Amherst to Truro Route (Part of the CN Springhill Subdivision)

Although Nelson Godden (VIA6415) did some great prototypical routes, I haven’t been able to find much in the way of recent layouts representing the province of Nova Scotia, so I’ve been working on an Amherst to Truro route (a segment of Canadian National’s Springhill subdivision). I initially tried to create it as a prototypical segment, but it was taking me much longer than I had initially expected, so I switched to more of a large model train design which was loosely based on reality. Some of the businesses modeled on the route are still in existence, some have come and gone, and a few are fictional creations that I added to create a little more variety along the way. Era influences are all over the place, but in my mind it sits in the late 70s/early 80s zone of my youth, when many more of the branches and spurs modeled in the layout still existed. I recorded an AI train session that visits most of the businesses and trackage along the route, and I set it in mid-autumn to give it some of that fall foliage colour (over three hours’ worth of video – I’ve split it into four parts, but at 45+ minutes a pop, it’s still a hard slog!). Here are the links (I apologize for the choppiness – I made the mistake of recording at maximum resolution and detail when I really should’ve turned the dials down a little bit – the route’s a real frame rate killer):

The play list for all four: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcmnT0QlVdG5k4Qn8NaZGyN1Ggjlb6fb

Each individual link-

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

…and for those of you who don’t want to spend an entire evening viewing the videos, here are a few screenshots from some of the scenes along the route:


Amherst Petroleum, Amherst


Amherst Station, Amherst


Casey Concrete East, Amherst


Clarence Farm Services East, Truro


CN Yard Office, Truro


Port of Parrsboro, Parrsboro


Quality Concrete, Folly Lake


Solio Agriculture Feed Mill, Truro


Truro Agromart, Upper Onslow


Truro Container Terminal, Truro

Anyway, thought this might be of some interest to those that live and/or travel in the Maritime region - hope you enjoy it!

UPDATE- The route has been posted to the DLS. To retrieve it, open your Download Manager, and under the "Filter:" dropdown choose "Download Station". In the search line, type in either


Amherst to Truro - Session


-OR-


<KUID:885247:103514>


and download the session that shows up in the list. This should provide you with both the Amherst to Truro route, as well as a sample session that has some trains (and planes and boats) visiting different spots along the route. PLEASE NOTE- Although this *should* automatically download all assets associated with the route and session that are retrievable via the DLS, there are a lot of third-party assets that you may need to go hunting for. That said, if someone does have enough interest in the route to track those assets down, please consider saving those links and posting them to this thread to help others who might be trying to get ahold of those items.

This work looks like an excellent layout. Thanks for sharing. The videos are quite immersive.

bolivar said:

This work looks like an excellent layout. Thanks for sharing. The videos are quite immersive.

Click to expand...

Thanks Bolivar - I tried to put a fair amount of details in to make the route a little more interesting (it's probably the main reason that the frame rates are so low!)

That's a very impressive looking route. Nicely done.

Cheers,
Piere.

Very nice work and great video's.

Cheers,
Craig

Piere said:

That's a very impressive looking route. Nicely done.

Click to expand...

Thanks Piere - although it's a much scaled-down version from what the prototype would've been, it still took a lot longer to finish than I was expecting it would (but I suspect that's the way these things usually end up going!)

cabnz1 said:

Very nice work and great video's.

Click to expand...

Thanks Craig - even though it ended up being over three hours of video, there was tons of stuff that ended up on the virtual editing room floor (those AI trains can take some extremely circuitous routes sometimes)

Michael, A nicely made video of a great looking layout. I’ve only scrubbed through the video, but I’ll be taking some time this weekend to take in the whole route. Thanks for sharing it.
casey

CaseyBerg said:

I’ll be taking some time this weekend to take in the whole route.

Click to expand...

I appreciate that you’re interested enough in the route to devote that much time to viewing it Casey – I hope it’s worth the investment!

I have been so busy my life got in the way of trainz, I have done a lot of work on the railroads in Nova Scotia if you have any questions send me an email. I got gomap files on the springhill sub somewhere.

VIA6415 said:

I have done a lot of work on the railroads in Nova Scotia if you have any questions send me an email.

Click to expand...

Thanks Nelson - even the scaled-down version I did of the Springhill Sub ended up being a much larger project than I thought it was going to be - I think attempting one of the prototype routes like you've created would do me in!

