13 replies to this topic

[laming]

The other thread was gettin' a mite long... as I blabbed on and on dont'cha think ?

SOOoooo...

As promised in the previous thread, here's a brand spankin' new UPDATE to the UPDATE thread!

FIRST OFF: The South Park...

I grew quiet for some reason in the previous thread, but the rails kept making eastward progress. A few weeks ago the rails reached the Schwanders area.

The rails are only about 6 or so miles from the target town of Buena Vista. I didn't take a bunch of pics along the way, but here's a few to illustrate some of the areas/towns the line passes through on the east side of Alpine Pass.

First up: The little siding at Atlantic, just east of the portal of the Alpine Tunnel...

Attached Files

•  RE_Atlantic1.jpg   41.64KB   1 downloads

[laming]

Next up is view in Hancock. IF you are real conversant with the South Park, you'll recognize the composition in that scene!

Attached Files

•  RE_Hancock1.jpg   44.64KB   1 downloads

[laming]

From Hancock, the tiny rails dropped down toward "Murphy" (renamed Romley in 1889). There was an impressive amount of onesy-twosy mines to switch between Hancock and Murphy/Romley. Here's a couple maps from Activity Editor that illustrates what I mean...

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•  AE_AlpineT_to_Murphy.jpg   34.12KB   1 downloads
•  AE_NearMurphy.jpg   30.71KB   1 downloads

[laming]

Murphy had a location referred to as "Murphy's Switch". There is a fascinating photograph that most South Parkians are familiar with. I HAD to try to get the rails in that scene as "right" as I could... here's the result...

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•  RE_MurphySwitch1.jpg   45.75KB   1 downloads

[laming]

From Murphy's Switch, the rails quickly pass through Murphy proper and drop on down toward St. Elmo. Here's a pic at Murphy looking west...

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•  RE_Murphy1.jpg   46.6KB   1 downloads

[laming]

Next is St. Elmo. There was a lot more to St. Elmo than I first realized! There was even a smelter there! All of this is on a mountainside... so there was a switchback to access some of it.

Below is St. Elmo looking east...

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•  RE_StElmo2.jpg   49.48KB   1 downloads

[laming]

From St. Elmo the line goes past a pass track (Grizzly Gulch), then to another little surprise at a place called "Coal Camp". Didn't realize there was a small coal mining operation there! To accomodate, there's a small 2 car spur for rail shipment. Here's a pic looking east at the Coal Camp area...

Attached Files

•  RE_CoalCamp1.jpg   41.62KB   1 downloads

[laming]

Next town is Alpine (not to be confused with Alpine Tunnel). Because of the confusion, Alpine was renamed Fischer in 1890 as I recall. Here's another of those "famous pic" compositions for the seriously demented South Parkian to recognize...

Attached Files

•  RE_Alpine1.jpg   44.93KB   1 downloads

[laming]

From Alpine the line continues past Cascades, through Hortense (situated right at the base of the magnificant Chalk Canyons) then out into the Arkansas River Valley to Nathrop. I had to lay and relay rails in Nathrop just to get a version in place. I didn't like the results, so I completely relaid it in a couple evenings in order to get a version I was okay with. Below is what I call Version 2 of Nathrop. The long spurs access a quarry that was active during my period of 1884. The southernmost spur is the South Park's, and the northernmost spur is the D&RG's. The D&RG runs almost straight through the scene from the southwest to the northeast... the South Park is the one that squiggles and curves!

Attached Files

•  AE_NathropV2.jpg   24.58KB   1 downloads

[laming]

The rails are now at Schwanders. Schwanders is going to be a booger to reproduce on account of the sand piles that have burped out of the mouth of Trout Creek Canyon since the South Park was there. The old roadbed is beneath up to 15-20 feet of sand near the mouth of the canyon. It's going to be a very laborious effort to try to reconstruct the modern DEM terrain to reflect the way it was "back then". I have set the rail height near the correct height at Schwanders proper, but that's it.

For now, I'm taking a haitus from my South Park project until we return from that area during our vacation. Yup... we're going back to Colorado to do some more dual sport motorcycling as well as play trains at Chama, NM! Part of our dual sport explorations will be on the old South Park from Buena Vista up to Hancock, the Trout Creek area, and all the way over Boreas Pass out of Como to Breckenridge and return! I am hoping and praying for great weather so I can nail tons of texture photos for my South Park project.

