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

Beer Line connections in play / Red Light Signal issues discussed (resolved) Etc

Good Tuesday Evening all,

I have meetings tomorrow starting very early due our heavy traffic on Local Freeways, so I thought I would get this out tonight, rather than trying to do when I get home later tomorrow afternoon and probably not the clearest mind after fighting heavy traffic a good part of the day.

So on to the Beer Line and surrounding parts of Wilson Mills Merge group. So far, I have no further problems with my Route Copies.

One of the things I changed was my Backups to start when I am sleeping or away in Meetings, than to have Windows and Trainz compete for memory and Hard Drive Cycles. And it appears it was a wise decision, along with setting my NVIDIA Card at a lower power setting Graphics wise. Now my laptop doesn't overheat, only gets warm, not hot during heavy Graphics or Train Consist movements, all within normal Parameters,

Now for tonight, I show some of maps and things I have been working on:

In this Map Aqua circle is where the Beer Line merge is, and you can see there are a ton of Signal Lights, that's because Beer Line is pure Industrial and some City area. Lots and Lots of Spurs and mini yards for sorting the Boxcars etc, I read back in the day, they shunted 250-300 Cars of Beer and other items Daily....Compared to standards back then, that was a torrent of cars for I think what was 6 Mile Route area of the Beer Line operation.....

Yellow lines is where I have been working on Track Puzzles, 2-3 switch combined on Crossovers and access leads between 3 Mainlines in some spots. Helps keep congesting more organized.

Also re working a Diesel Refueling Plant in the area, took a lot of Clearing of Trees and whole host of other things to get what I think I wanted it too look like......Remember, I get a epiphany, an idea of sort, out of day dreaming, when I look at the Route as I modifying it etc.....The problem is, I never know what I'll need to do to complete said dream, and sometimes it takes 10 revamps, from original idea to get it right. That's just how it works out, I played with the Diesel area for about 3 days, tinkering here and there to get what I thought a better flow of Trains and cohesion with building placement etc, of course I ran into some signal issues, and today had to rip out 3 miles of mainlines and switches to find out why one one of my Signals wouldn't clear to Green.....I fixed it, but what I think happened is Track Buffer or some thing corrupted on that part of the line, a Track connection, after fiddling around changing to different signals, it had to be something else, or a Translucent object I couldn't see on the Tracks. Whatever it was, clearing and relaying small pieces of Track and signal testing fixed......Only wasted a few hours. But I can't have my signals not working right, that just won't wash with me...

All my other signals are working perfectly. And with this size merge and different types of Routes combined, I do have 4-5 different type Signal Assets in play, you just have to find which ones play nice and communicate with each other.....

Sorry I got off on a tangent here, I hate when things don't work correctly, so also in the map below, is the Large Lake I made to allow for break of area between Beer Town ( they have a flowing River, which is not made yet in this beer town.

I have to look at Wisconsin Map of the old area to try and make some river nearby the Beer Line) that's another day, not now.

Aw, my favorites, a set of Alco Black Widows, an boy do I like them a lot, I grew up around these fellows when Southern Pacific was alive and well in the 1950's

Where here testing the switches and lights, and this is where I ran into a red light that should not be in 3 Track Mainline, with switches set correctly, non opposing trains ahead....Grrrr. I changed my Clouds today to Fire in the sky...Fit my mood perfectly....LOL

I have been building lots of Mountains for view effects and there coming out OK, if I can stop going back and fiddling with them, I tend to look at them in 360 views, so I find how to change them for better looks at any angle of view.

Don't mine the Pine trees, I removed some for Rail alignment, I have go back and reposition them here, I know trees don't grow in straight line, nor do I want them too....LOL

Here we are doing run by,

I had planned to pick up this rake of cars, but the red light that wouldn't clear stopped this modest operation, and I got upset, after changing signals to no avail, I ripped out this track these engines where on for the next 3 miles, why so far you say, well, that was the point, where I actually found a green light and beyond all signals were good. So it meant the problem was only on this Track, other 2 out of Triple main, Signals were spot on......Couldn't find the culprit, so we Rip and relay and test mile at a time. Whatever it was, I got it fixed.....And this type problem, happens very infrequently, so I know what has to be done to fix, sometimes, I don't have to rip out this much track, but today, well, you do what you have to, to resolve it.......

We just cleared our Triple Crossovers here, and stopped by Dispatch Tower on Right to get our paperwork for today's Cars move into new Diesel Oil Plant up further from here.

Recall I say to use your measuring tape to line up things better, well I was eyeballing my Track on the Right side, and it look a little out of aligment, normal with me moving/adding switches and testing elevation etc, so I dropped a line here for few hundred feet, and voila, some of the track was in and out of alignment but just a few feet, I corrected it easily with the Ruler as straight edge, I love this Ruler, and it also helps me to set signal Spaces in open areas between Cities....

OK now I would like you to see something here, look in the middle here just by the invisible signal below white Track Spline, do you see how this triple switch Rails fan out evenly here and do you see the nice "X" pattern in the tracks, that is hard to get too, at least for me, but when I can get it right, the train looks really smooth when it transverses from one crossover to another, and you can follow it easier with your Eye too...At least for me. I used the Ruler a lot in here too get everything near level and lined up for double X Crossovers between 3 mainlines.....And it works really well for me.......

Sorry this one may be a little hard to see, but what I did was extend my mountain building over 2 connection lines from Wilson Mills to Beer Town line, I wanted a geographical break in the Terrain, between the 3 merged Routes here. So I incorporated both Water, large Lake are, extra spacer Tiles, and Mountains too simulate going out of flatland area into heavy mountainous terrain, then back out to open area of Beer Line Country for Wisconsin Line.....If you look at the tiles in the middle, 4 of them there is all mountains constructed in there now.......

