Gilpin Tram Route - Remarkable Colorado Mining Route in Development

A remarkable narrow Gauge (2 ft) railroad was created to serve the mines and mills of Gilpin County in the mountains of Colorado in the 1880s and survived in service up to 1917. It served 55 major mines, 22 mills, and ran over 15 1⁄2 miles (24.9 km) covering an area of some 3 square miles with a winding, bending, rising and falling amazing network of rails. It was called the Gilpin Tram and is legendary among those who study the history of railroading and mining in Colorado. The countryside was both barren in some places and lush with dense forests, rushing rivers and streams and saw both hot summers and frigid winters, at an elevation of around 7000 ft. It was a excellent topic for a sim route and Mark Baldwin rose to the challenge and created one for Trainz 2006 and another veteran Trainz modeller and worker, Llinda Tingvik created brilliant models of many of the mines, mills and historic structures. Mark is well versed in Colorado mining history, and is also a professor at the Colorado School of Mines and knows the history and the locations of the railroad first hand. He was able to create all of the track bed of the route with all of its details and placed most of the mines, mills and towns including Central City and Blackhawk.The Gilpin Tram was 2 ft gauge but the Colorado Central ran thru the region with standard NG and there were sections of dual track, all of this are re created in the route. The Date set for the route is 1902, early 1900s. The Route lasted until the price of silver fell and other conditions caused the railway to be closed in 1917.

The project lay dormant for many years. I found about it from Linda who was a great help and mentor to me in my earlier days of learning to model Colorado historic structures and she shared the original route with me, which at that time did not run on the more modern versions of Trainz. I had the chance to work on Trainz Routes with Jango and others, and in our working team a modeling partner, Paul Gorski also a member here, was able to help update the route to run on TANE.

I had that chance working with Jango on the Rollins Pass 1910 project to see his amazing skills and artistry at work and thought to ask if he might consider helping update the landscape on the Gilpin if we could get permission from Mark to venture to update the route. Mark kindly consented and now we are working as a team to bring the Gilpin to modern life with TANE sp4. At this time we do not plan to bring it into 2019 for a number of technical reasons and limitations. The future release is not set but work is proceeding and we wanted to share the project with the community and will post updates as things develop.

Mark has posted information and pictures of the original version of the route here: including history of the route and background.. http://gilpintram.com/

and you can see examples of Linda's wonderful modelling work here on her web site on the Cripple Creek Mining District: http://www.cripplecreekrailroads.com/index.php

It is because of the efforts, and skills and vision and generous sharing of their interests that Trainz and other sims have flourished and we owe them all of those pioneers and the ones who continue this work to great wonderful content for us all a great vote of thanks.

Here are some photos of the route and its locomotives and distinctive Ore cars, and maps of the route and then we will post pictures of the development: early before and after tests by Jango and now pictures of his full on work to upgrade and enhance the route using detailed and careful study of the flora, and topography and appearance of the rocks, ground, hills, and landscape of the Actual Colorado that the sim re creates.





















Chris Gerlach
Gilpin Team

These first pictures are before and after pictures of sections of the route that show the original format and proof of concept tests that Jango did in our planning phase...

And these are pictures of ongoing work by the team and the landscape by Jango as he proceeds to work thru the regions of the route with Mark and the rest of us reviewing and assisting as needed. There is no set schedule for release and development may include adding features to the custom locomotives and ore cars that were made for Mark, and finding and or creating rolling stock for the Colorado Central, and other needs, as well as making custom figures, landscape assets, structures and so forth. The aim is historic accuracy and the most sophisticated use of the graphics and scenery making abilities of TANE which are remarkable in skilled hands. Some assets had to be updated as the risk exists with the constant updates of the Trainz versions that compatablity with former versions are not built in ..it does require special work on the coding but the lack of it is the reason that this project may most likely remain in TANE for now. As such it is showing every promise of being a wonderful and challenging route to complete and to enjoy.

