. This route has lots of interesting features, and I'll need to complete the Mountains, Rivers Roads etc from what looks like a Dem Map, but elevation was not completed for whatever reason, and that's OK, this Route is 200 Miles long.SAY WHAT....OH MY.... .Amazing that I can even load it on my Desktop.........Will see how it goes, I might have to trim some areas back to maintain Frame performance, hats off to the Author, all the Green looks mostly completed, the rest lighter color green, limey Green is just some track and lots of markers with detail that shows the height of Mountains, location of Roads and Rivers etc.

Notes from via6415

Called the "Canadian Atlantic Corridor"

The CNR Halifax Sub is a real route with many other subs added that run or ones ran in Nova Scotia form 1800s up to the current day today most of the former railways have been removed and only 2 now remain Halifax Sub ( DAR ) & Bedford Sub. This route gives you a look back at all former and present routes as if they still existed in a modern time era that mixed all together. The Map starts in the City of Halifax Nova Scotia the map cludes Dartmouth Sub, Halifax South West, Bedford Sub, Truro Sub, Halifax Sub, Kentville Sub & former DAR lines. The route is over 200 miles long and is the only Nova Scotia Route in trainz with 75% of Nova Scotia Railways in it that ones ran in this eastern part of Canada.
Railroads the are used are CP, CN, VIA, WHRC, DAR, HSWRR. today only VIA and CN still use the mail line which runs form Truro to Halifax and Dartmouth.

That'll due for now, I'll be working on this Route for quite some time, so will have some upcoming pics showing what is run-able now and I will show the undecorated map areas too, so you can see what I'm trying to explain here.

I bid you a blessed Friday and Weekend ahead. Thanks for coming to visit.

Nice shots Blue! Loving the C&O

Lookin good, Blue .


// Erik from Sweden

:wave: Thanks for coming by Erik and Southern1581, appreciate the kind words.

I'm having fun with both Narrow & Standard Gauge Routes, and the most recent Route is Canadian Atlantic Corridor, which is so large, i will just be able to run it on my Laptop, if I watch how many Trees I have....And it looks like a Dem File, with about 30% completed but lots to finish, once I read up on the history of this Route, and try and find some pictures etc, Probably will use Google Maps to see what it looks like today, a lot has been ripped up from acquisitions etc.

I plan on finishing what I can, I don't intend to making it accurate, that would take too much time, years, and I don't want to be hamstrung, just have fun with it, and do what works. I also think if I did try to recreate lots of things, I wouldn't be able to run the Route on this Laptop, so will see how far I can go with it, staying lean on Trees, and large Rail yards.

Should be an interesting project. This route is 200 miles long.

Update: I think I found some relevant information on this Railway......

https://www.google.com/search?sourc...j0i8i13i30k1j33i21k1j33i160k1.116.CekBgKrPHkY

Wild Bill and Narrow Gauge consists added for Logging lines

Good Sunday Day,

Well I have been up to no good as usual, LOL.

So I found a dupe file program "Duplicate Files Finder\dupfgui.exe" there are many on the mkt, this one is supposed to be moderately simple to run and faster than others, so I what wanted to due was check my Trainz directory first, CDP's and I have downloaded installed removed, move file directory's for storage, the gamut if you will late at night mostly.

What I found was 2.5 Gigs of duplication, or 2040 some dupes. Going to take a little time to sort, but the program gives Directory screen printout to see where each dupe resides and you manually go in and delete the extra one.

For me, I have specific names directories where all the files are kept so I can find them easily. A good start, and that is just trainz, wait till I get to family photos, from lord knows how many Cameras and Cell Phones. This will take some serious time, but it needs to be done, how shall we say, prep work is the worst, it gets easier as you make some room and clean.


Downloaded Tidewater Route 4.5 Version, Maple Creek Branch not the newest one, the newer one is coming out?

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?143819-Tidewater-Point&p=1654068#post1654068

Possibly on JR Website, it's still pending, anyway, I like the one off DSL, it's an old favorite of mine out TS-12 days, so this newer one Ver4.5 works for TANE

Also grabbed Pioneer X by my good friend Railhead001, he is great teacher on how to decorate and make a Route more interesting to look at........Go see his site.

And on Narrow Gauge I downloaded this little work train for my Wild Bill III Route, you have to download each car separately and then make your train similar to this one.....Really cool......

Grabbed ExTrainz Manager Rule today, and started playing with it on my smaller routes in Surveyor Mode only to see how it plays with Trainz, no issues so far. I used it on small and medium routes, haven't made it to like Canadian Atlantic Corridor very large routes yet.

So back to Wild Bill, here is another pic of our new mainline out of Mining camp on other side of this mountain. About 2% downgrade, ,reduced from 4-5%, just too steep for me.

Valley floor side looking up as we head to Bison graze fields on the way to Town of Larkspur for water and Fuel top off.

New Signal ahead of Switch 1.5 miles downhill, and it works perfect.

Valley tracks below from desert side of Route. As you can see I extended the Bridge, but need to adjust the abutment underneath, oops, already done after I saw this pic....The area below was very narrow, but I may double track later so I wanted to have it ready just in case.......

And here we are coming slowly thru the Bison, hence that Yellow signal back at the bridge we just came across from. Will do a reverse move to tracks across and get some water and fuel.

We are rolling by slow, don't want risk a Beast coming into a train or a stampede that could cause a serious derailment.....These cattle are pretty well behaved with the Trains coming by all the time, but we have to respect their turf, they were here long before the Railroads were.