Doing some switching here at top of Rail sorting yard, not very big, only 3-4 tracks, but there is another small yard a few miles down from here, so it'll work fine.

Working my new 3 puzzle crossovers here to check it and see it works and that Signal aspects are correct, I use 3 head signal masts for this baby, later today, I took one of the crossovers out and added a Double switch just behind us, and works out better, and simplifies this puzzle......It is easy to throw or not throw the right switches but I will throw in one of Red Boxes Junction controller later to clean this up and make it easier. By having one switch selected throwing the connecting switch in one shot with the Controller,, makes it so much easier.....Don't want to Pick a switch point or derail, the boss will give me days off.....

That's it for now, I have a ton of pictures to show you, I think you'll really enjoy them.....

Tomorrow, comes in 2 hrs, so it is time for Bed, and it is Hump Day, or middle of the week.....Take care all.
 
Like that fresh dirt effect you have going on here!!

Well, I think the route is finished, and I been testing the crossing system out to make sure they're good, along with the speed limits.
Here are some screenies of the test train making its way through the route:

vkryWCr.jpg



Cheers

;)Hello hiawathamr,

Looking swell there, your LOCO looks well preserved for her age........And this sign placement is perfect........Looks beat up, nice weathering affects by whomever created it......:cool:

Was wondering, how did you do this Dirt effect, IT looks awesome, is it a Road ? I can't believe it looks so darn real, I like it a lot hiawathamr. :p

Keep up the good work........

I got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, lots of Driving, so I posted some more Screenies too, thanks for sharing your well articulated work here...........

See you later then.....Have a great week sir......:wave:
 
;)Hello hiawathamr,

Looking swell there, your LOCO looks well preserved for her age........And this sign placement is perfect........Looks beat up, nice weathering affects by whomever created it......:cool:

Was wondering, how did you do this Dirt effect, IT looks awesome, is it a Road ? I can't believe it looks so darn real, I like it a lot hiawathamr. :p

Keep up the good work........

I got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, lots of Driving, so I posted some more Screenies too, thanks for sharing your well articulated work here...........

See you later then.....Have a great week sir......:wave:

Hello Blue!
Thank you, and like your content that you shared this morning as well. :)

Yes - CN has taken good care of her, and she services the industrial park moving freight cars all over the place - either taking them, or dropping some off. As for the sign, it was made by a friend and we're both in the NARM discord server. He said he wanted it used on my route, so there it is lol. He also made some CAN speed limits for the roads, and those to are used lol.

The dirt road is actually a spline and its built-into core version of TRS19. As for the effect, I really don't know what I did to be honest:confused:. All i was doing is placing it where I though looked good for it :hehe:

Have fun on your driving trip to where ever you are going to.

Cheers
 
Hiawathamr,
The screenshots are really good. I enjoyed your environment 24 hour video. I agree with Blue - hearing the crickets was really cool! I especially liked the shot of the wide switching yard.

What route is this that you've pretty much completed? I've always enjoyed your sessions so when you said you were putting sessions together for this one, that got me checking. :D

Heinrich505
 
Cheers mate:)
I have to agree, the crickets do add realism to the route - the same sound asset also has birds for the daytime as well :D
Its a busy area, so a good size yard is needed, or else it'll be over flowing onto the mainline!:hehe:

The route is called Industrial Switching, and its a industrial themed route located somewhere in Canada. Figured to make a different country for a change instead of the USA since every train game is flooded with USA things lol

Lets hope the sessions will be friendly towards me. Switching sessions usually don't play well with me... but I still make then.

PS - if you are wondering about the crickets / bird sounds, Midwestern Branch has it included, and its called HI Day and Night Sounds

Cheers
 
Hiawathamr,
Ah, yes, I have Midwestern Branch. It is a cool route and sessions. I just went back to double check on the crickets. The session Night of the Twister was so neat, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. The crickets were there, but somewhat drowned out by the wicked thunderstorm and rain. I knew I'd heard them somewhere! :D Now if we could only get some lightning to go with the thunder, that would be incredible. Tornadoes would be out of the question...:hehe:

Will the route and sessions be payware on your site? Your screenshots look very good!

Heinrich505
 
I'm glad you are enjoying the route and sessions and thank you for the kind words Heinrich505:)

Yep, those same crickets are being used for this industrial switching route. Funny hardly anyone else notices it:hehe:
As for the Night of the Twister, you can tell I wanted to make it an interesting, yet a bit of scaryness to Trainz (or else Trainz would be boring!) lol
I do wish TANE had the lightning effects as well, but sadly no - the thunder sounds where recordings from TS12 to so they can be turned into an hour long audio file so the session at least has thunder effects. As for the tornados themselves... I don't know how they would work - especially with the objects on the map:eek:

As for your question, I'm going to call it TBA until I feel more done with it and I'm more confortable announcing, but yes, it'll be featured on my site:)

Cheers
 
My Plumber brought bad news today on main Kitchen to Sewer Line......IT breaking up!!

Evening all,

I downloaded some of Hiawathamr's items, for some reason, I thought I had him listed my preferred Asset/Route Builders list, apparently I did not.......OOPS

My list of Authors is kept in Content Manager for easy reference when I need something for Route modifications Etc..., I find, if I just save the name normally, CM does not keep it in Alpha order, so you end up looking thru a long list for your favorite name's....What I did, as suggestion from another member here in Forum Brain Trust add "-" a hyphen in front of their names, then all the Author names are in Alpha order, brilliant I say...

