WIP: Carrabassett Valley Railroad

Train LM09-F tagged just across the border, passing between the tree through the town of Lac Rodrigue.
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For some odd reason the those carrabassett valley rairoads paint scheme remind me of the NS and Santa Fe Maersk Sealand special units they had painted up.
 
After hours and hours of work today and yesterday, I have finally successfully completed the overhaul of Lac Mégantic Yard. The entire structure of the yard has been entirely reworked, and a new station has been installed. Since I still have an older build of the route installed, I thought it would be interesting to take some before and after shots of the area and show just how massive and sweeping the changes were. For starters, the CMQR actually has a yard now, whereas previously the area was dominated almost entirely by the Carrabassett. The rest of the changes should become obvious from the images.

Before: South end of the yard, looking north towards the town of Lac Mégantic.
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After:
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Before: North end of the yard, looking south towards the CBVR main yard at Lac Mégantic.
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After: North end of the yard, looking south directly down the CBVR/CMQR interchange/shared assets yard (center yard) towards the CBVR shops.
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Before: East end of the odd triangular shape of the yard area, looking towards some assorted warehouses on the line as well as the main trailer terminal.
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After: East end of the yard looking towards the CMQR shop area (foreground), the CBVR shop area (background), the joint fuel and sanding station between the two, and most of the southern end yard ladders.
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After hours and hours of work today and yesterday,
Before: South end of the yard, looking north towards the town of Lac Mégantic.
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:wave: Evening Southern1581,

Just stopped by to snoop a little, looks to me you like you have been up to no Good again..........:hehe:

Actually, your track work is exactly the way I like it, with spacious curves where pretty much any size power or rolling stock can get in or around without that terrible overhang look on a tight curve.

And I see you left enough room in the different areas to add Buildings as needed, I know that isn't real life sometimes........But I really like your design here.....Absolutely the Track Master you are.

I have been busy playing with UMR2018 Fictional Route in Nebraska, what a cool Route and pretty good size one at that.

Take care and I hope you are doing well and School too........
 
Hello all! Sorry for the lack of activity. The Carrabassett has been going through yet another revamp. Southern1581 and I discussed one evening the future of the project. Previously the project was all hand built. The problem though its a fictional road in a real location, and we intended later on to incorperate DEM into the route which was resulting to be a problem. So long rambly story short we moved the whole route to a DEM file. Thta sadly means starting over. The old version of the Carrabassett is being recycled into a different project that hopefully should be started and completed in a short amount of time in the future. My apoloigies to those who think this move is stupid but I assure you this helps us out! Over 200 miles of terrain has been created which saves us loads of time. Now to lay the tracks and climb the grades of Northwestern Maine. I myself along with Southern have also migrated from NARM the Backshop. So all CBVR content will be hosted there! And I myself have dabled in reskins. Its my first time doing that ever so please pardon my crappy work. Southern1581 sat with me through the process and guided me along the ever so awesome JR rolling stock reskin file. Of coure thanks to there prelaid work my project turned out ok. Expect more rollingstock from myself in the future. Heres some shots of the inital work along the DEM. Also the Roster for the Railroad has also changed again. Ill post that after the photos. Thank you all for following along and Ill try to be more active soon, once SP3 is dropped!

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And just to note the railcars I painted above aren't final, I'm just uber eager to share them with you as they aren't that bad to look at in my opinion. Heres the new and updated roster for youFleet
Alco RSD-12 30-31
Alco RS-36 970-981
EMD GP22P-3 746-748
EMD GP35 202-206
EMD GP38 260 / 262
EMD GP38-2 207-231
EMD GP39-2 320-333
EMD GP39H-2 800-805
EMD GP40-2 1551-1575
EMD GP40-2H 806-824
EMD SW1500 566-575
EMD SD20 1941-1950
EMD SD24 1820-1825
EMD SD38-2 2951-2962
EMD SD40-2 1006-1049
EMD SD40T-2 1000-1005
EMD SD45-2 3271-3290
EMD SD49 414-423
EMD SD50 4320-4329
EMD SD60M 2440-2444
EMD SD75I 5637-5639 / 5660
EMD SD77I 444
GE C32-8 3931-3933
GE U30B 721-724


Lease
GMTX
EMD GP40-2


HLCX
EMD GP38-2
EMD SD60


JRLX
SW1500 3406, 3418, 3421, 3436, 3467
BW


PAR
EMD GP9 52, 62, 71


Rolling Stock
50ft Flatcar
52ft Bulkhead
52ft Gondola
58ft Tank Car
60ft Highcube Boxcar
62ft Woodchip Car
73ft Centerbeam
100 Ton Hopper
Cupula Caboose
PS-1 Boxcar
PS-2 3 Bay Covered Hopper

 
:wave: Glad to hear your doing OK, and for the DEM conversion, it all adds up to the greater good, or long end of the Scheme. If that helps save a tremendous amount of Build time with better efficiency, then logically it makes perfect sense when you explain it.........

