Australia's Adelaide, Hills and South East route, template on the works Options

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

I have started not long ago construction of a new template for this Australian route, considered an absolute masterpiece and I personally believe it. Here are some numbers to give you an idea of its magnitude: more than 3 years and 6000 hours of work, 1200 km (750 miles) of laid track, 1300 km (800 miles) of roads, 1400 custom items included in the route which has more than 600 miles of main line.

The AU_Adelaide, Hills & South East route is located in Southern Australia, which is known as the driest state in the driest continent in the planet. This 1950's route covers the entire metropolitan area of Adelaide, the hills lines to Willunga, Mt Pleasant and Victor Harbour, as well as to the South East through Tailem Bend to Serviceton and Mt Gambier. It can be downloaded as a single self-install file (350MB) or as separate files at the following link

http://steam4me.railpage.org.au/trainsim/r.../sar_adlv2.html

The era for the template is set in the mid-fifties (50's). Markers have been finally put on the 385 serviceable sidings in 12regions, available in the package. The main player engines are two-930 class engines in the South Australian Railways (SAR) colors which started their servicing duties in December 1955. Take note that some of the 930-class engines have reversable cabs which can also be driven on reverse (check following screenshot) Here is some additional information as provided kindly by Allan Lownsborough, the creator of the route about the main diesel locos used in the mid fifties:

“The 930 class were the mainline diesels whose lives were spent predominantly through the heavily graded hills line Adelaide to Tailem Bend in both freight and passenger service. However, they could be seen virtually anywhere in the South Australia Railway (SAR) system in both services. At the time (mid 1950's), they were the most powerful diesel locos we had. They serviced ‘The Overland” the Premier night express between Adelaide and Melbourne but also took the pickup freights which would have included some shunting at many country stations. Only the larger towns (Tailem Bend, Bordertown) would have their own stable of shunting locos. In the days of the 930, 90% (decreasing) of these country based shunting locos would have been steam.The 830 class could also be seen pretty much anywhere – some were even converted to run on 3’ 6” tracks in the north of the State. They were lower power than the 930’s and therefore were used more as “all rounders” in pass, freight, and some shunting duties”.

As it was with the Steyning template, a major task ahead to attribute village names with the sidings name because of identical names. For instance, it is estimated to have between 50 and 75 "goods sidings" in the route. Lots of work ahead! A new feature will be introduced in the following template: additional information about the orientation of many of the sidings along the branches. Because of the presence of many sidings opened on both sides, that means that they can be serviced for Northbound and/or Southbound traffic. To give equal possibilities for the user to enjoy the NB and SB templates, sidings in the many villages will be indicated if customized for Northbound (NB) or Southbound (SB) traffic. This feature will be seen in the AG4 “Customize your activity” window along the sidings and will help greatly in selecting tasks thus avoiding the use of maps. You should read for example in the following siding description “Kalangadoo-Goods Siding-NB” which is more detailed than the information shown below in the AE and would be shown by default “Goods siding” in the sidings description. That doesn't mean that all sidings marked for NB or SB have only sidings oriented in one direction only, it indicates only that most of the sidings are oriented in one direction.

I hope to begin soon the next phase of this oncoming template.

Here are some screenshots of this extraordinary detailed and fascinating australian landscape, the reversed cab feature of the 930-class engines and overall configuration of the route. You will be enchanted in what you will see.

Enjoy and "Good day Mate"

Denis

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Updating the Adelaide route project. The NB template is now finished and am in the testing phaze. Had a serious setback early this week after accidentally deleting 80% of my SWLACT file. Had to rebuild my SWLACT csv file with the MSTS ACT file and its 385 markers. Lost three days to catch up. Large route templates need for us builders to swing from one file to another, creating and deleting lines inside some files to do the job. This points out the delicate nature and complexity in building templates. Hats off to all colleages who are building or have built some templates. Glad to see more and more joining the template bandwagon.

Extensive work has been done on the SWLTDB file to include location of incomplete siding names which in some cases can be seen at more than 30 locations, such as "goods siding. There are more than 15 "cattle siding" and "sheep siding" along the route. Also has added the orientation of the markers if the sidings are for NB or SB. That will greatly reduce depending in detailed maps, which none is available, except for the overall view included with the route which should be sufficient at the time being.

Here's a shot of the map and the AG Activity window as examples:





Here are some shots from activities generated by AG to appreciate more this great and very detailed route.
Enjoy

[dgionet]

Hi to all,

Finally the template package for the Adelaide route is finished. There are NB and SB templates with respectively 14 and 11 paths for each template and about 15 regions. AI traffic is present on the double track area in the Adelaide area and North.

Due to the very detailed nature of this route, AI trains have been limited to only eight(8) per template. deactivating the AI trains in AG has helped in FPS but in some areas, even after making some adjustments in the MSTS graphic sliders or changing railcar fill in AG, FPS were still too low for comfort.

I have done some testing and came with no problems so far. But because my PC is only a 2Ghz, which is considered old by today's standards, I am considering releasing the template as a beta version to allow users with more performant PC's to test it and report problems encountered if necessary.

I have sent a notice to our Australian users at the railpage forum about the future release of the template. You can view the topic at the following:

http://www.railpage.com.au/f-t11335654.htm

Releasing the template as is in the next few days will allow me to continue further in assisting Craig Kawahara in verifying the huge and complex Burton-Derby map (about 185 pages) he had made. Once finished, this map will be a great help for those using the Burton-Derby template and its 765 sidings to service which has been released last September.

Can someone tell me when Steve is about to come back? I will try, in the meantime to do some more testing within the limits of my PC.

[nbeveridge]

Can someone tell me when Steve is about to come back? I will try, in the meantime to do some more testing within the limits of my PC.

Steve will not return home before Sunday evening. But I do not know if he is traveling on business during the following business days. THus there is no guarantee that he can get to the template before next weekend.