UPDATE- The route has been posted to the DLS. To retrieve it, open your Download Manager, and under the "Filter:" dropdown choose "Download Station". In the search line, type in either

Amherst to Truro - Session

-OR-

<KUID:885247:103514>

and download the session that shows up in the list. This should provide you with both the Amherst to Truro route, as well as a sample session that has some trains (and planes and boats) visiting different spots along the route. PLEASE NOTE- Although this *should* automatically download all assets associated with the route and session that are retrievable via the DLS, there are a lot of third-party assets that you may need to go hunting for. That said, if someone does have enough interest in the route to track those assets down, please consider saving those links and posting them to this thread to help others who might be trying to get ahold of those items.

A couple of caveats-
1) This route is a frame rate killer (depending on what your tolerance to low frame rates are, you may want to dial down your resolution and/or shadow detail, etc.)
2) The track work is unrealistic (turns are too sharp, grades are too steep, that sort of thing).

If you’re still interested, my hope is that by making this route available some users will be able to hunt down and provide download links for the non-DLS assets (of which I believe there are many, including a couple that may be pay ware from the JR routes I own), and that I'll be able to post that information to this forum thread.

Greetings! Some quick results: I downloaded both the route and the session.
Listing dependencies for the session, it only lists a single asset, and it is unknown and one of your own: <kuid:885247:102926>
I have 76 unknowns from the route. Several of the authors look familiar, so they may be findable. I don't have time to look as I will be traveling for two weeks pretty soon, so lots to get done. Looking forward to looking more at this on the second half of May!

Wow, what a detailed route. Thank you for sharing it.

After a few searches, I am down to the following missing items.

A lot seem to be trees and shrubs?

<kuid2:368725:35001:2>
<kuid2:412949:100825:1>
<kuid:412949:100777>
<kuid:412949:100599>
<kuid:412949:100701>
<kuid2:368725:35004:2>
<kuid2:368725:35000:2>
<kuid2:122860:100072:2>
<kuid2:368725:25000:7>
<kuid2:368725:35002:2>
<kuid:122860:100177>
<kuid2:98966:60241:1>
<kuid:124863:100030>
<kuid2:45324:251021:1>
<kuid:122860:101885>
<kuid2:122860:100145:2>
<kuid2:122860:100458:2>
<kuid:122860:101714>
<kuid2:86661:22401:1>
<kuid2:86661:22403:1>
<kuid2:86661:22406:1>
<kuid2:86661:22407:1>
<kuid2:86661:22412:1>

The ones from Slugsmasher are "found" but my anti-virus reports that the site is invected with malware, so I can't go there to get them.

Any help with which routes or sites these may be found on would be appreciated.

Thanks again for sharing.

Cheers,
Piere.

MichaelCopp said:

Thanks Nelson - even the scaled-down version I did of the Springhill Sub ended up being a much larger project than I thought it was going to be - I think attempting one of the prototype routes like you've created would do me in!

Click to expand...

np you more the welcome to use my maps, I used Trains DEM to map the intirer line form Halifax to NB border, Its a lot of work. Nova Scotia has a large railroad network.

Wow I am blown away by the detail, effort, time and skill needed to put together this masterpiece. I've only been checking it out for 5 minutes and had to post. And most of all,
you went through the effort to include a very important but much overlooked feature track cameras!....BRAVO!

Kevin

Cadman said:

And most of all,
you went through the effort to include a very important but much overlooked feature track cameras!

Click to expand...

I’m right there with you Kevin! I really enjoy the more passive aspect of just watching the trains run through the scenery, so for me cameras are a must. That said, I know that people’s interests differ, and there are many folks out there who appreciate the more hands-on approach of manually creating and running schedules and timetables, so I did include something in the route that I thought those types of users might find useful. Just south of the Truro hump yard, concealed in the woods, is… well, it’s not really a fiddle yard since it’s not connected to the rest of the route – I guess you could call it a group of staging tracks. I Thought users could store some of their favourite rolling stock there in a session, and perhaps piece together their trainsets there before dragging them across to the hump yard – I guess that would be more of a model railroad thing? Anyway, it may be a silly thing to add, but it’s in there nonetheless!

VIA6415 said:

Nova Scotia has a large railroad network.

Click to expand...

It certainly does, and there's so much more that's now either abandoned or converted from rails to trails - a lot of the segments represented on my route are for branches that no longer exist (my wife and I usually walk her parents dog along a few of the trails a couple of times a week, so I guess we get to appreciate them in that respect).