Will come out here, and move back into Yards at town. We have to drop off couple of Box Car Loads too.

Signal looks good holding or diverting opposing traffic if it comes this way.

Got double green clear to move back into Passenger and Freight yards for Shunting job......Good Day and Great weather too........

Well I have lot of things going on......Time to split, you'll see pictures of Tidewater (Maple Branch Line) next if it works out......I'm fooling around on several Routes at a time, also trying to get my Faulty and missing assets cleared up little each day.....Was 1500 hundred with SP-2 update, now down to 308,,,,,,better than it was, and some assets have mesh errors which is way beyond my pay grade.........SO they just have to be deleted. It is what it is.......You save what you can and move on, older assets are only going to last so long in the Version Changes, same as old software and OS systems,,,,,,,just the names change, the outcome is relatively the same.

I bid you all a good week ahead, and thanks for coming to see my place.

Wild Bill, Larkspur area.....other miscellany stuff

Good Tuesday all,

So as noted earlier, I playing with Tidewater Route and will be merging it together with Port Royal, small Route of 4-5 Squares.

When you merge items you need to be aware of certain pitfalls, which I'll lay out for you in upcoming posts. The one thing I'll say, it takes lots of work to do, but if your into it, the end Result is quite cool.

Now over to Wild Bill III Rte below,

We just came into to town from those high mountains in the back, our mining Camp area, which I have yet to give it a name?

Coming thru the mountain tunnel, 1.5 miles long or less, I'm just guesstimating the distance here. We came along the new mainline from high up where that mining tunnel exits on this side, and then via tall Wood Trestles, down into the Valley, and it works perfect, with Grade at 2% or less. That part is complete now.

So here we are dropping off 2 Boxcars for supplies to the town, and lots more cars will be arriving once I get things all queued up . Looking to the right of the Trains, we have our stock pens loaded with Cattle awaiting for market transfer via Stock Pen Cars.

We have dropped off the 2 Cars and now head out to grab some Water for our Engine as well will drop off few passengers too with I think some mail bags for the town.

And these guys are slitting in mid air......OOPS, I moved the Stage Coach and they weren't attached......Guess I better move them too, before the horses get away......LOL

Here is our map, with names of all the items that have been added, and the merged Tiles, approximately 10 tiles in all, one was Brandon Colliery, standard gauge which I'll convert to Narrow Gauge........I like to kit bass and merge things........I'm a little crazy that way, but for me it works quite well when I finish it.

Larger picture of this whole layout, it has a lot to offer, and I haven't yet explored with a consist the whole route, I started on the right and will move to the left as I make changes to suite my needs etc.

We are taking our other Passenger train out this end of the mining area, just to do a downhill check on % grade impact, I think this area is pretty well buttoned up, for that part, I need to bring in some junk to dress it up, but that will come later, as I need to finish exploring the rest of this large route.

We have the engines I need for this heavy climb up here too, including some real old Diesels that look OK I think with our Steam engines.

The Tunnel was moved back around the corner here, so my shunting issues are resolved too, we have enough rail outside of the tunnels entrance, when we shunt the Mines, I don't get the locomotive headed into the tunnel and build up too much smoke in there when we move the cars around. Later on, I'll add a couple of Tiles to the right of this mountain tunnel and change the Rail lines direction for shunting and it will be even much better...........It just takes me time to figure how I'm going to arrange, add, and move items around.

Will stay about 25 MPH here and slow to 15MPH just as we exit bottom of this tunnel we are entering, don't want to fly thru a red light at valley floor switch approaching that mainline.

Our train has good brakes, but you don't wont to overdue it on down hill run.......Safety is always key, and expect the unexpected too........Just ask any Train Crew.....!

Just passing thru Larkspur here onto newer areas now.

Nice River here on the right and I hear the Trout fishing is great. Salmon too......My bears in the the area tell me so......LOL

Crossing the River here, Bridge looks good.

That's it for now, I got some stuff I need to get done before the weeks out.

Thanks for coming by..........

To Merge Routes that is the Ques a slippery slope

Good Thursday all,

Like to have a discussion on Merging. I had this already, but it took to long on typing so and I got logged out by Forum and lost all the notes, so will do this differently.

I post the pictures for now, and Text notes later.

Update: Here are the additional Notes I had tried to write earlier........


To Merge or not, your choice,

I have been merging since I got Trainz driver 2 on IPAD and it was not easy, as IPAD has limited memory, GPU and processing, back then I had Version 2, now I am sure IPAD is much larger and stronger, I migrated to HP Laptop changing to TS-12, and finally to T:ANE, now up to SP-2 version the latest and greatest.

So why do I merge?

For me, I'm not that creative with talent, I like to take other peoples routes and kit bash them together and have fun running on a single Route through different merged routes, like from the desert to the rugged Alpines Snow and majestic. And that's terrific, but it is not without it's problems.The reward if you will, is what I can create and play with after all is said and done.

(remember I will always give credit to the authors routes I merge, and not claim others work as my own) Nor will I distribute my creations, but you can watch and learn from me and then do what suites your taste accordingly.

So how do I merge: In this case Portland Terminal R.R. to Maple Branch (Tidewater division)

First I do a quick merge on backup copies of each route

Then will play with these copies of original route, remove all Trains from both routes (yes it's a pain) but lets hope you have made some Consists Copies on your Train sets, so you add them back easily when you finish merging etc.

