What route should I create?

Hello all,

After looking through some old Fishlipsatwork HOG routes, there are a few ideas I have on the table, but I'm too conflicted on which route to do:


CSX Henderson Subdivision: Nashville, TN to Evansville, IN

Amtrak Northeast Corridor + CSX Philadelphia Subdivision

BNSF Aurora Subdivision: Aurora, IL to Savanna, IL

Amtrak Michigan Line: Porter, IN to Dearborn, MI


Which route is the best for me to create?

cl152 said:

Hello all,

After looking through some old Fishlipsatwork HOG routes, there are a few ideas I have on the table, but I'm too conflicted on which route to do:


CSX Henderson Subdivision: Nashville, TN to Evansville, IN

Amtrak Northeast Corridor + CSX Philadelphia Subdivision

BNSF Aurora Subdivision: Aurora, IL to Savanna, IL

Amtrak Michigan Line: Porter, IN to Dearborn, MI


Which route is the best for me to create?

Click to expand...

Here is something that might help you,

Looks to me like you have 2 Freights and 2 Amtrak Routes, if I am correct, then the first thing to consider do you like Freight or Passenger service, next thing to do, search all the Routes, in Google, with Wiki guides.

"CSX Henderson Subdivision: Nashville, TN to Evansville, IN Wiki"

Then read each of the Wiki's, you don't need to read every word, skip read the document, too see ONE if you really like the Route, and SECOND what the Miles in length of the line......

Experienced Route Builders here, much smarter and more talented than me, will tell you straight out, Building your first Route, small versus a huge Route is the better Challenge for you. The reason I say this, if you follow the master builders here, you see and read how some have never finished their Routes, a lot of have put several years to Decade or more to accomplish the Grand Build!

I sure you get many different responses to your Question and I wish you well. I would also add, I like Dem Routes a lot.

jrfolco is an amazing Hog Route Builder, you might do a search in Content Manager, using him Author, with sub search category for Route only. He has lots of different Trans Dem Routes. You might see something too that will help you out as a comparison to your list.

Anything over 100 Miles is going to be huge project, I would thing something around 50 miles might be a better ball park decision?

Best of luck with your project Sir.

I don't know anything about the listed routes so some general advice.

If this is your first ever route then start with something small. Pick the shortest or select a short section of one of those listed. Routes may look simple to create but they are not, definitely not, simple or quick. There is a lot of time, work, repetition and frustration.

From memory, and I could be out of date here, I seem to recall that Fishlipsatwork's routes are constructed on flat baseboards at an altitude of 0 metres. As soon as you start adding terrain features you dramatically increase the time and effort involved. Adding ground textures adds more time and effort. A lot of projects get started but are never finished - there are plenty of announcements that someone is about to start a new route but there are far fewer announcements of the completed product being posted on the DLS or elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy creating routes - my current project began in 2004 but it is huge, about 400km of track length but I have never attempted to count all the baseboards. That brings up another point - it is easy to get carried away and not know when to stop. Taking breaks, both long (several years in my case) and short, is important.

Start small, test yourself, learn the tools and techniques (there are lots of time saving shortcuts you can use), then, when you have built up your confidence and expertise, you can attempt the larger more complex projects.

My thoughts.

No one can recommend a route for you. This is something for you to decide. All of these routes you mentioned are large or very complex. The Northeast Corridor especially is jam packed with track, catenary, buildings, and details. All of this takes time and lots of it to get this to a resemblance of what it's supposed to look like. The other routes, while some may be more rural, are still quite large. You may want to pare these down a bit and start small, or at least do a small area of one of them. Trainz is a program you can build some small section and expand it later without destroying what you've already created. I say this with experience. I built my first route starting in January 2004. I also built some routes based on HOG data and also currently working on some based on TransDEM data which is more detailed.

Working on large routes becomes tedious as you slog through the track laying, researching, and building. I have a simple project going on now which has taken a backburner as I recoup my Trainzing skills. This route has many things that required overcoming to get to a point where it's a doable project including a ROW that no longer exists, having been replaced by a road in a few places and a reservoir in another, and barely any photos of the area to figure out anything. This doesn't count finding buildings to fit that are close without creating some, which I'm definitely not up to par in doing.

So, think hard on this before committing. No one is stopping you, but you are the one to decide.