Trainz in the Calico Mountains: Sunrise Canyon/Palm Borate

[PacificCoastBorax99]

Good day everyone, I am currently working on a project for recreating some of the railroads in and around the Daggett/Calico area in the virtual world of Trainz Railroad Simulator to give people a view of what these railroads would've looked like if they've experienced it firsthand themselves. I am aiming for the highest level of accuracy I can get it doing what I can to match it up to photographs and reports I've gathered up about these lines.

The first one on my list will be the Palm Borate gravity railroad, which was built in Sunrise Canyon on the far end of the Calico Mountains in 1908. Palm Borate owned a small-scale mining operation at the head of the canyon which mined about 7 cents per pound out of 6 claims in the canyon. The railroad they built was about 1 and a half miles long and had a high steel trestle bridge and tunnel built to traverse the treacherous canyon. It only operated for about 10 days before the price of borax dropped dramatically and the whole operation went belly up.

Based on various reference photos I've gathered up courtesy of Randy Hees (many thanks for that mate), and a TransDEM map including Daggett and part of the Calico mountains where Sunrise Canyon is (courtesy of CheckRail, a freeware Trainz site), here is what I have of the gravity line so far.








More progress is to follow if the project gets enough support. This will not be the final look of the mill building as I am hoping to find better buildings that match the ones in the photos, but I can't make my one for the moment as I currently have no knowledge of 3D modelling software, and before anyone asks, yes I will be making the rest of the Calico railroads. The Borate & Daggett, Calico Railroad (with branch to Daggett and Lead Mountain built by American Borax Co. in 1899) and the Western Mineral Railroad at Bartlett will be next on my list along with Tonopah & Tidewater and Death Valley R.R., but first I must get TransDEM maps of the Calico Mountains and Death Valley before I can go forward with those (and I have no idea how to work the program), along with custom rolling stock and buildings to match the ones shown in their photos. If you would like to help contribute to the project in any way, it will very much be appreciated.

Cheers.

[Pencil]

Looking good so far! What gauge was the line, and what version of Trainz are you building in?

Curtis

[PacificCoastBorax99]

Looking good so far! What gauge was the line, and what version of Trainz are you building in?

Curtis

It's on Trainz 12 build 47772. I would upgrade the build, but I currently have a lot of old content on here that I'm afraid would get corrupted if I do so, so it'll be compatible with this build and up so that most people will be able to try it out for themselves once it's finished.

Anyways, I've done more progress on the route. Trackwork is complete, now working on scenery items around the line such as the company town buildings, the mill and roadways for the horse and carriage and such. Have yet to work on the mines, the vegetation and rock around the route, but it shouldn't be too long before I eventually work my way up to it...

Here's some pics of what I've done so far.







And for extra measure, here's some photos of the virtual route compared with the photos of the real one, for those who are wondering how accurate this is:













A rough representation, but the closest I can get to the real thing for the moment, and the quality of the route is sure to improve!

And now for something completely different, how "Sunrise Canyon" got it's name!


"Lovely sunrise, isn't it Larry?"
"I couldn't agree more, Bert."
<Mule snorts in agreement>

Until next time!

[Pencil]

Looking good so far!! Thank you for sharing!

Curtis

[PacificCoastBorax99]

Looking good so far!! Thank you for sharing!

Curtis

You're welcome. It's fun to do these routes for Trainz, but I am a bit dissapointed no one has ever attempted to do these old shortlines in Trainz (especially Tonopah & Tidewater), they hold quite a lot of historic value! Anyways, I am pleased to announce that I have finished progress on the Sunrise Canyon Gravity Railroad. I just have to look it over one more time to see if I missed any details and I might consider a public release after my boss approves of my work and allows me to showcase videos of the routes at the museum I work at, with narratives illustrating the history of the route. Here is a few pictures of the route as it currently looks.










It's all almost 90% accurate to the real deal (NOT including the mine, as I had no reference pictures for it and had to make speculation of what it could've look like for the route), except the mill building and the company sign, two things of which I could not find a proper building to match.




I could try and find someone to commission to work on making 3D models of the mill and sign based off of the ones from the photos, but for now, what I've got will be placeholders until I find more accurate models. Anyways, now that Sunrise Canyon's done and gone, next on my list to model in Trainz will be the Laws Railroad Museum at Bishop, CA. I may post pictures of it sometime soon as I have got a fair amount of work done on the trackwork and rolling stock placed in the area, so keep an eye out for it!