:( I just split a Route from another Author, and adding Tiles, was easy, but the build out, built up elevation to 500-1000 Feet for the Mountains took me forever to get it where I wanted it too be.......Still working on it......

Maybe one day, I'll take on the task of learning DEM......But that's another shot for my bucket list.....

Curious, are the latest shots you show here, are those with the DEM Change......?

;) Keep the faith and go with your Gut.....It is normally 60-80% accurate when it tells you something is Better, or there is Danger approaching one!
 
:wave: Glad to hear your doing OK, and for the DEM conversion, it all adds up to the greater good, or long end of the Scheme. If that helps save a tremendous amount of Build time with better efficiency, then logically it makes perfect sense when you explain it.........

:( I just split a Route from another Author, and adding Tiles, was easy, but the build out, built up elevation to 500-1000 Feet for the Mountains took me forever to get it where I wanted it too be.......Still working on it......

Maybe one day, I'll take on the task of learning DEM......But that's another shot for my bucket list.....

Curious, are the latest shots you show here, are those with the DEM Change......?

;) Keep the faith and go with your Gut.....It is normally 60-80% accurate when it tells you something is Better, or there is Danger approaching one!

Hello sir! Yes we are very much still around and still very much active. I tend to drift back and fourth from the forums on occasion. Be here for a bit, drift off, come back repeat. The DEM was a smart move considering we needed around 200+ miles from end to end. Stretching from Lac Mégantic Quebec to Farmington and Newport Maine in the South and East, with an additional ten miles of Main line track laid for Pan American connecting from Farmington and Newport and Central Maine & Quebec in Lac Mégantic. The last version of the route only had roughly 50 miles which took around a year to make, which wasn't even close to do. The DEM has been in existence for a month or so and already 35 miles of CBVR track has been laid, one yard interchanging with 10 miles of PAR trackage so I'd say we are off to a good start. Just waiting for SP3 to come along and see what the future has in store for us...

That was going to be our problem. Initially we were wanting to add DEM to the original route I'd built but I built down at stock TANE level. It was becoming near impossible for one of our fellow Backshop members to get the terrain on the DEM down to where my route was, plus the terrain wouldn't have matched and we would have had a ridiculous grade up to the DEM itself. So I guess everything worked out on our end, just better sweet to part with the old version considering a score of nice scenes were starting to come together in the latter days of its life. But my mountains where just too puny to even compare to what the region I was trying to pass off has so again it wasn't too hard to part with the route.

I've attempted to look into DEM making myself but quickly ran back to my flight sim where I know many many things in sheer terror. Ill leave the DEM making to the big boys!

All the latest shots are posted off the DEM file. Again we haven't gotten much more than track laying and bridge building done on it, ok and some insane hill/mountain traversing, hence our massive roster overhaul. This route will put the strongest of traction motors to the test it seems ;)

My gut is usually right, its gotten me into a great car and its always right about taco bell, then three hours passes and we quickly regret that. They say we are supposed to live and learn, but sometimes we just live and forget to learn. Oh well! Thanks for popping by and following the project for as long as you have! Stay tuned for some shots from Southern1581 once SP3 drops and we can get more work done!
 
Just to continue what he said above, because I am a talkative person (sometimes) and I would like to add to his points. First and foremost, thank goodness for Flusi and his talents for DEM making, the DEM all told covers over 200 miles of trackage, plus about 6 baseboards to either side of the tracks. He knocked it out in about 2 and a half hours like it was nothing. The DEM also caused Jayden and I to rethink our track coverage. Initially, we were going to take the line, which now terminates at Farmington, down through Wilton and Dixfield, Maine and into Rumford. Farmington also would have featured the Rangeley Secondary, heading north out of Farmington, through Strong and up to Rangeley, before coming to its end at Flagstaff Yard in Eustis. Rumford would previously been the site of the CBVR's passenger car shops and storage, as well as our primary Pan-American Railways interchange point.

