Bear Creek & South Jackson - progress reports - Building a Mountain Railroad (1080p)

I really enjoy your pictures the Southern Pacific and Rio Grande livery is nice to see.... They were among my favorite locomotives and companies when I was playing with the layouts back in the day that was a long time AGO....��

Update:I just looked at your last bit of pictures above this message and I think the height of your buildings are good.... ��

I've downloaded a lot of routes were folks have put a huge skyscrapers and all kinds of odds and ends for cityscape excetera and it didn't look very good or appealing because it didn't match up with the rest of what they were trying to ��

I think you've got it just right there.. And your in good shape......

Bear Creek - the town and yard (part 2)

continuing from where part 1 left off...

10) The west end of Bear Creek from above. I suspect the residents of the fancy pants estates were less than thrilled when someone erected tenement buildings near their haven of tranquility...




11) Looking east down Railroad Ave. in scenic downtown Bear Creek.




12) Railroad Ave. looking east again. The parking lot at the station has lots of vehicles parked there. The passenger business appears to be booming.




13) Looking west at the depot where the GN passenger train is on track 1. That's Railroad Ave. to the right. Those JR buildings may be taller than I'd like, but they certainly have a decent level of detail.




14) Looking east from the west end of town.




15) The view looking east down Main St.




16) Looking south. That's Main St. running left-right in the foreground. Railroad Ave. is just before the yard. Strangely, there are lots of cars, but not many people. Perhaps an alien abduction?




17) Looking south east from the west. Bear Creek has a park across Main St. from the church where people go to avoid losing track of their eternity and to train for the here after.




18) Old man Fithers can keep a good eye on Bear Creek from his digs on the knoll just north of town. His patio area was a real pain to build.




19) And one more shot of town with Fithers Hill in the background and distant mountain in the far background. The tracks have found their way through the mountains on the way to Oakhill and the summit but there's not a lot of scenery up that far, just tracks and rough textured mountains.




Whew, that was a lot of screen shots. If you're reading this then I guess you liked 'em.

See y'all later!

Cheers,
H.Fithers

At last! Here's the first of the long promised Bear Creek & South Jackson videos

Following train 200 eastward from Bear Creek yard up into the mountains past Hampton to tunnel 2.



Some screenshots of the territory covered by the above video.

1) Early on in the Bear Creek valley.




2) Two of the eight (I think, maybe more...) bridges crossed in the video. These are about 1/2 mile before reaching the first dam and reservoir.




3) Nice reflections just railroad west of Hampton




4) The tank cars on the right get loaded with water and coupled behind the engine(s). They spray the water on the roadbed to quench sparks and embers that could set the mountain on fire. In another week or two the hills will be drier and the water cars will become mandatory. OK, those aren't exact models of SP water cars, but they were the best I could do at the moment (if someone wants to take a crack at water cars I have some photos of the real thing. Uh oh, looks like somebody is interested in the trash cans at the Hampton general store.




5) Trains circumnavigate the reservoir (shown in photo 3). The terrain here is relatively abrupt (steep). There are lots of cuts and fills (and a bridge or two...)




6) The tracks below the train are on a deep fill across what once was a ravine.




7) Crossing a ravine on a steel deck trestle, No. 200 is almost past the second dam on this route.




8) Running along a fill above the second reservoir. Our train is about 1/2 mile from tunnel 2. A slide fence (left of the train) protects the rails from falling mineral formations or trees.




9) No. 200 has just emerged from tunnel 2 on the way to Morrison, Salt Creek, and Oakhill.




I hope you liked the video and the accompanying screen shots. I had fun making them (except for #^@&^#! Vegas Pro which keep locking up while rendering the video - eventually I had to render it in two pieces then glue them back together - a real pita - must be time to learn Premiere and hope it's not just as bad!)

More videos (and screen shots) coming soon!

Cheers,
H. Fithers

H. Fithers,
Wonderful screen shots! I really enjoy checking them out. The route looks fantastic.

- That is one freaking gigantic bear! He must be the one the route is named after. You'd need a 50 caliber machine gun just to scare him off, haha.
- The lowered sidewalks for drive through areas look perfect. :Y: That's a great idea.

Thanks for posting.

Heinrich505

Oh, and I just watched the video. I loved it. Very nicely done.

Have to mention that I almost fell out of my chair reading the credits..."Buildings by Fallen Downs"...Bwahahahahah. Great stuff.:clap:


Heinrich505

Heinrich505 said:

Oh, and I just watched the video. I loved it. Very nicely done.

Have to mention that I almost fell out of my chair reading the credits..."Buildings by Fallen Downs"...Bwahahahahah. Great stuff.:clap:


Heinrich505

Click to expand...

