Hi everyone,
I need some advice. Does anyone know good sources for building a route? Ones that are acurate such as video, etc. I'm thinking about building a metra route but i need to know some good sources for getting accureate data to build the route. Im also thinking i may one day extend the surfliner route to Santa Barbara and on to san Luis Obispo...

I greatly appreciate your help

Do a search within this forum, i.e.: Route building, books, tuitorials, etc.

Seems like some one did, but name escapes me at the moment did an excellent tuitorial on route editing, plus free downloads to ease the workload, and some recommended payware to make much easier. Key rule number one I recall is, Save everytime, all the time, frequently as possible, to extend happiness, and avert depressions, self multilations and suicidal thoughts...

Have a look here:-

http://steam4me.railpage.org.au/trainsim/t...ials/index.html

>Im also thinking i may one day extend the surfliner route to Santa Barbara and on to san Luis Obispo...

You won't be able to release it due to copyright problems.

>Ones that are accurate such as video

MSTS can't do that yet.

Yep, I was just going to do it for myself.

There is a payware Guide To Route Building. I beleive it may be by Abacus.

Got that already-im looking for things that will help me get correct terrain elevations and acurrate scenery

You can use Demex to get you the correct terrain elevation. It's easier if you buy the full version, but you can do it with the free version too (just more work).

For accurate scenery, Google maps works well enough. There is another program, USA Photo Maps, i believe, that you can use and mark "waypoints" on a photo map of the US (and i think that uses Google Maps too ). You can use many waypoints to "trace" out tracks, roads, whatever, then Demex can turn those into a marker file for MSTS use. All you do then is "connect the dots" to lay your track! Might be better, if you do that, to make your marker file for the tracks, then after that do some "key" roads, especially crossing, then finally the location of some key buildings (though depending on how insane you got on the roads you may not even need to do that ). Street View in Google Maps, though not everywhere, can give you a good feel for the scenery.

I would strongly suggest the Guide to Route Building by Michael Vone.

Bob Barrows

do you know how to convert a route to scale rail? Cause i want to convet the Marias Pass 3.1 to scale rail but i don't know how to in the editor.

The easiest method is to edit the entries in the World files using Wordpad. However, it's not for the faint of heart, as you can easily blow up a route if you make even a minor mistake.

Cheers!
Marc