I have been debating whether I should redo my track for the C-D route. Actually I would probably start with new tiles, get DEMEX and do the terrain properly.
There are several areas that bother me about the existing route. These are the main ones:
1. The tunnel sections (from Xtracks standard tunnels) are main line RR sized and it is difficult to match them to the stations due to their height and shape.
2. I did not get the grades correct in some areas, for example there should be a grade for the line to go under the fort point channel between South Station and Broadway; the grade coming out of Park to Charles is wrong so that it takes too long to get elevated; Ashmont and Codman yard isn't right; the Harvard station/Eliot yard complex is too deep I think which is one reason why I had so much trouble fitting it in.
3. I have also been reconsidering my decision to make it solely the Ashmont - Harvard line as in the early 1960's and was thinking of adding the Braintree extension at least (brings it up to the 1970's) that means running the type 1-4 cars would be anachronistic but on the other hand it would allow adding the type 1 south shore cars (01500's) plus add more possibilities for activities.
4. I did not use 3rd rail sections as I was not aware of any that were available. Since then I have come across routes with 3rd rail and track sets with 3rd rail sections such as UKFS.
If I went that route I would still be able to use most of the stations and other scenery objects I built. I would still keep them as the early unrefurbished versions. I haven't done Columbia yet which is the only station that is changed for the extension.
I would keep the end at Harvard for now rather than going to Alewife as I like the old Eliot yard and shop complex. Of course I woudl have to add Cabot Yard. There is also the whole issue of how much if any to do of the MBTA Old Colony - there should at least be the capability of AI trains on it.
Something to think about - I go back and forth on it.
Another development is that Steve an experienced MSTS developer has taken on the task of puting together some type 5 (01400) cars which is great news.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Ashmont
At this point the Charles River crossing and Charles station area is well along, although without any scenery, so I decided to move to getting ready to finish all the trackwork. This means putting in the trolley to Mattapan, so I decided to do the Ashmont terminal next, as its design dictates that end of the trolley line.
So I have been hacking away in Sketchup and I am fairly happy with how it is coming. The tricky part is figuring out the ramps for the trolley down into the station and up to the loop over the subway tunnel. I will probably build them as part of the station complex rather than trying to do as separate road sections.
One correction to my previous post, the El sections should be credited to Ron Picardi not Fred Barbieri, the latter is the builder of the "F1 Transit" NYC subway routes which were part of the inspiration for me building this route.
So I have been hacking away in Sketchup and I am fairly happy with how it is coming. The tricky part is figuring out the ramps for the trolley down into the station and up to the loop over the subway tunnel. I will probably build them as part of the station complex rather than trying to do as separate road sections.
One correction to my previous post, the El sections should be credited to Ron Picardi not Fred Barbieri, the latter is the builder of the "F1 Transit" NYC subway routes which were part of the inspiration for me building this route.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
More progress
The Longfellow Bridge is almost done, I only have to build the last section over Memorial Drive in Cambridge which is a simple girder bridge.
I have spend most of the last week doing Charles St. station and I have to say it looks decent. I textured the outside with an image taken from a photo to get the weathered copper look.
I also added some elevated sections from Fred Barbieri's NY elevated package. They aren't an exact match but they look pretty good. This is for the section from Charles Sta to the tunnel entrance.
I have spend most of the last week doing Charles St. station and I have to say it looks decent. I textured the outside with an image taken from a photo to get the weathered copper look.
I also added some elevated sections from Fred Barbieri's NY elevated package. They aren't an exact match but they look pretty good. This is for the section from Charles Sta to the tunnel entrance.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Making Progress
In the last couple of days, made good progress on the Longfellow Bridge and it is almost done. I have to do the end sections which have smaller octagonal towers. The one on the Boston end also needs to have the track bed continue almost level whereas the roadway starts sloping down so that it will be at ground level for the rotary under Charles station. Didn't get much done last night but got this section roughly sketched out on paper.
I also still need to do some tweaking of the position, the last over-water section came out too far east so I have to slide the entire bridge to the west about 20m, plus some sections don't line up perfectly yet. Spent about 2 hours Sunday night aligning, it is tricky where each section has to be aligned in its 6 degrees of freedom (3 axes of translation + 3 axes of rotation). Especially when it is so difficult to rotate accurately in the RE, using end key plus cursor is way too slow, in the end I find using the mouse to do most adjusting then finish off with the keys if needed works the best.
