Freeware Cal-P Update *IMPORTANT*

Much to my regret the Freeware Cal-P has been corrupted to the point where it is unusable.

I am going to re-start from scratch and extend the route but only work in portions over the next few months and see where I go from there. This route will cover the San Francisco Bay Area and most of the Central portion of the Central Valley area. I expect this route to be about as big as 3DTrains Feather River Route, which is 1.3GB.

If there is ANY interest in my continuing of this route, respond here and give a yay/nay attitude towards it. Don't ask when I will have it done, I am going to work on it as much as possible. I am expecting a late 2010 release

Restarting the route will more than likely start in South parts of the Niles-Coast and Oakland Subs, reaching North to Roseville.


THE AMTRAK STATIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS:
San Jose - Coast Sub
Fremont - Niles Sub
Oakland Coliseum
Oakland
Emeryville
Richmond
Martinez
Suisun-Fairfield
Davis
Sacramento
Roseville

The route will include these yards and branches:

ON THE COAST SUB:
San Jose Caltrain Yard1
Mulford Yard

ON THE NILES SUB:
Niles Canyon Railway (NCRY)2


ON THE MARTINEZ SUB:
Oakland Sub Connection
East Oakland Yard
West Oakland Yard
Knight Yard
26th St. Yard
Emeryville Yard
BNSF & BART Yards in Richmond3
Richmond Pacific Railroad
Oil Refineries (between Richmond and Martinez there are many switching industries here)
Ozol Yard
Benecia Auto Facility
California Northern Railroad (both sides included from Suisun-Fairfield4 and Davis)5
Mikon Crossover (including the SERA trackage)
SACRAMENTO SP SHOPS (including the California State Railroad Museum)
Sacramento Northern Railroad
CP Haggin - Sacramento Sub (South to Pollock and North to Del Paso)
CP Elvas - Fresno Sub (South to Elk Grove)
CP East Roseville - Valley Sub (North to South Gerber)


1 San Jose will also include a portion of the Caltrain (JPBX) Line.

2 NCRY will be modelled in full.

3 BNSF will be modelled from Richmond to Martinez and BART will be modelled from Richmond to Fremont and out through Oakland and the TransBay Tube.

4 The CFNR connects to the old NWP at Lombard and the Napa Valley RR at Napa Junction. I will model onto the NWP as far North as Santa Rosa and South as Detour(Corte Madera), and the NVRR for about a mile or two.

5 The CFNR connecting to the UP runs out to South Gerber where it connects to the Valley Sub on the UP again.

ANY IDEAS/OFFERS/SUGGESTIONS are greatly appreciated! For more info visit http://franksrails.com and click on Microsoft Train Simulator Info for more!

Regards,

-Frank C.

Well, I for one would like to see this one fullly realized. I grew up in the South Bay Area and all of those places listed, were my stompin grounds until I was about 15. So, yes sir I would love to see this route completed and ready to run trains on.

MFOS

I would very much like to see this route finished you've done a amazing job so far!

Alex

Yes, I would like to see it completed. I lived in the area during my younger days. I even remember the old Key System interurbans.

Jay

Noted and Noted.

If you have any pictures of the areas send me a PM so I can arrange emailing help.

Alex,

I have to restart from absolute scratch, so all the progess that was posted on my website has been effectively "wiped clean".

Regards,

-Frank C.

from the pictures I saw on your website in looks like a great route! I think you should continue the great work!

Thanks, but consider all those pictures obsolete. It'll be close to that when I get back up to Oakland again but for now its blank.

Regards,

-Frank C.

Sorry about your total loss...but count me in as one who is very interested...as well as 4 or so people that I know who are eagerly awaiting the route.

We're a-workin' on it!

make that 5 people

Keep it going, Frank . I live in Benicia and have been patiently waiting on the Payware Cal-P, so the wait will be far less painful than a total loss, and your scope is wider than that route. With MSTSBin, the demise of MSTS was prematurely announced, and so far, RailWorks is in its infancy in terms of US routes.

Dave

RW has a long way to go in terms of ease of use. Unlike MSTS and Mosaic with precise texturing of roads, tracks, and fields, RW has taken a step back into the 1990s by expecting people to draw a circle out of four squares. There is no precision in the terrain painting tool whatsoever, and no obvious way to import custom made textures (from what I've read). Ok, the program is no better than MSTS in regards to hidden surprises and annoying glitches. That I can deal with. But to compromise its true potential with such an awkward terrain painting mechanism puts me right off of it (at least until it is fixed if ever).

