What routes do you guys want?

I want to get into route creation, But I don't know what to make. Any routes you guys would want? I am not guaranteeing that I will make these, just want inspiration. Thanks!

Start small throwaway routes to learn ALL of the tools in Surveyor and then move up to building a route to be distributed. It takes time, develop a style and build something that interests YOU.
Now for the requests, Seligman Sub, Australian Trans-continental Railway, Trans Siberian Railway....that should keep you busy.

Thanks!

I have been working with surveyor for around a year now, and I need new inspiration. I am VERY familiar with the tools themselves, I am just not good at making ideas for routes themselves. Thanks!

It's great and wonderful you have all this ambition just don't burn yourself out though by biting off more than you can chew. The way to learn the route-building skills you need is to open up another route for editing and poke around. You can learn a lot doing this. Once you poke around, try editing the route, but keep the same style as the author. This is more difficult than it seems, but the purpose is to learn how they created their route. This is what I did way back in December 2003 when I first got Trainz TRS2004.

After doing this, I worked on some trash routes, ones that I deleted as I tried different things. It's the only way to learn. Learn by doing and practicing just like learn to play a musical instrument or playing a sport. Trial, error, more errors, more trials, they all become part of the learning experience. Once I did this, I set out in creating a route the represented a theme I had once in a model railroad except on a real life scale. The original route still exists as part of my much larger and grander route, but I've gone back and renovated that part because it looked pretty bad compared to the newer parts.

But the thing is start small no matter what. You can always build up from there. Promising a project for the community is also a bigger chance that your project will fail. Life gets in the way, hard drives fail, other things can happen, and the route languishes and disappears. By promising a route, you also put pressure on yourself and that can take your creative power away. I recommend building a route then presenting it on the DLS. Take your time and do the best you can rather than slap something together.

I hope this gives you something to think about.

Thanks

Yeah, I understand what your saying, And I don't promise anything, and I have tinkered with others routes. I just have done this for so long and would like to try to create something of my own, and Need some Ideas of what to start with. Thanks for looking out for me though! Also, when I do build routes, They are very small projects, usually take a few days Thanks!

temp_acc11 said:

Yeah, I understand what your saying, And I don't promise anything, and I have tinkered with others routes. I just have done this for so long and would like to try to create something of my own, and Need some Ideas of what to start with. Thanks for looking out for me though! Also, when I do build routes, They are very small projects, usually take a few days Thanks!

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Thanks.

I recommend looking at maps of areas you have an interest in. I also used to drive to work and there were places along the way that I thought would look better with a railroad, and there were some places that used to have tracks but no longer do now. I then went about putting the tracks back in those abandoned lines and put in a branch to that place that I thought looked better with the railroad. It took a bit of work planning it out. Then I purchased TransDEM.

TransDEM allows us to take DEM-data from various national servers and superimpose images and topographic maps on the surface. Once positioned, we can then export that data as a route ready for track-laying and landscaping. The process is a bit overwhelming at first, but once you do it, you never want to go back to hand building routes again. Right now I'm recreating a route that was abandoned in the 1920s when a dam was built and flooded the ROW. This has been an interesting project because a friend of mine has supplied old photos of the line as it existed. His grandfather worked for the railroad before the dam wiped it out and there are photos of him standing next to locomotives in various locations, long gone stations, hotels, towns, and engine servicing facilities. It's been interesting placing similar assets in those locations based on the photos and seeing the terrain line up perfectly. It's also interesting seeing highways and quarry operations that didn't exist in 1923 alter the landscape. The 1943 map is overlaid on top of current DEM data so the old topo lines are shown over the raised or lowered landscape. What is really cool is working out an area and having everything line right up perfectly like pieces of a puzzle.

You can take these routes and do what you want with them including putting in lines that never existed and even putting in lines that were long gone as I did, or just build the current operations as it exists today. There's so much here that it's difficult to explain in words.

How about the Milwaukee Road Coeur d'Alene branch out of East Spokane? 30-40 miles; several small sidings with stock pens, a couple of grain elevators, a feed mill at State Line, a big Diamond Match plant on a wye above Coeur d'Alene (you have to back down the hill into town) and Coeur d'Alene itself, with some street running to serve the lakeside lumber mills (the logs float in across the lake). There's another branch off north to Metaline from Meguire's. In Spokane you've got the UP/MILW yard in East Spokane interchanging with the NP and GN. City, country, river, lake, forest, dry farming -- what's not to like?

:B~)

temp_acc11 said:

I want to get into route creation, But I don't know what to make. Any routes you guys would want? I am not guaranteeing that I will make these, just want inspiration. Thanks!

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Here's a link to MSGSAPPER's post and thread. It's great advise from one of the premier content creators here.