I forgot to mention that I had solved the problem of the missing railings - I had used a bitmap of 257 x 257 instead of 256 x 256, as MSTS requires power of 2 square textures. I also found out that whereas texturing one side of the fence with a transparent texture is good enough in Sketchup but in the game only one side shows up so you have to texture both sides.
Last night I was away from the computer most of the evening as I had to go pick up my son who was getting back from a round trip to Chicago via Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited. He has inherited enough of the train gene that he is interested in train travel, not as much into the rivet counting as I am, but another plus is that he is into MSTS, even installed BIN for me on my system and some other odds and ends. He will probably be the first beta tester when this route is ready.
I also still need to do some tweaking of the position, the last over-water section came out too far east so I have to slide the entire bridge to the west about 20m, plus some sections don't line up perfectly yet. Spent about 2 hours Sunday night aligning, it is tricky where each section has to be aligned in its 6 degrees of freedom (3 axes of translation + 3 axes of rotation). Especially when it is so difficult to rotate accurately in the RE, using end key plus cursor is way too slow, in the end I find using the mouse to do most adjusting then finish off with the keys if needed works the best.
I forgot to mention that I had solved the problem of the missing railings - I had used a bitmap of 257 x 257 instead of 256 x 256, as MSTS requires power of 2 square textures. I also found out that whereas texturing one side of the fence with a transparent texture is good enough in Sketchup but in the game only one side shows up so you have to texture both sides.
Last night I was away from the computer most of the evening as I had to go pick up my son who was getting back from a round trip to Chicago via Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited. He has inherited enough of the train gene that he is interested in train travel, not as much into the rivet counting as I am, but another plus is that he is into MSTS, even installed BIN for me on my system and some other odds and ends. He will probably be the first beta tester when this route is ready.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Screen Shot of Longfellow Bridge
As promised, here is a screen shot of the Longfellow Bridge. Still needs work, such as the railings that refuse to appear.
Success!
Splitting the towers and the bridge itself seems to work. I also reduced the polys on the towers somewhat by redoing the tower roof.
Tonight I started making side spans and placed a few.
Only issue is that I made railings using a transparent texture similar as to how I did the arches but they are not showing up. I'm sure I am making a dumb mistake somewhere.
I'll try to post a screen shot later tonight.
Tonight I started making side spans and placed a few.
Only issue is that I made railings using a transparent texture similar as to how I did the arches but they are not showing up. I'm sure I am making a dumb mistake somewhere.
I'll try to post a screen shot later tonight.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
A Setback
Finally finished the towers for the Longfellow Bridge center span and textured it with some dirty stone texture I downloaded off the web, then updated the shape in the shapes directory (I had already placed an earlier model so I just updated it with the new model). However when I open RE and navigate to the Charles River to look at the bridge, the RE crashes. So something is wrong. The new bridge has a lot of polys (over 9000) so perhaps it is too large for MSTS? I'll have to research to see if there is an upper limit.
After thinking about it, I am going to save off the towers (which I did as a component) into a separate shape then revert the center span to just the bridge itself without the towers. Then try placing each tower in the RE by itself, maybe that will work. I may try simplifying the tower to reduce its poly count. The spherical roof alone has about 100, I should be able to redo that and get it down.
For fun yesterday I downloaded a new version of London Underground Northern Line which I heard about on UK Trainsim. I like this one much better than the earlier version. They did a nice job on the scenery. Just ran a short activity from Golders Green to Edgeware. I am a big fan of the LU as I rememebr riding it as a child back when we still lived in England. I had an aunt and uncle that lived at the time near Waterloo and I still remember going with my parents to see them, steam train to Fenchurch St. then District Line then probably Bakerloo as I remember the station Elephant and Castle, the name intrigued me. We probably rode on the 1938 Tube Stock based on what I remember of the train interior.
In subsequent trips to England as an adult I have renewed my acquaintance with the LU, most recently last year when my wife and I traveled from Balham (where my suster lives) to Kings Cross then a few days later back from KK to Heathrow to fly home. I was glad to see the 1973 Tube Stock still soldiering on the Piccadilly, they still sound like Underground trains are supposed to. I guess by the next time I get over there, everything will have the modern electronic drives like our Red Line 01800's and all the old stuff will be gone.
