CP Mactier Sub, Template Options

[dgionet]

Hello to all,

As many of you know, the CP Mactier Sub was released last week in TS.

The route also includes the entire Barrie-Collingwood (BCRY) short line between both cities. Only one engine is part of the BCRY roster, which is the BCRY 1001 GP9. Unfortunately, the engine was available nowhere among the MSTS downloads. Last Saturday, I have decided to try to create the GP9 for the BCRY.

The newly BCRY 1001 has been successfully done and is now available in the Mophouse site as of today for download.

Here it is:



Also earlier this week, Ted Kocyla has enhanced the route with its texture upgrade.

I wanted to finish the BCRY 1001 before going any further with plans to announce my intention to create a template. Now this and the texture upgrade are done, I am now ready to offer to create one for the route, if no one else has already started it.

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Here's a rundown on the first week of the template.

The NB is now done and being tested. Close to 100 available sidings for the templates. The NB player trains will be a couple of CP AC4400's which can handle well 70 cars, which will be the maximum proposed in any player train. Final destination will be at Mactier 1 siding which has the maximum of capacity of about 70 cars. Since Mactier is only a crew change point, you will have to set in all SLG-generated activities the Mactier 1 as your final destination to allow your train to enter the siding and stop for the shift. That will end the act once stopped. Starting paths are located at Lambton, the Vaughan Yards and also at Ypres. The latter one at Ypres simulate that you are already running your way to Mactier. For those who will be running it, it will be mostly a running train with some meets and few sidings available to work; that is at the BCRY's Utopia area and the Midhurst area further North.

When preparing to wait for an oncoming train, once stopped before your signal, I recommend to reverse slighlty your train and stop on reverse. I have not done it at Ypres the first time and the train simply stopped at the signal ahead. Once I reversed and stopped while on reverse mode, the oncoming train started to move again but went through the siding at very low speed. I have redone the meet correctly and the oncoming train passed at a faster speed through the siding.

At Ypres, you will start on the mainline waiting for the oncoming train, the waiting time will be about 3 minutes. Immediately after the meet and once departing, you will be expected to stop to allow the BCRY train to pass at the BCRY diamond at Essa. Since it is usually not possible for MSTS to handle signals of both lines by itself, I was able to use an invisible loco just located between the signals on both sides of the BCRY to activate the stop signal. I had to create two traffic trains; one for the invisible loco and the other for the passing BCRY freight train. It took some time to synchronize all this and here's three screenshots of the meet. Also check the time it takes to turn from Red to Green once the train passes. MSTS would have not been able to do this.







I have generated another activity from the Vaughan Yard and picked up 70 stack cars and am on my way to Mactier. The act is not finished yet as of today, probably in the next days.

Some shots of the SLG act between Vaughan and Spence









Oh yes and almost forgot to mention it. I have replaced the CN Dash 9 along the Weston sub by GO transit trains instead along the CN Weston sub. I will also use them to do some railfill at the Allandale GO trains area.

So that's it for now and will update later