Still have some of saved normal way, I need go thru the 12 of them and add the Hyphen, then all will be in Blues preferred Alpha Order. My work is never done, and I will never get bored....LOL

Oh and Hiawathamr Personal List I downloaded, OMG that is a long list, it's been almost a 1/2 hour, and Trainz is still downloading it, I had a portion of it, but I guess there was a lot more, it is in Route Form....Thank you Hiawathamr for all your hard work, you have really made a lot of things for sure........

And I got some sessions you made for Mohave and Maria Routes, I see there is some DLC I need to purchase too........And thanks for writing such good descryptive notes in you Route and Session Assets, it helps when your looking for the Sessions you made to go with them.......

I see some folks make sessions for Routes, but don't leave much description or what Route they belong too.....Makes it tough when you come across them, too try and figure what jig saw puzzle they fit in....LOL

=======================================================================

Now for the Bad News:

Plumber's boss come out today to video my Line from kitchen to Sewer that had been power washed yesterday, and the Plumber said it was packed really bad with Grease etc, so it needed to be Videoed , bad news, it is cracked and leaking old cast iron piping from the early 60's everything now is done in ABS, Black pipe or like Aqua of sewer....Now I have 10k repair to run new line, problem is, I am Slab Foundation which is not good for this type of problem, so we have either break in house slab, or go outside and break out portions of Patio Slab, I knew one day this would happen. :'(

Plumber told me years ago, it was matter of time before the Pipe would fail, Cast Iron in Ground only last so long....I am Bummed out, but better before the major holidays, Thanksgiving and Xmas, and before our winter Rains set in...:'(

Thank Goodness for the video, I could see with Plumbers Big boss all the cracks and small openings inside as he pushed the Video feed in on Rubber hose, pretty amazing what equipment they have now.., Which means it is already leaking into ground. so we have to get out within next couple of weeks, and I have to remove some plants for the access. ;)

:) Mr's Blue will weigh in on whether this is installed inside the house or outside, either way, it involves breaking up several 2ft by 2ft squares every 4-5 feet, as we have Adobe dirt.......Worst type of Clay, hard and not easy to dig in.....

Night all......Either way she is not going to be happy with the breaking up of Slab in either place. Because we would have too replace our old Kitchen Floor if we do it in the house.....Grrrr,
 
lol opps.
Yeah, most content creations of sessions don't leave some kind of route requirement, and assume the person that's downloading knows the route - but that isn't true...

The long download time for the list was probably caused from the billboards I uploaded :p:hehe:. I know some might look good on your routes, but its your call whether you want to use them or not.
Speaking about sessions, I should get some ideas for some new sessions for Marias Pass. Mojave Sub is pretty much done, but Marias Pass still offers some excellent session spots :D

====

Ouch ouch!!
That is bad news indeed.
On the bright side, at least it was found out before winter goes into full effect. It would be troublesome to have it being fixed when its cold (well, CA would be considered warm with 50's to me lol, as here we can go under the 0).
I hope everything goes well for you. When a problem occures like that, I always think that it would've been worse.

Take care,
Cheers
 
Asparagus Fern gone wild in my yard and Derailment on new Eastern Kentucky Route!!

Evening Hiawathamr,

:p Looks like you are on a Roll with the Sessions......Very nice looking Screenies.....

Been working around outside removing some more of this invasive Asparagus Fern...:eek:

I had noticed over the years, in some areas of my yard this plant was overgrowing, and it is slow at first but if you are not keeping up on the watch, before you know it this thing will take over everything with underground tubular s, and invasive Root system....I had no idea idea this cute little plant was such a brat and will jump into other plants area, suffocating like Ivy does to Trees and such......LOL, :hehe:

You can use pesticide and or bake it out, 4-6 weeks with clear plastic, forget that, I am digging it out now Roots , Tubular s and all. What a nightmare. LOL

Good part of it, I am getting lots of exercise and staying fit.....LOL :D

Fortunately it is specific too only a few large areas of say 3-20 feet or so in my yard, But If I don't get it out now, forget it, this little green monster will take over all my Shrubs.....:'(

My agapanthis ( planted 20 years ago) are really hardy Flowering Shrubs but this little Asparagus Fern will take them over too, that tells me it is bad news, because agapanthis has a very strong Root system as well....Apparently in our Warm Climate Asparagus Fern is a heavy hitter.....who knew, I know now..LOL.


https://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-one-rid-asparagus-fern-55015.html

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=agapanthis&t=ffcm&ia=web

Now onto another Note Trainz stuff, I was snooping around the Forum last night late, and Voila, I found another Route to play with.......Like a kid in a Candy Store.....

I downloaded a Route Eastern Kentucky Route last night, and yes I played on it for a while in the wee hours of the night, and I was doing real well with Coal train going down several 2-4% or steeper Grades till I ran a Red Light, fortunately I didn't take out another Train, I derailed 4 cars in the middle of my Train picking a Switch point against me.....Now I am on forced furrow for 30 days, no pay of course for PAD (Passing a Signal at Danger) Lucky I didn't get fired from the railroad, but if it happens again, I'm out according to the Super.......:(

Can remember the last time past a Red Signal......

That' what happens when you get to excited on a terrific new Route.....:eek:


https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...entucky-3-Version-1-1-No-Speedtrees-is-up-and

Well I need to go shovel out some more of this Asparagus Fern...........before the Sun goes down and the Mosquitoes come out to bite me....LOL

Have a blessed day, weekend all, I'll post Kentucky pictures later in the week.......Cheers....:wave:
 
Hello and thank you Blue:)

Sounds like you did had lots of fun with your plants :p
It sounds like they have the tree roots with their root system, just for a small plant... Thanks for the links, as I just learned something new - and never knew what they where until now lol.

