Blue Comet Route, Template Options

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

I am still waiting for Teemu's news to resume the Buffalo template.

In the meantime,I have started looking into building a template package for the Blue Comet route. The sidings are well marked to have one done. It is a very picturesque route for those who enjoys seaside scenery and there are a lot of bridges, some very long to cross.

Most of the trackage is owned by the Central of New Jersey RR (or CNJ) while some parts are operated by the Pennsylvania RR (PRR), that is between Seaside Park to Whitings, from Sea Girt to Farmingdale and also from Winslow Jct to Atlantic City. The last section was confirmed by looking at Craig's PRR-Eastern route map, which includes the Atlantic City to Winslow Jct line.

Selection of the proper rolling material and timeframe has been difficult. There is very little CNJ and PRR material in Train-Sim. It has been decided to use the BLW/ZT CNJ Freight set (payware) as the main download. It is by far the best set for the template. There are fourteen (14) additional downloads, all from TS including PRR GP9's and PRSL Baldwin AS16's to rum the passenger train (Ai traffic) between Atlantic City and Winslow Jct. I have seen images (railpictures.net) of passenger trains with an AS16 as lead engine at Atlantic City in 1954. Passenger trains in this section were operated by the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines RR (PRSL), a joint venture between both the PRR and the Reading RR's.

With all this in mind, it has been decided to set the timeframe around 1955 since the most recent locomotives on the roster are the CNJ's RSD4's and the PRR GP9's which were introduced respectively in 1952 and 1954. All the selected freight is no longer than 40ft long, which is quite relevant of this era. They include boxcars, tankers, coal gondolas, stock, lumber, scrap, ballast and hopper cars.

If some of you are interested to test the package once done, let me know.

I have done some exploration and here's some teaser shots of the route to enjoy.




















So, it looks good to go for a template unless the Buffalo route gets some development to resume its construction.

[dgionet]

Additional shots from a CNJ local between Red Bank and Bay Head. Everything went well until reaching Belmar. After working Sterner's lumber, I couldn't pickup the remaining load because of signalling issues, despite putting the end load between the signal and the switch. It was the closest to the switch but was too close from the signal, thus generating an end to the activity, despite toggling the signalling and switching respectively to permissive and manual. I couldn't finish the act because of this issue.

Here's the scenario in AE



That means that Sterner's lumber will be scrapped from any work. It will be there only for eye candy purposes. This change actually affects only the CNJ LOCALS SB. This solved!

At Asbury Park, Asbury Park siding 2 has a sharp curve and will require extra throttle to bring your load inside and out. I have found out that some of the cars were assigned with wrong car types. Some of the Coal cars were labelled BX instead of CL. It ended seeing coal cars in some sidings where only boxcars were to be seen. All the SWLACT files were corrected with the proper car labelling.

Some of the screenshots of work at Little Silver, Asbury Park and Bradley beach.













Overall, testing is going well and receiving good news from both Ted and Benny with successfull acts.

Will get back with more updates