Next one of these Routes, and it doesn't matter which one, the Route Layer needs to be renamed to something different. Such as "Route Layer A" or "Route Layer 2" just one letter or number to make it different from the other route, otherwise you can't merge it, and you'll have to do it on the fly, during the merging window process.

By doing it before the merge, you save the Route after renaming the Route Layer you take potential File Corruption out of the loop during merging, or crashing your Trainz app.

Now both temp files are saved and your ready to merge. Remember we are just doing this to see if it works, and that we like it. You don't know how things are going to match when you do the merge, because one of the Routes you merge is not very visible, Trainz will only show a portion of the second route, and blank out the rest, and what'll happen is you get the merge points incorrect when your trying to see. I know, and it has happened where It took 5-6 times to get the 2 routes converged OK, that's why we play with Temp Copies of the original routes.

Now you merge them together, now, depending on the size of the routes, and I have merged huge routes together! It can take 1-2 mins, or it could take an Hour, remember, Trainz is doing massive calculations on position, color etc. And sometimes for whatever reason, Trainz crashes.

One of things I do on my merges, absolutely go to Airplane mode, and all applications other than Trainz needs to be closed up, why, well try this, your in the middle of a merge, and your Mail Mgr gets new email, or popup screen comes in telling something about Face Book Etc, or maybe Windows has decided to download your latest updates, and puff, Trainz locks up in the middle of merge, and worse yet, your Trainz won't restart, now you have to do a database repair.

That's why I warn about merge issues. Others may have a different ways of merging, and that's fine, this is the way I have come to learn.

OK so we merge the Route together, and Voila, I have 2 nice routes put together, and I save that Merge File of Portland Terminal R.R. and Tidewater now into a Conjunct name, like Portland Terminal R.R.-Tidewater 001, for now. Close the surveyor mode, and see that you now have several files listed as follows.

Looking at your Routes List in Trainz:

Portland Terminal R.R.
Maple Branch Tidewater

Portland Terminal R.R.-Temp
Maple Branch Tidewater-Temp

Portland Terminal R.R.-Tidewater 001

Now we have all our files, originals are preserved, our Temp copies are made, and the merge copy is made. Now lets go and open up the new merge file.

Looking it over, everything merged correctly, this was easy, because the routes are not large. Oh but wait, there is a pronounced issue, one route the Portland Terminal R.R. side looks like it dropped off the cliffs of Tidewater, and come to find out, it's 238 lower than Tidewater, well, if I had checked the relative height of both routes where they merged, then I wouldn't have had this issue.

So what are the available solutions here:

Raise one route and drop the other, hmm, too much work, and the grade % are going to be to different.

Add about 10-12 base boards to allow transition from 0 to 200' feet lower, well we can do this, but now will need to do lots of Route building using those space filler blank templates, and I have done that before. However this is not one of my choices for this merge process today.

Finally, I can take the Portland Terminal R.R. side, or smaller Route and raise the elevation to 200' and add just one blank Tile board and use 3.00 to 3.5% downgrade to make the difference.

And the last choice is the best for me, since I'm only really working with maybe 6 hard Tiles to change the assets to 200' height. Can this work, you bet it can, is it work, yes it is, but it will yield the best result for me out of the 3 choices I have to work with.

Below is our Portland Terminal R.R. Map.

We are raising the Floor from 0 feet to approx 200 feet. Height difference between the 2 routes. You can see the Road does not want to raise up, so will come back with asset tool and make the roads even with the Tile.

This is the Track Plan shown, and it is involved, and you'll see why as go through the merge issues.

This is what happens when you raise the floor, not everything raises with it, so now we have lots to do here. Triage is needed on this patient.

We start raising the tracks first and this will take quite a bit of time. And at this point, I decided to raise a building first to see how the tracks are supposed to fit.

Here is the stark height difference here, 0-200 feet as we make the changes pre Merge.

We are pulling the buildings up in key areas, in preparation to raise the Tracks......Lots of Spaghetti hanging down here. But it will all come together when I'm done.

Here is picture of the new area Port Royal, and what I've down, made it completely flat at the new height 200 feet.

These trees poise a performance hit, they are all Spline laid in cross hatch style, way to thick, for my Laptop, so this will need a major remake.

Looking from the tracks over to the left, you can see how thick the trees look, nice but not practical for my GPU.


This a view of all the assets that need re positioning, Buildings, Road, Tracks Etc....A real mess, but in Chaos there is and can be order, you just need to prioritize based on immediate needs suitable to your working taste, no two Trainzers work alike....

I plan to add more comments in the next post of how I deal with some of the other issues this height change presents.

Thanks for coming by.

Host to Post is gone........

Well it looks like our Host to Post has gone to Photo Heaven. So I'll need to find a new Photo Server to use, I see some of referrals listed on the forum........

Sorry for the inconvenience. :'(

Your pictures were amazing! Although I never commended on every single one, I did check whenever I got the notification in my email that you posted something.

I found that out as well for hostthenpost decided to go down (how long is unknown, but did read somewhere that images are deleted anyway after 30 or some days..)
Why not check out Imgur? Needs an account of course, but the images won't be deleted unless you delete them

Testing Google Photos Share

This is really interesting, I see the link, but not like Host Then Post way, It looks like you have to tap the link to see the Photo's? I don't think this is going to work out the way I want it too.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SoABQMVZdCzjLmu23

hiawathamr said:

Your pictures were amazing! Although I never commended on every single one, I did check whenever I got the notification in my email that you posted something.