I was wondering if anyone would notice the credits. Guess I listened to Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion too much so names like those seem appropriate...

H. Fithers

That is one sweet looking route Horacefithers!

Thank you for the Cool Video,,,,,,,It was easy to follow, and nice overlook of your Route........:wave:

Two story buildings - https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?67547-colorado71Trainz-website&p=1737546#post1737546 but not on the DLS

Water tankers - https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?92286-Repaints-by-BTVFD&p=1737231#post1737231 on the DLS

Thanks Norm. I'll check those links out!

H. Fithers

You are a careful observer of reality, which you recreate very well. :Y:

Very interesting video, but I prefer screenshots.

jango said:

You are a careful observer of reality, which you recreate very well. :Y:

Very interesting video, but I prefer screenshots.

Click to expand...

Thanks Jango.

Do you like the screenshots because I master them in 4K then down-sample to 1080p, but for video my poor GPU can only manage a decent frame rate at 1080p so no down sampling (then add in image degradation from YouTube - especially if one's connection bandwidth doesn't allow 1080p and it falls back to 720p or lower? the video looks much nicer when viewed from a local file, but then uploading a 2GB file would be a bit much?

Cheers,
H. Fithers

Excellent work for sure.

Amazing work. The amount you've accomplished in this short amount of time is mind blowing. Looking forward to your progress.

vtrail said:

Amazing work. The amount you've accomplished in this short amount of time is mind blowing. Looking forward to your progress.

Click to expand...

Why thank you. Being retired with an understanding wife helps. Of course this seems to have slowed progress on my HO layout somewhat (lol...)

More screenshots and videos coming soon.

HF

Facelift for the BC&SJ route between Junction City and Bear Creek

Facelifts are mostly about replacing the spline doug fir forests with better looking trees although other changes included adjusting the height of a bridge that was too low above the track, fixing ballast pimples, and tweaking undergrowth.

Oh yeah, the locals were complaining about not getting a chance to participate in photo shoots so a GN passenger train was diverted onto the BC&SJ so they could ride along and observe the process.

1)
BEFORE




AFTER




2)
BEFORE




AFTER





3)
BEFORE





AFTER




4)
BEFORE





AFTER





What a difference those trees made!

The new trees come from the <st> asset family:
st_rmm_elka50_2444_35m
st_rmm_elka46_1748_20m
etc.

Cheers,
H. Fithers

BC&SJ - Tunnel 2 to Salt Creek

Here are some screenshots of the newest scenery area on the BC&SJ route. Hope you like 'em.


1) An eastward train has just passed through Tunnel 2 on its way to Morrison.




2) Highway 58 hops across a reservoir on an arch bridge.




3) Steam in the morning light




4) Sometimes, with the tracks and road parallel and so near to each other, a race develops although not today




5) There's lots of trees and therefor lots of logging in this part of Oregon




6) Ditto




7) Racing past a small clearing




8) A larger clearing yields a longer view of our train




9) Salt Creek trestle on the BC&SJ




10) Steel trestles play a large part in this portion of the railroad




That's it for now. The next station after Salt Creek (I just realized I didn't post a shot of the Salt Creek siding) will be Oakhill. However, Oakhill isn't anywhere near ready for screenshots yet.

I'm working on getting a new video fly-over of the entire route, finished areas and unfinished, uploaded to YouTube. Stay tuned.

Cheers,
H. Fithers

The Bear Creek & South Jackson Fly Over

I wanted to show the entire route (to help anyone who cares) get a feeling for it.

This video starts in the flatlands around Salem and progresses up and over the summit up high in the mountains.


Perhaps it would help to have the foot print of the BC&SJ route?




Hope you enjoy the video! If you do, please remember to click the "thumbs up" button.

Cheers,

H.Fithers

horacefithers said:

I wanted to show the entire route (to help anyone who cares) get a feeling for it.

This video starts in the flatlands around Salem and progresses up and over the summit up high in the mountains.

Perhaps it would help to have the foot print of the BC&SJ route?




Hope you enjoy the video! If you do, please remember to click the "thumbs up" button.

Cheers,

H.Fithers

Click to expand...

Epic route work. Very nice overfly. You've earned a sub on YT.

Horacefithers, Wow! I just watched both videos and I am impressed! You and Philskene are going to sell me on 2019 yet. I started work on a similar route set in the central mountains of Idaho in T:ANE, but your water is better (the best I have seen, I think), your trees are better, everything is better. I am curious about the LOD on the evergreen trees. Up close they look very real, but at a distance the green kind of fades to a gray-green. I wonder if whoever made those trees could go back and darken the trees in the distance to the same green color as up close. Other than that it is a gorgeous route!