What is a Good Route to Run the NKP?

One of my favorite parts of 1950's steam/transition-era railroading is running high speed freight trains on the Nickel Plate Road. What is a nice, long route that is representative of the general geography surrounding NKP trackage; Indiana, Ohio, Illinois?

MSGSAPPER's 'Indiana Western' is the perfect route. It's set in the 1950's and has a double-track mainline, a large yard and roundhouse, an interchange with another railroad, a branch to a coal-fired power plant, a single-track branchline, and several other features. I'm working, at a snail's pace, to remake it into the 'Chicago, Cincinnati & St. Louis - Bedford Division'. I've unintentionally become a competitor to the Lake Erie & Eastern as we both serve the same cities.

I always run NKP trains on that route. Can the PRR and NYC fit on the route; the last stretch before entering Chicago?

<kuid:682163:100691> Nickel Plate Road High Speed Mainline by pennsylvaniarr01 is of some interest.

I tried loading up that route in-game, but there are so many missing assets not on the DLS that are unknown.

shebashetan7 said:

I tried loading up that route in-game, but there are so many missing assets not on the DLS that are unknown.

Click to expand...

Yeah, this route is a good example of what happens if you use lots assets from non-DLS sources. Many of these sites are ephemeral and the artists may pull their content from them at any time.

I had 92 missing assets and of these most (79) were from familiar artists

simulatortrain - 7
up8328 - 7
norfolksouthern37 - 9
socalwb909 - 9
pofig - 12
22alpha - 16
lilb - 19

After hours of trying to track down missing assets I just did a Delete Missing Assets. The route was still functional and looked pretty good.
I actually have a separate installation of TANE that only has DLS content that I use for creating anything that I think might go on the DLS. I sometimes question whether the coolness of non-DLS content is worth the hassle. JMO.

Some of the DLS missing assets are train cars. I am against saving consists directly in the route file instead of through a session. Does the route look good without mcguirel's ultra trees?

shebashetan7 said:

Some of the DLS missing assets are train cars. I am against saving consists directly in the route file instead of through a session. Does the route look good without mcguirel's ultra trees?

Click to expand...

Yup, I moved the rolling stock to a session, fully agree with you.

In my TANE version I've only added/substituted one mcguirel payware tree. Four of the trees are mcguirel's freeware from the DLS. Fortunately some of the profig's trees have been updated although many (12?) have not.

Looks OK to me. Your mileage may vary.

How do I move the existing trains on the route to a session? Is there anything else missing on the route after deleting missing assets?

On my copy, several crossings are missing.

To move the existing trains that are on the route layer,
open the route for editing
open the trains tab and select the '?'
click on each rolling stock asset, in the upper right is a box with the current layer,
change that to session,
Repeat for all rolling stock assets.
save route and session.

Consider the missing crossings as an opportunity to learn to place crossings.

What do you think of msgsapper's Indiana Western as a NKP route?

no opinion