CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!

Hey all
After some checking I've come to the decision to put the CA&E on hold primarily due to several factors (1) a good chunk of track was already done when I discovered DEMEX so some of my landscape attempts are not up to snuff (2) made the mistake of making every switch manual thus rendering it very difficult for any activities to be created with AI traffic and (3) several areas of track that would really need to be ripped up and redone for accuracy.Rather than go back and rehash covered ground(though the CA&E may one day be revived)I've set my sights on a new subject, the Rock Island from La Salle St Station to west of Peru IL
My question then,when working on the CA&E I went to the Topozone website and by moving the cursor over the map I was able to get the long/lat cordinates for various landmarks along the ROW,upon starting my research on the Rock Island I've found that that particular feature is no longer at Topozone.
Does anyone know where I can find a source to get the info needed for my RI long/lat data?Gary S

43 year old future curmudgen(Hey you kids get offa my lawn!!)

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RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, chuckzeiler, Dec-14-04, 08:48 PM, (1) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, CGW409, Dec-15-04, 06:23 PM, (6) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, chuckzeiler, Dec-15-04, 09:24 PM, (8) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, CGW409, Dec-16-04, 06:23 PM, (12) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, chuckzeiler, Dec-14-04, 09:14 PM, (2) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, Coonskin, Dec-14-04, 11:52 PM, (3) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, Railfan727, Dec-16-04, 08:58 AM, (10) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, DRGWK36, Dec-15-04, 06:54 AM, (4) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, jtsdadinaz, Dec-15-04, 01:30 PM, (5) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, CGW409, Dec-15-04, 06:47 PM, (7) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, jtsdadinaz, Dec-15-04, 09:26 PM, (9) RE: CA&E On Hold & Long./Lat Question? Help!, CGW409, Dec-16-04, 06:18 PM, (11)

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In a way I cannot explain at the moment, I got this site to display lat/lon coordinates. Here is a link to the home page.
http://www.mapserver.maptech.comHere is a link to the lat/lon I’m working on currently, Flippin, Arkansas. Not an exciting town, but has a siding or two (depending on timeframe). If I put the cursor over a certain point on the map, the coordinates are displayed on the left side.
http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm?lat=36.28033&lon=-92.5967166&scale=24000&zoom=100&type=1&height=498&width=498&icon=0&searchscope=dom&CFID=822085&CFTOKEN=90592148&scriptfile=http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm&bpid=MAP0060030900%2C1%2C1%2C0&latlontype=DD.DDSorry about the CA&E route. If you want to hand it off for a few months, let me know. Tim Muir suggested (in the Traction Forum) that the Willamette Valley was defunct. That is not the case, at least not on my computer.

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Chuck
Hmmmm,That's a nice looking building in the background,any idea who the masterful building genius was that built it?Seriously thanks for the help, as to handing off the CA&E I'd probably do it if someone were willing but aside from the above mentioned problems(if you've got to replace all the switches you might as well start from scratch)another major problem is the .reg file and the shape and texture folders.
As the CA&E was my first route one of the things I did was to copy those components from another aftermarket freeware route as an experiment,about midway through construction I realized I should have deleted those files and replaced them with default files from either the NEC or Marias Pass and go from there but figured with the "sort by date" option in Win 98 it'd be no problem to remove the files and entries for non default objects from that other route that I had no idea who to credit,unfortunately when I copied MSTS from first my old 20gig HD to the new 80gig in the old computer and then from that 80gig to the 200gig in the new computer, thanks to Mr.Gates need to change the by date to by modified in XP all the items are now so blended I'd be(or anyone I've handed the route off to)spending almost as much time sorting said files out as I had building it in the first place.Gary S

43 year old future curmudgen(Hey you kids get offa my lawn!!)

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OK Gary, just wanted to let you know I have a soft spot in my heart for the CA&E. I grew up in the neighborhood.I think you could open the World Files in Wordpad, and replace the switches from Manual to Automatic with Edit/Replace. I’m not sure, but I don’t think the track database gives a darn if the switch is Manual or Automatic. The Activities seem to care, but from my point of view, the CA&E would need a man on the ground anyway, so Manual switches are perfectly acceptable to me.

