PRR-Eastern route, First look for a template Options

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

I have taken a first look at the route after downloading it from Train-Sim. Sidings are marked, but how many? With 3000 miles of track, I believe the route has at least twice the number of sidings than the Monon or the Burton-Derby route, that is between 1500 and 1800 sidings. It is "The beast of all beasts". A tremendous route to run at first place. It is installed as a mini route.

Congratulations to all concerned in its construction.

I am looking into how a template package can be done with such massive proportions. I may go probably the same way as Peter did with his NJC route templates. I believe Steve may have to push the envelope again with AG, as it was done once during construction of the Burton-Derby template. I have started to explore the route and found the area covered by the electrification of the PRR, that is from Harrisburg (Enola and Harrisburg yards) going east to the NEC. That means that any player train going west of Harrisburg will be diesel. Very detailed work and my PC can handle it reasonably, in explore mode. With cars, it may be another story. Using the AE will be laborious as the numerous sidings names and Platform names will make it more difficult to navigate along the AE, some toggling of the view menus will be needed to use it efficiently.

If any of you have some additional info or suggestions about the route, let me know. I have started to look around some stock and stock from the Penn Central RR seem more abundant than its predecessor the PRR. However, one recommended download to have is the GG1 Mega pack from Zoza Trains, available at TS ( 200MB+ size) I would suggest to have one timeframe set in the Early 70's, durng the time PC was under Bankruptcy protection and before Conrail took control around 1976. That means the PRR stock could be used as well, despite available in lower numbers.

So anything can go from here as to this great route. No timing set or if this route will ever get a template. Time will tell.

Denis

[dgionet]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the information. We'll let Norm to look into it and make the proper decision.

Denis

[nbeveridge]

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the information. We'll let Norm to look into it and make the proper decision.

Denis

Denis,

If you would be interested in starting with my original templates and adjusting them for the public release of the route, please let me know. Otherwise, it is on my "to do list", and I'll get to it eventually.

For the templates I made, the route was divided up into its actual PRR divisions. Otherwise this route is so huge that no template could do it justice. The problem with the templates as they exist now is that they use a certain amount of rolling stock which is available only in the beta version. Most of this rolling stock will never (according to the developers) be released to the public. Consequently, I need to adjust the rolling stock to allow for that which actually is available. This particularly affects the AI passenger trains, which were modeled as close as possible to the actual consists which were listed in the developers' documentation. Also note that not all PRR passenger trains appear in the game (actually less than half do), because of the limitations of the MSTS dispatcher. Further, the freeware GG1's were not available when I started this effort, so some of the passenger trains could now be changed from EMD E's to GG1's.

The chosen paths for all trains (inc. player trains) were based on actual PRR schedules, which were available from the developers.

Note that not all information was consistent, since some consists or schedules were from one year, others from another, etc. This impacted both AI passenger trains, AI freights, and player paths. Every effort was made to stick to the prototype information if possible. Because of all this attention to detail, it took about six months to complete these templates. Most of the information was from the '50's and '60's.

Also, in the latest version of the route, some track changes took place in Philadelphia, so some paths will require adjustments.