Till next time,
Nic

[PacificCoastBorax99]

As promised, some pictures of progress on my new route, the Laws Railroad Museum at Bishop, CA. I am modelling the museum as it is in the present day and will include the town buildings and junkyard on the far end of the museum. I don't have as much reference pictures as I did with Sunrise Canyon, but I will try and make the route as accurate I possibly can to the real thing. Here is the route as it currently stands:




(For those who are curious, I used Trainboi1's model of NCNG #9 and used it to masquerade as SPNG #9 for the route, as there is no actual model of #9 in Trainz, so this is as close as you can possibly get to it for the moment.)




(A reskin I did of a railcar I found in Trainz to resemble Death Valley Railroad #5. Unfortunately a real model of her does not exist in Trainz since nobody seems to care about modelling Tonopah & Tidewater/Death Valley Railroad stock in Trainz for some reason, which dissapoints me... but if anyone is interested in modelling her, I do have a blueprint for a Brills Model 55 railcar and ref photos for it, just send me a PM and I'll contribute those along with an authentic hornsound to be used with the model. )



If this goes well, I will plan on doing a 1960's version of the route with and without C&C tracks extending beyond the museum property for anyone who will be interested in having a few trains to drive around the museum. Once again, any support or help for the project from you guys will be appreciated.

Cheers, mates!

[Trainboi]

A very interesting effort on the Laws museum, Nick. I personally would hold off on the Laws section for the moment: I know for one that the current(and the old) liveries for my SPNG freight stock is wrong for what is in the museum. I hope to make SPNG nos. 8 and 9(and probably 18 for its slight differences) and SPNG #401(and hopefully the larger SPNG caboose) in time. I hope to do a few different liveries of the SPNG freight stock as well, including the proper "no back logo" of the boxcars at Laws. If you feel comfortable reskinning and wish to do so yourself, then I will happily provide PSDs and any information which will help(with Andrew's permission since he provides most of my historical data for the West(what he doesn't tell me I look up from PacificNG, where he plays a large part, aside from the occasional NSRM visit and/or Google search to verify or gain the little necessary additional info). Either way, your Sunrise Canyon Gravity Railroad looks pretty great, and I'm sure you could pull the Laws museum into something good as well(at least, if you can find some way to make it interesting to run - it doesn't seem like a lark do drive to me, apart from perhaps a switching puzzle).

Keep up the work in any case, you've got a touch which can develop amazing results.

[PacificCoastBorax99]

A very interesting effort on the Laws museum, Nick. I personally would hold off on the Laws section for the moment: I know for one that the current(and the old) liveries for my SPNG freight stock is wrong for what is in the museum. I hope to make SPNG nos. 8 and 9(and probably 18 for its slight differences) and SPNG #401(and hopefully the larger SPNG caboose) in time. I hope to do a few different liveries of the SPNG freight stock as well, including the proper "no back logo" of the boxcars at Laws. If you feel comfortable reskinning and wish to do so yourself, then I will happily provide PSDs and any information which will help(with Andrew's permission since he provides most of my historical data for the West(what he doesn't tell me I look up from PacificNG, where he plays a large part, aside from the occasional NSRM visit and/or Google search to verify or gain the little necessary additional info). Either way, your Sunrise Canyon Gravity Railroad looks pretty great, and I'm sure you could pull the Laws museum into something good as well(at least, if you can find some way to make it interesting to run - it doesn't seem like a lark do drive to me, apart from perhaps a switching puzzle).

Keep up the work in any case, you've got a touch which can develop amazing results.

Sorry to reply back after so long, but thank you very much for your input! I put the project on Laws on hold to a while due to doing some research for a book I'm making for my work, but I managed to make a trip up there to see it all for myself and I could consider going back into it sometime soon. If you could still be able to provide me with those PSD's with those cars you were talking about, I'll be happy to use them when I resume work on the Laws route.

In the meantime, I've been resuming my work on the desert shortlines. My recent interests in the Tonopah & Tidewater has driven me to work on a recreation of Ludlow as it was during the "glory days." I have actually done the route a while ago, but recently got into it again to deck it up for a photograph I made and decided to go ahead and finish it off.

Here is the route as it currently stands.


The yards facing west towards Daggett and Newberry Springs. Santa Fe tracks are the ones in center. T&T line with the MPD to the right, going from there towards Death Valley Junction and Beatty. Ludlow & Southern (a private railroad running to the Stedman-Rochester Mining District that operated until 1917) tracks to the immediate left, head south to Rochester.


Looking to the east in the direction towards Needles. Rolling stock in the picture set up based on a photograph of the Ludlow yards in real life.


Freight transfer station for the Santa Fe and the T&T. Building behind the telephone poles are the T&T General Offices.