MichaelCopp said:

It certainly does, and there's so much more that's now either abandoned or converted from rails to trails - a lot of the segments represented on my route are for branches that no longer exist (my wife and I usually walk her parents dog along a few of the trails a couple of times a week, so I guess we get to appreciate them in that respect).

Click to expand...

That's why I started building my routes Its nice to see more folks pick up and build more NS maps, which reminds me no thanks to trainz updates making freeware into payware now forseing me to update a few of my maps now having made the track I was using unuseable. I made a few videos of Nova Scotia's railroads. I'll be posting updates on my routes in another post.

Piere said:

After a few searches, I am down to the following missing items.

A lot seem to be trees and shrubs?

Click to expand...

Hi Piere - yes, it looks like from your list of missing KUIDs your version is probably missing essentially all the coniferous trees, and about a third of the deciduous trees. Here are the details of the KUID entries you included in your post, which you probably already had (unfortunately, I was only able to find a link to one of these - I included the URL to it below):

<kuid2:368725:35001:2> - sulphuric acid bulk load - elstoko - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:412949:100825:1> - ROLP DNWP Irvings Sign - crisger - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid:412949:100777> - ROLP Bucket 1 - crisger - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid:412949:100599> - ROLW Lumber Stacks 1 - crisger - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid:412949:100701> - ROLW Flagpole 2 - crisger - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:368725:35004:2> - coking gas - elstoko - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:368725:35000:2> - carbonic light oils bulk load - elstoko - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:122860:100072:2> - Roys_SLD_EL1_1-1331 3D_seasons - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid2:368725:25000:7> - LiquidsLoader - elstoko - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:368725:35002:2> - coal tar bulk load - elstoko - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid:122860:100177> - Roys_BMO_D9-1082_5D_season - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid2:98966:60241:1> - Uhaul Trailer 6'x12 - flamerail - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid:124863:100030> - JAC Parked Modern Cars 2 - jcitron - ***MODIFIED***

<kuid2:45324:251021:1> - JR MS Generic 06 LD - norfolksouthern37 - ***PACKAGED***
https://kuid.trainz-mp.ru/index.php?kuid=0000b10c0003d48d01

<kuid:122860:101885> - Derelict baggage car 01 seasonal - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid2:122860:100145:2> - Roys_SLD_EL4_1-1865 - 3D_seasons - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid2:122860:100458:2> - Roys_SLD_EL1_14-1659 3D_seasons - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid:122860:101714> - CUK-Log Pile seasonal - roystrainz - ***PACKAGED, PAYWARE***
<kuid2:86661:22401:1> - ss mjunk 1 - slugsmasher - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:86661:22403:1> - ss mjunk 3 - slugsmasher - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:86661:22406:1> - ss mjunk 6 - slugsmasher - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:86661:22407:1> - ss mjunk 7 - slugsmasher - ***MODIFIED***
<kuid2:86661:22412:1> - lumberstack 9 - slugsmasher - ***MODIFIED***

If you have an interest in completing the scenery on your version of the route, I suppose you have a few options:

- Contact the creators and see if they'll supply the assets to you (I own a couple of RoysTrainz routes - "Canadian Rocky Mountains - Rogers Pass" and "Canadian Rocky Mountains - Columbia River Basin", so I'm guessing that's where the pay ware trees are coming from)

- Substitute the missing scenery items with your own choices. There is a setting somewhere in TRS19 (I can't remember off the top of my head where the setting lies) that shows the missing assets on a route as orange wireframe cubes. Using those missing element cues, you can go through and place whatever scenery elements you like. I've done this to a few routes I've downloaded in the past; the tree replacement is a pain in the behind, because it's more or less an hour or two click-click-clicking with the mouse adding hundreds - if not thousands - of trees. Other elements are usually a lot quicker to replace, and in a way it's kind of fun to go hunting for appropriate items that suit the surroundings. After you've added all your scenery items, I believe you can tell Surveyor to remove all your missing KUID references, and I think the missing dependencies icon will usually disappear at that point

- Or, just say "screw it" and tell Surveyor to remove all the missing KUID references right off the bat! If the route looks OK as is, it's probably going to have a higher frame rate with all those trees gone anyway, so what the heck? Afterwards, if you find an area that obviously needs a little sprucing up scenery-wise, you get to have a bit of fun!

By the way, did you happen to save out a list of links for the KUIDs you were able to find? If so, that may be useful information to post in case others were on the KUID hunt as well.

Thanks for your help!