WIP: Carrabassett Valley Railroad

December 24th 1986, Dead Creek Maine. All is quite along Main St as the late December snow falls in time for Christmas. Business's are all closed, local children have been on their best behavior, and a general sense of Peace on Earth has fallen over Franklin County. The pastor of the local congregation begins to prepare for the late night sermon he will deliver on this eve of the birth of our lord and savoir. Those who spend this holiday alone find themselves at Little 4's Tavern on Water St. just down the hill from the tracks. There they find good company and good ale to usher in the holiday. A rookie Sherriff Deputy who ended up working on this night pulls over to play with a group of children. A little girl amongst the group is worried Santa won't be safe tonight and someone will try to steal all the gifts before Santa delivers them. The deputy assures her he won't let that happen, but this County is big and he's just one guy so he will need some help. With a official Sherriff's Star the little girl will make sure no one messes with Santa and she'll watch over the community tonight as the Deputy patrols the vast corners of his jurisdiction. A low horn blows from the West signaling the end of the Holiday Shift at the paper mill. Tired workers trying to make ends meet during the holiday season shuffle out to their cars and begin to drive home to their families. But not all who work on this night are done yet. The silence of the community is broken more abruptly by the flashing of lights and ringing of bells. A blinding light appears through the falling snow. Another horn, this one much louder and much more important sounds off piercing through the evening air. The last train on the line tonight continues its final leg toward job completion. The Guilford Rail GP38 still wearing Maine Central colors approaches the Route 27 crossing at the bottom of Main St. The train had just come from the Dead Creek North Paper Mill on its final service for the next few days. Train 251 slowly creeps up Main St with just a few boxcars attached and three empty woodchip cars on the rear. This agonizingly slow portion of track drives the anxious crew crazy as they'd rather just be home. 251 will head up to Vile's Yard (Now Carrabassett Yard) where the crew from there will begin the long drive south back to Eustis to be with their Families. The consist will be dropped off and left for the morning, same for the train. Of course after its secured for the night and everything. Though 10mph is slow it doesn't take long for the short train to clear the crossing at the top of the hill, and as quickly as the train came it leaves. It crosses the North Branch Dead River and fades into the night, snow consuming the sound of idling Diesel. As the town transitions back into serenity a new sound can be heard, the hum of silent night as church goers begin to entire the town to bring in Christmas. I would like to take this moment to wish you all a very Safe and Very Merry Christmas. Hope you all have a great day and I hope see you all soon in the new year!

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Oh and before I forget the MEC GP38 is not yet released. My good friend Southern1581 will have it up on NARM sometime soon. No exact date yet. Probably for the new year ;)
 
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I will be updating the roster and backstory to the route as somethings don't make sense. Please refer back to page 1 to view this!
 
For those of you who have been following this project a while and are interested in the content we have for it, the first content pack for it went live today on NARM, and features more or less everything I have made for the railroad to date
 
Around 5:30 in the morning the Dead River Mine local (DRM-2L) rolls out of the complex with its first group of loaded coal cars that will be dragged up to Carrbassett Yard. The local will make a total of three round trips today between Carrabassett Yard and the Mine which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away. The local is headed by a former Maine Central GP38 along with a Springfield Terminal SD7 which will soon be patch into CBVR branding.



Further to the south just outside Eustis, a early morning jogger, and part time railfan finds himself on the Route 27 "Arnold Trail" overpass of the yard. A train bound for Carrabassett Yard (CB-13L) equipped with two SD40T-2's 1004/1002 pulls empty coal cars and centerbeams Northward toward the industries on the outlies of Dead Creek. The SD40's will later begin their return trip back south around 14:30 as FS-10Y a fully loaded coal drag to interchange with Pan Am.

 
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Finally patched up Carrabassett Yard to a almost presentable state. Just a few minor details as well as adding some night lighting. The yard is mostly used for staging for the numerous industries in and the yard. Very little in terms of service's are provided here other than fuel and sand. You can always find some smaller power resting here (GP15's, GP35's, SW1500's, U18B's)with the occasional 6 axel units waiting to haul goods back south. I tried my best to capture something I find unique to Maine, how everything is tucked into the woods, clearing trees for only what you need. Just gives it that cozy feeling of the Pine Tree State. Now to tackle the bigger yards of Lac Megantic and Eustis Maine. That's going to be a chore.



Just south of the Carrabassett Yard Overpass. The road is not owned by the railroad until it rounds the corner further to the left from here. Being that plenty of railfans come and watch the movements on the overpass daily.



