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rgarber
Welcome back! I hope you don't mind the dust and the cobwebs. Just take yourself a seat, if you can find one and I'll see if I can rustle us up some tea. As you can see I've sported a tan as I found the Bahamas great and the trip to Europe splendid. Of course, nothing beats the good ole USA and I've done some touring here as well. Well, all this vacation time and no work has left me itching to meet an old friend and see if we can give it a sportin' new look.

Remember the East Metro? Think back to 2001, it was a sporting time when we all grew together to understand the mysteries of the new sim. Back then there wasn't hardly a thing in the library except for small one tile routes. There was a couple of routes that were science fiction like. Oh yes, there was that one that never really caught on, something like Pumpernickle Onion And Nutbread RR. Or something like that. The author was shall we say, different?

East Metro was also a fictional route but with the idea like a freelanced model railroad, to take a subject and treat as if it was real. From a one tile route it grew and grew and within time the MSTS community had a full size route that was easy to install.

Enough remembering. This is today and the same elements to make the Ohio Rail Upgrade are in place for the East Metro Upgrade. lt took a lot of deliberating but when I saw ole Coonskin talking that Ozark hillbilly speak again I just had to fire up the route engine boiler and crank out some heat. Forget that Feather River stuff, who'd ever want to see a river full of feathers anyway? Come on back to the East Metro and run the rails in style! I got some rough pics for ya. I just hope I can remember how to upload them. blush.gif

The pics below (reckon I remembered) are of the Big City area. I just started a few days ago and the progress is good. I've developed some new techniques to make route building easier for me but this is a process I have to work out as I build. It helps me move faster but it doesn't add anything to the route itself. Like Ohio Rail Upgrade, this upgrade will bring the old gal up to today's style and will include Marc's (the guy who does rivers made of feathers... sheesh! tongue.gif ) Scale Rail and Scale Roads.

Mostly everything will stay as is depending on availability. Some industries will change to accommodate my library's compliment. Track will stay the same, mostly.

Rich Garber

pnrailway
Long time no see!!! Very interesting Rich. Looks like the old girl may have plenty of life in her yet. Sort of like a makeover the girls get at the beauty salon. Doesn't change any of whats underneath but sure makes her look allot prettier. Looking forward to up coming progress.

Paul
Chucksc
Looks pretty nice Rich....

I actually liked the original and still have it as one of my "running" routes....

It reminds me of "Wrong Island" and the Hudson River commuter zones....

What I was kind of hoping was that you would make it a 3rd rail route to "simulate" the Metro NY/LI area...

I added 3rd rail track textures to the old one so I would have a place to run P32s (Genesis IIs) and an FL9 (If one is ever built :-() in Electric mode and NYC electrics and LI commuter cars.....

Anyway keep up the good work......
boundy
Rich;
Glad to see you are back. Though I saw you at Waterloo Station but could not reach you in time. You must have been enroute to Yorkshire to counsault with Dick C. An upgrade to the old E. Metro would be great. I just had a experence where my putor had to go in for cleaning and I was forced to use my wifes. Talk about a time experence, the sim stuff was the same as it was in 2004. We have come a long way and I thing this version will be arround for a long time. While you are working on the metro maybe you can add some more mines to Cumberland down Harlin way. Just got the Ohio Rail update and it is breath taking. Like a new Rail road. Thank you for your work.
Steamwhistle
Rich,

I was hoping you would do this. biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif biggrin.gif

Bill
lirrmike
Rich,

Still one of the best routes out there. You even made an activity for me because I was having a hard time with something or another.

Mike
BLW_1946
any plans to enlarge that tunnel bore? decapitated crews are hard to replace these days... rolleyes.gif

p.s. It's looking great...
steamed
Looks great, Rich!! I guess the final fronteer for all aboard could be mosaic terrtex some day ?
rgarber
I'm amazed. I really am, no joke. I really didn't think anybody would appreciate this announcement except Joe Morris. I thought everyone forgot about the ole gal. Back in late 2001 and figuring I kept 1 out of 3 emails, I had netted over 800 saved emails about the EMMR. I was accumulating them because I thought I could write a pdf about the experience some day. A lot of funny stuff was happening back then. One of the more humorous was somebody wrote to me that I must live pretty close to the real thing to know so much about it. And then considering it's age... well, it's good to see folks remember the East Metro.

