Track Beds

I have all of my markers adjusted for the cal coast, and am getting ready to do the track bed. I am just curious as to some of the techniques used by the other route builders here. I am going to lay mine out with TS-Tools, having used Demex to do the terraforming so I could have distant mountains in the route. The routes that I have downloaded and play with have some really terrific scenery, and well done trackbeds in the terrain. I am hoping to pick up a few tips to help my trackbeds be more prototypical. Thanks All...Southern Pacific may be gone, but never to be forgotten

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RE: Track Beds..., JohnCS, Apr-19-03, 08:25 PM, (1) RE: Track Beds..., MarkMyers, Apr-19-03, 08:56 PM, (2) RE: Track Beds..., rowie_nq, Apr-20-03, 03:25 AM, (3) RE: Track Beds..., MarkMyers, Apr-20-03, 03:08 PM, (4) RE: Track Beds..., Coonskin, Apr-20-03, 03:52 PM, (5) RE: Track Beds..., MarkMyers, Apr-20-03, 07:35 PM, (6) RE: Track Beds..., gatecityca, Apr-21-03, 11:04 PM, (7) RE: Track Beds..., JohnCS, Apr-24-03, 10:21 PM, (8)

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If you're talking about how to get the track grades right so you have the right cuts/fills that generally requires alot of trial and error with the trackwork to get right (I always work with actual prototype elevation data as grades alone aren't reliable in msts accout of the projection skew).Regarding setting the actual terrain once you have the track down there's two important points to making it look right:- Slope angles. Most mainline railroads don't have cut or fill slopes exceeding 2:1, or around 30degrees unless you're against rock.- trackbed width. Its important that the track bed be as narrow as possible, but not too narrow so that the track is undercut. 50' wide roadbeds really kill the authentic look. I usually start out with a width of 12 meters then examine each piece and change as needed. I'll also hand-edit the elevation points along the track to fix the occational spot where its too wide or narrow.

JohnCS
dem_ex@hotmail.com
visit the DEMEX website:
http://www.dem-ex.com

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-19-03 AT 08:58 PM (EDT)

Grades are part of it for certain. Part of the cal coast run through some rough terrain around the coast area between Gaviota and Carpenteria, CA where it is almost all cuts and fills to keep the trackage fairly level about 5 meters below U.S. 101. Being a single track wide with some fairly long passing and some small industrial sidings, the width is a consideration. I do expect to have to do a fair amount of hand editing till I am satisfied with the results.It's Cuesta Pass in the San Luis Obispo area that is going to be the really mean grade cut. It has a horseshoe that is really tight, cut into rock and heading up a grade to an altitude of about 1250' from a height of 200' above sea level. That area forced me to lay some really tight markers less than 20 meters apart. <edited for bad spelling>Southern Pacific may be gone, but never to be forgotten

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-20-03 AT 03:27 AM (EDT)

>I do expect to have to do a fair amount of
>hand editing till I am satisfied with the results. Lets hope that the next version of MSTS has an option of moving the terrain points horizontally, as well as vertically. There's nothing worse than the damn saw tooth edges on the sides of cuts and fills, especially when you're laying track that's supposed to be on a narrow shelf. BTW, how does TS Tools make the track bed?Cheers,
David.

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TS-Tools lets you lay down a trackbed, and also measures by the mile for you, for milepost placement. TS-Tools will then let you select the trackbed, and bring up a profilers, which will show you your trackbed as it would appear placed on the landscape, divided off into whatever units you chose (Miles, Kilos) and place gradient markers. From there it will actually carve the trackbed into the landscape using the gradients that you specified. It's pretty cool.
Southern Pacific may be gone, but never to be forgotten

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LAST EDITED ON Apr-20-03 AT 03:52 PM (EDT)

Mark:Try not to get too frustrated once you start laying track. Even with XTracks, you will quickly discover the shortcomings of our track selections.Plus, even making extensive use of dynamic track, your track work will have to be compromised from the prototype in places. Further, the limitations of the way the sim handles roads/contouring etc, will also force more compromises to a prototype scene.Lastly, as nice as DEM's are, they not extremely accurate. If you're intimately familiar with an area, you'll see what I mean. This was just driven home by a route that I've recently DEM'd. All of the above is simply the nature of the beast.In the final analysis, you may have to be satisfied getting "close enough" or you'll stagnate (or abandon) the project through disatisfaction and/or discouragement. Or, you'll be overwhelmed with the amount of work to do trying to make it "perfect". Best of luck!Andre Ming

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I think that the phrase that I would use in "in the ballpark". Perfection is not going to happen in MSTS, and this will be my first foray into XTracks, so that should prove interesting. The trackage is fairly simple along this portion of california, so it's a good starting place for a novice. By the time I get to Cuesta Pass, I should be pretty good at making adjustments to get as close to prototype as MSTS allows. All in all, I'm trying to capture the feel of the areas, and wether or not it is anatomically correct is secondary. I have 169 miles of Mainline to practice on. I have been practicing for the last year with Michael Vones Tome of Wisdom and some small routes that I never planned to release, just 7 or 8 miles of practice track to learn the editor. And lurking here and reading the stuff that is posted. Which is really invaluable. So wish me luck. I'm diving into the task of producing a "real" route with both feet. And I appreciate the words of advice from an expert. Southern Pacific may be gone, but never to be forgotten

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Hi Mark and others,I just wanted to comment that you're right that sometimes you just have to settle for "close enough" when you're building an MSTS route. My experience with using DEM data and DEMEX when I first started working on the PE Arrowhead line was that it would create really nice looking terrain that came pretty close to the real mountains in the area, but was definitely NOT 100% accurate. I live near the old r-o-w just below the San Bernardino Mountains and so I've been up there many times and I'm very familiar with the path it takes along the foothills and into Waterman Canyon. But when I tried to model the route in MSTS, using geo coordinates I found at Topozone.com, DEM files, and DEMEX, I had to compromise a little bit in a few places, as sometimes if I follwed the cordinates Topozone gave me, that would place track in the Route Editor way too high up on the hill or otherwise a bit off. So, use your judgement, and get it to where you are happy with it. The aim really is to give the player the overall feeling of a route and the area. Exact accuracy just isn't possible.

Chris T.
San Bernardino, California

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Thats because Topozone uses a different godetic reference datum than DEMEX uses. Most of the Topozone data is in the NAD27 datum, which is drastically different than WGS84 used by DEMEX. Use the topomaps options in USAPhotomaps instead as it's NAD83 datum is almost identical to WGS84, or manually convert from one datum to another using a utility such as Microdem.

JohnCS
dem_ex@hotmail.com
visit the DEMEX website:
http://www.dem-ex.com

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