Until then, I'm taking a break from the South Park... but that's not to say I haven't been piddlin' with another old friend of a project route.

Drat! Out of time... more about that later!!

[laming]

And then there's this...

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•  VandyTender1.jpg   26.8KB   1 downloads

[billmoyer]

Andre,

Nice looking tender! What do you intend to mate it to?

Enjoy Colorado!! We spent four weeks roaming the National Parks/Monuments there, before the fires, this spring. Soooooo much history!! We're already planning a return trip.

Bill

[laming]

Hi Bill!

The tender is from an old North Arkansas acquaintance that was into MSTS for a while. He built it.

The model wouldn't load into the sim, so he sent me a copy to see if I could get it into the sim. This was several years ago. I had forgotten I had it!

Upon rediscovering I had the model w/source files last week, I tried to get it into the sim. I couldn't get it to load in the sim either, so I sent the source files to another MSTS friend and he had it going in no time. However, still needs to have a lot of reworking (too large for starters). All in good time.

What to mate it to? It was intended to go behind 10 Class M&NA Consolidateds. (Baldwin, 1907.) Unfortunately, there isn't a M&NA 10 Class Consolidated built for MSTS, or any TS for that matter.

HOWEVER...

Master Modeler Tim Muir constructed an excellent looking Northern Pacific Consolidated of the same era and almost identical dimensions. Sooo... "one of these days"... that unique North Arkansas Vanderbilt tender will go behind a reskinned Tim Muir NP Consol!

Colorado:

We have NEVER had a "bad" Colorado vacation. They are always events to remember.

ALL:

Revelation Of The Day:

I'm bored laying track.

Yup, you read right. I'm tired of it. I'm always laying track... never doing much of anything else with MSTS. I'm fast at it, I'm good at it... but I am so tired of it I can't make myself do a THING with my new North Arkansas 2 route, or snap more track in place on ANY of my project routes.

Soooo... what to do?

Well.... it's simple really:

I'm not going to lay track until I've really got the fever to do so again. If that's two weeks, or a month... or ???... so be it.

Instead, I'm going to take my MSTS piddlin' in other directions. Example: Couple nights ago I started a running a train from Chester to Talihina on my mega-route Frisco Line... saved the progress at Fort Smith and continued from there the next night. (Train is currently tied up in Poteau, I.T.) That's one thing I'm doing: Putzin' around within the sim some. Shucks, last week I even ran some of my activities on the Ozark Northern! (OMG!!! )

I'm also kind of interested in creating some engines to use on my Frisco Line monster route. Did that a while last night, too: Created some more black undec texture sheets to work with.

Also thinking about reskinning some rolling stock.

Am also considering toying with the idea of building the Jenson depot... or some other depot.

In fact, I'm even kickin' around the idea of putting in some scenery on my Frisco Line route.
ANYTHING to see some pretty stuff taking shape instead of more track being put down on a bare route. Why, the Mansfield Branch is only 18 miles long... I COULD have a completely sceniced branch if'n I want to! (I already have a sizable library of useable structures, terrtexes, transfers, etc, etc.)

Where will this new free flowing approach lead? How long will it last?

Who truly knows? Least of all ME!

Bwhahahahaa!

So, yes, basically I'm just relaxing and doing whatever I really feel like doing with this silly hobby of MSTS. I've gotta' admit... it would be pretty cool to have a nice sized roster of Frisco steam engines ready to go... and maybe some FINISHED scenes here and there to enjoy.

We shall see!

Later tater!

[laming]

Still piddlin'!

Right now I tinkering along trying to finish up a black version of the St.L & SF Rogers Ten Wheeler that uses Ozark Northern #3 as a base model/textures. If I can create some black textures I like, it will be a simple matter to finish the two black versions needed to complete that class. That done, I intend to upload it for all you Ozark Northern users to download and enjoy as a bonus pack "THANK YOU" for purchasing the Ozark Northern.

The "original" renumbers/relettering versions are ready. You can view this pack idea here:

http://www.3dtrains....showtopic=17982