Updates will come ...

More Development Pictures of the progress of adding the landscape detail for the various regions of the route, much of it climbed up and along the 13 mountain gorges and the route clung to the hillsides often built on stone elevated curves and paths thru the mountains. There are some tests here to see what winter and snow cover might look like

Great work, nice to see this slice of Colorado mining in progress.

Just an hour drive from where I live. Looks very representative, great pictures.

Very nice! I remember Mark working on the original way back in TRS2006 days. The route, by the way, should load fine in TRS2019. There's no need to use PBR materials, or Protrack.

Talked Malc (clam1952), and Curtis (Pencil42) about the track and stuff. The track you have now looks like the old chunky-track (I might be wrong), and that doesn't work very well and is actually obsolete now in current versions of Trainz. As I said, you don't have to use procedural track, besides, that would be a pain in the backside with the tight junctions.

Pencil42 specializes in narrow gauge and a lot from this area. Malc has some great bushes and trees as well as 24 inch track that might be easily reskinned.

I know it's a WIP right now, but watch for floating track in places. That might be remedied by replacing the track with some with deeper ballast, but I noticed a few places where there's a bit of space showing. This wasn't so much of a problem in older versions, but in T:ANE and up we now have shadows which appear in the spaces.

I will say this route looks like a different world than it did in TRS2006, and it's amazing how it has transformed. I'm sure Mark and Linda are pleased with the current results.

Hi John and thanks, and this is still Mark's route we as a team are just helping update it and bring it to the modern format. It is early days and any suggestions and help and ideas are most most gratefully welcome! I am not sure exactly where Mark derived the track, he will I hope post here too, I am just presenting the project for the community to read about and see....Curtis is wonderful for his expertise and sharing thanks and any ideas he and Malc have again are always welcome. We had to research the trees and foliage a lot ..i have been working on Colorado routes for decades now, and i live in southern Colorado but i am familiar with most of it but when one dives into actually making a route that is accurate it is a whole new basllgame and you have to study what was there in the early 1900s ..and what is native...much of the tree cover was cut to build the mines and towns, so there were barren areas...Mark lives up there and has studied it all for years and years and I know Linda visited and knows mining history up there as well as any one....all and all it will be a joy to see it all come together.

the issue with 2019 Trainz is older assets and things being outdated. As everyone knows this is a painful issue when working with the details of route development and finding and working on rolling stock and frankly I think TANE does a fantastic job of the graphics and the scenery and lighting so I think for now it will be a TANE sp4 project. But all of your thoughts are very welcome and thank you. there very well may be a 2019 version in the future. All Roads are open

Last note the ballast and the roads are things that Jango for sure wants to replace and enhance so ...this is early days but thank you!!!

Chris

The screenshots and the details are stunning! Another most amazing job - it looks wonderful! :Y:

Heinrich505

Hello John,
the problem of tracks and roads was the first submitted to the team.

While the road problem can be easily solved, the track problem is more complicated.
There are tracks with ballast on both sides, retaining wall on one side, etc.

I would be very grateful to everyone if you can provide the most updated replacement track kuids.
I don't have much experience on NG tracks. I only made White Pass & Youkon RR, so I would be grateful for your suggestions.

The transposition of the route into TRS19 is already foreseen at the end of the TANE version.
There are no particular problems, except for the sessions and the rolling stock.

Thanks for your suggestions.
I attach photos of the Team's visit to the work shop.

I'm very excited about this project. The screenshots look amazing and Jango is the master artist of landscapes. Thanks to everyone involved.

William

I just got pointed to this thread. I'm glad to have this project restarted. It's been a long time and I have high hopes for the restart.

Mark Baldwin

Crisger - Excellent presentation. The maps, the photographs, the write up, the screenshots. It pulled me right in.

Jango - I named my account after Bob Ross because he inspired me to try. You sir are the real deal. When I look at your work, I really feel immersed. It's both humbling and exciting to see work as beautiful as yours.

