Stowe Northern, Re-release and oncoming template Options

[dgionet]

Hello to all,

As many of us know, Max Brisben released the Stowe Northern route for the first time in early 2010 but later has been removed from the Train-sim file library. However, it has been re-released at the end of May and became available at Nick's At the Railyard web site. A big thanks to Nick and Max for this re-release.

Following its re-release, I have made a request and have received an authorization from Max to allow myself to create an upgrade to the route. This upgrade will stretch out all the unstretched sidings in the route, create some additional sidings to be used with AG and rename some of the sidings for an oncoming template. Thanks Nick for contacting Max and thanks Max for your green light, much appreciated!

During the upgrade, I hit a snag at the Waterville area. I cannot figure out why but trying to save the changes at Waterville always ended with a crash. All the other areas of the route were successfully upgraded and ready for a new template. That means the Waterville area will see no work out there but will be used for railfill purposes or to allow meets. There's still potential with the rest of the areas for a good template.

Construction has started this week-end and have finished a first template. Planned are NB and SB mainline templates.Some LOCALS and also a LOCO template to have one S2 handle the locomotives to be maintainted at the Stowe engine shops. Route Riter has made unpowered locos from the locomotives used for the template. This doesn't create copyright issues as no changes were made to the original, only created additional WAG files. They are identified preceded with a $sign.

Ten (10) downloads will be needed, including five (5) canadian car packs from Paul Charland and two (2) payware sets. The first is from BLW/ZT Central Vermont (CV) pack and Ed's trains CN GP9 set. Combined, both sets have the Noodle livery (starting in 1961) and also the former Green and Gold livery. The timeframe is expected around 1961-1962. Benny has provided some information to help in making the template as realistic as possible despite the fact that the Stowe Northern route is a protolanced route.

I am including some shots of the first SLG-generated act. It will be recommended to run in autumn mode as the following images will give us a spectacular view of the route.

On the ninth picture, you can see a meet with what is called a milk train, composed of a RS3 loco, a mail car, some milk cars and a few box cars, as it has been seen in images. The milk train will be part of AI traffic,





















More to come later

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

The Waterville area is now in business...thanks to Jim.

Good news! Jim Meindl wrote me a few days ago to confirm he has successfully stretched the sidings in the Waterville Yard area (except for the Shops) and has sent me the route update including the rest of the unstretched sidings. I completed the update last night with addition of some new sidings. Jim apparently did some careful editing of some of the route files to succeed.

I will restart the template from scratch and give you some developments as it advances. Same plans as before, adding Waterville to the other working areas.

Much appreciated Jim for your hard work. Thanks again.

More to come later

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

The templates are being rebuilt with Waterville as part of the workload, thanks to Jim's successfull updating of the Waterville area.

I have been having issues in some areas which generated the following message and a freeze to end the act.



Reducing the terrain error threshold to lower settings has solved the issue, which for a while caused quite a headache. Glad this has been resolved!

The Mainline NB and SB are finished. I have done one return locals template between Stowe and Morrisville-Elmore. It is a return trip starting at Stowe to both locations (or one of both if wished) and return to Stowe.

A LOCO Template, which consists of handling engines ( unpowered locos made with Route Riter) requiring maintenance to the Stowe engine shops is also finished. One (1) S4 engine is the player engine and can move up a couple of engines at a time to move the engines between the shops and the loco siding locations

Two are still remaining the SB and NB locals.

In the meantime, here are some shots from the Mainline SB and also from the LOCO Template















Enjoy the shots and will update later as work progresses

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Work is now mostly done on the templates and will start testing the route.Benny assists me with testing the templates. If someone else would like to test the route and template, let me know.

A YARDS Template has been added to work in St.Albans, Waterville and Stowe. That makes the total of templates to seven (7) templates. Also for six of them, traffic pattern maps were done with arriving time at designated locations, done in the same concept as the ones done for the Blackfoot, Ozark Northern, A&O Sub routes. It will be to the player to determine the best area for an oncoming train, taking in consideration time to do your work, etc... Other that the one AI at the beginning for most of the templates, the player is expected to have only one AI along the run.
At Waterville (for the YARDS Template).

Before exiting the Waterville shops, the S4 player train will have to wait for two meeting trains at Waterville ( see 7th image) to clear the yards before proceeding ahead for work on the yard

For those having an older computer (in my case a dual-core quad), it will take some knowledge of the route to overcome some of the crashes I have encountered. For example at Stowe, my PC freezes with the Object density at 10 and the Terrain Error threshold at around the two thirds toward the right. Changing the Threshold to the middle resolved the issue. At Morrisville, I had to lower down the Object density to 9 instead of 10 following some crashes upon arrival at Morrisville etc...