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ChuckShoot me a PMGary S

43 year old future curmudgen(Hey you kids get offa my lawn!!)

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Sorry Gary, I punched back into this post, but the Edit option was not there, so had to post again. I hope this is the corrected link to the home page:
http://www.maptech.com/index.cfm

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Hi Gary:Topozone no longer offers lat/long at their website. That feature is reserved for those that ante up for a subscription to their service.USAPhotomaps will do the lat/long thing for you. If you don't already have USAPhotomaps, it's a very nice tool to use. You will be able to download topos directly into the USAPhotomaps program, and then you'll be able to navigate far more accurately than Topozone's onld lat/long readings allowed.Hope you can finish your Rock Island route. I really liked the ol' Rock Island line.
Andre MingVisit VSC's temporary web page at: http://www.vscalecreations.comVisit VSC's Forum at: http://www.3DTrains.com

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And, DEMEX will translate your USAPhotoMaps waypoints directly into MSTS markers!!!!!

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Gary - while it's frustrating to drop a project that you've spent a lot of time and energy on, with route building, I think most of us mortals are in the same boat. Route wizards like Rich Garber or Jim Ward may be able to create a workable route the first time out of the box, but most of us have had to dump our first (or second or third) efforts and start completely over. Glad to see you're still willing to push ahead with something new.I agree with Andre - USAPhotoMaps is a very useful tool, and very affordable! It will give you lat/lon data and let you toggle between topo maps and aerial photos. It's easy to use, you can create markers for the RE with it, and I've found it quite handy for scouting out personal travel plans as well.Andy

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Is this what you were wondering about?

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Andre and AndyI'd heard USAphotomaps mentioned(thought it was a website) can I find it at my local CompUSA or is it a download only?(hey Christmas is coming up and the wife is already getting me some appropriate power for the new route from Diesels West).Andre
Might be a bit north and east for your tastes but I always try to make a route as accurate as possible.Andy
It was a tough decision particularly since the "heavy lifting" of track was already done and the fun part was getting going but two factors helped make the decision, the first I mentioned in my initial post(manual switches everywhere rather than just for non mainline sidings)and the second "route killer" I mentioned in my response to Chuck(a very stupid error).
Giving up on route building was never an option, as the last half of the CA&E got underway I was putting some thought forward to the next project(it was either going to be the Rock Island Chicago District,the C&NW from Proviso yards to Janesville WI, the SOO from Chicago to Burlington WI or the EJ&E from Waukegan IL to Joliet) a visit for a cousins wedding to Marseilles IL led to a trip back later to photo some of the buildings for MSTS uses as well as picking up a copy of Remember The Rock helped seal the deal after realizing that some of my earlier errors had sealed the fate of CA&E V1.2(installing crossing gates before track was done killed V 1.1)Gary S

43 year old future curmudgen(Hey you kids get offa my lawn!!)

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It is a download from:http://www.jdmcox.com and is free.Since everyone is talking about how close things are for lat/lon, here is a picture of some markers I made using tiger data and the convert3 program available in the library here.Note: This is supposed to be a river and the tracks stay on the west side of it for most of the length along this particular river. See where they are here, on the east side of the river and jumping back and forth. Most of the southern end of teh NCR was done from Usaphotomaps made markers. Just for grins, I took my GPS north of where I live, walked the tracks with it, came back home and input it into photomaps and it was spot on. It is this crazy sim that is messed up. I use the markes as simply a guide to lay the tracks in some close resemblance to what is real.

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Thanks,downloading now.I sort of noticed that myself while using some of the older DEM data,the seamless USGS site must be acting up as I followed the instructions(as best I could ) from the DEMEX forum and the data was unreadable by DEMEX and so went for some of the older data.
I went to what should have been the RI depot in Marsalles IL and found the back half of the depot would be half buried in a hill and the sheer bluffs just a block away are a bit more gentle of a slope,though this might be due to the older data.Gary S

43 year old future curmudgen(Hey you kids get offa my lawn!!)

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