# of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture

I'm pretty intrigued and impressed by some vegetation shapes and textures mentioned in this thread:http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/24208.htmlThe same Czech website also has some track and terrain textures, and I think the acleantrack1.ace is one I might like to adapt or adopt. I noticed that the roadbed texture contains 11 whole ties, and I began comparing that with others in the default routes or in a few other routes I've downloaded or purchased. Currently I've been using a texture with 12.The textures varied from containing 7 to 12 whole ties. Can anyone tell what prototype engineering might recommend? As I might do some minor editing to the texture, and since the texture is quite high quality, I could change the number of ties to give a different prototype spacing.

--- Phil Voxland

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RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, markhyams, Jul-23-04, 09:14 PM, (1) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, sniper297, Jul-23-04, 11:10 PM, (2) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, Roman, Jul-24-04, 05:57 AM, (3) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, sniper297, Jul-24-04, 11:15 AM, (4) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, Roman, Jul-24-04, 02:55 PM, (5) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, Roman, Jul-26-04, 07:53 AM, (6) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, callagst, Jul-26-04, 10:11 AM, (7) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, markhyams, Jul-26-04, 11:11 AM, (8) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, Mousy, Jul-26-04, 01:05 PM, (9) RE: # of ties per acleantrack1.ace texture, Roman, Jul-26-04, 03:07 PM, (10)

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I created a texture that I like a lot and it has 10 ties per tile. It can be downloaded from the file library under the name galuptex.zip. This is the photo from which I created it:As you can see the ties are all out of whack, and this is taken from the BNSF Gallup Sub, an ultra-high use, Class 1 mainline! I did some measuring on the prototype, and I decided that 10 was a good compromise. With nine ties they were spaced a bit too far apart, and with 10 they were a bit too close, but I went with ten, because I thought it looked better. I was also careful to make them spaced evenly so the texture would tile properly. For whatever it's worth, with the new set of tracks I've created (Mtracks: http://home.comcast.net/~markhyams/mtracks (shameless plug, and you can see the texture there)) I've been using this texture, and while the plain old straights and curves look fine with any texture, ones with 10 ties per ace file look best on the turnouts. I've been tiling the textures on the shapes as 5-meter squares, which seems to come out just right.Of course on real railroads, the tie spacing varies with the line use, with (in general) lines with more use having more closely spaced ties, so as they say in model railroading, "there's a prototype for everything," but what I was trying to create was a texture that simulates a high-use, class 1 mainline, and for that I think that ten ties per ace file is appropriate.You can see the evolution of the texture here:http://www.train-sim.com/cgi/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=show_thread&forum=DCForumID6&om=11783Mark

Moffat Road Tabernash to Phippsburg
All track complete
Currently working on Mtracks

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Yeah, on the prototype it varies all over the place, I suspect in Australia you guys need the ties right next to each other with stakes driven into the ground, considering you're hanging upside down on the wrong side of the planet.I remember when I was a kid walking along the Chicago & NorthWestern and the SOO Line tracks (forget it copper, I was a juvenile, the statute of limitations has long since expired, and you ain't read me miranda anyway! ), and on the SOO line the ties were spaced further apart, there was only one spike per tie per side of each rail, a lot of spikes were missing and for the remaining ones you could pull about every third spike out by hand. The C&NW got a lot heavier traffic, and the SOO only ran an occasional slow freight, nothing high speed and no commuter or express passenger traffic at all. Even back then (1965 or so) you could walk along the SOO line for an hour without seeing one single train.I started the whole mess because I was using the Europe2 track, which had the best looking ties for my tastes, but the ballast looked all wrong for the coal mine. Then I looked at the view out the cab, what's wrong with this picture? Since I spent most of my youth on the C&NW, the ties looked like there was too much space, that's it! Japanese track has 7 ties, the rest have 8. If you take a 10 meter straight section of Europe1 track and plunk it down, you'll see that it splits the end ties, with 12 in between, so 13 ties in 10 meters = 1.3 ties per meter. I dunno about in Europe, but the ties here in the US are generally 8x8 inches, so one tie every 2 1/2 feet would be rather wide spacing. I used 12 ties on the "Rusty Rails", and altho most people seem to prefer that to the later "3Dtracks", I thought they now looked too close together from the cabview. So I went to 10 ties for 3Dtracks, which to me looks perfect. Again tho, it's a matter of taste, whatever looks right to you is what you should use. With the 3Dtracks (same texture as PO&N 6 on up) I get 16 ties on a 10 meter section, and somehow that just looks right. Maybe the ties are out of scale, seems to me the norm for high traffic routes is 8 inches, so 8 inches of tie, 8 inches of space, 8 inches of tie, and so on.

