Milwaukee Road Coast division 2, Template project started |
Milwaukee Road Coast division 2, Template project started |
Oct 7 2018, 06:07 PM
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#1
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Train Master Group: Members Posts: 1,017 Joined: 4-February 07 From: Canada Member No.: 21 |
Hello to all,
In preparation for the release of the Milwaukee Road Coast division 2 route, I have received in late August from Moe Smith with Jerry's permission the route to start preparing the template project.Thanks again Moe for your assistance and to Jerry to allow me to start preparing the project! It took a few weeks to figure out the proper download requirements. After that, I have started to install markers on all serviceable sidings in all possible areas. Due to the heavy number of sidings in the Tacoma area, some sidings were omitted (not that many) to allow more performance in the area. The total number of serviceable sidings in the entire route is around 420 (around 300 in the Seattle-Tacoma corridor area alone) Three railroads are involved: the MILW, NP and the UP (running between Seattle and Tacoma). Due to the presence of intermodal yards in Seattle and Tacoma. I have found among the downloads what I believe to be among the first container cars which started to run in North America in the late sixties. Timeframe of the template project has been set in that period, prior to the NP becoming the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) in 1970.There are 70 different regions in the SWLTDB file. Each siding has received its respective car attribute. Two payware (and all bonuses) from BLW/ZT downloads are required. They are the Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road freight packs. They are the same packs used as with previous template projects involving some of the previous MILW route templates. The freeware downloads ( from CLW and TS) is around 27 to complete the count. Among the downloads are one low-poly car string download which I have started using in some bigger yards to add some eye candy and railfill. The first and only template done so far is the MILW WB main from Cle Elum to Seattle's Van Asselt Yard. On this one, there is only work in Cedar Falls to pickup or set out cars before reaching Seattle. I have yet to create and test the run from Cle Elum to Tacoma. On the Cle Elum-Seattle SLG-generated run, I have experienced serious traffic issues which took a week to find the culprit: a marker which has been mistakenly put to one siding in Maple Valley on which AI traffic trains pass along. That resulted in all AI trains stalling at the Indian siding. Problem solved! I have also discovered how to use OR's dispatcher (CTRL-9) feature and will be very helpful with activity creation and to make sure of the position of trains in real time which is different when testing in the MSTS AE. Due to the detailed nature of the route, I had to lower down some video settings in OR to have a reasonable performance. In maximum settings, some cars didn't show during passage of AI traffic trains. Had also to reduce world object settings from 10 to 9. I may be necessary in older computers to go even lower in these settings. Here are the first pictures of the first SLG-generated and successful run from Cle Elum to Seattle: MILWCOA2Image1 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Meeting the North Coast Limited West of Easton MILWCOA2Image2 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Crossing the NP line West of Easton MILWCOA2Image3 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr At Whittier where you can see the NP line above at Martin, near the Eastern portal or the Stampede tunnel and also seen above is the Switchback line with its 5% grade in most of the line. A test run has been successfull along the switchback line with 2 Geeps,5 loaded cars and a caboose. It is not guaranteed to make it through if you add more cars to the consist because of the limited length of one of the switchbacks. MILWCOA2Image4 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Meeting an EB at Rockdale. Behind you can see the access to the Hi-line which has been used prior to the construction of the Snowqualmie tunnel with grades up to 3% MILWCOA2Image5 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Cedar Falls MILWCOA2Image6 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Bagley Jct. Seen on the left is the MILW's Enumclaw branch and, across the bridge, the NP line towards Barneston. MILWCOA2Image7 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Maple Valley and the Pacific Coast railroad alongside crossing the MILW line MILWCOA2Image8 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Black River Jct MILWCOA2Image9 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr All three Railroads (NP, MILW and UP lines) in Seattle. MILWCOA2Image10 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr Reaching the Van Asselt Yard That's it for now. Will be posting later as the project progresses -------------------- Denis Gionet
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Nov 27 2018, 12:08 PM
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#2
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Train Master Group: Members Posts: 1,017 Joined: 4-February 07 From: Canada Member No.: 21 |
Hello to all,
It has been quiet on the forum for me but not for the work on the current project. The Template count has now reached 21 and believe this may reach around 30 or more. For the last weeks, I have been working on the locals between Cle Elum and Seattle/Tacoma. Once done, I have turned my attention inside the Seattle-Tacoma Area, which includes switching in the Tacoma Intermodal area. A lot of refining has been done along to make the work easier for the user. One example is the orientation of the sidings to be worked and many of the templates have only the workable sidings which go with their orientation. The MILW locals and the NP SB are finished. I will start the NP NB locals. The Yards templates are still to be done as well as some more specific ones. Traffic has been a real challenge throughout the entire project so far. The OR dispatcher feature and also manual switching will be a must to run many of them. Here are 20 ramdom shots of the different locals done since my last post done around 3 weeks ago. The first set of ten: MILWCOA2Image115 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image116 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image117 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image118 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image119 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image120 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image121 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image122 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image123 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr MILWCOA2Image124 by Denis Gionet, sur Flickr -------------------- Denis Gionet
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