Milwaukee Road's Rocky Mountain 4th division, template Options

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Still waiting for the release of WF10, I have decided to look at the Milwaukee Road's Rocky Mountain Route 1st div. released last year and fell in love with the route. Moe Smith(Dispatcher) have created the template for this route and am looking to create a template for the 4th sub. Before going any further here's some information ( From Wikipedia) regarding the reason behind electrification of the whole area.

"The Milwaukee soon found that operation of steam locomotives over the mountain passes was difficult, with winter temperatures that reached -40°F. Electrification seemed to be the answer, especially with abundant hydro-electric power in the mountains and a ready source of copper on-line at Anaconda, Montana. In 1914, electrification began between Harlowton, Montana and Avery, Idaho. The first electric train ran in 1915 between Three Forks, Montana and Deer Lodge, Montana. The system used was 3,000 volt DC overhead line."

Moe's template ( first division) covers from Harlowton, going West to Three Forks, Montana,about 100 miles away. The template considered is the 4th division, covering Avery, Idaho, going East to Alberton, Montana about the same mileage. the railway area between Avery and Roland is considered among the finest feats of railway engineering as despite the rugged terrain, engineers were able to keep grades reasonable. Lots of tunnels and trestles inside such spectacular scenery. Sidings are marked, looking good for a template.

I have yet to discover some more aspects of this route and will update regularly with progress of its coming template and will try to include shots of this scenic route.

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

After many hours of testing and working through the package, the Rocky mountain Template package looks now ready to upload. But first, a detailed readme file must be done with many details about how to get the most of both Milwaukee (MILW) and Northern Pacific (NP) lines. Construction of the templates has been a complex task and was a challenge in configurating the player, traffic paths and the serviceable sidings orientation. I have encountered problems with the draft template files and
had to find solutions for problems which had occured during testing.

Covering the NP line between Wallace and past Cyr, East of St.Regis takes more than four hours for both EB and WB. For the
MILW line, both EB and WB lines takes between five and six hours between Avery and Alberton. On my last AG-generated
activity, WB from Alberton to Avery, I have reached Avery in more than 6 hours and the pickups and setouts before reaching
Avery were all successfull. There have been more than 25 cars moved on 6 different locations along the route. But doing this
will take experience in handling MSTS and AG.

I will recommend the user to save regularly his act, such as before arriving to the next selected siding for servicing.The
player will have to toggle to manual switching occasionnally but more often, changing the signalling to permissive. There is
atleast one AI traffic train every 75 minutes on the MILW line which gives enough time for your work to be done, especially
if you have just met your train before your oncoming assignment. If you are preparing to reach your next assignment and know your last meet was a while back, back and forth moving in handling your cars may trigger a distant AI train waiting to move forward and you may expect to meet on a single line and end on a red signal in front of the other train or simply collide. It happened at Saltese, I might have accidentally changed the player path without noticing, can't remember. Re-loading the saved act at Haugan and combined with some MSTS experience has allowed my act to resume and finally reached Avery.

Another problem: the shortest siding inside the MILW is at Kyle, about 10 miles east of Avery. The siding's length is about
1/3 mile, even shorter between the signals. That will limit the player consist to 12-13 cars only, plus the Little Joe player
engine. If your train's route does not pass through the Kyle siding, you won't have much problem with the consist length and
you may use the alternate player engines, composed of the basic E47 boxcab engines,usually in threes. The user will be able
to return to the Little Joe player engine by copying and pasting the other files. Two folders will hold separately the player
engines. Electric engines are more difficult to create a consist than the ordinary one. For a treesome of E47 Boxcab engines
there are 9 shapes, three considered as engines and 6 as carriages and must be placed in a certain way. This is why I have
included already-made player engine consists. So if your MILW WB destination goes to Avery, be sure to have no more than 12 cars to setout at Avery, just to play safe. You may go with more cars but from there, no guarantee you will finish your act if you are expected to meet at Kyle.

Another challenge is handling the climb and descent of NP's twisting and mountain grades between Larson and Borax. A feature in this template package only present once with the Saluda Template will be the presence of 2 helper engines at Larson and Borax to allow the player to pick them up and leave them once the descent is over. With this change, maximum car settings start will increase from 8 to 15. For WB, you may leave your helpers at Larson and for the EB, you may leave your engines at Borax.

Another problem encountered is changing the player paths and traffic paths to allow the player train to use as possible the
sidings to pick up or setout their cars. Initially the player paths were on the main and the traffic always took the sidings
to have some traffic along the route. In this one, the MILW WB,EB player and traffic paths have distinct configurations to
ensure traffic flow and working the selected sidings. Many pickups and setouts required to go past the last switch and signal
and needed to back and forth past the signal. I have encountered problems and couldn't finish the act.

Also I couldn't create a path between Paradise and Wallace, which needed a reverse point.At St.Regis, the procedure to bring
up the engines from the front to the back ended with a red signal because of the presence of the cars to be picked up past
the signal. Even the permissive feature of AG couldn't resolve. So I ended up creating paths only between wallace and Rivulet and from Paradise to Rivulet.

Much have been said here, but it is an extraordinary route in beauty and Jerry Sullivan has worked hard to bring to us this
to MSTS users, one of the most beautiful routes I have worked on for a template.The previous images and the next ones (see also the next post) bear witness to its popularity over the years (+2800 downloads).

Will confirm its uploading later once everything, inclding the readme file is done.