I found that out as well for hostthenpost decided to go down (how long is unknown, but did read somewhere that images are deleted anyway after 30 or some days..)
Why not check out Imgur? Needs an account of course, but the images won't be deleted unless you delete them

Click to expand...

:wave: Thank you hiawathamr for the kind comments,

I really enjoy posting the pics of my work etc, and hopefully the new folks can learn how to do some other wise difficult projects. And I'm a very visual person, a picture really helps me understand how things work or assemble Etc.

:'( Sure took the wind out my Sails that's for sure, I setup Google Photo's but it appears it works by Link only, so how would one put the comments per Picture? Makes no sense to me?

I'll try your suggestion with "Imgur" and see if that works better for my purposes than "Google Photos" as for the 30 day deletion that's fine, I just need them long enough so folks get chance to see the Photos for bit.........That sounds very reasonable to me.

Have a great weekend sir.......

Testing PostImage

I'm trying to learn how to use this program........Bear with me.........

Ok I think I got this worked out now after an hour of fooling around with new software and not knowing how the pieces fit, trial error, some cussing sounds, no swear words, I kept it clean.

Alright, so this Portland Terminal Switching facility, and I made lots of changes to it and the connecting Route Maple Branch (Tidewater) There is much more to show, but that will come in a couple of days.

Sp here is another picture show the assets I need to drag from 0 feet to 200 Feet elevation.

Mostly Roads and buildings now, there was a ton of small assets, barrels, Crates, ,machinery to pull up and reposition Etc.

In here you can see plant Splines, there were several, and I removed all of them, it was causing Frame Loss.

Building in the bottom, and you have to position your mouse curser directly over it, or otherwise you can't connect to it and pull it up.

And here we go, building is now reset at 200 feet. Now one thing I noticed, lots of these buildings are not squared in orderly fashion, so I need to straighten them better with Tape Measure later. Just me being picky.....

OK. These tracks are tricky to get pulled up to new level, you have to start where the track is correct level, at spline, then go to next Spline leading downward and click on it with the preset height of 200 feet in topology height settings tab, that is your key. When you touch the spline it will pop the track upwards, and you continue clicking on the splines till you come to end of this rail, it works, it just takes practice.

Same thing with all these red walls, you touch each corner with preset height tool tab set at 2oo feet or whatever you want, and these items will come up.

Here is Wire Frame picture showing how good it looks now after a full 1.5 days of rearranging the items. Yes it is lots of work, but far cry easier than recreating an intense shunting layout like this.

The highway here was broken in the middle, I couldn't get a good enough angle to get in raised, so I just deleted the offending section and drew a new one over to connect the highway back together. Good as new.

This shows the broken highway before I fixed it.

That'll do for now, and Church starts early for tomorrow, time to hit the sack as they say.

Appreciated the patience as I got these pictures finally up.

Night now.

Fixing the Portland Terminal Maple Branch Merge

Good Monday.......I'll be back to finish the Notations,,,,,,,,Got Dr appt to run too...

Thanks for your patience

Update for 1550 Hr's PST: So I'm back, and here are the things I need to discuss with you all.

First and most important, I found "POSTIMAGE.ORG" courtesy of Sir Dave Snow, who really keeps on top of things. Thank you sir Dave!

So what happens is you need to download the Windows App, it's a tiny up-loader Module and it will put a shortcut on your Desktop.

Next you can edit the individual pictures in POST IMAGE Editor,

But I prefer plain old simple Paint for Windows. Why, well because I know the program fairly well, and I also know how to batch edit up to 16 Photos at a clip, save them in named directory I made, and then Drag N Drop them right on the the POSTIMAGE Icon on my desk, which will auto upload to that server's site, and voila, I get 6-10 whatever the number of pictures I need and then copy and post the Web link here on the msg I working on.

So I would recommend you use the Photo Editer you feel comfortable with and then Drag N Drop onto POSTIMAGE desk icon.

Once you get used to it then it becomes second nature to you. It just took me about 3 times to understand how it worked.

Alright, so lets get to more fun stuff here. Picture below is Portland Terminal RR Module, that has what Author say's:

Portland Terminal Railroad is a jointly operated by the BNSF and the UP railroads. It services industries located in Guild's Lake Industrial Park, Portland, Oregon. This route was created from Goggle Maps satellite and street views. If there is was any indication that trackage once existed, it is included in this route. Route includes 99 industry set-out locations which can accommodate anywhere from 1 to 12 freight cars. Era is 1990 - 2010.

Good night, that is a lot of stops for shunting.........It's a little hard to tell here, but several of the buildings are out of
square, probably from me raising the height 200 feet, you would be too, if I raised you up all of sudden.....LOL

Another thing is, I am changing lots of the Roads too, I need to reorient the direction they set too.

Now in this picture, several of buildings are not lined up properly, what I plan to do, is start at the extreme end of this area, and starting straightening things up, lining them up for my taste, but also we have rounded and square area buildings, so not everything is at 90 to 90 degree respective points. And that is what makes this massive industrial area route unique to others. We literately have Tracks running all over the place at every imaginable angle you can think of, and like I mentioned before, you can get lost in the switch puzzles, oh what fun, don't run out of Diesel and don't speed either, there is huge amount of Semi Trucks and regular traffic going thru the area.