In regards to Mosaic I have used it before but in general I don't like to use it much because of two reasons. The first is Mosaic tends to balloon the size of the route which gets kinda rough for instant downloading. The second is if you try to mix it up with regular tiling like I did before there's a distortion in the coloring from the original look to the Mosaic clone.

With that said, I do plan to Mosaic as much as I can with the EMMR since it's a much smaller route than my previous works. It's a wait n see but you'll note there's no transfers used in the pictures above because Mosaic is tops on my list for this upgrade. No promises though.

Rich Garber
ozace50
Welcome back, Rich. It's great to see that you are working on the East Metro. It was one of the first 2 or 3 routes that I installed way back when I first joined the MSTS world (along with the Ohio Rails route). The EM is still one of the routes that I run.

Excellent news! flowers.gif
rbeckley
Looks great. I'll buy it.

Thanks!

- Bob
billmoyer
Add me to the list. biggrin.gif

This simulator may be old but it's far from dead!!!!!!! cool.gif

Bill
dcarleton
QUOTE(rgarber @ Feb 7 2008, 9:04 AM) *

Like Ohio Rail Upgrade, this upgrade will bring the old gal up to today's style and will include Marc's (the guy who does rivers made of feathers... sheesh! tongue.gif ) Scale Rail and Scale Roads.

Rich Garber


This is wonderful news indeed. The ultimate payware route would be one with Marc's track and your scenery.

As for the river of feathers, didn't the New York Central once advertise "The water level route - You can sleep"? Sleep on a feather bed, perhaps? And didn't Al Perlman from the New York Central finish out his career running the Western Pacific? So maybe there is something to this river of feathers thing after all!

The difference is, with a line like the Feather River, it takes four hours to run from one end to the other. So the activities are about getting there. On a short line like the East Metro, it's about the work we do along the line. That must have something to do with the continuing appeal of lines like the East Metro.

David Carleton,
Orlando

harperx
YES!

I almost responded when you dropped the hint, but didn't dare to hope!

East Metro was the first route I "understood", and it's still one of my favorites to run activities on. (That Canton thingie is also pretty nice!)

This is great news! I look forward to the result!

I'm not sure exactly how to articulate this, but do try to keep the "character" of the route. Canton is of the south, and also Cumberland, to some degree. But East Metro is upper midwest or northeast.

Or, as noted before, "anywhere" wink.gif



ArkansasRailfan
Sweet! biggrin.gif
rlbarr
Looking very good! I'm particularly glad to see this (and other MSTS routes and upgrades) because I suspect most of my running is going to be on MSTS. I got Kuju's Rail Sim a few days ago, and while much of it is quite well done, I still have the feeling of running model trains - rather like Trainz. No matter how well done, it's just not my cup of tea. So back to MSTS which has plenty of life in it post Bin - and looking forward to the "new" East Metro.

Thanks, Rich.

Bob Barrows
rgarber
Thanks again everyone. Here's some more pics working a little further west in Big City. Third pic down is the Big City station done for the route by Ed Hawkins. - Rich Garber
harperx
I'm liking Big City Station!

Sweet!

abfarmer
I never paid much attention to this route before, but the upgrade really looks great. Looks like another "must have" route.
kcjones
IPB Image

The rolling stock is having a face lift too.

IPB Image
rgarber
Got some new pics to show you.

Pic 1 - I'm hauling out of Big City and thought to look back and take a quick skyline shot.

Pic 2 - The first version of EMMR was done without the benefit of much in the way of 3rd party objects so the EMMR primarily used what was available for default. That's changed. Leaving Big City you won't feel a drastic change from city to rural. Industries are spread out all along the way to East Metropolis.

