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"Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged"

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landnrailroader (272 posts)
May-31-02, 09:00 PM (EDT) "Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" From the B&B Foreman to the locating EngineerThis is to inform you that the Broad River has been bridged as of this day in 1907. Somehow or another, we got an aerial photo to show you, taken near sunset.Now the real stuff.Broad River Viaduct is 1,160' in length, and consists of several alternating 40' and 70' deck girder spans, with a 200 ft. deck truss bridge over the stream itself. Since it was built, a highway has been built under one end, which has not been added at this point. At the north end, there is a long fill, which was originally terminated in a wooden trestle/abutment until the fill had settled. The south end abruptly encounters a steep bank and cut. The bridge currently has no speed restriction on it, although trains are limited to 50mph over this area, and most of the Blue Ridge Subdivision.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired from CSX)
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Subject Author Message Date ID RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... rpicardi1 May-31-02 1 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... Railfan727 Jun-01-02 2 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... rpicardi1 Jun-01-02 3 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... landnrailroader Jun-01-02 4 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... yellowdog Jun-02-02 6 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... rpicardi1 Jun-01-02 5 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... landnrailroader Jun-02-02 7 RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bri... rpicardi1 Jun-02-02 8

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rpicardi1 (127 posts)
May-31-02, 09:09 PM (EDT) 1. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" looking good. As long as the four sections you fabricated from your component kit loads in the RE, they will work ok in the sim. Do a close camera scan in the RE and if nothing vanishes, your viaduct is ready for prime time.SRV Ron Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
Railfan727 (135 posts)
Jun-01-02, 01:46 PM (EDT) 2. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" How did you get the terrain to fit against the concrete abutments so nicely? For me, the RE always insists on creating a gradual slope instead of a wall that I can put the abutment up against without having a gap behind it. Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rpicardi1 (127 posts)
Jun-01-02, 07:17 PM (EDT) 3. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" He didn't. He is using a custom end pier that has matching terrain texture mapped to it. All my bridge kits have such end piers available which can be custom textured to use your terrain texture.
This is done by creating the end pier in a modeling program such as TSModeler or 3-D Canvas Pro, modeling a terrain textured shaped berm to the pier, and creating the object for use in the RE.
You then use the end pier and bury it in your terrain as needed. That's a lot easier then trying to edit the terrain which cannot be shaped to fit 90* objects or make smooth narrow berms or fills.SRV Ron Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
landnrailroader (272 posts)
Jun-01-02, 08:05 PM (EDT) 4. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" Re: End Piers etc.Ron Picardi has supplied these end piers and berms as uploads to the file library. Do a search on "SRV" in the file library, or just look for uploads in the "route design" part. He has uploaded, by now, 6 or 7 uploads of his bridge material and was a great help to me in designing parts of this and other bridges.Another great help on this was Rick Lamp. Ron (and I) use TSM to create new objects, whilst Rick uses 3dStudio. Either program will do quite well.Not only has Ron created abutments for railroad bridges, he has also created highway overpasses in many shapes and road widths, also with attached berms. I have used his 30' and 90' bridges in several spots on this route. In a few weeks, I will be uploading it to the file library, and then I am going to go back and clean up some things on my earlier version of the KP sub and upload it as well.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired) Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
yellowdog (228 posts)
Jun-02-02, 02:54 PM (EDT) 6. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" "In a few weeks, I will be uploading it to the file library"A few weeks?!? Great, I've been slacking on my repaints here recently thinking you were further behind than that. Now I'm going to have to get back on my horse! I CANNOT wait to see this route finished! The bridges look fantastic, everyone!Clayton Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rpicardi1 (127 posts)
Jun-01-02, 10:47 PM (EDT) 5. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" SRViaTSM.zip just uploaded. It should be available in a few days.This is a generic parts kit for use in TSModeler that can be used to construct large steel viaduct bridges such as those used in Jerry's route.The kit contains a selection of bents, towers, and spans from 30ft to 150 ft. Included are matching concrete and berm end piers. Misc parts are included for customizing towers or piers. With Jerry's techanical support and lots of E-Mailing back and forth with large attachments, the parts in this kit are now very close to the dimensions of the real thing. Therefore, they are not designed as a replacement to the existing steel viaduct bridge kit uploaded earlier. Those parts were created using a few basic dimensions, photos, HO scale models, and a lot of trial and error.Here is a sample viaduct in TSModeler My bridges are mapped with the rusty texture. Jerry's uses the same file but its in silver. Instructions are included how to use either one or both. Texture files used are included.
TSmodeler doesn't display transparant textures. they show up as white or black on the sample bridge above. They will display correctly in the RE.
I plan to release in a few weeks a RE version of this kit for those that don't have TSModeler.SRV Ron Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
landnrailroader (272 posts)
Jun-02-02, 03:13 PM (EDT) 7. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" Ron says it all. His work is fantastic, and not only that, he has been very patient to explain the error of some of my ways - mainly in placing the origin point incorrectly at one end or the other of the bridge, as well as overlooking some textures.The Broad River bridge was "prefabricated" in four main parts using TSM. This kept the polygon limit (after conversion) to less than 4,000, or well within the limits of MSTS to handle it on each section. This also made it much easier to position the parts together to make the bridge.The kit, that Ron refers to, has various heights of towers, lengths of spans, etc, and if you have TSM, you can use it much like a toy erector set to assemble what you need.WARNING - THIS PROCESS IS ADDICTIVE, AND TAKES SOME GETTING USED
TO - CAN LEAD TO MARITAL FRICTION IF ABUSED.At the Broad River, as with most trestles, the towers and bents near the ends may have dissimilar leg lengths because of the terrain involved. The southmost tower (to left in pix) is a nightmare of this type.Clinchfield, and now CSX, for the most part, have kept the bridges on this line well painted, so that a greyish or silver texture, with a little rust is correct. When I do the Milwaukee Road on ST.Paul Pass, I will use the rusty textures, or even black in some areas because they painted their bridges black - but by the 70s, they were pretty rusty.I should also point out that many of Enocel's bridges have been used in this route as well. Because these better objects were not available when I did the original KP route, I plan to revise it to better reflect what is there. Some BIG changes, will be a 270' deck truss at Pool Pt., correct 120' trusses at Starnes Crossing (3rd Clinch), mixed through and dpg spans at 1st Clinch, and much better details at Copper Creek - also correct deck trusses at N. & S. Holston. When I get the basic scenery and mileposts done on the BR, I plan to (gulp) try to put in signals on it.I would hope that Microsoft takes notice of some of this effort, and includes more pieces for "erector sets" in their next release. It seems to me, that if no other method is desireable, they could offer and add-on pack of objects.J. H. Sullivan, P.E. (retired) Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top
rpicardi1 (127 posts)
Jun-02-02, 06:28 PM (EDT) 8. "RE: Hoorah - Broad River is now Bridged" A closeup of the 200ft span in the correct texture. It looks a lot like the Pool Point bridge but is 70ft shorter.SRV Ron Remove | Alert Edit | Reply | Reply With Quote | Top

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