Just and area shot here showing the many different ways the tracks go here, and the Trees too. I am moving some of the trees too, and patches of Shrub Splines that kill Frame rates. This is a lot of area to render for my GPU, so it has to be made lean where possible.

In this area, we have lots, and lots of Oil Drums for the manufacturer, we also have Oil Tanks and basic refinery operations too. Notice the large asphalt Road coming in part way here, then it goes to Dirt, well I think I'll change that to just a dirt road off the main highway.

Here are the plant splines and they are strewn all over, so I will remove them do to performance impacts.

Another thing I did on this merge, well it was pre merge event setup, What I did, is merge 2 copies of this route together, so I could change the one in elevation etc, and peak at the other one original, on the same route to see how things were supposed to look as I made my changes, then once I had things the way I think I wanted, delete the dupe side of the Route.

Once that was done, then go about making only the changes I needed before the final Merge with Maple Branch (Tidewater Div)........

The Red Box here says we have 2 Route Layers names the same, and we need to edit one, just add a 1 or A something simple, and then do the merge operation.

Here's a perfect example, since I was new to the Route, I needed to find out how these Corn Loaders were setup, it turns out they merely set at 45 degree angle against the open Shed and pull the Grain like a Grain elevator from Rail Hoppers on parallel Track, and you fill Semi Truck Bulk Loader Trucks.

Here are the 2 routes together temp, while make the height adjustments and other cleanup to the left side one, and the right is just used as a model guide for me.

Now here is the master Route, Yellow is Maple Branch (Tidewater) Route, Gray Tiles are new connection points to adjust 40 Feet of elevation change. Red is Portland Terminal RR on far right.

The other 2 grey tiles on top of Tidewater upper left, with Black arrow is for slight extension for Rail Operations.

A larger close view here you can see how the tracks and river water runs.

So that's what is going on, lots to redo and tinker with, but I think it will work out ok in the end result, I started running a train late at night to see how my connection points work between the 2 routes and connection Tiles in Gray..........

Thanks for dropping in folks.
t

Mountain Building Etc for Merge

Good evening all,

This post is for tomorrow, I'll be out of town for a day.

So we are busy working on the Portland Terminal/Tidewater merge additions. Below you can see this route is taking some more normal shape now. Red area is Canyon and Mountain building areas. And it will take a fair amount of work to get the Terrain raised and built up, so we don't see our Route fall off the edges of the Tiles, we fool the eyes. Yes we can use background Drops, but with all the heavy shunting Rails and Industries, we are pushing it, remember the Dark Green or Lime colored outline has 90 industries to shunt, that is a boat load and a half, but I'm busy streamlining and cutting back where I can to make it more efficient as best I can.

Orange is River building and Canyon work.

Lime Green Square is the Portland Terminal R.R.

Look at the green blue River I extended with connecting Tiles, it takes time to raise/lower the areas to make it a smooth transition, I copy the color Texture using the Copy and Paste Texture tool, now remember when I do it, it messes with the Grid heights, and you have to go back and smooth out the areas.

The trackage you see disconnected on the Right was end of this Tidewater Route, and they would have been used for long Tanker Trains for Oil Refinery behind us, but since we added Portland Terminal , these tracks will be deleted out, they are not needed anymore. You never Know, I might add a small industry later...........

This is part of the new addition, and I raised the terrain on left, and actually I got the Valley in between peaks look here that I wanted. Now one thing I need to do, is take some of the Pine Trees out, as I have a few too many in some spots, this is because I over blotted the Copy and Past Texture command, so it bunched my Trees up a bit in some spots. It will work out when I go thru and do some pruning. Junk freight is coming out of Tidewater with all empties, well need 100's of empties brought over the Portland Terminal Site once I get the Signals and Switches set up for my Style of Shunting.

Ok, Now look at the difference here as I have tried to match the colors and heights so it looks more natural, I need to plant more trees and shrubs, we are not finished, and I still need to go back and redo some of texture colors patches, some do not blend together, when you step back and look, what you thought looks ok, and then step back and it doesn't work out sometimes. Here is our first train coming thru, checking Grade %'s, Signals and Switches. We find some issues that need fixing.

Now in the back corners here, we have some mountains to look at, and they ate not finished. I need to go back and smooth out some areas. And rough out the Trees too, since some parts are actually blank new Tiles I dropped into existing areas..........

Since Tidewater has old Signals, I used it here for now till I get this Route finished the way I want, then I'll go back and put in Safetrans or something newer, with lots of Gantries as well.

These are new Signals in a Triple Main to Double Transition, and I have put signals here since we have several miles of new mainline connections between the new Route Merges.

This little Switcher does a really good job pulling a good string of cars for me.

Another thing I did, was to get the Track View Rule, You can see it here, gives me a look ahead on Signals and Switch settings.

Another thing I did on the Portland side, is extend the end the mainline where it stopped in the back, and make it a runaround loop to this track, about 2 miles from where we are now.

Also added some X Crossovers from Oil Tank areas and some other spots. Now we can bring a huge load of cars over to Portland, and drop sections of the Train off to Loco Hustler Crews to final Shunting Jobs. Remember we have close to 90 Jobs at the Portland area........I have to split them up into defined areas, once I get the Buildings relined up square and whatever else end up changing.

I might have forgotten to add some more things, I did, but if I did, will catch it in the next posting.