Have fun on the Eastern Kentucky :D I had so much fun on it modifying it back in my TS12 days. Then with TANE, I started to play with more of the Marias Pass, then I started doing other things within Trainz and spending less and less with modifying other routes. Phraphs I should do that someday....

As for your red signal, at first I though it was because you worked on the real railway, didn't know it was on the EK route :hehe:
With Trainz, there is no need to worry, as things reset themselves when you re-enter the session:p

Another image of the GP9 switching out a factory
PF3ZSiD.jpg



Cheers
 
Dont hit the Exit button unless you saved your latest changes,,,,LOL

Evening all, Weds hump day has come is almost gone, Nice cooler weather for a bit, and then will warm a bit.....Slowly our average high temps are settling down.......

So today I was working on Merge Route doing some detail work, in about 2 hrs, got sleepy, and I hit the exit button on Trainz by Mistake, the eyes were closing LOL

In honesty with you, I had taken some pain medicine for Back pain I was experiencing, strained lower Sacroiliac section, no fun as I am sure you have too.....Medicine made me sleepy and relaxed the tense and painful ligaments in lower back.

When all was said and done after DBR Rebuild, everything worked OK except the for the 2 hours I lost in work. So I am grateful for that. What happened was not only my Work lost, but all my special consists, in fact all my Consists on the Route could be seen from above, but at ground level, they disappeared. So I figured this particular Copy was partially corrupted due to my dumb finger hitting the exit button.

So in having 5 backups ready to go, I am fine, and all is well now.......

On to tonight's pictures,

Will revisit the Grainery line for a bit on the Fairview E/W line. As a catch up, on the Grainery Branch, I had reset the Grade % more evenly, and changed some tracks and removed others so more than one train could work the Branch Line within reason.

We took our Power to just about the end of Line here, we just hooked up several heavy Ore laden cars, from this point, if you look up and out way yonder to the right a bit, you can see our beautiful skyline of Buildings. And no, I didn't plan it this way, until I saw this picture and realized, what a perfect ending to nice drive up the canyon....I think it worked out really nice.....

Here we are coming down from the mining area, with heavenly laden Ore Cars. Bit ones not the shorties. One thing about this Branch line, it is lined with great looking trees, and I plan on adding some small Shrubs and Flowers when I come back to detail it.


In this picture, we took some power went up to the end of the line, where is 2 mining operations. Picked up the Ore Cars and here we are descending out and preparing to cross the Bridge ahead over the River. We had several different types of Minerals to bring down on this trip. And these cars hold a lot of Cargo, so they are quite heavy, but I decided to run with 112 LB Rail, no 70 Lb stuff...LOL


Here is my 1st set of Silo's on the Branch line. There is plenty of Grain business here too keep the RR busy with Car Traffic, and we love it, so does our bottom line called Profit.


A longer view of the Canyon as we slowly descend down the with a heavy mining load.


Looking across some tranqual lake waters, another crew here is shunting cars on the new Branch Line. Its late in the afternoon, in a few hours our job will be finished and we go home for the night, then start again early tomorrow morning.


Since there is double main lines here, it is easy for us to return to downtown with our Mining load, as you can see, we have some pretty large cars. I probably need to fine smaller ones, I don't think these are made for this heavy of a load....Shhhssssh, don't tell anyone OK......Anyway, pass a Grain Train headed on the approach line for Grainary Branch with empties to drop off, something like Wash Rinse and Repeat the operation....


As we come into triple tracks, here, I used 08 Inter-locker signal and it works perfect for our needs.

Two of the tracks are storage and operating. The third is used for pass thru for Traffic up and down the canyon, I tried initially with 2 Tracks, and with traffic, and multi crews working the Grainary, it just was more trouble with bottleneck points, so I redid the whole area again adding another Track, along with some small turnout Spurs for Power to stow away off the mainline. With those made, it gave me the passing space I need for multiple crews to work in Tandem.

It turned out to be a really good change, as I found better ways to run the Tracks and switches by simplifying where I added the Switches and passing points...You know what they say, if you fail, try, try again, and it just might work out. In this case, it forced me to take another look, analyze the situation, figure a more logical way of doing things. And I did...Now it works well, there is good transition between Lines with the Switches installed at the optimum point so that one train can pass another during shunting operations with Safety in mind......No side swipes.

And our CP Power is making up to the first of two stops for Grain Car empty dropoff's. Will run Light Engine going back, as we need to bring back more empties tomorrow, we didn't have enough to fill the Que here, but as long as they have some for next day we are fine......

We're out of the Branch line and headed to downtown area, our line is clear, no opposing traffic now.

On another note: Been busy working on the South End of the Wilson Route, making changes with Industry Leads, and Signalization for the Dark areas of the track. Rearranging lots of things, just plain experimenting with some changes I thought about. I'll show you pictures of all the areas I have been in and explain some of the changes etc........

And one tip for the Newbies in Trainz, do you know what a PIC list is, if you don't you are truly missing out one of the best shortcuts in Trainz for most often used Assets you like. So go look up Pic Lists, and see what's it's all about, try it out, I think you find it of great benefit too use, when your modeling, or changing your Routes, it will save lots of time. The more you improve/refine your Pic Lists, will pay back in Spades, just don't for get to back them up........

Enjpy your day, and thanks for stopping by......
 
Fires break out with our Horrible Santa Ana Wind conditions.

