Progress on the Uintah RW

Evening Sir Dan Gavel,

Like the Locomotive, and I say, go for it........Looking over your Shrub Pictures, sorry to hear about the problems with Plants, and you are absolutely right, a ROUTE BUILDER'S Work is never done, almost like you've gotten married to the Job as they say.......

Despite the visual issues, I always enjoy the Realistic looking Route u have created so far.........It's so stunning and breath taking to look at.......

Keep the faith Sir.......Love your work.........You know I do.......

Have a Blessed Sunday, don't forget to Breath and take a little break here and there.....All my best!


its really good of Ben to make this available and I must say the short stack suits the engine . I'm quite pleased with the Minky trees and shrubs and anyway, until somebody makes some decent ones for 2019, I have no other option , nothing comes close to looking like this neck of the woods veg. i probably am alone on this but i think most of the built in trees in 2019 are not very convincing, theres a certain cartoonlike look to them , especially when they have autumn colors, Mcguirrels Oak looks the best of the lot . The downside of billboard trees is they will not allow bent trunks........ but Harold and jvc certainly made them look a lot better than they did before,comparing them with some others they look pretty convincing in TANE .
 
its really good of Ben to make this available and I must say the short stack suits the engine . I'm quite pleased with the Minky trees and shrubs and anyway, until somebody makes some decent ones for 2019, I have no other option , nothing comes close to looking like this neck of the woods veg. i probably am alone on this but i think most of the built in trees in 2019 are not very convincing, theres a certain cartoonlike look to them , especially when they have autumn colors, Mcguirrels Oak looks the best of the lot . The downside of billboard trees is they will not allow bent trunks........ but Harold and jvc certainly made them look a lot better than they did before,comparing them with some others they look pretty convincing in TANE .
Dan, I repainted Ben's B28-2 3'ng Shay a few years back and converted the wood bin to coal to represent Shays No 2 & 3 on the McKelvey Brother's Logging RR. While the McKelvey's RR has been penciled in on my EBT route for a long, long time I finally got around to actually doing some serious track work. My EBT route seems to be a project that's destined to always be a wip.

The McKelveys had a small sawmill and about 20 miles of 3' ng that interfaced with the EBT at Rockhill Furnace and ran south to Ft. Littleton in south central PA area. Most all the logging was done in that area and the cut timber hauled to the sawmill near Rockhill Furnace. I'm still in the process of adding it in and grading it as I have only a printed description of the operation that includes a couple of sketches of the track at at both ends. Almost all the railcars used on the line were EBT flat cars.

The locos used a straight stack in the wet season and a diamond one in the dry to cut down on brush fires. So your pic above is not just interesting but very encouraging that the McKelvey locos might get the same treatment someday.

This is a pic of No 2 on the logging track. The lower switchback on the valley floor is just barely visible. The valley track follows on thru the gap and turns to the left and heads a few miles south where much of the timber was cut.

McKelvey Bros No 2.


Bob Pearson
 
The shay looks nice with the straight stack. Didn't you post asking about speedtree status back in June? Did you ever hear from N3V about it?

I seem to remember that N3V was allowing people access to Speedtree modeler/license if you request with the content creation team and they did a video on creating Speedtree assets two years ago. The video is over at Trainz Content Creation web site.
 
The shay looks nice with the straight stack. Didn't you post asking about speedtree status back in June? Did you ever hear from N3V about it?

I seem to remember that N3V was allowing people access to Speedtree modeler/license if you request with the content creation team and they did a video on creating Speedtree assets two years ago. The video is over at Trainz Content Creation web site.


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 .
 
Last edited:
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.
YvcBiCf.png

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.
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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)
 
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.
 
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 .
 
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
ZBAn2sF.jpg


w8yQ0c6.jpg


JrU66KD.jpg


bPcrbuC.jpg
 
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.......:p

Hope you had a nice Holiday, and don't forget to take a few well deserved breaks. :wave:
 
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 ...
 
Last edited:
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.
ulCeNVd.jpg


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 " .
vIlkXoQ.jpg

the hills in the background are almost totally devoid of any vegetation.
hq4w1FX.jpg


eqHz1kZ.jpg

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.
4q1dVAF.jpg


GPexDIQ.jpg


NjpuIr7.jpg
 
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.
pwkJ1uL.jpg


9QStcSM.jpg


0kZnmPd.jpg
meanwhile , rather relaxed gilsonite loading team and engineer seem oblivious to the mighty 2-8-8-2s passing by at 35 mph..
 
no 12 at bridge 1a

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.
thl5db4.jpg


6DZXNNb.jpg


GihsVL2.jpg

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.
pa20eXl.jpg
 
Back
Top