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?136883-Newbie-tip-Try-a-diorama-approach-to-building-your-first-Trainz-layout

Don't do what I did, spent three years researching , recruiting model makers, then building a narrow gauge route of 60 miles, abandoned decades ago,huge amount of terrain to landscape and its in an area where the only trees available are billboards. Times move on, so its now out of date as its been made in an earlier version of Trainz and to get it to be 2019 standard its going to take another year , possibly more.

Make your route so it appeals to a wide audience,with my route, as its in TANE its of limited interest and as its narrow gauge it appeals to an even smaller cohort.The time frame ( 1930s 40s) also means there's not many assets you can use that are on the DLS and if you do have assets that aren't on there, people wont download it .

If i had my time again I'd never do a prototype of an obscure line thats really long and hard to model ,make it so a lot of people will want to use it, then it might be worth all the work you put into it. People seem more impressed by smaller layouts that they can drive around in a shorter period of time, that have lots of industries and no endless stretches of countryside , you can burn yourself out doing the prototypical , long types of route.My advice is to make a small route, someone did a small baseboard route recently of a mainline steam era fallen flag and got a very good response, so don't waste your time like I did making something that might never get completed and only appeals to a few people, you'll get a lot more kudos that way and it will make you feel like it was worth all the effort.

Why not start with a medium sized model railway. These are a great way to get something finished very quickly and avoid burning out when faced with 60 or 70 miles of route to texture and place scenery on. Or you could even take a prototype location and turn that into a model railway diorama.

Do something for you! If you do it for others and then just a few people download your route (assuming you make it public) you'll not be satsified. Don't build for others. Build for YOU. If others like it too then so much the better.

You guys are giving great advice! Thanks!

Your guys' advice is great! I have been observing the forum for around a year, so I know most of the stuff you guys are telling me, but It still is helpful. I want to build a route that's around 3 baseboards, (I love to superdetail) and I just don't know what location/railroad. You guys are very supportive. Thanks! I just would like to know what routes you guys like, just so I can just go "AH HA!" and start. Thanks! I could not have asked for a better community!

Thanks!

Or think layout as in model railroad. I have done a few. I prefer layouts to routes, having done both.

1611mac said:

Do something for you! If you do it for others and then just a few people download your route (assuming you make it public) you'll not be satsified. Don't build for others. Build for YOU. If others like it too then so much the better.

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Agreed! I tryed making content for others Trust me your wasting your time

Perhaps a route with a short branch from a yard to some industries would suit you well! In my area, from the late '30s up until the late '70s (maybe early, early '80s?) there was a short segment of trackage the B&M railroad operated between their East Deerfield yard, and the (tiny) city of Turner's Falls MA (part of the town of Montague). Originally it was part of the New York, New Haven, & Hartford, but the B&M ultimately assumed operations. It served a few industries in Turner's Falls during this time period, trains were short and headed up by light weight motive power. A single, very ancient bridge span on the line forced a weight restriction on what could be operated on the branch. Due to a significant difference in elevation, a switchback was used to connect the branch with the west end of the yard at East Deerfield.
Other notable details of the line include part of its route running right through a golf course, and the B&M having trackage in Turner's Falls that was used to bring in construction for a hydroelectric plant. Though it was probably long gone not too long after the New Haven stopped using the branch, there used to be a yard with a turntable in town. The B&M also owned a small yard. Trackage ran on both sides of the Turner's Falls canal.

What can I say? I love the classic New England roads. Hope you have fun, no matter what you end up making!

Here's a thought for beginning route builders and I'm no professional builder by any means but I build routes that I like and I'll start out with one baseboard and expand from there as the idea of the route comes to mind. Build a route that you like and let your mind go wild. Just have fun when building your route.

I'm not sure if you're doing only North American routes, but I would like to suggest maybe doing some kind of high speed rail route from anywhere in the world, especially Europe or Asia or maybe a fictional route somewhere in the US (this one should be fun, especially when you can choose your own high speed trainsets like some actual planned US projects did) with some regular trains on separate lines. You don't have take this idea, but I just feel we need more HSR type routes for Trainz and it would be nice!

temp_acc11 said:

I want to get into route creation, But I don't know what to make. Any routes you guys would want? I am not guaranteeing that I will make these, just want inspiration. Thanks!

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You've had lots of good ideas here. Wherever you are located, why don't you work on a simple Route in your general area. That will be a lot easier than trying to represent one in another country! Good luck. Colin (Driver_Col)

America... from sea to shining sea! :hehe: That'll take some time though... uh, like 10 years -LOL!

ClintClassic said:

America... from sea to shining sea! :hehe: That'll take some time though... uh, like 10 years -LOL!

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and trainz has a size limit of 500mbs to 2gbs it would not be possible unless you never plan on releasing it.