Thank you for coming by to visit here. Much appreciated folks.....Have a good Weds.

Wild Bill, CIM area.....other miscellany stuff

Good Friday all,

We have been busy discussing Portland/Tidewater (Maple Branch) all the changes, and ongoing adjustments, Etc, especially with the height difference issues we had. So it is ongoing, and I have a lot of staging the buildings in square with the surrounding area, adjusting the Rails, adding Signal control from Dark Territory which works great for me, but remember lots of smaller Railroads still run Dark Territory's for a variety of reasons, so there is nothing that says you have to have Signals 100%, do what makes you happy.

So now will switch to Wild Bill for a bit, We are in Larkspur here, dropping off some Boxcar loads for the Town. If you look over to the Right, we have Market Ready Livestock here waiting for the Cattle Trains to arrive. And as you can see we have a good Cattle Commodity business here.

I know I have reiterated this before, but I need to go through and get and inventory for all my Routes and see what Industries I carry, and what I need to add without over saturating the Route with to much, or not enough of a particular Commodity, unless you want just a few commodities for your Route, making it dedicated such as Coal Routes or Steel Routes, Etc.

We dropped off our Box Cars are fueled up ready to head North.

Never leave your Cow Boys high and Dry, they might have a quick fall.....Ouch, OK, now for the REAL STORY, I moved the Stage Coach late at night, and didn't see I left these poor guys hanging out......I actually did it from a pretty far distance and didn't see what I had done a few days later. Yes I am ashamed of myself and I put myself on self directed Time Out.

Caught a bit of Water, and we are cruising now to check some more of the Route out, and there's lot to see.....Haven't seen but 15% of the Route.

I really like the water color on this route against the Texture Color.......Need to cut a few trees here (right Side) and thin it out a little bit for Frame Relief, other than that, we are good to go..

Crossing the Creek on newly installed Trestle Bridge, so far so good, the trees in this section are very nicely laid out........

We head across the River and continue our Voyage to the North....We are headed into Indian Country, and there is friendly Trading with them.......

The river has widened quite a bit here, as you can see the Trestle is triple the length of the earlier one.

Farmers CO-OP Grainery here, some wagon Trains stopped for the day, probably going to need to supply up, before they continue on. We have a Passenger and Freight Station just around the curve. And I believe a Coal Mine operation too, with dedicated Tracks service, so there is just the right amount of Industry to keep the Railroad busy.

And here we are will slow to a stop and check in with the Station Master to see if any new Train Orders, or Work Blocks are ahead of us, 5 Mins and we should be back on our way.

And that'll do it for us today........

Have a great weekend all and thanks for dropping by.

Silver Star Mine on the Aussie Merge

A blessed Sunday to all, and good morning,

So what's been going on, well, I have been working on Maple Branch (Tidewater Div)-Portland Terminal merge, and this last week I added an additional Route Fort William-Malliag Route (Scottish) to the mix here, below are some links that discuss this particular route which is very mountainous in design.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...vJ7ZAhVQHqwKHbGiBOEQvgUIJygB&biw=1136&bih=336

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Highland_Line


Now since it is a good size Route with plenty of Lakes, I cut it back by 2/3's to fit in with my other pieces, and of course we have 150 feet height difference so I'll need to perform some surgery for blending. The good thing is, on the Tidewater edge where the 2 meet for the first time, it also has mountains edges, so it won't be too bad on the adjustments, and there is virtually just single Rail in that area, I didn't plan it that way, but I sure like it! You'll get to see the pictures soon.

Now to the Current Pictures below, this is one of my very large merged Routes, I just call it the Aussie Merge, because two of the Routes first merged where Australian, One was Outback and the other was Wadalbvale to Karrah Bay. Here we running Silver Star Iron mining cars and Mining Module (payware) works perfect and I like it.

This area's trackage is being redone around here. That Stipple on the right is not the Silver Star Iron, it behind the Trees on other side.

I threw in this Bridge and we are testing it for clearance and appearance. I think it will work just fine here. By the way, this is the only Commodity I have that is this color, it came with Silver Iron Module, if I recall, it Iron Ore.......definitely can't miss it.

Looks like I have the signals all torn up here, memory serves me correct, the tracks were forced into tight merge for Road Crossing, and what I did was separate them out, and redo the River Rail Crossing Bridges to open the access area up and smooth out the kinks the rail had at certain points.

In doing this re arrangement, I had to realign all the passenger stations, Roads, Building, whole kit and caboodle! Just takes time and some imagination Folks. IF your not happy with something, then it I think it's worth the time to make it better. I can tell you from experience when you get your Roads, Buildings, and Trackage to flow together, you find out when your running the Trains, it just Flows, and it feels right, that to me is the essence, when you run your route. Prototypical ? Oh heck no, I would drive myself nuts. I just do the best I can, even if takes several times to fix........You have to decide what you want out of your Route and implement the changes your looking for.

Signals are working spot on, grade% great, and clearance is good..........We have lots of converging tracks all over this route, later on, once I get the cosmetic changes finished, I plan on going back and looking at the Track plans and seeing what Trackage I can streamline here and there.

Below is the Rail Schematic and the above picture we are in the large WYE are, lower right portion to the right of the Engine house.

This is a new Engine Shed and Turntable installed with some Car repair houses. I do want add some weeds and small grass later on, but before that, major Track realignments all over the area as I go thru each route and adjust to my needs.