Textured paddocks, realistic edges, precisely textured ROW all seem to be out of the question, unless you're prepared for jaggedness everywhere.

Dear Frank,

Sorry to hear about the route. I have been waiting for the route and hope you continue. It is a much needed route for SP fans. Everything is East from MP 0.0

Yours truly,
Leland

Awkward, perhaps, but certainly not a step backward. The internal painting tool in RW simply needs refinement. And FWIW, using Mosaic isn't all rosy either. Keep in mind that the number and size of the terrain textures alone required to do the ROW for a medium-sized route in MSTS using Mosaic can easily exceed the size of an entire route in RW. The Feather River, for example, uses over 7,000 terrain textures @ 512 x 512, which comes to just over 800Mb. Imagine using 1024 x 1024, and the size quadruples to 3.0Gb.

Cheers!
Marc

I myself am always interested in any new material that someone has the knowledge, patience, and determination to create for all us train simmers. Even though it is frustrating that the previous version failed, I am sure we can all wait until you complete the new one. I for one, will definitely wait! Thanks Frank!

Count me in too...



S. Hjellum

NECS.

It's still slowly making it's way North by North East. I have a small idea that I'm trying to take root and grow.

More progress to come...

Regards,

-Frank C.

I am really pleased that you are continuing to work on this route. I went to high school in San Francisco and rode many East Bay trains, including SP to Sacramento. I would love to have this route in operation.

John DeLamater

This is gotta be out of the Misinformed Guide To Railworks. I don't know where the poster is getting his info from but don't believe any of it. We can do the same thing in Railworks using decals but nobody does because just like in MSTS, covering a route in decals would bloat the route. What's a decal you ask? Just look at some of my steel mill pics in the Railworks thread and the ground images are decals. Mine are low-res and b&w (from GoogleEarth) meant for reference only.

And while the drawing tools aren't perfect, at least Railworks has them. When I was doing MSTS, what I wouldn't have given to have had drawing tools of any kind. And are the Railworks tools as clunky as the poster suggests? No way. Most of the communities agree that if Railworks has or does anything, its visuals. Nah, I'm not out to pick a fight but I couldn't believe the misinformation in that post. Even Marc could've told you the Feather River started out with some 30,000 Mosaic tiles reduced to the number it currently has because it would've been too costly to distribute.

Obviously the poster doesn't know Railworks and while I couldn't care less that he doesn't, there's no use in misinforming the public as such and that's why I posted. It is a very misinforming post.

Rich

Frank,

As always I am pretty good at laying Scale Rail and I do love a good challenge and would like to try my hands at your route.

Let me know if I can help.

your friend
-Scale Rail Mike-

Hi Rich

Sorry that you have seen my post so negatively. Whilst I hope my post isn't going to cause the Earth to be swallowed up in 2012, I have nevertheless responded. You clearly have a bit more experience in RW than myself, I'll admit. Therefore, you are in a better position to competently observe where people go wrong, in their perceptions of a program that they still have a lot to learn about. Marc has pointed out rightfully that the internal drawing tools are theoretically a very good idea. But they still have flaws. RSD have had nearly three years to develop this function, but we are still stuck with an awkward internal painting tool all this time after release. You also mention the decals program. I may have emphasised too much on impossibility in my post, when this was actually misleading on my part.

However, you seem to make a point about decals taking up a great deal of space. We're not in 2005 anymore, when Mosaic was rapidly transforming routes into something that looked half realistic, at a severe download size penalty. Why is it that in 2010 with a much newer and capable platform, we still need to resort to roundabout techniques with external programs, in order to achieve the same result as in MSTS, with almost as steep penalties?

Regards
Michael (Just a little known Australian route author, with a second one close to release, and occasional RW user)

I dunno, I'm having to rewrite this response cause your post hit me the wrong way the first time I read it. I can't tell if you're sincerely asking or just that misinformed.

RS.com elected to postpone the improvements to the route editor until they had other parts of the game remedied. I'm not happy about that but it's their call. There's many more people playing the game than are developing for it. Railworks is doing pretty well in the sales department and unlike MSTS, because it was the only game in town, Railworks has competition so the business dynamic is different.

But that sounds like an excuse. My problem with your post is I can't figure how you see something that works as a negative, and nothing at all, as positive. But what gets me is you think the drawing tools in Railworks are that bad. They aren't bad at all. And as for it taking 3 years, how long has it been since MSTS had its own drawing tools?

Take for instance you wrote that you can't draw a circle in Railworks except by drawing squares. Use the circle brush. And if your going to use the excuse that you don't know the program that well, then don't bash the program till your sure it really is that bad.

