Southern Railway's Saluda template, New template on the works Options

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

About two years ago to the month, as some of you remember was done Norfolk Southern's Saluda template, which was among my earlier templates. I have decided to work on a completely new template to reflect as possible Southern Railway's
operations inside the Saluda route. Southern books on Saluda are very rich in history and saw some very challenging and difficult years and I took some extra time to try to get as most information as possible to make it as realistic as I could and believe this one will deliver .Southern operated the route until it was officially merged with the Norfolk & Western, creating the Norfolk Southern in 1990. Such merger would compete with another massive one (Seabord and Chessie) created in 1986 making this one the CSX rail system.

The Southern Saluda templates timeframe is set 15 years earlier than its predecessor, that is for 1972 when Sd40-2's and GP38-2's began service. At the time F7 units were the prime movers through the 4.7% grade and made the grade safer to cross, when compared to steam which caused many casualties in the first half of the 20th century and much damage to the railway stock. Also in the templates are included the F-units, U23B's and even RS-1's which one was seen in a photograph as a switcher in the Spartanburg Yards. The RS-1 will be the player unit for the YARDS template which will see service within the limits of the Spartanburg and Asheville Yards respectively.

The template package will also see EB, WB, a GRADE template only for tackling the grade with the units and stock of your choice in content and length and also a LOCAL template which have return paths from both yards to do local work on each side of the Saluda Grade.

Here are some pictures of some of the players inside the template package.

Only 15 downloads will be required. Three of the templates are finished and have started testing while working on the remaning ones, which are the LOCAL and GRADES templates .


Will update later,

Enjoy

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Some additional details about the first of the GRADE templates (GRADE UP and GRADEDOWN) which will deal with going up or down the grade. There will be finally two templates, one for each direction. It took some head scratching to figure out the way the GRADEUP template will be configured. The GRADEDOWN one should be easier to figure out.

The GRADEUP template will deal with bringing your consist up the grade and bring it to the Asheville North yard. But the challenge is bringing up your 3 SD40-2's(9000 hp) 60 car-train weighing up to 5200 tons (total mass) up the grade. Remember each sd40-2's maximum tonnage up the grade is about 580 tons. That means the operator will have to do what is known as tripling the hill. The trip begins just before entering the eastern limits of Tyron. This will allow your train to pickup speed up to 20mph just before you start climbing up to Melrose. Just remember, the grade itself up to Melrose is around 2%. The climb itself could be a long and tough one, with such a heavy load behind. Sanding and trying to keep the maximum speed will be a must to reach Melrose. The 60-car maximum has been set according to real life operations and taking into account track configurations at Melrose and Saluda.

What is about tripling the hill? Once reaching Melrose, you will have to cut the first set of 20 cars of your consist, leave the rest inside the Melrose siding and bring the first of the three cuts to the Saluda siding. Once set, you will have to return down with your engines, pickup the second cut of 20, bring it up to Saluda, return again to pickup the final cut up to Saluda. Once up there, re-assemble your cuts to be the same order as it was before making the cut.It can take up to 2 hours to achieve the procedure. It looks almost impossible, but it can be done. The important is to know where to put your cuts along the double line and keeping the railway crossings clear.


Special attention will be taken by the user to follow instructions to build his consist so he will pull up his 60 cars to destination. Choice of rolling stock has also been selected in the CTP file for AG to build a typical 60-car consist which will end up weighing between 4000 and 5200 tons. The latest one that I was able to test was 5250 tons( with caboose)

Am including some pictures of a couple of AG-generated activities for the GRADEUP template.

More details later as it progresses

Exiting Tyron and start climbing the 2% grade to Melrose


Leaving Melrose with the first cut to Saluda


Full throttle upward he grade


Closing in the crest of the grade


Returning down after the first cut was set to its proper place