Pic 3 - Here's another industry shot heading north to East Metropolis.

Pic 4 - And another industry shot. If you look close enough the road past the grain mill crosses the track and there is a town on the other side. Just north of the grain mill is a tourist lake complete with sail boating. Dick C made the sailboats and animated them for the Thompson expansion of Canton. Just south of this area is a trailer park which I didn't take a picture of.

cont'd into next post...
rgarber
Pic 5 - And finally a close up shot of the lake. These folks are sailing and having a great time while I do what? Work!

The scenery is quite expansive and detailed. I plan on toning down the green in the high grass. If your keeping tabs of my progress I'm working north from Big City and am right about BC Oil's door.

Rich G
steamed
Just had a thought, Rich.

Perhaps you could make the near field terrtex to be individually named instances of your default. If its built into the route that way then *anyone* can come back later, enhance as many terrtex as desired, and post them as freeware. Somewhat like Mike S. and his trees. The catch is, the individual terrtex references got to be built into the route or replacement becomes a personal-use-only enhancement.
rgarber
QUOTE(steamed @ Feb 17 2008, 1:19 PM) *

Just had a thought, Rich.

Perhaps you could make the near field terrtex to be individually named instances of your default. If its built into the route that way then *anyone* can come back later, enhance as many terrtex as desired, and post them as freeware. Somewhat like Mike S. and his trees. The catch is, the individual terrtex references got to be built into the route or replacement becomes a personal-use-only enhancement.


Sounds like an interesting proposal but I'm not sure I'm following you on this. Could you elaborate more or send me an email to rgarber@vnet.net and if you would, also address, what this technique is meant to accomplish. Thanks!

Rich Garber
frog3764
Here's an ATTA BOY for you. I have downloaded a lot of routes, bought a few, and deleted a lot. But your East Metro and Ohio are still with me as they are very enjoyable routes. Looking forward to the upgrade.

Jim
steamed
steamed:
QUOTE
make the near field terrtex to be individually named instances


rgarber:
QUOTE
Could you elaborate more


For example, Rod M. recently employed his many talents to enhance some of A&O's terrtex. To do so, he had to *add* terrtex references into the route that were not there to start with. Therefore, even if Rod wanted to, he could not share his terrtex enhancement in the library. Not unless Andre were willing to post a public patch to his route addressing the additional terrtex files.

So I was just thinking; going forward it would be nice to have the infrastructure in place for mosaic terrtex to be added, without need of route-editor-level modifications.
rgarber
This is a loaded issue. The bad phrase in what you wrote is the part where it can be distributed freely in the library. I personally would want to review what anybody did to alter the appearance of one of my routes, for public consumption that is. You might be really good at this but the next guy might be really bad which then puts me in the awkward position of having to say yea to you but nay to him. I know I play a tough cop on tv but in real life I'm just a pussycat! blush.gif

It's not that I don't like the idea because it's always flattering to see folks excited by my work. But it gets complicated and I actually had this situation come up with the East Metro route back in the old days. In the end a couple of people did their own version of the route and uploaded them into the library. And then the emails started coming in to me about issues that weren't on my version of the route but on the other versions. Plus, when I updated from an earlier version of East Metro to the current version of the East Metro Deluxe, it obsoleted their old versions and I believed they had to be removed for the confusion it caused. After that I decided that multiple versions of the same route by different authors wasn't a good idea.

In regards to what Rod does, I know he tried something like that with Canton but I haven't seen anything of that effort in awhile. It must be harder than it looks and their might be some issues involved I haven't given thought to. So you might want to ask Rod if the idea is feasible before I would make the kind of effort to include a system like what you are suggesting if it's even doable. On my end that kind of setup, even just thinking about it, sounds difficult. For one thing, Mosaic uses its own filename convention which doesn't match anything I could use.

Appreciate the suggestion.

Rich
rgarber
Recognize this area?