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Hello Sniper,I believe it is one of the rare cases I do not totally agree with you.
I grabbed some information in the internet and found a useful site for the north-americans: http://www.rta.org/pdf/sec10a.PDF.
Heavy duty mailine spacing seems to be 19.5 inches, the tie-lenght varies between 8.5 ft to 10ft, where 9ft seems to be some standard, the width is something from 8in to 12in, 9in seems to be most used.In germany the mainline tie spacing to date is 650mm(~25.5in) the lenght is 2.60m(~8.5ft) the witdh for wood is 260mm, for iron 230mm(since the 60s phased out on mainlines)for concrete 260mm to 300mm depending on brand.In msts the appearance depends on the way the developers applied the textures to their shapes. You can test this by editing the shape of the a1t10mstrt. You can vary the lenght by changing all values of 10(or almost 10) inside the shape to 5 or to 20. The result will always be a functional, but odd-looking track in the given length.
This shows you are able to stretch or press the texture in reasonable amounts. Roman

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Hee-hee, well, I never carried a tape measure with me when I was hopping freight trains, but 7", 8", 9", not much difference. One word on that tho; my house was built in 1889, has 2x4 wall studs and 2x12 floor joists. Back then that meant exactly what it says, a 2x4 was two inches by four inches. These days after sawing the lumber to 2x4 inches, it gets run thru a planer to take a quarter inch off all sides, so a modern 2x4 is actually about 1 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. Same applies to all dimensional lumber, a 2x8 is 1 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, a 1x12 is 3/4 inch by 11 1/2 inches."Heavy duty mailine spacing seems to be 19.5 inches", the article mentions that figure as the test, and altho it don't say that's standard spacing, it might be. What they also don't mention is what they mean by spacing, distance between the edges of the ties or measured from the center of one tie to the center of the next? Standard in the US for any kind of construction is understood to be "on center", so a 16 inch spacing for wall studs and floor joists does not leave a 16 inch space between, it leaves a 14 1/2 inch space between. My house it's 14 inches since the douglas fir studs and joists were not planed after sawing, so center to center leaves an additional half inch of wood.With even seven inch (assuming a full seven inches and not 6 1/2, I have no idea if they plane the ties or not) ties it makes a big difference, if they're talking about space between the edges 19 1/2" is 19 1/2", but if they're talking about the engineering standard "on center" (or "centre", as you Brits say), that would be a 12 1/2 inch gap, for 9 inch ties it would be 10 1/2 inches. I did watch "gandy dancer" crews at work a few times (not on the same line, the C&NW had 3 lines running out of Chicago, mine was the Galena Division, nowhere near Des Plaines Illinois), and what they did was to place a tie, place another one right next to it, then another, then remove the one in between so the gap between ties was approximately the same as the width. Whether that was standard practice or not in the days before automatic tie laying machines I don't know, the NorthWestern was the only major US railroad to run left handed, and probably did a lot of other wierd things too.