In some of the templates (NB, SB, NBLOCALS and SBLOCALS), some of the paths will lead you to end up (while in movement) inside the limits of sidings named To Montreal, (see 4th image) To Cambridge (see last image) and To White River Jct. When the paths indicates the user must select these sidings to end the act, it is a must. Two of the pictures seen here shows that a moving train getting inside the designated sidings, simulating a continuity of the run, will end successfully the activity. This has been previously done on the combined Potash-DRGW Green River route templates.

Here are some additional shots of some of the acts.





















Will update later

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Testing and changes are slowly continuing to be done in order to refine the whole package. I cannot guarantee for users completion of every activity AG has generated due to the graphic intensive nature of the route. Activities are being completed more and more. It is a beautiful route to run, once the graphic issue is controlled.

I am still having some freezes but am able to save my acts prior to getting to areas prone to freeze. Once saved, I adjust the sliders to allow continuation of the act with lower graphic levels. Once the area is passed, I save again, adjust up the sliders and reload and resume the act. I have written in the readme file details of the areas subect to similar issues. Such adjustments may be different to mine according to one's PC features.

I hope to have the whole package released in a couple of weeks .

BTW Ted (smokeytc), you have volunteered to test the files but twice the package I have sent to you has been returned back with this message:

<smokeytc@295.ca>: maildir delivery failed: Sorry, the user's maildir has
overdrawn his diskspace quota, please try again later.

Let me know when the issue is settled so I can send you the updated template package.

Here are some additional pictures



















Will update later

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Following reports and issues during testing, I have decided to scrap all AI traffic destined for meets. Traffic schedules couldn't hold up to what it has been expected. Startup traffic for activities remain with some small changes to player and traffic paths to have automatic switching at designated areas where needed, such as the wye West of the Johnson Yard. That will eliminate surprises to those not familiar with the route and accidentally going on the wrong direction or siding. Some templates will have automatic switching while others will still require manual switching. Please read carefully the readme file, It is always a challenge to make the best of a dark territory route like the Stowe Northern. Earlier dark territory routes done were the Blackfoot, the Ozark Northern, the A&O sub route, to name a few.

Attributes to some sidings are being updated to correct the appropriate rolling stock to them.

The readme file is continuosly updated trying to give as most details as possible to maximize the route and templates' potential, taking into account the route's graphics requirements.

Here are some additional shots of generated activities by AG
















Will keep updating as it advances.

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

I have received the green from both Ted and Benny, my testers, to have the template package released in the templates page.

A very important detail to mention: two (2) installations of the template will be available.

The first installation is for those having both the BLW/ZT CV and Ed's trains CN GP9 sets.
The second installation is for those having only the BLW/ZT CV set available.

In the ZIP file, the user will find two separate folders, one for each installation. Make sure to read the instructions to install the proper template package

Thanks to Ted and Benny for helping out with the testing and also to Jim Meindl for having successfully put the markers in Waterville, making the package as it is.

I will be writing to Steve to upload the package to the templates page

Here some of the last screens of the route.







Will confirm once available in the templates page

[dgionet]

Just to confirm the template package is now in the templates page.

Here'e the image you will see in the templates page.



Thanks again Steve and happy trainsimming to all!

[Conductor Chris]

Where can one obtain the upgraded version of the route?
thanks
Christopher

[bandorr2000]

About 2/3rds down the page on the At the Railyard web site.

http://www.attherailyard.com/apps/blog/

[Conductor Chris]

About 2/3rds down the page on the At the Railyard web site.

http://www.attherailyard.com/apps/blog/

Thanks. But that says nothing about being the updated version referenced in discussion about this template. Apparently I'm confused about something.

I've already got the route, but not the new version this template needs.

Christopher

[smokeytc]

Thanks. But that says nothing about being the updated version referenced in discussion about this template. Apparently I'm confused about something.

I've already got the route, but not the new version this template needs.

Christopher

When you installed it - if the route is called "sn-new" then this is the one for this template.
Ted

[jrmeindl]

Thanks. But that says nothing about being the updated version referenced in discussion about this template. Apparently I'm confused about something.

I've already got the route, but not the new version this template needs.

Christopher

The route released from 'At The Railyard', I believe, is the same one that was released long ago. The updates, mentioned in this post, refer to the changes made to make the route work for Activity Generator. Those updated files are included with Denis' template. In it's original form, the siding markers were not spread far enough apart, or were missing. The modified files added siding names and corrected or added markers.

Jim