It's Big City Oil, but I changed the industry to a cement plant. If I recall my original intent with EMRR was to have a oil drilling field and then an oil refinery. Back in mid 2001 there wasn't much other than the default to work with so the two industries looked basically the same. This time around I wanted diversify the industry more for more switching opportunity. Here's a couple of quick pics, see if you recognize the area.

Edit: I need to add that all the pictures shown are rough draft pictures. By rough draft I mean that I haven't added in the smaller details yet. That would include transfers or even Mosaic. Scale Rail track will be added at the time I begin to place the smaller details.

Rich

rgarber
I've reached East Metropolis and have repopulated the city as far north as the river. By the end of the day I should have crossed the river and be working towards the end of that tile which comprised the first portion of the original route, Number 11. If you don't remember, East Metro originally started out as a 1 tile test route and then expanded north and south. Once the expansion began I renamed the route to East Metro. I don't have any before pictures so these are the after pictures. Keep in mind these areas are still works in progress.

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Pic 1: Each time I do a big city I try to build up the interest to the city as I get closer to the middle of the city and then I taper the interest back then. The first pic you want to the see the tree covered mountain and then the tall building in the background says "big time city development coming." The taller buildings on the left of the pic suggest of the big city ahead.

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Pic 2: This is a look back and you can see the grain mill a little distance behind. Just a nice pic with some detail.

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Pic 3: In this pic I jumped ahead of the train as it rounds the bend. The smaller details are not in place yet like crossings, weed strips and cars.

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Pic 4: At this point we've hit the downtown complete with downtown structures and lots of trees. In fact, it's difficult to see much of the downtown area for the trees. The East Metro station in the foreground was done by Ed Hawkins. This particular location is where the track breaks off to the engine yard which has also been completely redone.

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Pic 5: More of the downtown area and the East Metropolis yard. It's not much of a yard as East Metropolis was more the smaller of the big cities on the route and was more white collar. Very little industry though there is some.

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Pic 6: Does any of this look familiar yet? This is the yard merging back to the single track mainline just before the bridge. There's another industrial spur which leads into the city and parallels the river just ahead and right before the bridge.

Rich G
Joe Morris
Completely Redone? An understatement! Here is a shot of the area where the yard and station are located in East Metro:

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Here is one where the "yard" joins the main:

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rgarber
The Metropolis City tile is very close to being done and I am sorely looking for some relaxation time to spend in the countryside north of Metropolis before I tackle Smallville. I am having to make a few more track changes than I anticipated which included a complete do-over of Krenshaw. What I wanted to focus on today was how the terrain adjustments were coming along. I brought with me a few pictures to demonstrate. All these are in the Metropolis area. I've used a larger picture than normal (800 pixels wide) so you may need to scroll sideways to see the whole picture.

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In the pic above, focus on the mountains and do you see how they don't have that flat top the old version did? This is what I'm talking about. Looks much more realistic. It's still handcarved.

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We're in Metropolis now and again take a look at the mountain top. Nice transitions, looks much better. It slows me down to do this but the effect is much more natural.

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This is looking back on the Metropolis Upper Side but we're still in the city limits. The crossover tracks have been extended to accommodate longer consists and you can see more city sprawl.

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We've just about reached the line that runs out to Krenshaw's Lumber. You can see it in background, but barely. I reused my Cumberland lumber mill for Krenshaw's. The ole mill will be a great characterization of his temperment. Once again note the smoothness of the hill and even the tree density. The route has more of a Northeast look to it because of it.

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Last picture. This is just above the Krenshaw Transition and a small town has emerged. You can actually see part of it in the previous picture, this is the downtown area. On the other side of the tracks is Oliver Food Distributors which its tracks have been extended and changed so the 45 degree curves could be eliminated. Above this town is Woody's which has also had its track extended to accommodate a slightly longer consist.

Rich
revich
Your landscaping is looking terrific, Rich! flowers.gif Just keep relaxing in that countryside! wink.gif As always, your narratives of work in progress make for a very interesting read.

Rich E.
kcjones
IPB Image

Just a little something to whet the appetite!!!! flowers.gif
rgarber
Here's a couple of pics of Dick C's upcoming EMRR RS3. Pretty nice job Dick!