Good Day all and a blessed Sunday to all,

Well this has been another one of those crazy weeks, Hot winds and several Fire outbreaks, with some poor folks losing their homes and a few losing their lives, because they couldn't get out of the wind driven 50 foot walls of Fire, that were on them before they got out, as this time, many residents were scared, old timers included, as too how fast this Fire came up the hills with 60-70 MPH off shore winds, fanning the blaze. I am hoping these will be the last fires of this year, and that our Rain will come, we are terribly dry again due to hot desert winds from 3 days of bad weather, meanwhile the other part of the country is getting what I hear is a heavy and very early Snow Storm......What a diversity in weather.....

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-10/fires-california-wildfire-season-now

https://heavy.com/news/2018/06/california-fire-map-near-me/

And one Fire caused by Trash Truck who dumped his burning trash out of the Truck onto a field and it caused a huge fire, and folks died because of it! The only question I have, did this Truck have propane Tanks ontop of the Truck? I don't know. So will have to see what comes out of the investigation.......If that indeed what the problem was, compressed NAT GAS or similar, then it would be a worse incident.........Those size Propane or Nat Gas Tanks exploding from heat would have created a huge fireball, or Blevy, Boiling liquid expansive Vapor, and I forget what the Y stands for.....

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/...Calimesa-San-Bernardino-County-562758731.html

Please say prayers for those who are not with us anymore, it will be a tough Xmas.

My lower back has finally improved in the last 2 days and I got a better few nights of sleep now.

On to happier items of interest in TRS2019 world side of things:

Been working on the Grainary Route Extension, I was able to throw a Switch in just before the Mining yards up in the top of the hills, and run a new Branch line into the high hills where some old and new Mines have sprung up, and need Rail Service for their Hi ValueIron Ore and other minerals they extracting from underground. The area we will be servicing is all underground mining with Excellent Raw Ore Mineral Value, and best way to the Market, ship by Rail, more efficient, build it and we will come, and we did build, a lot of Tracks etc in fact we already had a mainline in going out to the Desert for a bunch of other Material Projects so this works out perfectly for our Bottom line....Trains will come out of the Duel mining areas daily at least once if not more.......Bravo........

As well, I am extending the new Mining Line into another area that has recently added tiles, and that my friends will be a Large Quarry Operation once the Buildings and infrastructure is laid in........At the moment, just basic Grading, Scraping, Rock and Sand Operation as we build the main heavy industry needed to Ramp up the operation. I will show pictures later, it is WIP now, I just laid in some simple tracks and one switch Spur till I see what fits where....But it is fun...This will probably be the last Tracks and major Industries I put on this Merge of 5 Separate Routes. Abet maybe some small items here and there. But I think I am at the end state for that.

I need to concentrate on replacing the Translucent Trees and some other small items that need re arraignment Etc. As well, I need to run more trains to understand some of the complex Routing I have too. The one thing I might do is put in maybe 2 Portals in key spots where I want to jump a train from one extreme point to another. Just thinking, not sure if I will do it or not, and it doesn't take much to setup the Portals, what does take time, is error proofing them in TRS2019, I have seen some complaints on operational oddities. Will see, another thing to go into my bucket list.

Tonight's pictures will be some areas that unfinished, and I hadn't show them....

This first picture is the downtown area, where I was working on the Bridges and ripping out excess Yard Lines in the downtown area. This area has been filled with Skyscrapers on the left, and Power Plant and Engine house utilities on the Right, as well, I redid the passenger Station approach Tracks and redid those tracks completely different.

This was an older picture that never got out, and left behind, but I wanted you to see how it looked back then when I started tearing up stuff, shifting things around and Such......

Looks like a lot of Room to play in, don't be fooled, throw in Large Buildings, big Industry Centers, and it disappears fast, Like large Sofa's and Chairs in your new house with empty rooms....LOL


This on Fairview E/W line towards the West end of the Route, I running heavy long trains to fill all the Heavy industrial base. I have to learn where and how many Cars my Storage Tracks and Team Tracks will hold. And in some cases I had too go and extend and/or re Route the Tracks and Switches, as an end result this improved my operating modes for Shunting.

The other side of this Industrial area, I had added on a Scrap Metal operation with additional Building for inside Handling of Raw Recycle and Tracks to go with the Operation.

One of the things I found I needed to do allow Was better Train movement for opposing movements, and add some Double lines in key areas and lots of long sidings where I could stuff my freight movements and allow for good passenger Train movement, now everyone is happy.

Other side view from the right here showing how I did the Scrap Metal Building addon etc, and running a new Spur track into the building for more processing of the Raw recycle materials for Crushing and Grinding etc.

I put in two more Lumber yards off the mainlines here, and they work perfectly, once I got the correct B-1 unloading, loading platforms..........The Lumber Yards kind of set end to end, so you have a West and East separate Spur lines coming off a long Siding, Looking to the right, these Spline cars are coming in on the Siding, and will get pushed back into the lumber Yard.

In this picture, I had setup up a cover top for the wood stacks, while the Cars would load, I ran into one small problem, the Roof sits to low for Engine Clearance, go figure, I was bummed out, there was no way to set the Roof higher, other than reconfigure the Asset, which I don't know how to do for now.......

So I had to take it off and put free standing in the Yard. A heavy Grain Train passes by on the left. Headed out to Market. At least I can still use the protective Roofing for my Wood, just not in the way I intended or wanted. Will live it...

This is another picture of the Lumber area, which didn't work out of course, as I thought these platforms allowed for Unloading, loading but they are not interactive......Ii got shot in the foot twice on this adventure, but I take my time and goto Plan B and not cry or lament over spilled Milk, there is much too do, so I pick it up by the bootstraps and move on.......

