Progress on the Uintah RW

[dangavel]

I've roughly reskinned the Ben Neal Shay, but its build 2 and I'm not going to try to update the engine to 3.5 so it can go on the DLS ( Ben has given me permission to upload), until I'm happy with it. I replaced the lima number plate ,got rid of the livery lines on the tender, darkened the paint as the Uintah engines were quite smartly turned out. it needs some lines of rivets on the tender itself and as far as i can find out, as it never had a number on the engine other than the lima plate, I need to remove the number on the the number two on the dome.

As I've spent the last month making jvc minky trees and sages etc to replace much of the existing vegetation I've used, there isn't anything new to show on the route. I have a few new items to complete and then its getting stuck into replacing them all in the game. I think it will look better even thought they are billboards as the minky trees seem to hide the worst elements of that sort of asset. ive tried them in 2019 andf they look awful, so this route is NOT going to be useful in 2019 for the foreseeable future as there do not seem to be any suitable replacements to use in that version. i will post a few shots of the new vegetation soon.

[RPearson]

Dan, at some time in its history No 2 did have a 2 painted on the sand dome. See the pic on top right of the data page for sn-939.

Bob Pearson

PS. The pic looks like it might have been No 2 at the end of it's career with no head light or fwd drive shaft. Maybe used for spares while waiting for the scrappers to take over.

[clam1952]

My understanding is that the speedtree deal is no longer operating as they upgraded the software, but I could be wrong, I know JVC lost his access to the program and that why he stopped making any more trees. We had a thread where I asked nv3 what the future was for trees and shrubs and they basically said ' make your own , we have no plans to expand what we provide". Essentially I'm having to stop work on the route itself because of the transparency issue until I make these billboard shrubs and trees , as no one is out there that I know of making any for the rocky mountains, they will be a slight improvement over what I have and I don't care if they look lousy in 2019 as I have no plans to make any routes specifically for that version of the software. I'm doing about 8 sagebrush variations, , rabbit bush, pinon pine/utah juniper and rocky mountain junipers, they don't look too bad,but the images take forever to cut out .

The sagebrush are looking OK in TRS19 109642.
If you mirror the image after "cutting" it out you can get two for the price of one. ;o)

[dangavel]

The sagebrush are looking OK in TRS19 109642.
If you mirror the image after "cutting" it out you can get two for the price of one. ;o)

Interesting, I only have an early version of 2019, in that they have a definite dark wedge that is visible only from one viewpoint. Otherwise they look ok.

[dangavel]

Dan, at some time in its history No 2 did have a 2 painted on the sand dome. See the pic on top right of the data page for sn-939.

Bob Pearson

PS. The pic looks like it might have been No 2 at the end of it's career with no head light or fwd drive shaft. Maybe used for spares while waiting for the scrappers to take over.

Yes it's not looking very well is it ? Well that's fortunate as the version of the route I've done is the 1930s. I must admit I've been looking in only one of the Polley books and in that I can't see any numbers other than the plate. The Unita is a strange rwy, some early engines were very smartly turned out with quite complex linework and uintah on the tenders . Later on, they were lucky if they got numbers. It's not even all that clear what the colour of the engines were , colour paintings show a dull grey. I was hoping to use the The Ben Neal no 51 colour on the shay, but I can't find any body paintwork in the dependencies , also the shay has a rather strange paint job with vaguely defined lines in the artwork .i think it shouldn't be as dark, but it will have to do for the moment as I don't have the time at the moment to make it any better .

[dangavel]

well finally got back to working on route after making a lot of trees sage etc, revisited Mack for first time in over a year, found somehow a lot of trackwork that used to work ok had got stuffed, trains derailing , fixed it , started replacing the sages etc, quite pleased with how they look now, ive replaced most of it for about 10ks ( and may replace more ) but here'
s the first mile or so

[Forester1]

The plants are looking spot on! Love the sky colors in that last Shot!

[jango]

Suggestive....

[blueodessey]

Good Day Sir,

Everything looks grand, and the Clouds are keepers.......

