Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress

LAST EDITED ON Apr-05-03 AT 02:26 PM (EST)

Hi fellow traction forum members,let me give you a sneak preview to some cars currently sitting in my paintshed, waiting for the final finishing touches and debugging. I have received a basic "ok to proceed" from the original author of these Brill interurban cars, Carles Romero, regarding the release of the repaints, and I have also gotten the generous ok by Wayne Campbell to work on a customized repaint of his L&PS No.2 cab that would go nicely with some or all of these Brills or other trolley cars.I know that ficticious liveries etc. are not to everybodies taste, but as I had the feeling that I liked some more trolley cars using pantographs - we have a good selection of cars with trolley poles in the library - I chose Carles beautiful, highly detailed cars to create a car barn full of interurbans suitable to run on a matching interurban line of your choice. They do have a variety of roadnumbers, but (except for the boxcars) no reporting marks, so the cars and their liveries may well be considered of "generic nature". In my eyes, the liveries still look pretty typical for Brill cars, but please feel free to give additional input if you deem it necessary to revise the colors Here are some screen shots:
No. 1 with trailer - resembling an early interurban with wooden body, and 6 small plus 6 large windows along its side.
Combine No^. 9 features a smooth side body and equally sized windows.
No. 3 "heritage car" in a burgundy scheme, complete with matching 1910 era plattform coaches (repainted from SD&A coaches by PCCC / Mark di Vecchio) and truss boxcar (by Wayne Campbell)
MOW motor with snowplow (model by Rick Lamp) - obviously, car No. X-4 has been rebuilt from former passenger motor No. 4.
Another view of a MOW train, this time setting out to do some work on the overhead wire, as the flat car with spools tells us.
Boxmotor No. 5, rebuilt from a passenger motor of the series of No. 1...No. 5
The repainted cabview, some final touches still to do, and perhaps adding a control light for the sanding I added to the original .eng files. Well, I think it's going to be 1-2 days, but then the cars should be ready for upload, provided no unforseen bug raises its ugly head. (Btw: All pictures on JBJ, or Sweden 1, modified for my personal use by importing some Marias Pass 3.1 textures to the route, plus starting to set up some trolley poles from Mesaba Electric...Lukas a.k.a Swissie
(Updated for many typos - it never pays to hurry...)

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RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, CMO, Apr-06-03, 00:07 AM, (1) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, dvdhoven, Apr-06-03, 03:29 AM, (2) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, chuckzeiler, Apr-06-03, 09:46 AM, (3) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, gatecityca, Apr-06-03, 02:26 PM, (4) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-06-03, 03:47 PM, (5) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, wacampbell, Apr-06-03, 06:22 PM, (6) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, abarten, Apr-06-03, 08:14 PM, (7) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-07-03, 08:19 AM, (11) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-07-03, 08:34 AM, (12) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-07-03, 03:34 PM, (15) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, chuckzeiler, Apr-07-03, 05:54 PM, (16) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, dvdhoven, Apr-08-03, 12:59 PM, (18) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-08-03, 04:50 PM, (19) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, dvdhoven, Apr-09-03, 12:55 PM, (21) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, gatecityca, Apr-07-03, 10:15 AM, (13) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, tryagin, Apr-06-03, 09:20 PM, (8) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, chuckzeiler, Apr-06-03, 10:14 PM, (9) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-07-03, 07:57 AM, (10) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, dvdhoven, Apr-07-03, 11:38 AM, (14) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, cromero, Apr-08-03, 01:23 AM, (17) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-08-03, 04:56 PM, (20) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, Swissie, Apr-10-03, 08:45 PM, (22) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, abarten, Apr-11-03, 12:26 PM, (23) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, dvdhoven, Apr-11-03, 12:27 PM, (24) RE: Sneak Preview to some Work in Progress, cjmaclean, Apr-12-03, 07:00 AM, (25)

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Pretty nice looking equipment.
I prefer trolley poles, but many lines used pantographs.

