anyone working on the Uintah route

dangavel

Well-known member
i know somebody released a topographical map of colorado/utah which contained this unique road but when i had a look at it, i could not make head or tail of it as it was so large and confusing to navigate , i wondered if anyone has worked on or is thinking of laying the track for this amazing railway. its the sort of project that i'd love to tackle if i could work out how to navigate around the boards and it seems a shame that the articulated locos no 50/51 cannot take to the original route for which they were intended.
 
I've made a lot of the rolling stock (traincars) for the Uintah plus the bagged product (Gilsonite).

I can't remember who I made them for (I make so much for so many I can't possibly keep it straight, lol) but I'd be highly surprised if at least one Trainzer wasn't working on a Uintah route.

I think an authentic URY route would be a blast with those 66 degree curves (which are sharper then 18 inch radius in HO Scale) and 7.5 % grades.

Ben
 
i know somebody released a topographical map of colorado/utah which contained this unique road but when i had a look at it, i could not make head or tail of it as it was so large and confusing to navigate ...
Dan which route did you look at? There are 2 on the dls that I know of both are terrain only:

1)The original by fishlipsatwork that covers only Mack to Rainbow.
Mack, CO,<kuid2:59012:102574:1>

2)A new one that incorporates the above route into a much larger route including Denver to Pueblo, Denver to Granby, Grand Junction to Tabernash, Grand Junction to Green River, Mack to Rainbow, and Cresent Junction to The Potash mine near Moab.
The Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction, Green River, Uintah Railway, and,<kuid:289618:100113>

Bob Pearson
 
Dan which route did you look at? There are 2 on the dls that I know of both are terrain only:

1)The original by fishlipsatwork that covers only Mack to Rainbow.
Mack, CO,<kuid2:59012:102574:1>

2)A new one that incorporates the above route into a much larger route including Denver to Pueblo, Denver to Granby, Grand Junction to Tabernash, Grand Junction to Green River, Mack to Rainbow, and Cresent Junction to The Potash mine near Moab.
The Denver, Pueblo, Grand Junction, Green River, Uintah Railway, and,<kuid:289618:100113>

Bob Pearson
I looked at the bigger one , i 'think" that i read that to decipher these you have to have use some specific software, i may be wrong ( i usually am ) or possibly i just need to do more work to try and understand how to navigate around the route.
 
... i 'think" that i read that to decipher these you have to have use some specific software, i may be wrong ( i usually am ) or possibly i just need to do more work to try and understand how to navigate around the route.
I'd suggest you look at the Mack.CO route. It's much smaller and the rail route is pretty obvious. You don't need any special software since you can only open the route in Trainz Surveyor and Driver. I haven't opened the larger route yet but the Mack, CO one is just terrain and ground textures. Fish used Microdem (MD) and HOG to create the route. HOG also uses an image file of the route to filter the baseboards and texture the the terrain. Fish used an image of the "Tiger" line data that he created in MD to both filter and texture the route.

You only need the HOG textures installed for lines to show on the route in Trainz. How do you interpret the info shown? By color and fortunately everyone uses the default colors set up in MD. It's been posted many times in the forums here. If I can find a link I'll post it or I might just copy out the setup in MD.

In any case there is no actual data for the Uintah RR available in the Tiger data. It was long abandoned, ripped up and off the topo maps back in the late 1980's when this stuff was 1st digitized - 1992 is earliest Tiger data I've seen. AFAIK Fish modified the image file created in MD and adding in the rail line for the Uintah - probably by using current roads in the area that followed or maybe followed the original grade line - as I can see places where he obviously painted cyan color lines that represent the rail line overtop red ones that are used to mark roads. Grading the track route will be a challenge.

Good luck,
Bob Pearson
 
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I'd suggest you look at the Mack.CO route. It's much smaller and the rail route is pretty obvious. You don't need any special software since you can only open the route in Trainz Surveyor and Driver. I haven't opened the larger route yet but the Mack, CO one is just terrain and ground textures. Fish used Microdem (MD) and HOG to create the route. HOG also uses an image file of the route to filter the baseboards and texture the the terrain. Fish used an image of the "Tiger" line data that he created in MD to both filter and texture the route.

You only need the HOG textures installed for lines to show on the route in Trainz. How do you interpret the info shown? By color and fortunately everyone uses the default colors set up in MD. It's been posted many times in the forums here. If I can find a link I'll post it or I might just copy out the setup in MD.

In any case there is no actual data for the Uintah RR available in the Tiger data. It was long abandoned, ripped up and off the topo maps back in the late 1980's when this stuff was 1st digitized - 1992 is earliest Tiger data I've seen. AFAIK Fish modified the image file created in MD and adding in the rail line for the Uintah - probably by using current roads in the area that followed or maybe followed the original grade line - as I can see places where he obviously painted cyan color lines that represent the rail line overtop red ones that are used to mark roads. Grading the track route will be a challenge.

Good luck,
Bob Pearson
thanks for this , i'll look at the smaller route, its something that i am thinking of once a couple of current projects are completed but i don't want to do it if someone else who is going to make it available already has it under way, i spent months making the rollins pass route closer to the prototype and then i found out that the Jango route was being upgraded, so i don't want to do that again as time is limited :)
as for info , there are a lot of photos on nathan holmes drgw site as he did a field trip there and some remnants of the route can be seen on google earth , obviously a lot of this will be just guesswork , but I think there some video and books about that would fill in some of the picture.
 
