Hello to all,

Here are shots of the finished N&W Template set. Two templates depict a EB & WB run between Fort Erie and the EL Bison Yards. The other one is a WB run from the EL Bison going through the N&W yards North of the NKP yard. Had some issues for the EB, causing crashes which I couldn't resolve. This one I have decided to let go for the time being.















More later

Hello to all,

Here are shots of the finished TH&B Template (NB &SB Templates) which runs between the CN yards at Niagara and the PC Frontier Yard. Betwen both Yards, the working areas are the PC-Niagara Yard, from where the TH&B is allowed to bring or take cars from the PC Frontier Yard (SB&NB). Also the THB is allowed to take or leave cars SB at the PC-Tonawanda Yard #2 siding. Northbound, it has one customer, which is the Meyer Malting siding at the Black Rock area to bring cars directly to Hamilton.

The shots:





















Next will be the CN Template before starting to work on the bigger lines, the remaining LV, EL and finally the PC

Hello again,

The CN Template is now finished.

The two templates have a distinct path. The SB template start at the CN Niagara Yard, uses the Buffalo Delaware arenue area to end up at the Frontier Receiving Yard. In between, CN is allowed to do some pickups or setouts at some of CN's customers in the area (fictional of course! ) . The Westbound path goes from the Frontier Departure area to the CN Fort Erie Yard. Except for some work at the GT Yard, just before crossing the bridge, it is mostly a runthrough path. It should take about 20-25 minutes to reach the CN Fort Erie Westbound Yard. I felt doing one NB to Niagara was not necessary since one has been done for the TH&B. Of course, the player could swap the TH&B engines ( on the SLG-generated consist, not the original ones) with CN ones to run the path.

Here are shots taken from activities generated by AG:



















Only three Railroads remain and to be done in the following order: the LV, the EL and finally the PC. Still a lot of work ahead.

More later

Hello to all,

Here are the first images from the LV template path between the LV Niagara and the LV Tifft yard.The other path stops at the LV East Buffalo Yard. This one will be tested later.



















More later

Hello again,

Here are images from the LV NB template.





















I will start now on the LVLOCALS Template which will depict local work along the industries serviced by the LV.

More later

Hello to all,

The LV templates are now done. In addition to the NB and SB main, templates depicting local work, yard work and Industrial

work have been added.

Shots from the LOCALS and YARDS templates



















The only templates now left are the EL and PC

More later

Hi to all,

Here's the first of a series of templates for the EL: handling unpowered locos to be serviced in the EL shops in the Bison Yard complex.

It will be necessary to ask permission to the dispatcher (ALT-TAB) to move through every RED signal. There are three signals to cross. From the Service area in the Western section of the Bison Yard, the freeware SW8 (from TS) can move up to five locos to the repair shop, located in the Eastern section of the Yard.


Shots of the successfull activity, done in about a hour. It consists of bringing five locos to be serviced to the repair shop and bringing back another five repaired locos to the service area.






















More later

Hello again,

Shots from the EL GOWANDA SB Template, servicing the different areas between Buffalo and Gowanda. It took close to 2 1/2 hours to complete. The user will be required to swap the switching to manual to service some sidings, like the Collins Hwy dept siding. Also the signalling will be required to switch to permissive to allow signal crossings in some areas.

For the SB template past Blaidell, the user is expected to meet only one EL AI traffic train. Make sure to save regularly your act, just in case... the NB is still to be done and also one servicing the Gowanda industrial area.

The shots:





















More later

Hello to all,

The Gowanda (NB, SB and Industrial) templates are now finished and have done also the Mainline SB from Niagara to the Bison Yards.

For the Gowanda NB, it will be required to follow instructions to clear the signal before exiting the area (see image below)



Here are shots of the NB to the BSOR Yard










See next post for some shots from the EL SB mainline

The shots from the EL Mainline SB. On that template, only the Colvin Blvd. siding is serviceable between both yards.













On the oncoming NB mainline template, the player should be able to have more serviceable sidings between both yards. That will be confirmed once done.

More later

Hi to all,

The EL Mainline templates are now finished. The NB and SB templates are runs between Niagara and the Bison Yards while the EB and WB handle rune between the DLW,ERIE,Black Rock Yards and the Bison Yards. At this point, 30 templates have now been done.

Some shots of the activities generated by AG















EL LOCALS, YARDS templates are still to come and maybe some EL extras may come later.

Will update later.

Hello to all,

Just to confirm the EL templates are now finished. There has been 19 templates done for the EL. That brings the current total of templates to 41. For the last Railroad, the Penn Central, it is estimated that between 20 and 25 templates will complete the package. However, the number of paths is expected to be higher since the PC track network exceeds by far the others.

