I have been watching some youtube “let’s build” videos related to the Trainz railroad program recently. Coincidentally, I received an email last week that Trainz was on sale for 66% off ($11.90). Less than $12 for an upgraded version? SOLD! I’ve owned several prior versions. It’s fun to mess around with, but I’ve never made much progress in actually building a route. This time might not be any different, but I will give it a shot anyway. This thread will be used to detail the progress as I attempt to build a virtual railroad.
To start, I’m not trying to recreate a real life route for several reasons:
• Difficulty of the build/lack of info
• Railroads that can run on the track
In terms of difficulty, if I try and recreate a real life railroad, then I’ll need to do some detailed research which may or may not have much information available. Also, recreating a real line in some respects limits what I can do, the railroad already built it, I would just be attempting to duplicate what they built.
So, I’m going to create something that I will call “plausibly realistic”. By that I mean, I will attempt to make it look and operate like a real-life railroad, but it will be a fictional setup loosely based on real railroads. Plus, by going the fictional route, I can have multiple industries that are typically spread out over large distances all within this setup. Rather than “just” having a coal route based in West Va/PA/Kentucky, or a paper/logging route based in Maine, or a grain/livestock route out in the Nebraska/Iowa/Kansas areas, I can have all of those things in a more confined space, without running hundreds of miles of track which would take forever and probably crash the game or at least make it run really slow due to the file size and number of elements that would need to be placed to make it look good.
The other reason, is the railroad liveries I will use. By running a fictional based route, I can use whatever liveries I want without it being “unrealistic”. It is similar to using real team names but fictional players in FOF or OOTP, maybe. If I want to have the Chessie System run and interact with something like the Illinois Central, for example, I can. In a ‘real’ railroad that wouldn’t be realistic.
For those that don’t know, there are seven Class I railroads in the US/Canada. Burlington Northern Santa Fe(BNSF), Union Pacific (UP), CSX, Norfolk Southern (NS), Kansas City Southern (KCS), Canadian National (CN), and Canadian Pacific (CP), along with several hundred smaller railroads (“shortlines”) that handle very localized work. Class I's are the big companies that operate thousands of miles of track throughout the country. I will attempt to create a shortline railroad that shares mainline tracks with one or a few Class I railroads. Most likely CSX, NS and CP since I’ll be creating an East coast/Midwest type route.
So that’s the background for this project.
In terms of the actual plan it will likely go something like this:
• Define the route
• Place the tracks and terraform the land
• Run the signaling
• Place objects/texture the terrain
• Setup the scripts for the AI trains to operate on the route
The screenshot is of the first section of placed track, along with a Chessie System loco, for historical purposes. Chessie power will be the default until such time as I find/create a new fictional paintscheme for the as of now un-named shortline railroad.
