Amtrak NEC project and beyond

rwk

Active member
I am about to embark on a BIG project. I want to make an Amtrak NEC route from Philly to Washington, using the NEC route from Trainz 12 (DLS download in TANE), farejoint's NEC from Perryville, MD to Baltimore, and maybe wridenour's version from Baltimore to DC since the track going into Washington is a bit more accurate in position than farejoint's version. Then, I want to model the CSX Transportation line from DC to Florida maybe with blank baseboards where it will meet Fishlipsatwork's Jacksonville to Orlando DEM. I know. Several hundred miles. But, some of the NEC is already done for me, I might just swap out tracks for better ones in TANE with switch frogs. I know flusi737 had an NEC project but it's probably vaporware now. He just added on to the TS12 Philly to Wilmington route. I'm going to take my time with this. I was thinking of using Fishlipsatwork's Philly to DC DEM, but then the filesize of the entire route might be too large. I think Trainz can handle flat baseboards more in long routes. And I didn't want to build Philly to Wilmington, and Perryville to DC from scratch. With the DLS routes, I have the track in, and I just need to add about 30 miles from Perryville to Wilmington and connect the DC-Baltimore and Perryville-Baltimore sections together.
 
I think I will have better performance with the flat baseboards and the cut down built routes. The fishlipsatwork dem from Philly to DC is so big but it also includes the CSX freight line and MARC lines as well.
 
Is there a way to get topo maps on blank baseboards? For now, I took a screenshot of the fishlips dem between Perryville, MD and Wilmington, DE so that I know how many baseboards I need to fill in the gap with flat baseboards.
 
Just my two cent on this . Are the DEM's on the DLS the best out there . No . But after being given some really detailed and large DEM's . There not far off . Yea , if ya look hard enough . You'll find things . If you go with TransDEM . you'll still going to have issues . I myself have taken a new look at whats on the DLS . And what I want to realistically get done . If you want exactness . I would recommend getting a TransDEM route of your desire . You'll have almost everything laid out for you to fill in as is . But if you want to do your own thing . without rules and are going for the feel and fun of driving , shifting , loading and offloading cars . The Blank DEM's are fantastic . On both , the grades and curves have been problematic as to prototype trackage , yards and more . The Blanks are going to be a challenge for towns , city's and many other off rail marking . But if like me , and just getting a large route as close as I can . Have at it . The NEC and Philly to Pitt are a goal of mine . Or the entire PRR from NYC to Pitt to Baltimore .

Don't say it can't be done , cause it has . Just not in trainz yet

Matt
 
Is there a way to get topo maps on blank baseboards? For now, I took a screenshot of the fishlips dem between Perryville, MD and Wilmington, DE so that I know how many baseboards I need to fill in the gap with flat baseboards.
Yes your best bet is to use Transdem. I'd strongly advise you use it to create the terrain for any new route work. If you do it's even possible to create the route in sections and seamlessly merge the sections something that's difficult or impossible by any other method. The approach you described will need to merge routes that do not match up in heights or with actual geo coordinates along the baseboard edges. In this case you need to add transition boards that fake the terrain and track route to close the gap.

For the topo imagery there are other ways but Transdem can automate the process to a great extent. And it has several options and various types and sources for the image data you can use. Not just topo maps but other map and imagery from satalite even old areal photos (for historical routes). In some cases georeferenceing may be a concern but even there I think you're better off with Transdem. Take a good look at the link Blutorse4792 provided for info on it if you haven't already.

I agree with Matt. Previous versions of my own route were based on 30m or lower resolution DEMs and I had to terraform most of the man made cuts and fills and local stream and creeks. Newer DEM data is much better in this respect and I'm using Transdem to created a new version. In my case I can reuse most or all of my track data since it's based on the EBT survey data and fit the older DEM terrain pretty well. I can - have actually - just repositioned my vector data and created a new trk file for the new Transdem gererated map.