This is the more or less finished Lumber Yards with lots of different stacks of Wood, and other items, Trucks, Cars.

It's laborious to get these odds and ends stacked just so under the Roof, but in the end scheme of things, it really turned out nice...

This is a full view of the Lumber and some other Industrial areas. What I tried to do here is put just enough Trackage to do the intended job. And allow some room for changes later on if I need too, it's not fun having to rip up lots of Excess Track to change something, I have done plenty of that in the past.

One of our fine Asset Creators, made new bundles of Covered Wood Products in different company names, and I really like them, these white and Black ones are some of those he made. They are a great and welcome addition to my Lumber Operation. Thank you to all the great Asset Creators who make this game more fun as time rolls along.....

That do for tonight, thanks for coming by.
 
Desert area opening soon for Materails processing and heavy Industrial

Good Day all,

Well Blue messed up again, I deleted a file (Route by mistake) however I did have backups, but only from the day before. So I lost about a days work, and it was good texturing and finding some items I wanted to make the area look trashy and used like an industrial type operation......Now I just have to find the items again LOL.....Most of the Assets I found were under the name Cuk. I think out of Poland, a great asset maker that really generates quite a variety......

What happened, and this could happen to any of you as well, I went to bed at 4:00AM, happy as a lark after fixing some Grade% issues and dressing up my Quarry area on the Grainary extension. I saved the File for my Route to a truncated name, so the next day, it must have been in the back of list of saved files? Due to shortened name?

When your working in Surveyor list of Routes, and I didn't notice, as I happily deleted about 6 of what I thought were older versions of the Route......I did it too myself, as I am thinking when you look at your saved Route Versions, they usually are left oldest, right newest, but I forgot I had saved to shorter name, so alpha wise it must have been in the front(Left side of the Map list display.....Watch that delete button......

I tried to get the backup files in my saved 7 days of backup, but I couldn't get it too reinstall all the Route Versions, I am not sure why.....

I did keep a copy of the 10/14 Backup files for that day so I still have them, but as it stands, I will probably have the repairs and update to the Route by the time I post this msg to the Forum....I need to read and understand how to do Backups to TRS2019.......It seems that 2 of backup files I put in Trainz editing Folder during DBF file repair, Trainz said it put them aside and didn't accept them......I had the Tarzc name extension removed, so I don't know why it would do that. Probably user error not doing one of the steps right?

Fortunately I took some pictures of the area I had worked on, so I'll show them here today.....At least I have them to look at the things I changed.......

And I found another Route this week,, mentioned in the Forum.....It is not too large of a Route, but it very well done, with two large Rail Car Sorting yards to use at different ends of the Route. So pretty much most of you could run this Route with no problems on your computer.....

<kuid2:32711:100076:1> Long Island Western CMTM .......by dap!
Urban switching layout. Partially fiction, but intensely inspired by Long Island City Area in the 1950s. 45 industries with tracks running through Brick and Mortar canyons.

This route was originally created by Spikerod as the Happy Switcher. It has been enhanced with additional track-age, industries and CMTM Portals.

<kuid2:32711:100026:1> Long Island Western Operations.....Session by dap!

Here is where I brought in a Branch Spur extension off the other small mining area. It's a short Rail, then it comes into this Bridge area since there is a lot of Canyons here.......And it works out perfect for me.

Here we come further down the Route, where you see my favorite little power Switchers on the higher deck with heavy Red Iron Ore Cars and trust me, they are a heavy lot to move around.......I also try to keep my Grades below 2% so I don't get a Runaway. And I have tried to get in the habit of changing my Skyscapes a little more often......That way, I get to see some of the ones, I have never used...Pretty neat and realistic how they make them look.....It seems to me, that when I started with Trainz they didn't look this good, or it is because I now have an NVidia Card?

Were at the bottom of the Grade here, were headed to the desert for material handling these Ore Loads. I need to expand my Mountains a bit further to the back, I got the height here, I wanted, but there just not wide enough, so still a work in progress, and this is just a general Cover Texture too, planning on adding 2-3 or more cover textures.

Love it when I get a Diverting Route Signal aspect like this, doesn't happen to often for me. But when it does, I like it a lot. This area is rough in, just built it a few days ago when I extended the line out to the new desert industrial materials and other heavy industrial operations.

As we continue our Curve around from the bottom of mining Grade encampment. On this side it has transitioned into more Desert Style, and I have another area on the Route that has some desert colors, so I plan on doing some small copy and past of those textures to this area, and we should be in good shape.......Creosote/Cactus Plant along with other Desert Brush will find there way into area too.

Further around the curve is a small pond area I made for effect our Grade here is just under 2% which is perfect, It looks good, gives good interest and will improve as I add Desert Plants.....The most important thing here, Track and Grade first, I hate to do double work if it isn't necessary. So I try to plan my route extensions in blocks relative to what I want to achieve, here of course is hillish, desert, and good transition between areas that makes sense. So for now, I got the tracks where I want them, the Grade is not too steep. Check!!!

I dropped in several Bridges, trying to decide which one I felt at home with, this after about 1/2 a doz tries finally felt about right.. I built a little water pond in the back right, and I think will have some Water over here too, I might even connect both Water areas together?

A longer view further behind this side of the Bridge as our first Mining Consist passes on headed to end of the line for rail and Bridge testing. Those high straight ridges of Ground on the left is where the Tracks had been places at different heights to transcend a 30 foot drop into the new desert center, but I found the downgrade was to sharp a drop, almost 3% in some spots, so we go out more to the left across some new tiles I added for a larger area to work in.....Thus my grade is 1 to 2% max which works out much better than a 3% excessive downgrade.

As we head deep into the desert here, you look across here and see far, far away, is our Skyscrapers from our downtown area. Now the trick if you will, is to get just the right type of Background panels to hide the lush Green Grass and Foliage from our dry arid Desert area we find ourselves in now.

So as our Mining Train treks on into the new desert line extension, we catch our 2nd in series of new bridges here. This one being about almost double the length of the previous one.

Were coming to end of this track for now, and I am happy.....Grade is almost level here, but It might need to drift a bit lower for the rest of the downgrade, won't know that, till I extend the Track outward and in a very large circle, which allows for a gentler Grade. If you look real far away, you can see the new Power Station Cooling Towers, they are of course just sitting around till I see how the Track places itself on that side of the Desert scene?

Here is the temp end stop, End of line for the moment, but tomorrow, that changes as we continue the line out. And this green area has to go Desert Color, I didn't at time have a full vision of how my Tracks would transverse, so this area was painted Green. No big deal, we can change colors easily.The area looks real large here at this corner facing out, but Size in this obscure view is most deceiving, however I quadrupled the area size from what it was, since I found out, I could turn and descend the Tracks down into the lower desert floor. That's what happens, and then you add more blank Tiles till it works out..OR if you cannot add too many more tiles, due to size of Route Etc, then you scale back your grandiose plan...And sometimes it is that simple, you can't always have what you want, there has to be happy compromise or healthy medium of accepting what is the best for circumstance at hand.......And I do try to practice what I preach........But it applies to my ability to get thru obstacles, and lord knows, we all have our problem areas in this Sim......

We are headed back in reverse all the way to mining Stage area were we started and the Grade and curves worked out perfectly as we climbed the grade up and all the way back to other mining camp, where this most latest extension starts. Happy to say, I finally got the Grade % finally the way I wanted it to be.....Granted sometimes I get in my own way.....LOL

Oops. Misled you a bit, there was one small detail, I left out, there was just one small piece of track, I needed to change the approach radius on, it was just a little out of alignment, now we are good to go.

Going backwards on the line, it showed up right away, but going forward, it didn't really show that much, and could have been from the angle of attack, or view, I was using......So making the backwards move on same track, helped too make a better radius alignment as our train headed into a curve with heavy Ore Load.

With that, I bid you a good weekend......Thank you for dropping in to visit.
 
Fairview - E-W merge work in progress

Good Monday Morning all,

Hope everyone had a great weekend,

So I have busy working in the Desert Section of the Grainary Branch, and it starting to come along, with some great Bridge additions from MSGSapper.Thank you Bob for your valued input. It really paid off today, as I had a Bridge that wasn't exactly what I wanted, in fact, I didn't know specifically which would be the best one, and Bob came thru with an Example, and it did the trick. I am one happy Camper now.......

So tonight will see more heavy industrial downtown area on the Fairview E/W Route......Which is coming along great.
Power comes in many forms, in this picture, Strong Locomotive on the left, on the right, an equally powerful RR Crane Ala Transport Car.

We had some many Boxcars coming in with the new opening Industrial Centers, this last consist, barely fits inside the Yard Limits sign...LOL We have a huge amount of Industrial Bases all over this Route, there is plenty to do, and Dare I say that includes keeping Amtrak on Schedule too!!

These heavy wood laden Train Consists here ready to head out on the mains with lots of Spline cars fully loaded......

This area is a huge Hops and Beer processing plant, and I doubled up, with more Team Track capacity. As this new plant ratchets up it's production 24/7/365, yup they do not close, 3 shifts a day to keep the Beer a flowing and you to drink it.....In my Naivety, I started with just a few tracks, boy was that a royal confusing mess.......Well, it is fixed now, and we can keep up with their production runs.......In talking with the plant manager there was a misunderstanding on Volumetric needs, so now we have corrected...Our capacity totals spot on.....The Railroad just needs to keep a good reserve of Boxcars, Hoppers etc, and Flats for heavy machinery moves to the plant when needed.....We have plenty of Local Crews to handle the Shunting needs.

Special Thanks to all the Asset makers for great variety of Rolling Stock, Spice is the variety of life, belief it, and I like my Variety in Rolling Stock here......

A long view of at the end of the Beer Plant here, we have empties rolling out shortly, as there is Special Amtrak due in 20 mins, just enough time to get these to main Rail Car Sorting yard. just a couple of miles away......

Furniture Building on far right, on left, Chemical Plant, some Packing Companies and material handling, and Grain Silo, probably something I missed, but plenty to keep us moving along.....
It took some time to get what I needed for track capacity, but it also tool some time to get the switch puzzles in the right sequence and position, so I was having to backup way away to get in other tracks I needed. Which includes good X Over points too....When you do more Shunting, you'll see your bottle necks, because your actually exercising the system. Just looking at doesn't always make right at least for me....I have to experience it, and do a lot of Repetitions, once it flows, you'll know it....It just works as you intend it.

We pass by the new Scrap metals yard, and boy will they be kept busy with all the Scrap coming in from our industrial Base and other areas we have here as Factories revamp and rebuild their machinery.

We got our clearance now, will run this Loads and empties, mixed Junk Train to the next several Towns along the line.

Tracks have been realigned here for all the switching puzzles changes I made.......Poor Engineers and Conductors keep getting sent my lasted Track Territory updates, so they keep their familiarity up.......Don't want them get lost or injured when something changes, in the name of Safety and Consistency among the Job Crafts.

And we keep spare Track Panels in place to build or repair problem areas as needed.