Mark, Linda, and others - Your time and excellence are sincerely appreciated. It goes without saying that projects like this would be impossible without your expertise.

Thank You Bob, that was a very nice post. I am sorry that this topic ended up in Screenshots i will ask the moderators to move it as it was meant to be a ongoing record of development, NOT a screenshot display. I posted them because it was the best way to show the route and the way it is being developed by the team. It will take time, one never knows how much time, the kind of historic and accurate route of the highest achievable quality can take, so I hope over time we can keep the community posted about how it is going, and will try to help facilitate that. Mark did a fine job creating the route and getting ALL of the complex track laid and in the right place. Now with the equally fine models that Linda made we will advance working on the landscape, which is Jango's forte and genius, and adding to or enhancing the landscape and scenery and structural assets as possible and as needed. We have a superb source of photographs that Mark has collected that give us every detail needed for accurate work, the most intensive of the structural adjustment will probably be detailing out the two large towns, Blackhawk and Central City and the smaller towns and communities along the route.



Blackhawk Colorado



Blackhawk, Colorado



Central City, Colorado



Central City Colorado


We will also hope to develop accurate sessions that allow the operator to work the railroads and the trains in correct manner serving the mines and mills which was their purpose. A large amount of gold and a little silver were mined in this area, often in the most difficult conditions for the miners who worked in constant danger of collapse, and flooding, blasting, and drilling and tunneling and transporting the raw rock and ore in small mine cars along twisting tunnels and up the mine elevators to be dumped into the ore cars of the Tram and taken down the mountain to the mills. The trains were difficult and often dangeorus to run, with all braking being done by hand on the bouncing, swaying, vibrating trains, along one of the most tortuous routes I have ever seen, along the tiny 2 foot track. 24 hours a day the thundering hammer mills beat on the ore crushing it to the grade that could be floated in toxic agents to extract the precious metals, but in many ways the mining in Colorado provided the raw value of Gold and Silver that created the wealth of the entire country in the years between 1850 and 1930, and the railroads like the Gilpin were an essential part of the process for they made the many difficult proccesses possible.

This is a unique chance to share the history thru the remarkable and fine qualities of Trainz as a railroad simulator to tell a story of both railroading and an key part of the development of the United States. And operating the trains will be a lot of fun as well.

Chris

Given a public Thumbs Up on the revisiting on this Route, thanks to all involved, it is great to see it is still possible to bring this back sort of from the historic pile where it laid dormant with so many others.

Linda

thank you Linda that means a lot. It at times a matter of luck, finding the right people to help with a window in their lives of time and energy. We all juggle real life, and sim work and our various themes and interests. Already flowers have bloomed in Gilpin under Jango's masterful hands, and they were planted already by you and Mark..... Paul and I and others may be able to help too, it is a worthy task....but your message means a lot to us all.
all the best

Chris

shaylocomotives.com has a few pictures in their database of the Gilpin Shays. Might be useful.

I hate to be a stickler, but I have to correct one thing Chris said. Most of the mining was gold, there was no silver mining in the area. But one piece of trivia is that this is where the Curie's got their uranium for their experiments.

thanks Mark i fixed it.

Chris

markb01 said:

I hate to be a stickler, but I have to correct one thing Chris said. Most of the mining was gold, there was no silver mining in the area. But one piece of trivia is that this is where the Curie's got their uranium for their experiments.

Click to expand...

From "The Diggings" website

[h=3]Top Commodities[/h] [h=4]in Gilpin County, Colorado[/h]

1. Gold (77)
2. Silver (74)
3. Lead (46)
4. Copper (45)
5. Zinc (44)
6. Uranium (6)
7. Molybdenum (4)
8. Tungsten (2)
9. Gemstone (1)
10. Garnet (1)

I can remember wandering the area and noticing an abundance of galena, which is lead sulfide and usually accompanied by silver. I cannot state definitively what the ratios were of the mines serviced by this particular tram.