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Hi,Very good job, Lukas! Awesome! I love them at first sight. Great.I had one wish, can you paint such a box car in grey or black? Here in the Netherlands many of that cars were painted black or grey. And if it is all fantasy what you're doing, some more can be added.Another color scheme that come up in my mind, is cream (upper) and green (below). I believe some lines in Switzerland runs with that scheme. See the WAB, although they are using yellow/green by now.
And white or cream/blue, which is a classic scheme too.And about the trolley pole/pantograph, remember here in Europe, we get used to pantographs. Trolley poles are rare in Europe, specially on Interurban lines.One of the last Interurbans that I remember by now that run with trolley poles was the NMVB/SNCF from Bruxelles to Grimbergen until it was abandoned in the late seventies. That this line was run with trolley poles was due to the fact the tramways of Bruxelles runs with trolley poles until about 1980.Dick van den Hoven

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Very nice looking models. Can you tell me what wire height these are set for?

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WOW! Those cars look great, Lukas! I love that cabview too. As you could probably tell from our earlier discussion about PCC cars and light rail lines, I have a bit of a preference to trolley poles too, but it would be a blast to run your cars! We can always use more trolleys, both pantograph and pole cars. Chuck had asked what wire height they were set for...would they work on the Northeast Corridor? Keep up the good work!

Chris T.
San Bernardino, California

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-06-03 AT 04:01 PM (EST)

Hi ye all,trying to answer to all of 1-4 in one answer (sorry to "abuse" your post to that purpose, Chris)to CMO: That doesn't mean I will not be doing trolley pole repaints (perhaps on some Tim W. Muir cars?) at a later stage. Right now my objective was to create some variety on the pan's stage...to Dick: Thanks for your kind remarks! As far as the wish of a grey boxcar is concerned, I must tell you that you just attempted to run-in a door that has already been opened For the time being, I did a package of nine boxcars in three different liveries, with one shiny & clean, one worn & clean, and one worn & dirty boxcar each per livery. These are:- the burgundy ones to go with the burgundy motors (my "vintage" generic scheme)- red & cream ones to go with the matching "generic scheme"- light grey ones to go with almost anything (most Swiss NG roads used to paint their freight stock in grey well into the modern days, so there goes the parallel with the BeNeLux.- The yellow one is one-of-a-kind, designed to match the other stock in the work train.I just have a screenshot of one in the red and cream livery on this laptop, here it is: XM202 is sitting on the siding, with a load of fresh milk for the local farmers market aboard, if the notes on the plate are up-to-date. Yep, No.202 is the worn and dirty one of the red and cream pack. I just resisted to putting a chalk graffiti with "wash me, please!" on its sides to Chuck: I'm working at adjusting the cars to the 6.2 metres of Mesaba Electric for starters. Carles' original cars are a tad smaller than all the other equipment coming with it, but I found out that scaling the cars with Shape File Manager by 5% along the y and z axis (i.e. for height and length, to maintain proportions), and then manually adjusting some things the program looks over, makes them both
a) a perfect match for the other cars,
b) fit right under the Mesaba wire.Some shots in the original mail were taken before the scaling, some after a first round where I added 7% in two steps, which turned out to be too much. I brought them done to the correct height today, but right now I've no screen shot handy (different computer I'm sitting at now).Chuck: Any objections if I used a copy of your sound package on them, with some custom changes I have in mind: Namely
a) offering an optional, alternate file with an electric bell ringing instead of the steamwhistle when the horn is played, giving the end user the choice to easily swap between the two files
b) including some high pressure air switch sounds when the pantograph is moved (as many prototypical electric equipment uses to separate the pantograph from the wire, to overcome electromagnetic effects of the current). I found some matching sounds in the default MSTS Orient Express' 380 folder...to Chris: While working with the scaling feature, I started to have a closer look at how the animation of the pantograph is done, using a matrix in the shape file. While I basically start to understand it, I will have to do some trial and error, but ultimately it should be possible to adjust a second set of alternate shape files that match the NEC wire (or other routes using that height). Give me some time to study, play around etc., I'll keep an eye on the issue.With regard to the cab: I did some additional work on it over the weekend. Depending on Wayne's input and ok, I will do a conductor view facing forward from the left side of the front plattform, just slightly angled to the left, that should give you better views than the normal 45° view to the left. The right view will be a similar view, but straight down the track (or into the next car) from the rear plattform, so that the cars can be run both ways with a decent view (although the animated cab will only work in the forward view, of course).Last but not least I added a control light to indicate wheel slip, and a control lever for the sander which I included in the .eng file (without it the cars need antislip enabled - not very prototypical for a 1910 era car - or will get stuck on moderate climbs already when pulling more than their own weight).Here are the results: The wheel slip light is on as I try to tackle the grade with four trailers at notch 8... The sander lever that will help me get up the hill is in the lower right corner, still closed in this picture.Throwing the sander lever to the open position, the wheel slip is stopped in no time, the light goes dark, and on we trundle...Chris, you are working on the PE Arrowhead route, I saw. Just got out the book on the PE from my bookshelf yesterday when I modelled some of the cars above, for inspiration. That made me think about repainting some PE stock when I find time - like a boxmotor or two, some of the 1100's and 1400's, perhaps even a series 100 trolley car (could perhaps be done from the PRL&P Brill trolley). So far, it's the typical 300 and 400 series blimps, and of course the 1500's Hollywood cars where we do not have a suitable 3D model for. Tell me if you here anything in that direction, then we can perhaps stick our heads together... And yes, CMO: Those would then have poles, of course, sir!Thanks to you all for your feedback. It'll be another day or so more to get them released, as Wayne just sent me his v2 shape file for the 36ft boxcars, which he claims is better (how can it be even better than the old one), and more accurate. But that means I have to slightly modify all the textures to make use of the advanced features... Sorry for the wait, but the shops are busily preparing the cars for you right tomorrow Monday! (After work, but luckily I will be off early tomorrow, if all goes according to the plan)Cheers and kind regardsLukas a.k.a Swissie