Ludlow Station on the Santa Fe. The only accurate-to-life building I have on the entire map! XP


Overview of T&T Railroad yards and engine depot as it all currently stands. Also have locomotives present based on pictures I have of the sheds, representing engines from both the T&T, and neighboring Bullfrog-Goldfield Railroad....but sadly, none of them are authentic to the actual engines...


Facing north view of the T&T engine house and yards. The tracks looped around the town in a "balloon track" formation to avoid the need for a turntable or running around the train to go back up to the direction of Beatty.


Santa Fe tracks roping around Ludlow Hill, towards Newberry Springs. Trains came from Newberry Springs to Ludlow to supply residents with water as Ludlow itself had no natural sources of freshwater.


For looks, here is a shot of Tonopah & Tidewater 2-6-0 No. 6 pulling a train from Beatty, approaching the turnoff for the engine house and yard.

That's about all I got for the moment. A bit "out-of-proportion" some of the tracks may be, mostly because I knew nothing on scaling when doing this route. But yeah, that's the route as it currently stands. If anyone around here might be interested in driving the old Nevada Short Line in Trainz, I might just see to it that this gets a public release when its finished... but probably not in time for Christmas with all the stuff for work I'm already preoccupied with...

Ah well, as always, happy railroading to all, and merry Christmas!

[NormHart]

I'm not sure if you have seen this post.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... ost1461806

but it appears that there is some rolling stock for the T&T. Getting your hands on it may be difficult though.

[Trainboi]

Nictrain is the OP on this thread. Fair enough though, it's good that got pointed out if only for others' sake.

---

That is a good start on Laws, and a clever solution to get the right number(I've used that solution once or twice, mostly just to be able to use it as more than one loco on a fictional setup.

[PacificCoastBorax99]

I'm not sure if you have seen this post.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... ost1461806

but it appears that there is some rolling stock for the T&T. Getting your hands on it may be difficult though.

Yup, those were all me. The T&T #6 was a reskin of the Baldwin 2-8-0 I found off of bdaenal's website about a year ago. Back then, I didn't know as much as I do now on the T&T admittably and a redo of the reskin is sorely needed after finding better pictures showing its livery. I also did some reskins of some 1907-era boxcars from Carson Car Shops to fit the livery of the T&T. I hope nobody minds... Yeah, I only just found out about #5 just a little while ago that she was a "sister" locomotive to #6, I'll be doing her too.

The route as it stands is mostly centered around Ludlow, as it was during the late 1900's, right after the T&T was completed. I would really like to continue and do the entire route, but in order for me to make it to its most accurate potential, I must first create a DEM of the entire route map from Ludlow to Tonopah before doing so, but have no knowledge of how to use TransDEM at the moment. If I shall do another section of the route in future, I would really like to pursue doing the section of Death Valley Junction with the narrow-gauge Death Valley Railroad and "Baby Gauge" going up to Ryan, and I think I might be able to create DEM maps for that in three sections just fine with the HOG creator...

[PacificCoastBorax99]

Alright, allow me if you will, to provide a quick little update from my end to anyone who's interested. After losing a bunch of my files in my Trainz 12 after a major computer overhaul, I've had to upgrade to the newest version of Trainz that's come out (T:ANE). I've managed to back up most of my route files so those of Ludlow and Sunrise Canyon will be safe and continued till finished as planned. But when I do finish them and release them, they might only be compatible with Trainz: A New Era onwards, and might not be able to run them on older versions such as 2012 SP1.

Not so lucky however, were my reskins of T&T #6 and the boxcars, so I'm gonna have to go in and do those all over again. I've taken advantage of this opportunity to improve on my rendition of T&T #6 and make it more accurate to reality, along with doing its classmate No.5, and here are the finished engines side by side.




(I know the tender numbers on the back are flipped, tried fixing that and it won't work)


A comparison with the original:



It's not too far off, since the N1 10-34E just happens to be the same class of engine as the Tonopah & Tidewater's Nos. 5 and 6.

These might see a public release in the not-too-distance future, maybe once my T&T Ludlow route is finished and publicly released so you guys can be able to drive these engines on their home turf.

Cheers all.

[Pencil]

I'm sorry to hear about your computer problems and the loss of some of your files, but the locomotives are looking great!

Curtis

[NormHart]

Me too, and thank goodness you were able to recover the route.

The locomotives look great but I'm of the "locomotives were never gray" crowd so I would think they would be a bit more like black.

Just my opinion and I seem to be in the minority.

[ferroequine]

FYI: T&T 5 and 6 were Baldwin's standard Olive Green & Aluminum as built.