Location: Big City

Rich G

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rgarber
Dick has also included a GP38 painted to EMRR colors. Waiting on a train heading northbound, this Geep headed south to Big City is pulling some empties.

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Gorgeous cabs for these engines.

Rich G
rgarber
I didn't realize there was a 3rd engine in Dick's EMRR pack yesterday but no matter, more testing to do today so I lashed up the EMRR SW1200 and a few tank cars and out into the countryside I went.

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Very nicely detailed model and the interior cab is very well done. The black on hood and cab roof is just right.

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Just a per chance shot but I like it enough I think I'll make it my EMRR banner picture. Almost looks like a photograph, doesn't it?

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This is the area I've been doing today. Normally I don't like to do helicopter shots with this kind of distance on it because when I did my library it was before bin and my scenery wasn't designed for heights this high or far off.

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This is the rear cab view looking out behind the engine at the tank cars and scenery behind.

I figure I'm about a third of the way through the route. It's fairly slow going as it's like building a whole new route. I don't have to lay track but I have to tear down the previous terrain and then rebuild it after I remove all the old objects. Then once the terrain is done I repopulate the route with my library. It's like a whole different route.

Rich G
Shaa
Looking good Rich and those engines by Dick are going to be fun to drive.
McCloud River John
hehe I stll have the East Metro, guess I should dust the 'ol gal off.
Karl
So do I one of the few "early" routes I have kept.

Only removed it after it was replaced with Canton.

Looks like it will be back into my regular route rotation.

Cheers

Karl
rgarber
Smallville- I'm just about finished with the Smallville area though I've moved on down the tracks from Smallville. Here's just a sampling pics of the area. I should warn you that nothing will look familiar except the general shape of the town. Even the track was ripped up and relaid. Have a look.

This first pic is to demonstrate the small town look of Smallville from the cab level.

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This second pic is from a slightly higher view.

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One of the spur tracks lead to the Smallville Textile Mill. You can just barely make out the mill just northeast of the center of the pic.

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Here's a general overview of the area. There are 4 immediate industries in town with a branch to Lutherlex. The bottom of the pic represents the track coming from Metropolis. There is a three track yard with auxillary track for minor switching. You can see the industries A-C and D which leads to the textile mill shown in the previous picture. I still have to complete the areas A and B before I'm done with this rough draft of the Smallville tile.

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This picture demonstrates the density of the Smallville area. Just a little further south from the previous pic location we are looking back north over Smallville from a helicopter shot. The tracks would be to the right of the pic.

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These are just rough draft pics, smaller details will be added in the next pass-thru. Gotta get back to work! Thanks again for all the comments. I appreciate the encouragement.

Rich Garber
august1929
What a change Rich - Smallville, gosh I spent a lot of time there in my MSTS youth smile.gif Happy memories as the first place that I played with the AE, getting frustrated with waiting times and AI traffic.

All looks excellent.

On the post above

QUOTE
In regards to what Rod does, I know he tried something like that with Canton but I haven't seen anything of that effort in awhile


Haven't posted anything in a while as work stopped on me getting just North of Jefferson and on my buying a new monitor! There was a total colour change to the ROW that I had been using, and it just didn't look right. Still haven't puzzled that one out...and I am pretty upset that I put off getting the new monitor for so long. Just recently thought about reinstating the old terrtex files and starting over again wacko.gif . If I did, this time it would be exclusively using Rich's terrtex as a base.

On terrtex in general, and Mosaic in particular, there is no way that Rich would be able to anticipate what would be required. There would be no point in using Mosaic to populate all the trackside standard terrtex textures. That would unecessarily increase the size of the file for download.

As to producing a later ROW set of terrtex, the necessary files would be large (in Mb's) and apart from the terrtex and snow terrtex files, there would also be the revised World Tiles (don't know if anything else would be required).

If Rich's textures were used as a base, there would be no copyright issues, if Rich was happy, and certainly any such "add-on" wouldn't be useable on its own without the route. The only issue might be the free availability of Rich's texture property if such an add-on was available over at Train-sim, for example.