As always Sir Dan, your doing a fantastic job.......The Desert as you have painted it with Texture and Plants looks real as it gets.......

Hope you had a nice Holiday, and don't forget to take a few well deserved breaks.

[dangavel]

Don't worry , I'm not going to document every bridge on the route as I re-vegetate ( there are 80 odd) but this is one of the biggest, this was washed out and a train went into the creek in the early days.













There a pic of this scene right back at the first page of the thread, it looks a bit different ! https://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...-the-Uintah-RW

[dangavel]

Today I finally uploaded the track fill splines that had to be upgraded to build 3.5 before they could be accepted on the DLS, these have been a issue for about a year as they were made by pencil42 and he updated them all to 2019 standard and accidentally overwrote the originals, which nearly gave me a heart attack.
He very kindly made a 3.5 version for me but for some reason every time I tried to clone it the new asset had some sort of texture issue , worked fine in the game , but could not upload to DLS.I finally identified the one that worked and uploaded it as part of the Timber Ridge. However I had made a lot of variations of these splines, changed the ones I've used over the years and was thoroughly confused as to which of the fill splines actually was the one that wasn't being rejected.
I finally bit the bullet as I realized that if I suddenly snuff it, no one will ever be able to use the route as the track is embedded into the fill.

It was hard to work out what was being used and which new version Curtis had kindly sent me to replace the defective ones. Anyway I have now made ones that will be accepted on the DLS and now it may be possible for me to upload a WIP version of the route in a few weeks or so. I do want to change the sage and small bushes and replace the large ben dorsey bridges in one section as I think they may be stuffing up the frame rates , but hopefully if I get the basics working , I can then put it up in say a month, so I better be careful hadnt I ? , no accidents..,...... good thing we don't appear to have covid in this state at the moment ...

[dangavel]

More self indulgence, but it keeps me off the streets. I dont seem to be able to move forward without documenting the process, I guess I must be a bit of a narcissist.
This whole section was hardly ever photographed other then the the early days of the, thus have little to go on when vegetating the area.A further complication is that the irrigation canals built in the grand valley, are very badly documented so no real idea of what the are looked like .There is one photo at Clarkton , which is the siding featured here , that shows a fair degree of sparse scrub and I've used google earth street/aerial view and Polleys book to get an idea of what the ground looked like 70 years ago. without images its pretty much just a guess.


There are occasional large fields interspersed with very arid, probably salty stretches.Sparse grass and a few sage and other low bushes on the ground,. more lush around the drainage channels,but apparently 80% of the water delivered either seeps into the ground or evaporates.As Ian Dury would have said if he wasn't dead.... ' wot a waste " .

the hills in the background are almost totally devoid of any vegetation.



if anyone can help me update the EBT 17 seen here pretending to be no 40 , to build 3.5 I'd be a very appreciative, it seems loco updating past 2.9 is beyond my limited powers. no chance of a real number 40 being built so this seems the only option along with shay number 2 to ever appear on the DLS in Uintah guise.

[clam1952]

Looking better and better with every screenshot!

[dangavel]

DRGW, USRA 2-8-8-2 thunders through Mack on the main line whilst 0-6-2 no 20 simmers at the Uintah Rwy station.



meanwhile , rather relaxed gilsonite loading team and engineer seem oblivious to the mighty 2-8-8-2s passing by at 35 mph..

[dangavel]

No 12 crosses at the point at East Salt Creek bridge 1a, where number 10 , traveling in the opposite direction in the dark, plunged into the creek when it was in flood. The shale soil and rock in the area is unstable , leading to many washouts, and no matter how much they braced their trestles , inevitably one of the piles would be undermined and collapse.There were numerous collapsed bridge occurrances, but none as tragic as this, two lives being lost on this occasion.




This section and the line up to MP8 and around Mack station , is about 90% complete, just a few little things to do, its taken ages as you can see the terrain stretches for miles and the DRGW ,main line is to the west where it trails off in Ruby Canyon, a small portion of this is part of the route , about up to the short tunnel that leads to the canyon and river and the main line also runs about 2 miles south to Loma, hopefully I can drop in portals and get regular main line services going in either direction.