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I really like the wheel slip indicator and sander control. They are a great addition and I don't mind at all if you include them in your upload. I hope you don't mind if I borrow the idea for some of my L&PS motor cars. I have already borrowed ( OK, stolen actually) your idea about re-using the left and right views. For my L&PS boxcab electric project, I put the left and right views on the front and back platforms, positioned so the coupler is just in view at the bottom of the screen. It is a great aid for switching and yet still allows the 5 key ( passenger view ) to be used for a view from the caboose.Your repaints of the truss-rod boxcar are really well done. I am curious if this style of 8 wheel box car was used in Europe? I always envision the smaller 4 wheel type when I think of European freight cars. These will be a great addition to the library. Nice work!Wayne

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Beautifule work, Lucas. These are great. Thanks for sharing the pictures with us.Cheers, Al
http://alfredbarten.com

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-07-03 AT 08:27 AM (EST)

Hello Wayne,thanks for the kind words! Feel free to use the wheel slip indicator and sander - after all, 95,6% in that cab is your work, to put things into the correct perspective (let's pay the honours to whom deserves them).As for the four-axled, eehm eight wheel boxcar (in many coutries, such as Switzerland, we crazy europeans count the axles, not the wheels): You are quite right, most of the earlier freight cars was only four wheeled, but I am aware of more than one Swiss electric branch line that would also have used eight wheeled equipment. The Waldenburgerbahn near Basel springs to my mind (75cm / 2.25ft NG!), or the standard gauge route up Mt. Uetliberg in Zurich which still has one today, albeit with steel case. I think also the abandonned interurban system of Lausanne had at least one boxcar with trucks, and some of the NG roads in the mountains also used eight wheeled boxcars - not for reasons of comfort for the boxes, milk cans or cattle riding in it, but to reduce weight per axle. But one of the main differences would probably be that most of the older freight cars had an open plattform on one end of the car where the wheel or rather handle for the handbrake is located, and no roofwalks (rather dangerous under wires, anyway!)Here's a typical two-axle or fourwheeler, not of an interurban but a narrow gauge boxcar of RhB, in a promotional livery for a well known brand of chocolate, Milka, sold as "lila pause" (lila = purple). The plattform I wrote about is clearly visible, also on the next car.Lukas a.k.a Swissie
(Edited for the boxcar image)

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Just to complete things: Here's a screeny of the grey scheme, this time of the car in fresh paint:Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-07-03 AT 03:40 PM (EST)

Good evening guys,one final call for your opinions. I stated before that I'd try to remove that ficticious "STS" (honestly, I don't know myself what it would stand for).I did three different versions with some small lettering like capacity, car dimensions etc. The lettering either appears beneath the number, next to it, or next to the black board for chalk notes on the car destination or load. In pictures:
a) next to the black board, or...
b) ...underneath the number (I just see in that resolution that I need to apply another fine layer of dust, to better conceal these moirée shapes on the dirt sprayed onto the car), or...
c) ... to the right of the roadnumber. Fine tuning to match the position of the lettering on the sides and on the front will happen for the final version.Any preferences for a specific style of lettering? Or shall I go my way and include one version each for each livery, again attempting to create some variety?Notice on the side: For better detail I did a 1024 skin version for each car, which I got going after an initial round of UiD errors stupidly caused by me not paying attention to the proper format, obviously. The fine print is actually readable on these high-res skins, for the benefit of high end users loving detail. The alternate 512x512 version for lower end users will probably not have the small lettering, or just a boiled down version with a slightly larger font. I'll have to try it out before I make up my mind on that.Ok, I'm going towars 10.30 pm local now, and didn't have dinner yet. I call it quits for tonight and I will see your inputs tomorrow. Cheers Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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FWIW, the diagram below, while specific to the Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad, is typical of North American railroad practice.

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http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/User_files/3e9201883d5344a8.jpg

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Hi,I cannot make a choice. They look all good to me. I have no preference. A very good job, you're doing.Dick van den Hoven

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Hi again,slowly, but surely progressing, therefoer my evening teasers of the day:To Chuck: Many thanks for the drawings. Something like this ok? maroon and red&cream. To Dick: Some of the cars get this US style lettering, but I'll leave some variation in, especially the grey cars remain as shown yesterday, and at least one of the red & cream and one of the maroon cars get's a different style of lettering than the one shown above. I think that is an acceptable deal. The other issue of today concerned the cab. The conductor view and rear view for the cab also get closer to what I want them, only thing remaining is to improve some of the 3D effects (shadow of the handbrake wheel, for example).
Left view, "<-" on keypad
Right view, or rather rear view, "->" on keypadTo save space, it occured to me that it was not necessary to do an individual front 1024x768 and a 800x640 view window for each individual road number. I "disguised" the roadnumber as a two-state display, with both indications being the same (just the number with the rest alphaed out, projected onto the empty brass plate), and mouse control turned off. Works nicely, and is only 3kb instead of 200kb in addition per car!Status for release: I sent a car to Chuck for some more testing of the handling and sounds. I feel them now almost done, so hopefully not more teasers next time, but a message that they are heading for the library.Thanks again for all the valuable input!Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-09-03 AT 01:19 PM (EDT)

Hi,Those views are looking very good! I like those details, you've added to them. Great work. Dick van den Hoven

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Hi Lukas,Yep, the PE Arrowhead line is my pet project. I've been working on it for a while now, and let me tell you, that is one mean grade on Electric Avenue! I started working on the water train, and I used Tim Muir's steeple cab (the PE 1594 repaint he made, of course) and I had to tweak the .eng file to give it a little bit more power just so it could get up the hill! With a consist of two tanker cars, it was really struggling! After that initial steep climb up Electric Avenue and around the curve, it does okay. Right now, I'm still adding scenery, but most of the track is in place. I'm working on Highland Avenue in San Bernardino at the moment. It's coming together, slowly but surely. That would be great if you could make some PE cars when you have a chance! I repainted Matt Austin's Milwaukee Electric 1100 car into kind of a generic Pacific Electric interurban car a little while back (it should be in the File Library), but it was the first repaint I've ever done and there is definitely room for improvement. If you do get into making PE cars, I was wondering if you might also be interested in doing a couple of San Bernardino Valley Traction Company cars as well. That was the company that built the electric trolley lines in San Bernardino before the PE took over in 1911. SBVT combo car 100 would be great. Anyway, if you're interested, I just recently got some great pictures taken along the Arrowhead line, some that weren't in any of the books and that I've never seen before! I wrote to one guy and he sent me a scan of a picture taken in a 1912 PE survey! It's amazing how clear the picture is and how much detail you can see! I haven't been able to find out exactly where the picture was taken, but it is on the Arrowhead line and I know it was taken somewhere along the grade through the foothills, probably at somepoint between present-day Sepulveda Drive and Waterman Canyon. If you give me your email address, I can send you it to you, and any other PE pictures you'd be interested in that I have.

Chris T.
San Bernardino, California

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Hi Swissie,
Just love the maroon and cream cars! Especially your repaint of wayne's boxcar. They'll go real nice on my Willamette Valley railway along with the Brill Semiconvertible Suburbans. Nice work, very professional looking - very crisp and clear. Oh, yah, that maroon boxcab is sweet, too!Thanks!Tim Muir

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Absolutely, please use the sounds. Let me know if you need any other sounds, I might have what you need.The wire height of 6.2 meters is much appreciated. It will work perfectly on a couple other projects I have going, as will the burgundy paint.Don't forget the PassengerCapacity ( 80 ) line. I always forget it. Dick van den Hoven can tell you where it goes.

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Thanks Chuck,a PassengerCapacity line is already in. Luckily, I did edit all my trolley and passenger cars files with respect to that line a while ago when the issue came around in another forum. Thanks for the reminder, anyway!As for the sounds - what if you gave one of the cars with the sounds as they stand for now a test spin and have a look, ehm hear at them? Drop me a private message with a address to mail them to, if you wish so. Wayne already did some runs and pointed me to a flaw in the way the brake recharging was handled, so I did really appreciate his second opinion and feed back. I'm still playing around with brake pressure, application rates, recharge rates etc. until I get the feeling the cars handle and feel right both when running solo or with trailers attached. Cheers, and thanksLukas a.k.a Swissie

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Hi,I must admit, I'm somewhat excited when I read this all and see this all. Great, outstanding stuff. Thanks a lot, Lukas and all the other contributors.Dick van den Hoven

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Dear Lukas & all,On Sunday my computer crashed and I (think) lost all stuff in it. For now I cannot write any message to you. If mail information cannot be recovered by doctors I'll have lost your messages and your adress!!!Of course you may proceed with your great work without any inconvenience!GreetingsCarles Romero "Brill"

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Hi Carles,(sorry for having misspelled you Carlos some time earlier). That's bad news with your computer, sorry to hear that! I hope it'll be possible for your PC surgeon to recover it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!Thank you once more, here in full public, for letting me do that job on your cars. Gracias, y buenas tardes (sorry, only rudimentary Spanish, and no Catalan)!Lukas a.k.a Swissie

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Good evening,and good news. Chuck is still reviewing a car, but... - I have now included all his suggestions for improvements received so far.- I have finished all jobs I wanted to get done from my to-do list- I have checked all the cars for bounding boxes, dimensions, correct scaling, light positions, proper file hierarchy, you name it (and found an error or two, naturally)- I have finished the cab to where I feel it's ok. Or a bit better than that, perhaps.- I have rewritten all the read-me's, copied and included all the original docs, etc.- I have done the screen shots for the file library as well as for the individual cars, to the benefit of the ConBuilder community.- I have assembled a few sample consists to upload along with them.Soooooo - all that needs to be done is to upload, as soon as I get the green light from test pilot Chuck (Zeiler, not Yeager ).The shop foreman kindly sent me a sample of the photo shooting that took place this morning. Hopefully tomorrow in the library. Together with the remaining boxcars, etc. Good night now Lukas a.k.a Swissie
tired but glad to have'em there

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They're in the library and I just got 'em. Wow. I can't believe it. These are beautiful. Thanks Lucas.Cheers, Al
http://alfredbarten.com

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Hi,Thanks a lot, Lukas. I have just downloaded them. I will have fun the next days. Thanks again for this great job.Dick van den Hoven

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These look perfectly right on the Mesaba route! Now I only need to figure out how to build some simple activities for that route. Have any of you had any success there by chance?
Dominik Mann Visit www.tssf.de - www.bahn.de - http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/ - www.eisenbahnforum.de

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