Back on track - looking forward to more progress pics

Rod
rgarber
Lutherlex - The Lutherlex tile is finished and not to soon according to Lex. His only complaint was that I didn't build a 80 story tall building with his intials, LL, plastered all over the top and in neon lights, and so big you could see it from Metropolis.

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Taken from Cumberland, the Benham mine is used with the tall tramway leading from the mine to the coal deposit facility. Dick posted a picture of the Lutherlex switcher so I included a small engine facility. A carry over from the past, the engine yard still retains its turntable, coaling tower and water tower though steam isn't present on the route anymore. The red building in the distant is Lutherlex's office.

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Looking back is a small housing for mine workers. The mine is nestled deep in a valley so trees abound in this area.

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The photographer had to climb on top of the roof of the engine shed to get this artsy shot. Beyond the engine you can just barely make a small town.

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Inching the engine forward here is a backside shot of the coal complex. You'll note that the old trackage was completely ripped up and new trackage laid. There's no more wye since the East Metro Upgrade is being made to accomodate msts bin.

Rich
revich
It's looking great, Rich! Now all you need is a comic book factory! laugh.gif

Rich E.
Jail
I'm glad we got water proof keyboards at work. Impressive work so far.
rgarber
Thanks guys! More than halfway through the rough draft of this rebuild I wanted to take another crack at the track through Metropolis. Mostly because of the signal setup I could only envision headaches trying to create activities in the yard there. So yesterday, with lots of tnt, I went to work revamping the trackage. It took me literally... ALL DAY *said with disgust*... to come up with a workable yard scheme. I must've tried 4 or 5 times and finally late last night I came up with something. After some detailing Metropolis is starting to look good. So earlier I started from north of Smallville and took a ride on down through Metropolis. Unfortunately I wasn't joyriding so I didn't take hardly any pics.

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This first pic is looking northward from the northernmost point of Smallville. The line I'm on is the main so you veterans of the East Metro maybe wondering what the other track heading northward is. That is the second coal mine of the route. LutherLex 2? You can very faintly see the mine for the haze. Coal will be picked up at the mines and delivered to the coal prep plant about three miles north of this position. It's already placed with the trackage around it finished and scenery but I haven't fully placed all the vegetation around it before I take a picture of it. The coal mine #2 is completely done. I just took this pic cause it's hard to imagine the route as it was when you see the new version.

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This isn't a repeat of a picture I showed before but the same shot with details added. This is Smallville from the yard throat looking southwest. The original Smallville started where the engine is at. This version of Smallville we are probably about the center. Much bigger and with plenty of depth. To me though this was just a nice pic to take while running the train.

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I started off talking about Metropolis and all the pics are from Smallville, here's the one I took from Metropolis. It was an afterthought pic so this won't give you the sense of what I was talking about with the changes. What you're seeing is the Metropolis Yard about a quarter of the way through it. We're past the bridge some and to ahead and branching left is the Metropolis Engine Yard. The clump of trees on ahead and to the right would be just before the original placement of the train station. Instead, the train station is moved to the track just left of the engine and back a car or two. So now, the main goes around the yard instead of through it. You can enter the yard at either end. The first two tracks of the yard (immediate right of the engine) are the storage tracks. The third track over is mostly for running around the train, like a thru track. The fourth track can be used for storage or building up a train. So you can actually work in the yard and while an AI train goes past on the main. And Smallville is set up the same as well.

Rich
rgarber
Progress on the route is coming along nicely and I have crossed over the 50% rough draft completion mark already. I think and I'm guessing, but I could be done with the rough draft by the end of March. After I'm done with the rough draft I go back and put in the little details, transfers, cars... stuff like that. East Metro has been a challenge for me because when I tackle a new tile, sometimes I have to level the terrain back to flatlands like you see when you first start a route so I can rebuild the terrain to have a more natural appearance. I got concerned a week ago that progress was too slow on the route so I've been putting more development time in. So here's today's picture. If you're keeping track of my progress and you know East Metro I am roughly one tile below the Oil City oil field.