Bob Pearson
 
I almost have a complete route from Philly to Washington, DC but there is a section missing from Perryville, MD to Wilmington, DE. I'm going to count the baseboards between those points on Fishlips DEM and use blank baseboards on my route. I'm not deleting hundreds of baseboards to make a Perryville to Wilmington DEM and the elevation might not even match up with the farejoint and TS12 NEC routes. The Philly-Wilmington I downloaded from the DLS by necman I believe because I'm using TANE with the latest service pack. Is build 94916 the highest you can go in TANE? When joining farejoint's two sections together I had to add track between the tunnels in Baltimore. I decided to use farejoint's Washington DC segment rather than wridenour's because it is more finished. I replaced the canopies at Washington Union Station with the ones wridenour used. He hasn't updated it probably since he uploaded it. It looks to be a rework of farejoint's route. And I'm a nitpick and I don't like track or roads hovering above the ground so I fixed some of that in the DC area, and made the curve and bridge on the CSX line adjacent to the Amtrak line not so tight, and the grade not so high. The CSX line curves away from Amtrak at that point. I believe that is also the MARC line to Brunswick and beyond. DC to Rocky Mount, NC is going to be a PITA. Lots of baseboards. There is DEM for parts of South Carolina I believe on the Silver Meteor route through Fayetteville, etc. and DEM from Jacksonville to Orlando. The rest in between will be flat baseboards. I want to have a route from Philly to Orlando which I traveled in August, 1989 when we went to Walt Disney World. I don't really care if the mileage is off on the non-DEM sections.
 
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I purchased Transdem to use Google Earth images to make an accurate model of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, but I can't figure out how to get the satellite images into Transdem.
 
Well, I have an update for you. I reached Elkton, MD with track. About 7.5 more miles to Newark, DE. Then, it's home stretch to Wilmington, DE where I will merge the Philly-Wilmington route, I downloaded one from the DLS, I'm using TANE. I will then have Philly to Washington, DC. I might take it toward Newark, NJ where I will merge it with another route that goes into NY Penn, I merged a NY area route with a PATH route. Then, south of Washington toward Richmond, VA and south. Eventually to Florida. Scenery will be sparse in some locations due to the number of miles I have to cover and to avoid bogging down the route. Oh, Amtrak doesn't stop at Elkton, but it is proposed as a future MARC stop when service is extended from Perryville.

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I purchased Transdem to use Google Earth images to make an accurate model of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, but I can't figure out how to get the satellite images into Transdem.

Google Earth makes it difficult to obtain images now directly due to needing a special digital key. You can obtain satellite images directly from the USGS National map server if you are interested in high resolution individual images that you'll place on tiles. These downloads are located in the same place where you obtained your DEM files. Instead of choosing the DEM download, you choose the satellite orthographic images instead.

The alternative to the tiles, is to use the map tile server where you can download topomaps as well as images directly on to the terrain. The disadvantage here is the images are lower resolution than the individual tiles, but the advantage is they are integrated with the route.
 
Google Earth makes it difficult to obtain images now directly due to needing a special digital key. .
That's Google Maps where you'll need the API key, John, not Google Earth. Doing it with Google Earth is a cumbersome job, as you have to arrange and process the images individually, in a semi-manual way, creating a placemark for each. But it does work:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...sDEM-for-route-creation&p=1792119#post1792119
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...sDEM-for-route-creation&p=1792284#post1792284

The alternative to the tiles, is to use the map tile server where you can download topomaps as well as images directly on to the terrain. The disadvantage here is the images are lower resolution than the individual tiles, but the advantage is they are integrated with the route.

For Map Tiles and without an API key you can still use Bing or ESRI. Maximum scale for images will vary, but not always lower than Google Maps.

BTW, my Google Maps API key still works and I never registered a credit card for it.
 
I'm doing everything by eyeball. I'm not going to delete hundreds of baseboards from fishlips DEM to have just a Perryville to Wilmington segment, so I'm doing it by hand with blank baseboards and counting the number of baseboards on Fishlips route, I took a screenshot of the Perryville to Wilmington segment so that I can refer to it while I'm in the route I'm working on.

I DID IT! I now merged the routes together. I still have to lay track and scenick my segment. Top right corner is Philadelphia, bottom right corner is Washington, DC. I have a single track so far from east of Perryville, MD to Newark, DE. I have to do the rest and put down catenary.

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