Its been about 2 weeks since my last update post and I've finally extended NEC South to Wilmington Delaware. I think some of you might be wondering why it took me this long to reach it, seeing as how Elkton (where I was when I posted that last update on the 9th) isnt too far off from Wilmington. I probably would've reached it sooner if I had one of my sources with me. Along with some youtube videos and topography maps (and train sim), I've been using "Amtrak's Northeast Corridor Cab Ride" by Pentrix video which I have on dvd. I use these to look for gradients, and to know where the lines goes up or down. Knowing where they are is important in recreating a route faithfully and make sure its not a level straight path. Anyways in July, I brought it that dvd with me when going on a trip to spend some time with family out of state. And when I got back home, I realized to my horror that I had left it at their house. They said they would ship it up and that was in July and its been over a month since I got back and haven't gotten anything, probably because they're busy. So that's basically put on hold the extension to NEC South, with some cosmetic additions here and there. However, being so close to Wilmington and being at the half way point between Baltimore and Philadelphia has really made me antsy and eventually I decided to look up the video to see if it had been posting online, just to see if it was there or not. To my relief, a rip of it was uploaded on archive.com. So with that missing piece back in my hands, it was back to business!
That same day, I reached Newark, a location I was sort of looking forward to recreating. More so for Davis Interlocking, which is the second major quadrupole track interlocking on the NEC that I've reached (the other being Landover). As for Newark Station, nothing too major going on here. I had plans, long before I began work on this route), to include an invisible station here since it was an Amtrak stop and the terminus for Septa trains. However, as I was reaching Newark, I realized that would be easier said than done, because of the station layout. As such, I dont think I'll put an invisible station here. Probably on track A but only for Septa trains but not for tracks 3 and 2.
Its here at Newark that something surprising happened that did annoy me a lot. Allow me to go into rant mode for a second. In Trainz, it gives you the option to edit the track condition of a given track in game. And from experience, it doesnt work. I remember building a previous nec route (which you can find on youtube) and editing default 50 percent tracks to 90 because I liked the design. Hopped into driver mode and it was as if I hadn't made any edits at all. And at first I thought I hadnt, or that I didnt save if I did. But no, the condition on the tracks was still 90. And yet, the trains rode on it as if it were still at 50. And what made it more annoying was that Coal Country used this method for their tracks (edited from 50 condition to 30) and it had an effect! I really didnt understand the logic of it and I still dont. I did resolve that issue by cloning that specific track and inserting a default track condition (a technique I used for other tracks, one of which I used for the Susquehanna bridge on NEC South) so it became a non issue for me. Was it annoying that I had to limit the amount of track types I could use for a given route? Absolutely but whatever. Fast forward 3 years later to yesterday and I was doing a test run with a septa train from Churchman's Crossing to Newark. I reached Davis and I switch from Track 1 to Track A and the train starts swaying back and fourth violently even though I'm only going around 30mph. I get out of driver mode and into surveyor mode just to see what was going on and not only did I somehow change the track condition on Track from its default setting to 0, but that edit actually had an effect. How? I thought editing the track condition in the game didn't work! How the heck does it work now?! I was confused as all hell but I think I may have come up with a possible answer. I think it only works for certain types of tracks. For example, the tracks that I used to use were jointed rail tracks which around before trs2019 and even tane, while the ones I use now are fairly recent. I wish I could say that was the case. I did intentionally change the condition on some of the tracks (one of the sam wooden ties) to be at a high condition but I cant say for certian if it worked or not. if someone can enlighten me on this that'll be helpful. I know this section doesn't really add much, just had to get that off my chest.
Anyways, after Newark, I eventually reached the two interlockings before Wilmington, RAGAN and YARD. Both of which have seen some modifications in the past 5 or so years. I dont think I've actually clarified this before but this version of the Northeast Corridor is set in the early to mid 2010s. This is mostly for nostalgia reasons, as my first experience with the NEC was in 2014 when I rode the Carolinian to visit my family in the Carolinas. That trip is what actually kick started my desire to recreate the NEC in trainz, but thats a story for another day. It also acts as an in game explanation for using AEM-7s and HHP-8s, rather than ACS-64s. And in my personal opinion, I perfer this era along with the late 1990s/early 2000s of the NEC over the modern era. Not that I dont like ACS-64s but its just that there was a lot more variety in electric locos back then, rather than every loco hauled electric passenger train being hauled by ACS-64s which all look the same apart from some special liveries. But I will get around to making a current day version of this route, which will mostly just be modifications to the existing route. Anyways, because of the time period, I couldnt have the line be three tracks between the end of Ragen to the beginning of the embankment into Wilmington. It turned out to be not as hard as I thought. All I needed to do was look up rear view amtrak videos taken before 2017 and use the catenary's as a guide.
And now onto the star of the show; Wilmington! Or at least, the skeleton of it. Seeing as how this is the first real experience with Wilmington, I'll probably spend some time on this station trying to figure out which building objects work, and making sure the invisible stations I placed there wont sink to ground level. But so far, it doesn't seem the latter wont be something to worry too much about. Anyways, Im really glad I reached Wilmington finally. Especially since I'm not close to reaching Philadelphia! But Im gonna hold off on that since Im gonna be going back to school next week.
One last thing before I wrap this post up. Along with gradients, speed limits are crucial in trying to faithfully adapt the NEC but unlike gradients, they're a lot harder to find and for the longest time, I wondered if there was something out there that listed the speed limits and changes. And fortunately, there is! In the form of a pdf copy of Amtrak's NEC Employee Timetable from 2001, one which I learned of after watching a Dr_Aeronautics video. To find it, I recomending searching "Amtrak ett nec 2001" on google which will give you the multimodelorders.org website link. Once there, click on the second link and it'll take you to the pdf file. Now seeing as how this timetable is from 2001, the speed limits listed here have the chance of being outdated. Such as the top speed of the Acela on the straight stretch along TF Green being 135 mph despite it being 150mph now. But so far, after doing a test run between Baltimore and Wilmington, it doesnt seem the speed limits on the nec havent changed too much in the past 20 years. Well, apart from the "racetrack" in New Jersey being raised to 150 but thats besides the point! Because of that, the timetable is actually pretty useful and will help make the project much easier to do!