The rearranged track plan saw much change to the system, reducing the overall track length while also somehow adding more to do on it. We moved our primary interchange with Pan-Am from Rumford to Newport, Maine. This way, there is actually less added track in the grand scheme of things, plus, interchanging at Newport means that our traffic is then on a straight shot into Bangor on Pan-Am, so our interchange opportunities are much better. So, what was previously the Skowhegan Branch was extended, now as a main line, to Newport. We still interchange with Pan-Am on the Rumford end, however, this is now done at Farmington, with Pan-Am coming in on what we had previously had planned as our line to Rumford, now cut off on the DEM at Wilton. The interchange operations at Farmington are much smaller than those at Newport. The Rangeley Secondary was removed from our plans altogether. Its primary purpose was mainly forwarding Pan Am interchange traffic from Rumford to Flagstaff, in addition to adding a few station stops for our passenger services. Removing the major interchange at Rumford, coupled with the fact that it just wasn't a great idea to start with, meant that it was no longer viable, and thus we trimmed it as 55 miles of fluff. A small part of the Secondary into Farmington will remain, as Farmington received new trackage going north and then east into North Anson. The old Dead River mine will be relocated to somewhere along this stretch of track, and will be renamed to match its new location. There will also be several agricultural stops along the way.

Farmington and North Anson both have become vastly more key than they were even before. Farmington, while no longer a huge interchange as it was when the interchange was in Rumford, is still an interchange none-the-less, and it will be kept busy with Pan-Am traffic. Farmington also will become the center of operations for passenger operations, in particular our Pine Liner commuter trains. Amtrak will be coming in from directly south along its own line, and will meet us in a Union Station of sorts. The station at Farmington will undoubted be the largest in the system, and will also feature an attached bus station, which is particularly designed for the college students commuting in and out of town. North Anson is currently shaping up to be the heart of the Carrabassett. The way the new map has shaped up, North Anson sits almost perfectly in the center of it all, with most Farmington traffic coming from the west (relative to town), traffic from Lac Mégantic coming from the north, and traffic from Newport and all points in between coming from the south. The main engine shops will be based here, along with what will most likely be our largest yard, and it will likely be the home for our new passenger car shops. Lac Mégantic yard, as proud as I was of its previous iteration, will be made vastly smaller. The last version was simply massive for the use it would have received.

After all of that system revision, and we got Flusi to work a little magic for us, we inspected the DEM we received, and started plotting how we would conquer the Maine mountains. We discovered that we were going to have some pretty brutal grades, and our previous roster would have been stretched incredibly thin in order to tackle these grades, if it was even sufficient to do so at all in the first place, so upgrades were in order. We wound up culling the GP15's. While they were nice, we've had a lot of issues with them operating even short trains on our previous grades, and these grades now we'll be even harder and will go on for longer, and we simply don't have room in the roster for that. So we ditched them, and all told added about 100 units to the roster, 25 of which were passenger units for the Pine Liner service, which we were going to need to add anyway, and most of the rest being higher horsepower engines to tackle either main line or helper service, as well as filling in some higher horsepower road switchers for more local jobs, plus a few that, quite simply, I just wanted to see. The final result is what you see above, and I think it will suit our needs nicely, though it can always be adjusted as needed.

Does create a good bit of work for me, since there aren't many reskinable models available for the new additions, I'm having to model most of them myself, however, I do luckily have some guidance from Chance, on top of being able to build a lot of it based off of a few of Austin's existing models. I'll also of course have to make a good bit of new skin work on top of having lost some skin work to A) moving websites (thus any skins I did under NARM on HP-Trainz content I can no longer release), and B) removing certain units from the roster (thus culling my now 13 GP15 skins). However, the net skin work needed actually goes down, since I can equip the models I'm making with ARN, removing the need to individually number basically all of the skins I make. I'll still do a skin changer to give some variety, but I sure as hell am not individually painting 250-odd locomotives. My sanity and everyone else's hard drives wouldn't be able to handle it.

Anyhow, sorry for putting you guys through that wall of text, just wanted to over-explain literally everything. To compensate, here's a shot I cobbled together on the new DEM when I was busy pathfinding a route from Kingfield to Embden, while Jayden was busy starting on what is now the official version we'll be pass back & forth. This would be southbound NA-32F, passing through Embden Pond.
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:cool: Kudos to you gentleman,

DEM: it's great to see how well thought out you made it, and that it will save tremendous time overall......As for the
elevations not matching, I'm a merger maniac as you know, and I definitely get that problem......

Ran across a couple of routes I wanted to put together, nothing huge, but one Route was 300 Feet, the other to my surprise was 1400 Feet, and back then I couldn't figure out why it was so high until I realized it was from a DEM, had to be, No one is going to draw a 40 Tile Route and raise it 1400 feet from Zero....:'( That's insane, Sadly I couldn't do what I wanted too......That's OK since that time, I have merged up plenty of other routes......

Experience: I hope lots of folks come over here to your site and learn from what you did, it's a great primer on how well Group planning and Look ahead vision works, when it comes to a large project like this one.

Locomotive HP: I really understand enjoying your certain Locos for play time, it's hard to give them up.

I had similar happen to my pulling 100 Car Coal etc, up steep grades, and there was plenty of HP, but the Traction was just not there, and it was amazing when I got the correct HP Loco's brought online, they could pull up 3%-5% grades with no problem, and less Units compared to the others I was using.

Reskins: You do terrific work Southern1581......BTW how is School coming along? Are you closer to becoming an Engineer?

My First Grand Kid just turns 18 soon and is headed off to College with 4.00GPA I am so proud and excited for them............

One more thing, I hope downeaster207 will have his personal flight path over the new route to see everything is going OK? :hehe: Will it be Prop or Jet Powered.............?

Thanks for extended overview, it is a good read, and you leave with the feeling of how large and expansive, multifaceted your Route will be......Keep up the good work........
 
:cool: Kudos to you gentleman,

DEM: it's great to see how well thought out you made it, and that it will save tremendous time overall......As for the
elevations not matching, I'm a merger maniac as you know, and I definitely get that problem......

Ran across a couple of routes I wanted to put together, nothing huge, but one Route was 300 Feet, the other to my surprise was 1400 Feet, and back then I couldn't figure out why it was so high until I realized it was from a DEM, had to be, No one is going to draw a 40 Tile Route and raise it 1400 feet from Zero....:'( That's insane, Sadly I couldn't do what I wanted too......That's OK since that time, I have merged up plenty of other routes......

Experience: I hope lots of folks come over here to your site and learn from what you did, it's a great primer on how well Group planning and Look ahead vision works, when it comes to a large project like this one.

Locomotive HP: I really understand enjoying your certain Locos for play time, it's hard to give them up.

I had similar happen to my pulling 100 Car Coal etc, up steep grades, and there was plenty of HP, but the Traction was just not there, and it was amazing when I got the correct HP Loco's brought online, they could pull up 3%-5% grades with no problem, and less Units compared to the others I was using.

Reskins: You do terrific work Southern1581......BTW how is School coming along? Are you closer to becoming an Engineer?

My First Grand Kid just turns 18 soon and is headed off to College with 4.00GPA I am so proud and excited for them............

One more thing, I hope downeaster207 will have his personal flight path over the new route to see everything is going OK? :hehe: Will it be Prop or Jet Powered.............?

Thanks for extended overview, it is a good read, and you leave with the feeling of how large and expansive, multifaceted your Route will be......Keep up the good work........

Well I used to fly over these parts of Maine when I was going for my Private License, so ill stick with a prop route ;) I hope that the expanse of Maine's varying terrain will be pleasing to show off assuming our building skills are as good as our words
 
Finally got some progress to report. When Downeaster passed the route off to me, he had laid the track from Newport to Skowhegan. I have since taken the track at Skowhegan, added a small yard there, along with all of the spurs for the future industries which will be in Skowhegan, and then I added track all the way through Norridgewock, through Madison, and up to North Anson, where our largest rail yard is, built said large rail yard, and then continued the line north, through the towns of Embden and Embden pond, through North New Portland, before finally bringing the track to rest just past the major town of Kingfield, for a total of roughly 40 additional miles of mainline track, and not including the truly horrendous amount of track I laid in the yards.