I f you look over the water area here, I had major issues with Shrubs and water height. When you look at them from ground view they don't lay right on the Water, so I have been cutting them back a lot, and adding Reeds and water Flowers for a better effect. Nothing wrong with the way it was done originally, I just didn't care for the way it appeared when it hung over the River. Part of the issue may be the steepness of the dirt banks, and way this Shrub is designed.

You can see what happens to Roads when you relay the Tracks in......I had to redo the Tunnel length and height to accommodate some Track changes on the other side where it exits. I really like the seasonal colors of the Trees used here too.

Well that'll do it for now, we might have some Rain coming this week, so it's time to go do some yard work.......

Have a great week ahead. Thank you for coming by everyone.

Tidewater, Sap Yard Module and Seaport/Industrial Routes

Good Tuesday all,

Well I have been busy with Tidewater-Portland Terminal Merge Route, and then I saw this SAP Yard Module, and a related route, Seaport Industrial, you know what happens next, like a kids in a Candy Store, I'll take one these, one of that, oh some of that too......LOL.......These are very cool Routes, and the Sap Yard Module by Msgsapper is terrific, you can pop it into your existing Routes wherever you need nice Route Module.........

Here is the Yard Module below, has everything you need for a nice yard setup. What more could you ask for, it is both TS-12 and T:ANE compliant.

Author's Notes:SAP Yard Merge Module. This is a medium sized fully detailed rail yard on four baseboards. Most new route developers often get hung up on yards as they can be rather complex. This merge module will give you a ready-made yard for your own route creations. I have set this yard merge module for the late steam to early diesel era of the 1950-1960 period in the United States or Canada, although you can certainly change that if desired. The ground textures and trees used in this module are seasonal. There are no Speed Trees. This merge module is 100% compatible with either TRS2012 or T:ANE. All content used in this merge module is either on the DLS or built into TRS2012 or T:ANE. Thank you to the many third party creators who make routes like this one possible. Minimum requirements are TRS2012 SP1 or T:ANE with all hot fixes applied. To provide comments and feedback on this merge module, visit the MSGSapper Merge Modules Support Thread on the Auran Forums at: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?123028-MSGSapper-Merge-Modules-Support-Thread

Here is the updated Sea Port/Industrial and look where the Yard Module is. perfect setup, the Seaport is on the bottom right corner and there is condensed Yard for the shipping there too. With team tracks to the Shipping Dock for enter-modal and Coal Service both........ Really nice remake of the original Sea Port/Industrial Route.

Here is link to read about this Route......

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?143866-Sea-Port-Industrial

"This is a fictional route supporting a Staging Yard at a Sea Port. It also contains the “SAP Yard Merge Module” by msgsapper."

This is an updated fictional route supporting a Staging Yard at a Sea Port. It also contains the “SAP Yard Merge Module” by msgsapper.
This has a completely automated session. It has 53 Industries, 67 consists and 40 different products. 36 AI drivers run the trains keeping the ship yard running while others keep the supporting industries going. You need to watch and make sure there are no bottle necks and that things keep running smoothly. This session uses ASB Crossover Controller for crossings, Resource Verify Rule (Fixed) and ATLS Controller for crossing road traffic. Thank you to all who contributed to this effort. It uses just about everything you can think off. All types of industry loading and unloading, portals making new trains when needed, transferring products from one industry to another and more. The clocks at the stations show the running time. Following are some pictures of the route. I know from other posts that that is one of the things people like to see to know if they want to try it. I am running a few tests to make sure things are working to their best. It should be released soon.

Red light controlled intersection.

Over at Tidewater Merge we have Tri Signal setup up here to help Traffic a little better, as it hits the Yard area and additional Service Spurs.

We slowed to a Stop, as this our Ambulance Company that services the area, he called us and let us know he was transporting an injured party to the local hospital, we are only moving at 5MPH and brought our train to stop, so he get the injured worker to the Hospital, what Hospital, I don't even know where we have one, I think there needs to be one for this area to handle industrial injuries etc.........Hmmm,. More work to do....My job is never finished.

He is clear, as we continue on with our Junk Train Empties to Shunt. I'm also checking Track Curves and Signal indications. Need to replace a ton of Switch levers too. Since most of the module is numbered in order, I can't do Bulk Replace, as it will mess up the number arrangement thgat was setup.....>That's OK I have patience to handle the manual replacement.

Here is a high view of where we are now, see the nice turnaround loop here in middle of picture. And a perfect size yard here for sorting of loads to delivery destinations. This Terminal has to be one of the most interesting Routes I have seen.....If you like shunting and tight clearances, then this is one to check out. A lot of work was put into this Route by the Author!

Another Train Worker is headed to throw switches for the Trains in Terminal area........You see our Junk Train here.........And don't blink, I happened to snag a working Steam Shovel in the consist.....He is being sold to Private Owner/Collector, we are just being paid to move to his land, which has Rail Spur. Little money for the Railroad. What an Iconic piece of equipment to own.. I think he is Gravel Pit owner too. And just likes to fun with old time machinery. Nothing wrong with that.

Dropped a Dam here to control as break point for the 2 different water heights, was touchy, and with some concrete sidewalks was able to cover the 1 tile of Water left blank to keep the 2 waters heights separate. Otherwise you know what happens. I need to redo the hillside on the right, and add some plants. Etc..........Also there are lots of spurs like this one, I need to reorient the angle and approaches that change up as I go thru and line up the buildings etc......You see the Fence is out of wack too, some of the fences I removed for now, till get things changed up, then will see what happens.