I am currently awaiting for Teemu to send me an update to the route. Unfortunately, he didn't shed any light as for a oncoming date release, not yet. Time will tell.

More later

Hello to all,

I am happy to announce that the Buffalo Templates are now finished. A few years ago, when I have first seen this route (the earlier version in 2009), I couldn't imagine possible creating a project with the route. It was too complex for me to have one done. Well today, I am proud this is now behind. Additional years of experience and careful planning made this project possible. Now let's hope to see that oncoming route released soon! (No date release yet - still in testing phaze)

Here are some numbers coming with the template project: 67 templates, 10 different RR's (BCK, NIAJ, SB, B&O, N&W, TH&B, CN, LV, EL and finally the PC), 187 consists, 335 template (ACT,CTP,PRO, SWLACT, SWLTDB) files, 302 path files, 336 service files, 58 traffic files and ... many hours of work. Traffic files are lower since some of the traffic patterns are used by two templates. Each template has been customized to increase performance by removing all regions that were not required in the SWLTDB file while having a reasonable railfill around the player paths. Despite that, the user will have to adjust graphic and sound sliders for lower-end computers. It has been difficult to find the proper balance.

I will resume testing, but on a slower pace since other issues are taking some of my time until everything gets back to normal. Well that's life isn't it?

The readme file is still to be started and this will take time to detail the templates and instructions to run them.

Will update later with pics of some of the activities generated or any route developments.

Well this is a significant milestone and accomplishment! Yeah! What a lot you have put into this!
Christopher

Hi to all,

Here are some of the first shots of Acts for the PC. They have been done a few weeks ago but have been able to post them only now. Screenshots are taken from acts for the PC Merchants and Williamsville templates.Here I have swapped locos to use BLW GP30's





















Enjoy the shots

Any news on this route and template?

Hello to all,

Just to update the route project by Teemu Saukkonen.

Earlier in July, Pete Mulvey (xpdingo) has been able to contact Teemu and he received the following reply about the Buffalo route project:

Hello, it should be ready to be released, but I haven't checked everything
yet. I have had no time during the summer, maybe during the autumn.

Teemu

Thanks Pete for the shared info!

Nick,

The templates have been finished this February. All that remains is on Teemu's side to release the route. For the numbers see post 63.

Thanks

Hi to all,

Great news!

Just to confirm that the route has been officially released at Train-Sim this morning.

Before releasing the templates, it will be necessary to check them again, to make sure no changes have been made in the TDB file, making some of the template files unusable.

If some of you are willing to test the templates, let me know.

Thanks

Denis

Just installed the route and it is really great.

Looking forward to the template.

Thanks
Harold

Hello to all,

I have decided to release the route templates as is. There has been a lot of work done already on this project and I do lack some extra time to recheck again the whole template package. I believe there will be minimal changes to the templates. I will count on users to help me if some route paths have been unusable between the latest beta I had (number 865) and the official route release.

I am waiting for Steve to reply before sending him the template package to be uploaded to the templates page.

Pending the availability of this template in the templates page, I will provide a link to our AG users to retrieve themselves the template package. Simply send me a PM and I will send you the OneDrive link to download the set.

This is the image expected to be seen in the templates page once available.



Will update with any developments.

Just wanted to say thank you for all you have put into this template.
Christopher

Hi to all,

Steve has contacted me today and I have just sent him the route template to be uploaded to the templates page.

Will confirm once uploaded.

Hello to all,

The Buffalo templates are now available to download in the templates page.

I would like to take some time to thank the following concerned:

Teemu Saukkonen ( aka enocell in TS) for this exceptionnal and massive route. I believe this has been quite a challenge to build it and congratulations. Our users will enjoy using the route and its almost endless possibilities.

Pete Mulvey (aka xpdingo) to have given me the privilege to undertake in his place the Buffalo route template project. It has started 3 1/2 years ago and happy this is done now.

Tim Muir, who gave me permission to include with the download the NIAJ 15 electric loco, normally available only at the Elvas Tower site. This will allow a more realistic the use of the NIAJ Templates.

Rick Franzosa, who provided the BLW/ZT Buffalo Mega Pack, exceptionnal by its quantity as well by its quality.

Craig Kawahara, who provided me, at the early stages, the map system draft of the route, which needed to be updated regularly until the recent update. A lot of work there as there were many changes to the route datebase. That helped me to define the 100+ regions that composed the route template system.

Benny, who tested continually with me the templates, giving me some precious suggestions as well to improve the package. A big thanks again Benny.

My apologies to those I may have forgotten.

