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

Looking good, Blue!

Thank you Outlaw77, Much appreciated, I have more Pictures coming in, with Story line, been busy with a heavy Honey Do List last couple of Days, it's called cleaning out all the accumulated Junk for this weekends Special Trash Collection.

Lord I didn't know I could hide it so well! LOL.

Thanks for visiting my Thread.

I'll try to post something later this evening.

MOW Cleanup Day and beware of Iportal Proximity !

:hehe:Sometimes you do dumb things and one needs a crack on the head 2-3x before a clearer Vision comes in point of View, in other words, pay attention to where you are stopped on the Rail when near a I Portal Entry Point! Duh.

So here;s the deal, I took some power and did a reverse move up the I Portal Spur, pushed back 1-2 feet maybe, to make sure I was I made a good joint with said equipment, check my Brake Air, started to pull the Equipment down the hill, Whoa Nellie, all a sudden, my whole train gets pulled into the Portal and as-ta a bye, bye.

What the Hay is going on here?

Come to find out, as I thought I hit a wrong control Key? Nope, apparently when I pushed the MOW Cars up the Spur earlier, I was just inside the Perimeter where I Portal grabs it slowly, unbeknownst to me. Who Knew? Well I do now.

Had to go into Surveyor and re position said equip t.further away from Blue I Portal Sign.


Now we have that mess cleaned up, our power from valley yards will tow the MOW back to the Yard to be deployed elsewhere on the Railroad. We needed some ties replaced from Rot, and quite a bit of Base removed and cleaned, now our Road Bed is up to Spec. As it should be, never forget about your maintenance on the Railroad, or defer it too long, you risk lives and shorten Equipment reliability in the end! Yes it cost money time and increased Dwell time to an extent. But that's what we have Mgr's and Bean Counters around for, is to smooth out this dips in the Timetable.


A colorful consist of BNSF and GE Demonstrators (leased) are going round the mountain, picking up all the MOW Drags, they move out by tonight, as they've done a wonderful job up here clean the Base under the Tracks, new Ties etc,


Mining Loco, is just waiting for the MOW special to come thru. Mining Loco, will be filling the Tracks shortly with Loaded Ore Cars shortly.


We won't see this kind of equiptment up here for a few years!


From the looks on these Engineers faces it is a serious day, we are on a tight schedule to get MOW out to it's next location, and not have Crews standing around burning the payroll on Down Time. Corridor Mgr, and MOW Mgr's have warned on no certain terms, when MOW crews are finished up here, get these huge expensive machines back to Lovette Beach Yard for Pickup by tonight.

Yup, no pressure today.

Just another day, will get it done and on time too.

Ha ha I know what you mean about the portals. Once I set up a session and put together this nice beautiful coal train with TGNX gons and some JR engines I had just downloaded. The DPU was a little too close to the portal and as soon as I launched Driver I watched helplessly while it slowly got sucked in

Snow Plow Cleanup and other Texture Stuff


Been busy getting rid of lot of old computers I had, some from 10 years ago, outdated, so now we had Electronics Recycle Day today, and I got rid of 6 of them to the Computer Grave Yard, Got 2 more, that I have to look at and see what if anything I do,, like combining the good parts in one Desktop, and getting rid of the old stuff, it's a Hobby I have done for 33yr's hard to believe what you accumulate over time, Shame on me the GEEK.........I started with Tandy's 99 TA, computers, then with Dos 2.0, no menus, no Graphics back then, but batch files, command line prompts, 640 Memory. Now look what we have Windows, OS10, and Cortina, AI assistant, and oh, then there is Robot Assistants on the Horizon.

I decided I needed to add a few more items around the Portal area, so I raised the mountains a bit, bout 20 feet, added some trees to obscure the Portal Opening and make it a little more mysterious and hidden into the Mountain.

Added a Signal Bldg, couple of Radio Towers for RR Communications, and a small night light, not too much lighting, as I want some darkness when I do those Night Runs.

If you look below carefully in bottom middle of this picture, believe it or not, it's a night picture, but shows up more different, than the way I see it in Surveyor, much lighter, I don't know why! Anyway, there is a Horse and it's rider out for a nice ride in the star lit evening.


Here you can see the Portal entrance and I dropped a Stone Opening in front of it so it looks more natural, It's not the one I wanted, but I'll look in my inventory to see if I have a more Granite looking one, I saw it before but don't remember the name they used on it.I only have 397K of Items in my Inventory now, after starting with 360K when I installed the Game.

You can see Sleeper Pile here with Rail Worker nearby doing some work on ROW


This is Day shot now, and a more direct view of the Portal. I added some Bunya Pine Type Trees here, I think they look OK, and I didn't did it sparingly not too many. Also got rid of second Portal warning Signage and redid this, which when I inventory all Portals, the verbiage will tell me where I'm headed to from here. Especially with 10-12 Portals easy for me to forget or get confused, LOL.


This is higher shot of the area, and you can see both antennas now, one on top right is for long distance, much more powerful, one next to Signal house is for Lovette mountain Resort Rail Ops only. Radio Channels are on different Frequency of course plus extra Working Channels for MOW Crew Usage, so everything is clear and collisions between the Crafts, as well I don't want any safety issues with all the different Ops we do on the mountain, recall we have frequent Passenger Traffic too with lots of Freight in between.


When I work on the Route and move stuff around etc, I notice sometime something in the distance gets touched by Pointer, in this case, some Trees where up in the Air, noticed them when I was on the Train, so came back and fixed their elevation now,they grounded and not hanging 15 feet above the snow. I have also found this when I downloaded other folks Layouts, so it's easy to do.


Here we are getting ready to put the Snow Plow away for today, and get all that MOW brought together and Deadhead it down to lower yards.

Divers find a century-old STEAM TRAIN at the bottom of Lake Superior

I ran across this article today, thought it was something, I had never heard about something like this ending up in a Lake.

Hope you enjoy.

DailyMail


Sunday, Aug 28th 2016 11PM 68°F 2AM 66°F 5-Day Forecast

How did that get there? Divers find a century-old STEAM TRAIN at the bottom of Lake Superior

• A team of wreck finders located the steam train 235 feet under the water
• It plunged into the icy depths in 1910, after hitting boulders on the track
• The engine had been lost since the crash, but was rediscovered in July
• They had hoped to bring it up, but it is too badly decayed

By James Wilkinson For Dailymail.com
Published: 01:30 EST, 26 August 2016 | Updated: 01:37 EST, 26 August 2016
1.6k shares
67
View comments

Beneath the icy blue waters of North America's biggest lake lies a very surprising wreck indeed: the slowly crumbling hulk of a steam train.
Canadian Pacific Railway Locomotive No 694 has lain beneath 235 feet of freshwater, just a short distance from the town of Marathon, Ontario, for 106 years.
And the doomed locomotive might have remained undisturbed for another century had a team of determined shipwreck hunters not found it, mlive.com reported Wednesday.
Scroll down for video



Wreck: This is the wreck of the steam train found 235 feet under Lake Superior. A team of explorers found it in July, more than 100 years after it crashed into the water






Decay: The train can't be lifted out of the water because it has decayed so badly. In 2014, another team had found the box cars, but the engine was separated from it



Lost: The train was lost in the lake in 1910 after it struck rubble on the line, derailing it and sending it 60 feet down into the water on the Canadian side. Three men lost their lives

'This is the only locomotive that I'm aware of in the Great Lakes,' said Tom Crossman off Duluth, Idaho, whose remotely operated vehicle helped find the wreck.
And the story of how it achieved that dubious distinction is rather dramatic.

The train was roaring along the tracks on June 19, 2010, when it stuck a series of boulders that had fallen across the tracks after a rock slide.
It plowed into them and derailed, plunging off the track and 60 feet down into the cold embrace of Lake Superior.
RELATED ARTICLES



Explorers: Tom Crossman's team (pictured) found the boat using remote-controlled vehicles

Crossman and his team weren't the first to try to find the train; in 2014, another team succeeded in locating the box cars but came up empty-handed on the engine.
But using GPS co-ordinates provided by the 2014 explorers, Crossman - who became fascinated by the train's story last summer - managed to find the engine in a pile of boulders.
Others hoping to see the historic wreck will need to get wet, however, as the train won't be going anywhere any time soon - the damage to the train is so extensive it's unlikely it will ever be brought up from the lake.


Past: This train is of a similar make to the one that crashed into the lake

Read more:

• Wrecked locomotive discovered after 106 years under Lake Superior | MLive.com

I thought it would be a good time to show a system map top view so you see what
I'm referencing to? If you look below and go far right and up to the right top, you'll see White area of the map,, that is Lovette Mountain area where I have been working of late. In this area and below, is where I have merged snippets of other folks Routes, to the bottom right is the Harbor Master area Route and the way I have it merged it hinges like a huge L to 2 different sections, and it works nicely.

Going from the right to all the way to the left Zigzag fashion is Montana Rail Link type route with Mountainous routes very scenic.

In and along that route is numerous side Baseboards where I have added a lot of hidden areas via lots of Tunnels to Oil Fields and Mining Camps, we have numerous waterways.

There is lots of area to play around with, I'll be busy for quite a few years.


I had to revisit this section again, there was something funny about the Switch, it showed opposite of what the switch was set for, so I ripped out the Gantry Signal and switch and track age, replaced with 2 headed signals, now everything is in sync! Amazingly for once it didn't take long, or I'm getting a little better at?


This is the other side of the Repairs, and Signal lamp is displaying correctly now, it might just have been I couldn't put a Gantry in this section.


Taking the Snow Plow to Lovette Summit and leave on a Spur, then will come back down and Grab all the MOW Equipment for Deadhead south to Lovette Beach and Harbor area.


I tried to get a shot here of the Snow Plow Headlights, pretty cool whomever built this Plow, at the moment I don't recall.

SD45 Local 9015 is laid over for the day till get MOW cleared out, what a mess.

Been busy setting up a Graphics Computer for the Misses, using Windows XP because she likes the Legacy Program of Print Shop, so I'm having lots of fun with that Project, it pulled me away the last couple of days from Trainz....That hurt, but got to take care of Honey Do list too, or you know what'll happen, she'll unplug this computer....LOL

MOW on the way to Lovette Beach Yards

BNSF came in and picked up our MOW Track Equipt, now we are clearing the tracks for normal traffic up here, should all be normal in a day or two as I get the Crews scheduled up and Coal Production at 100%. I did find one of mains needs a little tweaking on one of the Curves around the mountain, didn't notice the tight curve till I ran MOW cars through, as they are pretty long.


Leaving snow country for warmer Valley and Beach areas. You can see GE Demonstrators on the back for Braking control on steep down Grade. Don't want any runaways today with this expensive equipment.


Coming around the bend here, getting ready to drop off the Snow Plow Car on a spur.


He no snow here, just beautiful greenery as we descend the Grade to Valley area main.


Easing down the Grade into the valley area, I've been up in the Snow and Ice so long, i'd forgot what Spring Weather is like.


We can see some clouds coming in, probably get some Snow Flurries tonight, nothing crazy as we have made it through Winter,

Night all, it's bedtime........

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Hi Blue. I'm definitely enjoying seeing how your route progresses and really like reading your commentary. Reading about how you make an adjustment here or change something there reminds me of all the times that I did that. Nice work!

Cheers,
Jack

Thank you Jack,

I'm glad I've garnered some interest here, I really enjoy sharing with the Forum, if I can help some folks over come the obstacles I and many others have faced, maybe put some comedy into it, then I think I have accomplished something good.

:'( There was several times with Ipad Trainz2 and this one (TS-12) that I almost gave up and said, this is not for me!

Lost Files,,or 5-6 hours of work on a layout, and was so tired late at night, forgetting to do the save command.

I don't know it all, but I try to learn as I go along.

This Forum is the best thing that came along with Trainz, I have met some wonderful people here and they make my day when I run into trouble, who could ask for more?

Thanks for coming by and the Kind words, good luck to you as well.

Valley Run from

Valley Run from Mountain Resort (Speed restriction grrrrr)

Evening all, Been busy trying to fix some software Glitches with Google Calendar, and my Ipad, finally got it fixed after 4 hours, come to find out, a recent update knocked out the Sync issue I was experiencing, oh what fun, but at least the the Wife is happy an now so am I. Ok MOW Train 146 has headed down to Valley, and boy is the Corridor busy today, we had a Tank Train that lost some air hoses and had to stop on the new Bridge, as Air was not holding. if you look back to the left track you'll see the end of the Tanker Train stop next to our train, all I can say, thanks for double main tracks, or we would have had to go another much longer route out of the Mountains.

Disabled Tanker Train, for a while, Conductor is out walking the Tracks looking for the broken Air Hose, he has spares, but this is 50 car train, so it will take a bit to find the broken hose!

Passing the stranded Tank Train now, Head Dispatcher told us the way is clear for our movement, we still have to stop ahead and take the power and go get another set of MOW in the Lovette Canyon Branch Spur, and drag out here, and join with our train, but it's not to far we have full authority for next hour to make the Reverse Move into the Canyon, Power only, should be OK!

Dispatcher got our Signals Stacked Green for us, but he has told us, don't waste time, as we are down to single main thru hear till the Tanker Train get Air Hose repair done, then Air Check, then Clearance to move Etc.
Nice view of Green Valley and Tree Farm, you can also see Lovette Mountain in the back all covered in Snow, nice back drop I think as our consist rolls down a 1% Grade, with 10 MPH restriction after MOW Track work, only for a few days, then Speed Restriction will be lifted. With more Traffic in the mountains will need to adjust Speed Limits up where we can safely as now our Track is in excellent shape! Night all.....And thanks for your interest. Stop Train 146 here and will take power off front and Reverse move into Spur on Right to Lovette Canyon, grab the last MOW equipment, and bring here hook back up to on consist, high tail to the yard.

Train #146 is stopped here waiting on X Passenger Train coming into Resort, Corridor Mgr not happy, but his hand is forced, do we stop a fully loaded Passenger Train for 2 hours, while we do our reverse moves in/out of the Canyon, or does he hold me. Easy answer, live Freight has to move in first, I get to an Hour, but that's not bad, better than few 1000 complaints to the City and RR about slow service.

Cornfield Meets

Well we didn't quite make it to the Yard today, between Tank Train Hose breaks, and Extra Passenger movement to the Mountain, we got held before our Spur we needed to get the last MOW.

So we met the CITY OF HEREFORD special and yielded our Tracking Time to her.

She was fully loaded with lots of excited Tourists and Skiers alike, chomping at the bit to get to resorts, and some non skiers waiting to get out on the Lake Boats. All good stuff for Tourism.

You get a nice view of her as she backs into the Spur, with Helper Amtrak at the rear to give us enough power on the Grade going in.

On this side, you can see the Amtrak Helper on the rear of CITY OF HEREFORD consist. I here from the Dispatcher, couple of Passengers are coming and going, as he holds us, not my problem on MOW, it's just the way it's going to be today. Our crew will probably DIE on the LOG and will need a replacement Crew.


Train #146 waiting patiently for all this passenger movement, till we can get in and grab our MOW stuck at the Station. Amtrak #398 is assigned Helper Power to get this heavy Passenger (some cars are said to be Standing room only, they overbooked the reservations) Railroad is making some Bucks today.......We have a Green Diverge signal, so HEREFORD shouldn't have any delays. I wasn't kidding when I said this is big Passenger Train.

Bringing in Tourist for the Weekend. Some Miner Signal Placement issues.

Evening, Good Friday Etc,

Well I have much to share, will see how it goes, We were discussing how extra Passenger heavily loaded with Tourist for last of Snow season were en-route, below if I counted right, (includes using my Toes:hehe we have a 12 Coach Consist headed to the Resort in Lovette Mountain, and our CITY OF HEREFORD has a good load of Steam up with Amtrak Loco covering the reverse move.


We've just entered the Tunnel and all is looking good!


As we get close to the end of the Tunnel, you see will be on Diverge to Main #1 track, the other Green light is a CNR Lighted Switch, so far so good!


Oh Darn, who installed that second set of Gantry lights, to many signals at one end here, this needs to be change.....


We are in the Ski area of Lovette Canyon, and I think our Passengers are going to really enjoy our old but distinct buildings here! We have a Red Light here, not a problem, just need to have the Conductor step and set Switch for Main#2 Passenger Stub and will pull in just fine, get this load of Passengers out.


We still have some Bulldozer activity going as a lot of building, scraping and clearing some of the mountain for the increased business.

It will be dine tastefully as we don't want it to look Urban like the City.

I'm going to grab some more pictures and post........

Moving Consists around,near explosion with ChemCar(Track and Switch out of alignment)

In this view, you see the Loco Power for Freight and Shunting to Hardware Store and other Local Businesses in this small area. They're alll tucked away so we can get 3 sets of Passenger Runs into and out of the Canyon quickly, local Hotel and Lodges are all stocked up and ready for the weekend. You can see the first passenger run coming in now to off Main #! to Station Track #2
Off the Valley Main our MOW Special is passing buy the Stranded Tanker Cars, fortunately they are Empties headed back, but we have air leak and possible Wheel Set issue with Tanker Train, We got Maintenance out here working trying to identify cause, and resolution, fortunately no derailment on Bridge, thank the Rail God's, it's a long drop to the bottom of this Bridge, not o mention active Shipping and Cruise area for Ships below! Another Consist on the second Bridge is headed on thru, while we are stopped for X Passenger Trains (3X) coming into and out of Canyon. Also see a Boat steaming up the river with Fuel and other supplies for the Canyon Resort area Boat Docks etc. Unfortunately for us, the Tanker Train is fouled over the 2nd Switch on the Bridge, so until we find the air leak, and Wheel Set issue, make sure the Track isn't damaged, 4 track main throat is down to 3, but better than just a single Track.


Lots of Train Traffic on the Bridge....Busy Day and night ahead.


It's getting into the evening now as we wait for Passenger Traffic ahead of us to clear our way.

And crews are working on Tanker Train repairs.


Below is a pair of SP SD45's work horses on there way down to Tanker Cars, They have been called from the Mountain Summit, about 20 mins out to grab the Tanker Train and push into Lovette Valley Yard.

This is actually 11PM at night, but I can't get this picture Dark like it looks in Simulator and I really don't know why it changes that way, Strange?

This hookup was very dangerous, found out the this was where we have a wheel problem, and the Flanges on this car are Cracked, we had Brakes Sticking, good thing engineer was doing 1MPH, this could have been a derailment, ?We have a portable Wheel Set Changer in route with small Crane to lift it and in situ. Then will get this mess moving into yard,,,,,I've well experienced Crews who can get this wheel set changed quickly. Good thing,.these cars are empty's, otherwise we need several Tankers Truck drawn up to transfer the content out the of Car, would have been more hours of delay.

SP SD45's enroute to Tanker Train, Switch change, Spur Track repair,Signal relocation


My SD45's are headed down the hill to help Stranded Tanker consist, because where the Power stop when Air was lost, we had to disconnect the Power and take to yard, otherwise the whole 4 Track puzzle would have been fouled, now it's only one switch while repairs are made to Air Hoses and a damaged Wheel Set.


Rounded the corner as switches are lined up for us to trans over to Main #2.


Coming from the Summit here to head down south and help that stranded Tanker Consist.


You can see the Valley line here with Empty Tankers (Dave Snow's ) stretching way around the corner almost to the beginning of Rail Yard, so close yet so far!


Originally the Black Track on right started at bottom of curve, unfortunately, it didn't make a good alignment with Main #2, so I ripped out 1/2 of it, and stretched it up the hill Grade, I kept have wheel derailments for some odd reason, so I ripped out the switch too. Now will see if this works better......

Also moved the Signal Gantry up further and only have light on side coming down form the mountain, same as Gantry around the corner, as lights were showing a proper aspect, I also think it has to due with the fact, I use light switch stands, and I think they interfere with the logic of any signal to close to them? At least that's the way it appears.


Recall I said to many Signals together and too close, I shoved the 2 head approach Signal instead the Tunnel and as we exit outside, I took signals off facing side to Tunnel, so only signals on Gantry are on S/B tracks only, now the Engineer has a more clear approach display coming out of the Tunnel.

Also had some crazy water Color issues, but I got that fixed as I made the Huge mistake of deleting all the Buttons for time of Day around the Clock, and all the Colors where turned off, because big Dummy me didn't realize what I did when I did Color Reset, oh well live and learn the hard way.

Bridge Realign, Add Double XOver, Add Gantry Sgle Side Aspects

Having fun with Grand Kids, and watching some good movies,

And I realigned the double Cross Bridge below and took care of a Sharp Cure and now the Route flows better.


In this shot I dropped in Loco to see how the Gantry protecting the New X Overs I made would work and it came out OK for Signal Aspects.

Problem was 2 main lines coming out of Mountains, I couldn't make a Cross over to Main #2 to #1 one, other than backing halfway up the mountain, which didn't make any sense. Now with Double X's I can stay on the same main to Valley Yards or X Over which ever one I need dependent on Traffic coming up Hill, which makes it even better.


This is view of new X Overs installed. Had to rip it out twice till I get everything matching OK on the curvature of the Track.

This shows the both Gantry's which are set with Signals on one side only.

Spur with Dark Tunnel Track on right was redone, and goes to I Portal back in Mountain one of 12 Portals I use on the Merged Routes.

Now the Spur and Switch working correctly and doesn't derail my Tankers and Engines, I think somehow the Spline in the switch got corrupted or something, couldn't see the Problem,, but by replacing it, works, that's all I care about is reliability in Train Operations.

Off to Church now, you all have a nice weekend.


A view from the Cab as I'm testing the engine across new Spur replacement and Signal Indications, came out OK.

Moving Day, Putting the Snow Plow away.

Hope everyone on this side of Pond is enjoying Labor Day Weekend.

Ge Demonstrators are moving into position to shove the Tankers back to Valley Rail Yard for sorting.


I tested the I Portal Spur on right to make sure Alignment, Signal Aspect and Switch points are working OK, so far so good now, no Flange Damage.

We have a Signal and Track Person on the Right to make sure everything is OK with the new Track and Alignment that was augmented.


The Red Tanker at this point had to be removed, as Wheel Set Damage was also Structural issues too, and with Haz Mat the car was carrying up to 500 Gals is still considered an empty car!

We had to it transported by Truck and Trailer back to Shop, will probably be Scrapped unless it is a Lease car.

But I'm not taking any chances with my Employees lives to save money! One bad Accident can ruin your whole day, or life.


Ok, we got the Tanker Consists moved back to the Yard without any further incident.

We are back up to the mountain, and were putting the Snow Plow away for now, but it will be easily accessible if we need it for Spring Snow Storms.

We are on the highest part of the Mountain here, and dropping the Snow Plow into Center Stub Spur.

This is an overhead where the you can see all the Tracks on this side of the Mountain.

I think after an extensive realignments and adding X Overs Etc, Things should be in Good shape, all my Industries are working perfectly.

I need to move down into the Valley next, I have a terrible Texture and Mountain unevenness I need to address, because my friends, I thought I would save myself some time by pasting Textures from areas I liked, but I over did it, and when you look from any side or top view, it looks terrible and Patchwork, Quilt Work whatever you want to call it....I'm going re color Charcoal all over those areas, and then level it first and smooth out the Mountain slopes etc......

I can't figure out what I like more, the pics showing the routes developement, or the running story line that accompanies them.

Either way, still a great thread.

Thank you maruffijd,

I'm just trying to do my best to keep folks interested with a touch of comedy and side of seriousness sprinkled here and there.