Yup, this area is torn up, WIP for sure. It takes some time to get things, realigned, I also want to put some more Oil Refinery pieces, like Drilling Rigs and Oil Jacks where I can. Just rearranging some furniture.

I dropped in a total Runaround mainline to make better access on the back side of this terminal Route

That'll do for now,

Thank you for dropping by............

Trip on Wild Bill & Sea Port Routes

Good Day all,

We are going to talk about 2 different Routes,

Starting with Wild Bill, we continue on our exploration, this is our first Mine coming north, we did have a Mining operation in the desert portion of our layout.

This also begins our Indian Country area too.

And here are the Tee Pee's coming up,,,,,,We do lots of Trading with the Indians.

We wave as we go buy here.

Very beautiful area here.

Our siding comes into play here, but there are no incoming trains for now.......Signals appear to be operating OK.

Headed back up a gradual Grade new to see what lies ahead.......Very scenic as we look down into the Valley.

Oh Wow, the River Crossings are getting larger here, but Tranquil since the Weather is OK for now, wait 5 mins and that can really change in Snow Country.

We switch over to Sea Port Industrial Route here, and Get to drive Mag Train, on Mag special made track! Woo Hoo! As you can see I'm running my Track View Rule which comes in handy as great look ahead for new territory.

Author's Notes:

This rule displays an additional head-up display in Driver showing the next switches, signals, speed signs, trackmarks and industries as well as other trains on the track. Switches in front of the train can be toggled. The camera can be set on other trains and industries by clicking on the symbols. In Surveyor, the display can be configured in various ways. As interface languages both english and german are supported.

Very cool looking futuristic Train Station too.

Oh,.....The black Tabular Menu in top center is ExTranz Manager SP-2 Module, and it works awesome for showing everything in the Route, I just need to learn more about how it works, please try it out too......I like it a lot not so much for the trains, but for the Commodities n Industries.........saves lots of going back and forth to get a read on what you have.

Author's Note:

ExTranz Manager - TANE SP2 is a tool to help manage your entire route/session industries.
Created by Ethan Bertsch and modified by trev999 for Lewiscc65. The rule is aimed at multi-player users but can also be used in a single-player game.
Version date: 2017-12-19. Includes:
-- Consist Management -- Industry Management -- Product Management -- User-managed industry exclusion list: It is sometimes convenient to exclude certain industries or classes of industry from the display. Edit the rule. A preset list of excluded industry classes is presented. Delete any entries not required. Added entries appear at the top of the list.
IMPORTANT: Items added may be localized names or the class names of generic industry assets as seen in the industry config file against the class tag. When viewing the industry list the class name can be seen by hovering the mouse cursor over the blue 'view' link.
A link: 'Industry name begins with:' controls which type of exclusion to apply. Partial names are accepted.
KNOWN ISSUES: * Industries based on LARS scripts are not compatible with this rule and do not work well. * The Rolling Stock window may not be populated if a user has installed a large variety of train cars into their game. Recommended setting of 'View Rolling Stock in Driver Mode' for multi-player sessions is 'No'.
* If windows are left open when switching from Surveyor to Driver mode using Quick Drive, some exceptions may be observed and can be ignored.
* Maps and sessions that contain 'ghost' consists or industries cause a delay when filling the windows.
DIAGNOSTICS: Setting this link to 'On' causes extra information to be printed to the Developer Log file concerning which industries are excluded. The class name of excluded industries is also displayed in parentheses in the log. When a Multi-player session is uploaded to the DLS please make sure that diagnostic mode is set to 'Off'.
In DRIVER MODE: 'Show Waybills' button brings up the Waybills window which covers the main menu buttons. If the Waybills window is dra

Here is the Port Area of this route, very, very busy connection with 8 tracks that I can think of coming in to load/unload the Ships. Very well laid out by the Author, but this Route is too heavy for my Laptop to use, as properly warned ahead by the Author in his Asset Notes, so I will not be keeping this Route, in Addition AI locks up with the Route Tracks going out of the Dock for some reason, and that is already documented, some Players haven't experienced the problem too. But I do suggest trying out this Route, it some phenomenal work done by the author in several different ways.....His Airport setup is really Cool, Maglev Train runs at 120 MPH,,,,,,Flying for sure if it didn't stay on the Maglev Trackage.......

Here is the Author's map and how he added the SAP Yard Module into the Route,,,,,,

That'll do for today........

Rogue PHL Locomotive seen on Union Pacific this week?

Evening all,

I forgot to post this a couple of days ago, was out and about, and couldn't belief my eyes when I saw this little fella working with a Gen Set on City of Industry Shunting some chemical cars out for return......Never seen this type of configuration, but on closure inspection it looks like a Pacific Harbor Lines, (short line RR)........It could be this is a test model?

https://www.google.com/search?sourc...6k1j0i20i264i46k1j46i20i264k1.606.57daGpcT9dM

The link above will give you better information on PHL a large Short Line that does tremendous Job for the Class 1's in Los Angeles Harbor and surrounding areas......

City of Industry, California

Here is a better looks, I had a tough time getting my Cell Phone high enough to snag a picture.........

https://www.google.com/search?q=pac...EIVzAF&biw=1536&bih=739#imgrc=F_O4bG_m9ZA06M: