Updating and rebuilding an old route and a bit of hardly used track.

I've been working on my venerable Enfield and Eastern off and on since December 2003. The same route, in its various iterations, has been through every Trainz version since TRS2004. Over the years the route expanded and contracted, got put on the shelf, resurrected, and almost deleted at one point but my heart said not to do that, because my heart said that would be like losing and old friend.

A about 8 months ago I found version 2.0 and version 3.0 tucked away on CDs. Yes, I backed up all my TRS2004 content on to a single CD back then! The old CDP for version 2.0 was processed through TS12 then brought into T:ANE with little fanfare or issues. The route imported fine, but boy was my texturing bad and track work was pretty bad as well! The route, however, had a theme to it which I've continued since then.

I repeated the same process with version 3.0, which actually was created in TRS2006. Parts of this route still exist in my current iteration, but there was a section in particular I liked out of this as well, which I had deleted way back in TS2010 days due to the poor draw distance. I deleted everything but a small section of this version, and have included that in my current route as if to make the route complete again. I figured out where the particular baseboards fit into the route, and deleted a newer section and fit in this leg. I then created some tween boards to connect the original seaport area and city from 2.0 to 3.0 and connected this to the rest of my world.

The version 3.0 route segment, at this point, has been completely rebuilt from the ground up with some expansion and substantial changes. The track route is very much the same, but reworked and cleaned up. During the merging process between 2.0 and 3.0 into my current iteration of 6.0.2, I also merged in the old Jay Connecting railroad. What was missing in version 3.0 was the continuation of a city on the "other side" of the river. Being an early route, the tracks were at zero ground level and the merge went fine. The Jay Street Connecting route is now Hull and fills in the rest of the city with the big river port. A bit of clean up and alignment allowed me to run a branch to Jay Street and everything blends in nicely.

The story of my route, the Enfield and Eastern, has been chronicled in detail a few times, and rather than go into infinite details the gist is there were once two competing lines, the Enfield and Eastport and the old Boston and Maine. The B&M ran up on the highlands and connected the bigger cities while the E&E followed the river valley and both served the same area. Eventually both companies were merged together after the B&M consumed the E&E along with other railroads in the region. In the 1980s Guilford nearly destroyed everything, but decided to sell off the branches to a local business entity, thus the current Enfield and Eastern was born.

Here are some screen captures of my current rebuilding process:



Shown left to right is: The Enfield and Eastern Mainline, and a detailed overview of the HCRR.

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Here's a view of the HCRR tracks. The branch line to the mills on the opposite side of the river/bay have seen better days. Yes trains do run here, bushes and trees and all!



The mill complex served by the HCRR, followed by tracks... We see here the better tracks followed by the mill branch, which really has seen better days.

About the track and the scenery:

The track is a custom asset created by taking the texture from Jointed Rail's Spur track and adding that to LRW rusty track. I also changed the track condition, hard coded actually, to be at 1% so the freight cars wobble and rock down the line. The mill branch splits with a portion climbing up and running parallel to the road, where the trees are in the left screen shot and ending at the end of the baseboard in a two-track yard. We actually have some tracks that look like this in my area, which you'd never know have a train or two run down them, thus, my thoughts of making some. Trash abounds on this side of the line with scrap cars, old shopping carts, and other trash all over. Behind the wrecked car and truck is the River Line as it runs into Hull Yard.

Using the new feature found in the copy and paste called Add "heights/objects", I was able to add the trees in without replacing the buildings and do the same with the scrap paper and other tidbits around. With this new feature, I'll be revisiting other parts of this route and many others to improve and liven up the scenery to remove the "too clean look" found on our routes. Once the clutter mesh and ground brush is available in Trainz 2018 (Next?), I'll be able to add in grass too.

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JCitron said:

I've been working on my venerable Enfield and Eastern off and on since December 2003. The same route, in its various iterations, has been through every Trainz version since TRS2004. Over the years the route expanded and contracted, got put on the shelf, resurrected, and almost deleted at one point but my heart said not to do that, because my heart said that would be like losing and old friend.

Click to expand...

Now I don't feel so bad about working on the Highland Valley, among other old routes that I had in mothballs for 15 years

A view of the mainline from Cottage Hill down to Hull and beyond.

This is a world of contrasts, and one which is still WIP. As I said before the Boston and Maine served the larger communities with freight and direct passenger service to Boston and beyond, while the Enfield and Eastport served mills and was built to carry freight from the textile mills in Enfield (still to be built) to the seaport at Eastport. The E&E remained in the valley for most of its journey as it followed the Enfield River, and had interchange points with the B&M. When I rebuilt the river line in this version, I also changed Radford and its surroundings as well. The older ca. TRS2006-TS2010 era route was a rather poor representation of what I was trying to do. In this version, Hull was moved across the river and the riverside tracks were realigned and rebuilt as well, and Hull has lost its grand passenger station (for now), but now has a substantial yard along the river.

A bit more about the HCRR. The HCRR, new to this version, was once a jointly owned operation of the B&M and E&E. Once the two merged, the HCRR became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the B&M, and soldiered on as a switching railroad as its customer base shrunk over time. Today it serves what is left of the mills on the riverside, and serves as the switching operations in and around Hull, and does short runs down to Eastport harbor.



In these shots we see the B&M line as it crosses over the Enfield River followed by some picturesque views of Radford, then some views of the E&E River Line, and the small Radford Jct. Yard. The last two pictures show the River line as it continues to Hull Yard and the HCRR crossing.

CeeBee said:

Now I don't feel so bad about working on the Highland Valley, among other old routes that I had in mothballs for 15 years

Click to expand...

This is what happens. I don't know what else to say. lol

And finally a section which still needs a lot of work. This is the original TRS2004 route which I briefly updated when I brought into T:ANE. The tracks are much better, but otherwise things need fixing including the textures. But before we get that far, we'll travel the River Line out of Hull with views of the city and the bay which now hosts pleasure craft instead of schooners.



And so it goes...

A great narrative with a bit of history we can all relate to (shelving things... )

thanks for sharing, John.

Saieditor said:

A great narrative with a bit of history we can all relate to (shelving things... )

thanks for sharing, John.

Click to expand...

You're welcome! I have a history for every route I build, which might mean I have too much time on my hands!

This route in particular was initially a real world representation of an N-scale route I had started a few years before. The theme was the same, mills to harbor, except I could spread stuff out and make the route into a railroad instead of loops around some plywood. It's hard to believe I started that layout in 1999 and the route core in December 2003!