The Kingfield-Embden line is shaping up to be one of the most interesting sections of track to operate. It features what are, thus far, some of the most consistently brutal grades on the entire line, along with 6 tunnels and 11 bridges. No matter which direction you choose to tackle it from, it will challenge your power to get through it, and it will take careful driving in order to avoid stalling out.

Moving on to North Anson Yard...this thing required me to get creative, and all told it also means that North Anson will be a little higher up in elevation than it is in real life. I tried to keep the setup relatively compact-ish, which made for some interesting track work to say the least. Overall though, I'm pleased with how it has come together. The area is still missing its extensive support facilities (i.e., the main engine shops, the passenger car shops, etc), as the engine shop is being custom made to best suit our needs, and the rest of the facilities kinda have to be built up around that building. Once that is done though, the area will truly be the heart of the Carrabassett Valley rail system.

Here we have some shots. The first is a map view shot which shows the overall layout of the yard, and then we have two shots of the then mostly completed yard (the class yard hadn't yet been added in these shots) with some trains staged around it, showing what it'll look like in service. The yard is laid out to handle traffic from different areas in specific sections, so there is a section for traffic from the line to Newport, and another for traffic from the local area, etc., and some interconnecting tracks to facilitate easier movement of cars between the section. Anyways, I hope you guys like the design I wound up with, as always, thoughts for improving the setup are welcome.

Pictures:
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Thanks for stopping by!
 
Happy 2019 to you all! I know its been some time. I've been plucking away slowly at the route as well as personal transitioning in my life. Well long story short lets get to the CBVR. Whats been done?

Trackage Nearly completed from Newport Maine to Lac Megantic Quebec. (138 miles give or take?)
Sebasticook, Kennebec, Flagstaff yards completed (Kennebec missing service's)
Curves on existing trackage smoothed and grades tweaked to not be as chaotic (some grades need further tweaking)
Abenaki Sub (Newport-North Anson) fully signaled.
First town roughly completed (Chain of Ponds Twp.)

Whats needing to be done in the next few months?

Roughing out the Farmington Secondary and the last remining subdivision to Farmington (Forget the name but it follows a different path than the Secondary)
Completing the yards and detailing them thoroughly.
Detailing the areas immediately surrounding the yards (towns, roads, houses, industries)
Begin to get major industries close-ish to yards mapped out.
Potential Rollingstock Pack???

Theres so much more to be done but the short term plan is simple but has its own sets of challenges. Hopefully going to be more active now that the project has gained some ground more or speak since the moving over to a DEM. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! As always head over to the backshops to check out all the latest and greatest content that my fellow group members are churning out! And whenever we can any CBVR related content. Here's a screenshot dump for ya!

Public Works facility just beside the CBVR Arnold Sub Mainline in Chain of Ponds Twp. Maine

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KB75-F (North Anson Bound, Lac Megantic Originated mixed Freight) rolls through Chain of Ponds with Maine's beautiful fall foliage adding color to the early morning light (yes I know I forgot the crossing boards)

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Late Morning Amtrak Nordique Flyer passing through Chain of Ponds on its way up to Lac Megantic.

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Amtrak Nordique Flyer F40 90412 rolling south continuing on to Farmington Union Station

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Drone shot to give a small overview of the only built town on the CBVR (Early shot. More trees and textures added since then)

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Another Mixed freight from Megantic Passing through hauling the notorious Limestone Slurry OMYA tankers back south to hook up with Pan Am

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FS26-L (Flagstaff Local Job) headed by one of two GP60's (770) returning south with a load of Lumber (Not show) from the lumber camps south of the US - Canadian Border

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Early morning hours in Chain of Ponds are always beautiful. Even when a CBVR Autorack lumbers through town waking every one up. KB81-A was no exception on the morning of December 2nd. Passing through promptly at 6:00 am just as dawn was breaking

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KB51-F sitting on the Kennebec River Bridge just south of Skowheagan awaiting the clear signal through the small yard and on to Kennebec Yard were the tired crew will finally end there 11 hour day
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And lastly we have my shots of Kennebec Yard version 3??? Its a ambitious undertaking for me separating the yard into three sections all connected by a Wye. Ill explain the yard further in a live stream sometime. But the theory is to allow each yard / subdivision to have its own dedicated part of the yard to also allow for sorting. Kennebec Yard is the central point of the CBVR. At some point along the journey freight will pass through this yard, with a few exceptions.

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