Again Steve thanks for your constant assistance, also for Activity Generator, which I am still enjoying today after all these years.

To all our AG users: thanks for your interest with the templates, enjoy the templates and happy trainsimming.

Thank you Denis. This, along with all the other templates you have done, are very much appreciated. Thank you, and Happy New Year to you and yours.

Denis,
Great template, I just finished the many yards SNB 1 and I worked great, I like the way you routed the AI trains around the yard areas and even noticed some AI trains off in the distance when I was doing my final work at PC-Frontier yard, great effects. I'm running the route in OR.
One area I noticed is the names of some of the yards "tracks" have changed in the final release and that some of the yard tracks in the Bethlehem mill area are gone.

The changes were small and I was able to update my old mill template from the Beta version and run some activities.

Can't wait to run some more of your templates great work.

Just an FYI if you get to changing any of the templates there is a great "hot steel" bottle car and a set if "ingot mold" cars at TS File: dv_stc_a.zip that would look good on the hot metal tracks and the teaming tracks for any of the mills on the route.

Thank you for all you work.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Glad you are still enjoying the templates and now Buffalo.

Following your comments, I have taken a look at the Bethlehem steel area to check some of the markers that would be off track and found nothing so far. The latest Beta version I had before its official release was 865. Can you tell me more specifically which ones you have found changes.

Have downloaded the file in question and will be looking up the possibility of updating, not sure though.

Will wait for your reply.

Thanks

Denis,
I think the problems I listed was more due to the many changes that have taken from the first beta and the second beta ant the final release, I'm finding that you templates are working fine and some of the errors may be between Craig's maps and the current revision.
As of yet i have not found any "OOPS' yet and will email you if I do.

Peter

How do I add pictures from my photo bucket storage?

Thanks in advance,

Peter

Hi Peter,

Last year, I have posted how to post screenshots on photobucket.

The link:

http://skylinecomputing.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=983

Hope this helps

Thanks

I'm having a great time with the route but ran into one snag. On the NIAJ template I can't get the electric locos to work, tried pan up and pan down and get no power.

They also won't run in explore mode. I'm running windows 10 and and open rails.

All my files are in a C: MSTS1 folder, I can run all the desiel power OK. Any help will be apreciated.

No rush as I'm love running the Alcos under the wire.

Thanks
Peter

Hi Peter,

I have checked it and found the same issue. Have tried some changes on the ENG file but no success. Have just ran successfully the Little Joes Electrics on the RMD East. So the issue may be related on the NIAJ 15 engine itself. Will try to compare both engines and hope to find the reason for the stall.

Hi again Peter,

Found the culprit: have looked at the following ENG file for both NIAJ 15 ENG files and found this ( see line in BLUE):



Simply change the word Diesel for Electric and this will resolve the issue. Have run successfully the loco with the changes made.

Denis,

Thanks for the feed back, and the great templates this route has it all. Just an FYI the origional file from ET the engine type call out was correct, you may want to update the file that is in the template download.

Peter

With the virus i'm using my time again for running routes. I have run into a problem with both the pc niagara and the cn niagra templates, both come up with errors for broken paths. I have tried loading the templates to edit them but they wont open, I think my windows 10 pro is too new to work with the old dos the program was written for. Could someone send me some updated templates for this area?


Thanks
Peter

Hi Peter,

Glad to hear that you are still around. I'm still enjoying simming with OR and being watchful for oncoming releases, such as the DAR v3 route, etc

I have checked both templates and found no errors on my side. Myself have windows 10 and it runs OK. Make sure to have the Bin installed. I have multiple mini routes and while installing the Siskiyou route, had some issues with the Activity editor. I found out later that the Bin was not installed. Once done, everything was OK.

I ran Route Riter for the Buffalo route and templates and found nothing either. Let me know if something specific about the issue

Denis

Hi Denis, just curious if the PRR2 was finished yet. Ben quite a while sense the end of February. Greg

Denis,
Thanks for getting back to me, as it turned out I screwed up the PRO file for this template, when I open up the SWTDB file i saw that there were a reg 1, 3,4 reg but in the PRO file there was a EB, 24,4 and WB, 24,3 thinking the yard files were missing I added the reg fro them in the profile and not knowing what reg 25 was i deleted it.

What was reg 25?

I thought something was missing as when i loaded switch list generator there was only one selection for the three where you want to get cars where you want to work and where you want to finish.

I reloaded a fresh version of the act, pro etc and bingo it worked.

I had forgotten that I can select individual tracks to work as the final set out and generated an act and everything went well it took around 4hrs to complete the act.

Thanks again and be safe when you go out its a new world out there.

Peter