This is a picture of what I discussed earlier here, Small Rail yard, and lots of lead-offs to industrial Spurs, all interconnected for access. The one thing I need to do soon, is go with Approach lit to cut down on all the signals I use.......

That's it for now.......Safe Travels all, see you in a few days, I have to deal with a Broken Drain, one that is 55 feet of Broken.....Will see what the Plumber says.
 
Good Thursday all,

Looks like Mr High Pressure, AKA Santa Ana Winds, our enemy, and I say that with much passion, as it brings us Forest Fires more often than not, will come to visit the next couple of days. Today in the Valley where I live, up to 95 degrees and tomorrow will see, down 10-15 degrees come Sunday or Monday, and they call this Fall weather. So we all say a prayer for ours and the other 3 States that his weather effects, High Pressure usually parks its ugly self right on California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona like a huge Dome.

Now for some good news, watched my Grand Kid who is so growing up fast becoming a teen next year, play in Championship Volley Ball, miss by 3 Points in their 4 Game, best 3 out of 5......They made a few mistakes, all the playoff games where very close, the end point here, I am one proud Grandparent to be so blessed.......

Now onto the main event, my newest Edition, Desert Quarry operations, that's descritpive only, I haven't figured a suitable name yet......however the outcome is the most important here, It works great, and there was just enough room to accomodate my needs.

Map below shows the area of interest.

Color Codes as noted: Aqua= the North end of new Grainary Branch Mining areas.
Yellow is Desert area for Materials and Mining operations.
Red is open Strip Mining area
Orange is where I have my Potash Plant (between Aqua and Orange area out of viewing area, downtown area.


Quarry Materials Plant seen here is new and offers 4-5 of the main Qaurry types of Raw material, processed and Batched distribution ready. If you look far, far away, Downtown Skyscraper site line, is exactly what I was looking for, and got it after several weeks of deteremined moving, cuttin, adding, general, just tearing up the tiles and land etc........Tenacity, deleting the wrong the files a few weeks ago......But alas, I have made changes and am very happy with results.......

Coming out of Batch materials plant with 15x Ore cars, we head into a temporary siding here.......Overall, most of the Trackage is installed, I know I need a few more cross connections needed, as I do more Shunting, they'll reveal bottlenecks not apparent as I work the area. One thing here, I don't want to overtrack the area either, rather I want to make my connections well defined and not spaghetti if that makes sense. And on further thinking it out here. I might need to make a small Car Sorting Yard. Will see how it goes and I'll report back on progress as it develops here....

Long view of the Quarry and Raw Meterials handling Batch Plant. Rail leading down is 3% or less. Tested with 2 SW1500 switchers and about 7 heavily loaded Cars, in Run 4, it works......Now I might be able to drop the beginning of the lead into the pit area, allowing 1/2% decrease in downgrade.....And it is not a deal breaker if it doesn't work.....Good either way.....

This is a cross connection, the track where the Train is on now, leads into a connecting Tunnel to North Portion of the Grainary Branch. Track on left of Switch Tower goes into the Quarry Pit.

Tracks leading forward here, go into another Tunnel over to Mainlines to other parts of Wilson Route and the last Track leading out the Diamond, directly behind the Speed indicator 4/40 marker, goes into the into new Industrial Park, and Cement Products area.

View from the other side of the Signal Tower here. Microwave Antenna has been installed to improve Canyon Reception since we are down in huge hole. And while I think about it, I was able to reduce this Grade 3/4% in Down grade, I found by checking my Grade% along a couple of mile area, on one of previous Sessions, thru looking at Grade map on this Version Trains, really helps me out here, as the Visual presentation of Map when your operating shows low and uneven spots in a way you can make some good specific corrections.

Like you all, I do some repairs, changes in Grade and/or Track additions etc, I will go into Quick Drive mode out of Surveyor Mode, and then right back into Surveyor mode to make corrections......I like this part of TRS2019, thank you to the Teams who worked so hard to make a better operating Mode Visually in Trainz......I appreciate it very much.......

View from Pit looking up and out, see our Ore Train pushing up the Grade, in fact this was another section of Track I fouhnd out of corresspondence with Grade, yup, MOW didn't quite get the Grade Correct, they make mistakes too. So we had to readjust our Tunnel Depths too, by a few feet. Now the Grade is 1/2% smoother, and in this Deep Canyon and hilly area, it helps the power draw on our Couplers, and Fuel we burn to get in and out of the Canyon. We still make money here, there is lots of Material handling, heavy Industrial base here in the Canyon, properly managed, services etc. Both the Companies coming here and the Railroad can make a decent Profit....

You noticed the high cliffs here ringing most of the Desert Canyon, that was what I wanted, So I could get some longview pictures here, especially the Quarry Pit here, I basically shot the picture from one of Mounded Hill Tops near the Quarry. I think it shows how the track drills down into the Pit.......In the Pit, we have Talcum Plant and Freight Spotting area.....If you look to the right here, against the Canyon Walls, you get longer view of Crossover Diamond and connecting Tracks headed out the Canyon.

Heavy loaded Ore cars headed to the one of the Processing Plants here in the Desert with Fred attached at Rear. I really should get my Cabooses working in here.....I need to figure a small area for Locomotive Storage for both items.

Backing into the new Batch Plant for unloading the Raw Ore here......

I skipped a lot of pictures to show you the latest developments.. Now what needs to be done?

Lots more Track testing, do some planting next, and then look for more Derelict Goodies to throw around the area....And maybe a few more buildings etc....The best part here, I got the area cut out and most parts placed into service.

This is a very good week for me......Thanks for coming by, see you in few days........
 
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