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LAST EDITED ON Jul-24-04 AT 02:58 PM (EST)

The spacing measurment usually is center to center. Not only in old times the number of ties was calculated roughly per mile, so they did with ballast. That is the great picture. But from the beginning there was something about jointed rail, my fetish. Joints in general, supported equi joints in special need some consideration. The joint determines at least the place for the first and the last tie; staggered joints determine the placement of four ties! Afaik in the US 39ft rails were used until WWII. The odd length was defined to be able to transport them in 40ft cars and have some space left for handling. Saying this you have to place the ties 39ft-wise, the resulting pattern depends on the favour of the roads i.e. supported/unsupported, equi/staggered joints. On long stretches, which I regard to be standard in the US compared to european or german practice, the amount of ties, spikes, railchairs, fishplates is subject to easy controlling and therefore subject of internal rules in every road. The same applies to maintainance, as jointed rail need to be replaced more or less frequently determined by tons * axels * time * speed. Speed only in old times was a concern, as today the lines are degraded to 'freight-only' carriers doing mass freight and to date only compete with ships in speed which is easy
So to come to an end, the 'best guesses' can be done or proved by doing some 'data-mining' in the internet and watching old pictures. It is fairly easy to count ties between joints on the pictures of UP over wasatch mountains, or for NYC as there are tons off pics available. For todays practice it is a bit more difficult, but I think it will work to compare the body of a boxcar to the ground. Obviously you need a pic showing the ties, but IIRC there are a lot of those pics f.e. for prototype marias.Roman

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Hello Sniper,
the second pic is most interesting for me. I did not notice by the first view but those dblslips have flexible frogs in the middle. Is that one of the wierd things of the NortWestern or do those dblslips still exist today? If you take a closer look, you will see 3 switch-engines per dblslip, one for the switch-pairs at the ends, and one additional in the middle for the frogs. Any chances for a blueprint?Roman

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I am reading out of CN's Engineering Standard Practice Circulars for Track Construction Standards -SPC 1301 Table 1. For lines where the FRA track class is Class 2 or higher, the number of concrete ties is 2640 ties per mile, Wood No. 1 treated hardwood ties is 3110 ties per mile. For Class 1 track the requirement is 2980 ties per mile. For spur and industrial sidings the requirement is 2840 ties per mile. That makes the spacings 20 1/2 inches for 3110 ties per mile, 21 1/4 inches for 2980 ties per mile, and 22 1/4 inches for 2840 ties per mile, and 24 inches for 2640 ties per mile (concrete). Most ties are 8ft 6in in length. 9-footers and 10 footers are used where there are problems with subgrade movement or swamps. CP standards are expressed in ties per 100 feet, and are pretty much the same as CN with regards to spacings. 20 inches is 60 ties per 100 feet, 22 inches is 55 ties per 100, and 24 inches is 50 ties per hundred. ?0 is used for primary main lines, secondary main lines, and switching leads. 55 is used for important branch lines, minor branch lines, sidings and important yard tracks, 50 is used for everthing else. As far as Candian railways go, that's pretty much the standard.Hope this clarifies things for the track gang!

Steve C

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Here's the problem:Both of these pics were taken with my galupsub texture, which I mentioned above, and has 10 ties per ace file.The first pic is of an A1t100mStrt.s piece. It has 20 ties in a 10-meter section, or 2 ties per meter, or a tie every 19.69 inches.
This picture is of an A1t10mStrt.s piece. It has 16 ties in a 10-meter section, or 1.6 ties per meter, or a tie every 24.61 inches.
I didn't alter the ace file at all between the pictures. It's just that the shapes map the ace files differently. A quick test of a few other pieces shows that most of the longer pieces, like 250 and 500 meter straights are like the first pic, and most of the short pieces, like the 20 meter straight, etc. are like the second pic. I didn't find a third way that the ties were mapped, but then again I didn't look at and measure all of the pieces. I prefer the top picture, which gets very close to typical prototype spacing on a class 1 mainline. It's also how I've been mapping all of my Mtracks pieces too.Another thing we can shrug our shoulders at and say "why did Kuju do it this way?"Mark

Moffat Road Tabernash to Phippsburg
All track complete
Currently working on Mtracks

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I can't decide which looks more realistic.
BTW Mark, I was using your GallupSub textures on my FBL v3 before switching to ScaleRails, which I gave up on because I goofed-up so much in the RE .

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Hi Mark,thats one of Kujus heritage. But it is possible to do alternate A1t10 and other shapes. Maybe a bit tedious, but possible. I think it should be done to reach the goal of almost unified ties, and not the effect of stretched and compressed ties side to side depending on used track-pieces.Roman

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