Couldn't find my old text file with the color names and rgb values that MD uses but I took a couple of screen shots and merged them to give you an indication of what you're seeing. Trainz route maps usually include at least RR - cyan, Roads - red and Water (streams and rivers) - blue.

Bob Pearson

 
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If you can find some photos and info on the industries (shipper and receiver) for the Gilsonite product I can make them for you. I think it was shipped via flatcar right from the mine from an open platform. I have no idea what was at the other end of the line where flatcars were unloaded.

Ben
 
Couldn't find my old text file with the color names and rgb values that MD uses but I took a couple of screen shots and merged them to give you an indication of what you're seeing. Trainz route maps usually include at least RR - cyan, Roads - red and Water (streams and rivers) - blue.

Bob Pearson

many thanks this will be a big help .
 
If you can find some photos and info on the industries (shipper and receiver) for the Gilsonite product I can make them for you. I think it was shipped via flatcar right from the mine from an open platform. I have no idea what was at the other end of the line where flatcars were unloaded.

Ben
thanks ben , once i finish getting my freelance ng route into TANE i'll take you up on that ( if i can find some details of course )
theres a lot of images here, haven't looked through them yet, but i was surprised at how many there are
http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/search/searchterm/uintah/order/nosort
i'll also ask on the ng discussion list to see if i can flush out any more info sources and pics
 
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Put me down for the bridge at Jensen (and any others you might need) too.

EDIT: Oops - I just realized the Jensen bridge is a highway bridge (but I'm still good for any RR bridges you may need).

A search for Uintah Railway turns up a lot of photos but mostly of the 2-6-6-2T.

Ben
 
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cheers mate ( as we say down under ) she'll be apples ( good old Aussie bush slang for being a good thing ) :)
 
The only photo I saw on line of where Gilsonite was mined was from a HO scale Model Railroad so I figured that should be taken with many grains of salt - however - I remembered I had a book published in 1958 with a chapter on the URY so dug it out and took a look. Nope - the HO scale model RR photo is quite accurate. The "mine" is little more then a notch in a hillside with perhaps 18 inch gauge mine track coming out and onto an open platform. Ore is placed into bags and the bags stacked on flatcars. Making the platform would be a snap.

Take care Ya'll (as we say in the south).:hehe:

Ben
 
The only photo I saw on line of where Gilsonite was mined was from a HO scale Model Railroad so I figured that should be taken with many grains of salt - however - I remembered I had a book published in 1958 with a chapter on the URY so dug it out and took a look. Nope - the HO scale model RR photo is quite accurate. The "mine" is little more then a notch in a hillside with perhaps 18 inch gauge mine track coming out and onto an open platform. Ore is placed into bags and the bags stacked on flatcars. Making the platform would be a snap.

Take care Ya'll (as we say in the south).:hehe:

Ben
theres a book released in the 1940s as well as a dvd,the book is only $25 secondhand , i'll get both of these post xmas so that are less likely to go astray in the post , if theres anything in there i'll send you pictures of it .
theres some good pics of the Atchee yard , i could do that as a start once i've located where it is on the route map, i'll have a go at looking at it as a change from making ground textures
 
The one I have is Narrow Gauge in the Rockies by Beebe & Clegg. Only one photo (the mine) is not of rolling stock (mostly engines).

Ben
 
Looks to be far more informative then the few pages in the book I have.


Ben
yes, its a must have , but i will wait a few weeks to purchase as xmas post is notoriously unreliable between the states and australia, the only book i've managed to get over here on colorado railroads was a pristine copy of the moffat road book, "rails that climb" and that was actually in a second hand book store here in adelaide, but that is super rare.
i believe there are maps in this book so that would be invaluable in working out the route , there is also a short article i have found online that one can read, you have to register but its free
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43519884 you have access for 14 days, this appears to have a lot of good info about grades and operating practices , and there are also photos, one of a snow spreader but mostly of locos.
this site is invaluable, it contains a number of the The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin going back to 1922, articles on virginia and truckee, colorado midland , cbq etc
 
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i'm trying to make sense of the mega map mentioned earlier in the discussion as i could not get the Mack co route to appear correctly in TANE , i updated the build and tried to copy the specs on the config file in the bigger route, it displays correctly in content view but when i open it in surveyor theres nothing there.
now i imagine that there are no indication of the actual Uintah route on the map as its not there anymore , would i be correct in assuming that ?
i have had a look at the big map and am trying to locate mack, its east of denver and its just a little bit below the city. however i cannot find any terrain that looks correct for the route. i have spent a couple of hours on this consulting maps , looking in google earth, i can easily find the route there, but I am mystified as to where the hell it is on this map, its almost as if the section is missing , it runs north and is near the book cliffs, i can't find any terrain that looks like them . since i am getting nowhere fast ,
ive shown the map below, can anyone point out where the old route is situated on here? or can anyone help me get the mack Co route to show in TANE?
Screen%20Shot%202017-01-20%20at%201.19.14%20pm_zpskrj621qh.png

since i wrote the above, i've opened the mack co map in ts 12 and i have looked in the megamap to compare the maps and i cannot find anything that is similar ,, i've found a thread that talks about difficulties in importing these maps into TANE and that didn't seem to have a solution .
 
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