The yards main office with truck repair facility behind it. A decent bit of MOW vehicles are parked up here. The diesel storage tanks can be seen enclosed just left center. A small tanker truck will run around the yard to each train that needs servicing. More often engines wont be topped off but given more than enough fuel to make it to any yard with more service's. Carrabassett also strives to keep our yards clean of litter and debris. Granted not everyone shares the clean values as I do. Three flags are prominently displayed as well. The yard sits roughly 5 miles from the US Canadian border, so the Quebec Provincial Flag, State of Maine, and US flags are all flown here.



Speaking of smaller power, two GP15-1's are preparing for inbound FSCB-F (Flagstaff - Carrabassett Freight) to bring empty cars bound for the paper mill and scrap dealer in Dead Creek.



Yard Overview looking south from the North End. Here you can see the two yard based industries to the right JR Fuels (Jerald Remmis Fuels, not JointedRail) which deals with Diesel and Gasoline piped in from a Facility just north of the Canadian border. To the left of JR Fuels and hidden in the trees we have a small lumber transload and storage facility for the near by Lumber Mill. Ayers Hill can be seen in the far background just right center. The hill has a array of antenna on its peak which the CBVR uses for communications. The hill can be seen from most anywhere in and around Dead Creek.




And finally an overview of the yard itself. I still have a good bit of tree placement around the area itself but yardwise I'm just about done. The dirt service road needs to have more tree placement. Other than that I'm pretty happy with what we have here. Oh underbrush I need some shrubs and grass too trackside. Hope you all enjoy this progress screenshot!
 
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Slowly trying to improve my weathering abilities, and also trying to knock out another set of GP15 skins. 744 here is pretty much done, can't think of too much else to do with it.
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Another GP15 complete. 741 needed some pretty substantial repairs and actually wound up with a replacement cab which was never repainted, and I think I have done a decent job of modelling that here.

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Nice work Southern1581, mabye some weathering of the trucks would make the overall impression perfect ;).


// Erik from Sweden
 
Thanks zsuda.

Cold rain starts to pick up as operations on the CBVR begin to wind down for the day. Around 7:05 p.m., a southbound local comes rolling through a rural crossing on its way back to Carrabassett, with two battered GP15's bringing it home.
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Make it 3 new GP15's. 732 is now complete.

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In terms of plans of GP15's being in the next content pack, myself and Trainzplayer14 will be splitting a good chunk of the remaining GP15's. He has 722, 733, 735, and 743 in the works, and I have 732, 741, and 744 complete, with 723, 728, 734, & 740 in the pipeline. Also, as some of you may be aware, Dave put out an update for his GP15's, and I have updated all the GP15's that came with content pack 1 with these changes. I'm holding back the update at the moment because I also plan to rework some of the weathering on units 725, 731, and 739 just so they look a little better, and more up to date with the current units I'm pushing out.
 
Thanks Erik!

My current pet project, specially painted SD77I 444. Just fixed the cab on this unit as well, the textures inside the SD75I cab mechanism were borked so I swapped it for the SD75M cab mechanism and all is now well, so here is a render and some cab shots in 444. Still lacking weathering at the moment but that is currently the last thing really needing to be done.

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Sorry for my late inactivity on this thread. I've been busy plucking away on the route on my new computer, moving to my first apartment, traveling, and working my butt off. Here is a couple of shots from a southbound Gravel movement on the Arnold Sub, FS74-G (Flagstaff via Lac Megantic Gravel) a quad led by GP15 744 followed by 741, 732 and 731. The train is seen crossing the Coburn Gore Bridge just yards from the Canadian Border after being held on the Canadian side for three hours. The crew later stopped in Carrabassett Yard outside Dead Creek to swap crews and pick up a unit left in the yard needing maintenance. The unit was attached to the rear of the train and transported to the shops in Flagstaff Yard.

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Moving is a lot of work,

I had some Military Friends move from here to Midwest on their new assignments recently, and it was weeks worth of work to get it all done.

Thanks for the great pics here and keep up the good work.
 
SD75I's 5637 and 5638 are finished, complete with custom interiors. 5637 is equipped with a K5HLL, 5638 has a K3LA.

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And this is a quick skin I made, off JR's 52ft gondola model. Among the first rolling stock for the CBVR.

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An early morning on the lake up in northern Eustis, Maine, allows us to catch train LM31-F taking some freight northbound to Lac Mégantic.
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SD75I's 5637 and 5638 are finished, complete with custom interiors. 5637 is equipped with a K5HLL, 5638 has a K3LA.


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And this is a quick skin I made, off JR's 52ft gondola model. Among the first rolling stock for the CBVR.

What route did you use for those showcase images?
 
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