Which means, the past couple of days I've been working on the two tiles north of Smallville. In the previous version this was a generic run through some countryside and one spur. Not so now. First, I added the coal prep plant pictured below. Coal from Lutherlex mines are brought here for processing. This is modeled after a real coal prep facility and originally made its appearance on Cumberland.

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This area around the coal prep plant is actually nearly finished. I'm taking this shot prematurely before it's roughing is fully finished. A fully rough finished will have more of this look...

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This small town in the original version doesn't exist. It's just a mile or two north of Smallville. Judging from the weed content, you don't want to live here if you have allergies.

Rich
rgarber
In today's post we'll be looking at some trees. Actually, lots and lots of trees. And then I'll give you the first official route update pic since I began working on the East Metro again. These are some test pictures I took while cruising the mainline up near Oil City. These are from the tile just below it.

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Okay, just a bunch of trees in this part of the main but what I hope to achieve is that you get the feeling of isolation. Your coming from the heavily populated parts of the route into a few miles of mountain running albeit hills. Of course your not really all that isolated with the coal prep plant and mine #3 which you can't see from these pics.

The next pic is the first route progress pic. The pink shaded parts of the route are those I consider done as far as the rough draft goes. Once I reach the top I'll start again tweaking areas and making whatever objects I need to make to complete the route. The blue arrow pointing down is pointing to the next tile I will be starting to work on.

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Rich
rgarber
I have three pics from the newest area of the route I am working on. These are within the tile with the blue arrow pointing to it but because I had to redo the track in this area, I'm going to save the explanation for later.

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Bridge by Ed Hawkins

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Weeds!!

Rich

harperx
I waaant!

Go Rich go!

It's looking great, of course! More industries - yay!

I need a cheerleader smiley - this is as close as I can get flowers.gif flowers.gif flowers.gif flowers.gif

Signals mad.gif
Way back when, when I first bought Canton, I thought "dark territory?" What a gyp! But Canton spoiled me real fast, and that became my favorite way to run. You can do anything you want!

I've been playing around in one of the logging areas in Ohio Rail, the one near Florence. I can do whatever I want collecting loads, and spotting empties, but taking the load back to Florence Yard has been troublesome. I need to back down the spur, and then reverse on the mainline to get to Florence, and somehow can't get the reversing point right. On one path attempt, the reversing point actually keeps running away from me, and I can't reach it! On another, the point seems to work, but then I hit a red signal and can't get past. I've only been MSTS'ing a little bit at a time lately, I'll have to try to see if I can work it enough to crack this.

Anyway, to get to the point of a long rant, it's good to hear you working on the yards and signals on EMRR, hopefully that will help me get around with my (evidently) limited path-making skills!

Anyway, I'll get back to my family now. Happy Easter everyone, it's a Good Day!

Randy
rgarber
Thanks Randy. But flowers? Ya shouldn't have. blush.gif

Signals are cool but they can be a bear to work with. Any time you find yourself chasing a reversing point your train is longer than the distance between the reversing point and I'm guessing the node behind it which I usually think of as a switch. So say if you got a train seven cars long and the reversing point only has a distance between it and the switch behind it for five cars then you'll chase that sucker. Here's a trick when you run into that. If you can, uncouple from the cars and trigger the reversing point with just your engine. Then recouple and away you go. Or if your the developer, rig the activity so you can do the same. It's been a long time since I made an activity; lots of cobwebs.

BTW, if you have the Ohio Rail Upgrade, the signals from the logging camp were removed. I thought of that particular logging camp as a route within the route and tried to make it so one could move lots of log cars up and down the mountain. This is late 2001 and early 2002 mind you and back then we didn't realize just how "off" the dispatcher was. Up to that point I thought it was a matter of using the right signal at the right place being in the RE they were designated two different ways. Consequently nobody really tried to make use of the signals on the logging route so I removed them and on the other branchlines as well.

Rich Garber
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