In other transit notes, over the weekend we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which required a ride on the Red Line from Alewife to Park St. (where I got to check out the Longfellow Bridge towers one more time) then the Green Line E train which I hadn't been on since we lived in Jamaica Plain as a child. Of course in my mind I kept thinking "how would I model this in MSTS" as we went along ... no way I would do a Green Line, too much urban scenery on the surface! BTW I noticed that the signs at Park St. and the maps still refer to this as the "Arborway" line, even though from what I hear bringing the line back beyond Heath St. now seems to be dead as far as the T is concerned :(
After thinking about it, I am going to save off the towers (which I did as a component) into a separate shape then revert the center span to just the bridge itself without the towers. Then try placing each tower in the RE by itself, maybe that will work. I may try simplifying the tower to reduce its poly count. The spherical roof alone has about 100, I should be able to redo that and get it down.
For fun yesterday I downloaded a new version of London Underground Northern Line which I heard about on UK Trainsim. I like this one much better than the earlier version. They did a nice job on the scenery. Just ran a short activity from Golders Green to Edgeware. I am a big fan of the LU as I rememebr riding it as a child back when we still lived in England. I had an aunt and uncle that lived at the time near Waterloo and I still remember going with my parents to see them, steam train to Fenchurch St. then District Line then probably Bakerloo as I remember the station Elephant and Castle, the name intrigued me. We probably rode on the 1938 Tube Stock based on what I remember of the train interior.
In subsequent trips to England as an adult I have renewed my acquaintance with the LU, most recently last year when my wife and I traveled from Balham (where my suster lives) to Kings Cross then a few days later back from KK to Heathrow to fly home. I was glad to see the 1973 Tube Stock still soldiering on the Piccadilly, they still sound like Underground trains are supposed to. I guess by the next time I get over there, everything will have the modern electronic drives like our Red Line 01800's and all the old stuff will be gone.
In other transit notes, over the weekend we went to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which required a ride on the Red Line from Alewife to Park St. (where I got to check out the Longfellow Bridge towers one more time) then the Green Line E train which I hadn't been on since we lived in Jamaica Plain as a child. Of course in my mind I kept thinking "how would I model this in MSTS" as we went along ... no way I would do a Green Line, too much urban scenery on the surface! BTW I noticed that the signs at Park St. and the maps still refer to this as the "Arborway" line, even though from what I hear bringing the line back beyond Heath St. now seems to be dead as far as the T is concerned :(
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year
Been a while since I posted. I have made some progress on the project in spite of ice storms (complete with 4 day power blackout) , holidays, etc. The center span of the Longfellow bridge is progressing. My idea of using a texture for the bridge girders worked, so now I am working on the "salt and pepper" towers, a little tricky but I think I can make something that is good enough.
A few other distractions - needing a change of pace I downloaded the excellent Lehigh and Hudson River route V3 and am currently downloading stock for some activities. The L&HR interchanged at one end with my favorite RR the New Haven at Maybrook NY and at the other end with the PRR at Belvidere NJ, not far from the Lehigh Valley where I spent my undergraduate years and got into railfanning the LV, CNJ, and RDG railroads that still operated there in those pre-Conrail years.
Back to the project - I hope to finish the bridge center span this weekend and start on the other spans, then I'll probably move to adding the elevated section around Charles St. I should then try to finish the trackwork so I can move on to roads and interactive objects. I still have to do the Mattapan trolley plus I need to fix Broadway station as I made the jog for the center platform too wide and need to realign the tracks there.
A few other distractions - needing a change of pace I downloaded the excellent Lehigh and Hudson River route V3 and am currently downloading stock for some activities. The L&HR interchanged at one end with my favorite RR the New Haven at Maybrook NY and at the other end with the PRR at Belvidere NJ, not far from the Lehigh Valley where I spent my undergraduate years and got into railfanning the LV, CNJ, and RDG railroads that still operated there in those pre-Conrail years.
Back to the project - I hope to finish the bridge center span this weekend and start on the other spans, then I'll probably move to adding the elevated section around Charles St. I should then try to finish the trackwork so I can move on to roads and interactive objects. I still have to do the Mattapan trolley plus I need to fix Broadway station as I made the jog for the center platform too wide and need to realign the tracks there.
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