And you obviously don't get the decal thing at all. I didn't say I use decals for enhancing ground terrain. I said I use it to lay track and roads precisely. If you had looked at the steel mill pics you've would have understood. The decals are removed when I'm finished laying the track and roads. I could use them as well to spot buildings and all, but that's another great thing about decals I don't have time to expound upon. But just like MSTS we put down ground textures only not only do we have a variety to use or choose from, but they can differ by seasons too. Not two seasons (winter and summer) but all four.

And you wrote something about external programs I don't get. I use two 3d modeling programs, a paint program, another program that helps me make tiled textures more effective - what other programs are you talking about? You mean like Redem? It's a dem program, don't you use one too? There are plenty of people who don't use Redem but use the built in Dem feature within Railworks. And I also use RWDecal. It makes decals and places them in literally seconds. So it saves me time from having to make lots of marker files. You think that's a bad thing?

In Railworks you can have as many marker files for any reason you can come up with. And that's great. But with the way we can use decals, I can lay track and roads right on top of the decal which means I don't need to make as many markers. To me that's pretty powerful.

So what other external programs are you talking about? You mean RWTools? I don't often use it.

To me its like I said in my first post. You just don't know Railworks and yet you bash it and mislead people like you know it better than you do. It is misleading. And if that's not a problem for you, well, it is for me. We get people all the time who've listened to the misinformation who regret they took so long to give Railworks a try. They realize it isn't perfect. But neither is MSTS.

And what makes me mad is the implication in your posts that I would be so stupid to jump into a game so flawed and bug ridden. Your finishing up your second route? I did 7. And four more in Railworks too. Add to it the over 900 models I've made and the hundreds of activities and scenarios I've written - I think I humbly have a little idea of what I'm doing.

Rich

Than you for pointing this out. This explains the lack of refinements to the world editor, and answers the part of my post questioning this reasonably.

I haven't used the decal program. Your post implied that using them all over the route would bloat it. Excuse my ignorance, but what did you mean by this?



What's this program that relates to tiled textures? Is this something with working around shortcomings with the internal paint tool? This was exactly what my original post queried. Yet your posts makes it seem as though my original post was no less than a completely misleading review about everything related to the program.



Where did I suggest you would be dumping RW for MSTS? If you're happy with RW, I have no objections to this.



I couldn't care if you've done 7 or 30. I don't do route building for quantity.

@Michael - I'm not sure what lack of refinements you speak of but the world editor as it is now is quite the cats meow for route building. Like I said before in other posts, my switch to Railworks was done with great skepticism, but since then, I haven't looked back. I'm just not in a patient mood to teach you how Railworks or MSTS works. My perception of your responses is you prefer obstinance to truth and you prefer digs than to showing respect. The questions you're asking in your latest post continue to reveal you don't know Railworks and yet you continue to bash it and cast it negatively every opportunity you think is an opportunity (which instead only reveals your childishness). My point is your ramblings are misinforming. It's not you that I'm concerned for, it's the people you might be influencing.

Oh, and Michael (as a PS), you might want to look back at your posts and see that you brought up how many routes you "almost did" first. And just so you know, I didn't care either.

@Everybody else - The tiling program I wrote about is for my paint program, it doesn't have anything to do with the internal Railworks drawing tools. Regarding actual Railworks use, I don't use or need hardly any external programs. And in regard to decals, see this thread about my New Philadelphia route and you can see what I'm talking how decals can be used for placing track, roads, buildings, just about anything. Speeds up the process of route building tremendously and also allows you to get very accurate in placment. They don't bloat the route as you can discard them very easily with one click of a button. But, decals just don't have to be used as a referencing tool. Like transfers in MSTS you can use decaks in Railworks the same as you use Transfers. Personally, I prefer to use decals for referencing since the drawing tools in Railworks is pretty flexible. Of course the drawing tools could be expanded upon by RS.com (who wouldn't want the additional flexibility), but as they are now, they are an incredibly valuable and versatile feature in Railworks and they give us route builders a tremendous amount of creative potential to give our routes an authentic look.

http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17214

Rich

Guys, let's try and keep the digs and jabs to a minimum. Thanks.

Cheers!
Marc

Just wanted to see if there is still work going on with this route...

Definitely count me in for your target audience! I live down in Salinas, just down the coast, and I have been looking for a route to cover at least a little bit of the Coast Line. I heard that there is also a Coast Line route in the works from train-sim.com, and the way I found out was whomever is working on it released the San Luis Obispo station from his/her scenery as a teaser.