MILE POST 30!!!!
Well actually a bit further than that, but I have yet to fully grade the track there. So I'm probably somewhere between 30 and 31 miles of track so far. Not bad for a 34-ish mile long railroad! ALMOST THERE!!!!
Anyway, so yes, progress has been made recently. I've graded the line up to about mile post 28 and what a crazy section of railroad it has been...
A friend of mine here, PCB, has done me a wonderful favor by re-skinning some contend for the M&P, including some of Elvenor's coaches and Ben Dorsey's C&C caboose. Which here is seen used to make a 'proper' Mojave Cannonball, the M&P's "Crack Passenger Train". The line's main revenue coming from mining and ore shipment so not much passenger traffic is seen. Anyway, a number of yards to the left and outside of frame was the summit tunnel/Tunnel No.1. The Cannonball is now drifting down the steep 4% grade into the Panamint Valley. The Northern Slopes of the Slate Range Mountains are far more unforgiving that the leg of the journey leading up to Slate Range Pass. With a moderate grade of 2.5%.
Here we see the Cannonball passing Milepost 24 and just about to cross a gulch trestle, one of many along this part of the line. I developed an odd, but effective method for placing milepost with approximate accuracy. I built a mile long consist of 50ft standard gauge cars and one bobber caboose. It's actually a few feet longer than a mile, but it's enough to "guess-ta'-mate" where to place mileposts. Seems to work pretty well!
The Cannonball crosses yet another trestle, just out of sight behind the mountain side in this shot. But as you can see the grade clings to the steep slopes of this desert hauler. Easy as she goes here, this is NOT a place you would want to derail...
The beginning of this trestle can be seen in the previous shot, but here the train trundles over it and then plunges into Tunnel No. 2. Originally I had the track go around the mountain, adding more sharp curves and bridges. However before I could save my 4 hours of progress the game locked up and I lost EVERYTHING up until my last save point... >_<
So when I opened up the game again I took a different route and I think it was the best choice. Granted this creates a pretty long, strait section of 4% grade, but It helped to cut mileage down as I want to keep the overall right of way down to 34 miles as much as possible. (As per Craig Tice's description) But in addition to that, tunnels are fun! And they look good to.
Tunnel No.2 is the longest one on the line. I really don't have a measurement for it, but it's a couple hundred feet easily, if not near 1k.
Also I'm using Shortline2's 2ft gauge tunnel track for the tunnels themselves. Her large one is perfect for this operation, however they do seem to glitch a bit, turning invisible for some reason. If anyone knows a remedy for that I would love to hear it!
And here the Cannonball exits tunnel no.2 and crosses another trestle. On the opposite side is tunnel No.3 And here is another minor glitch. IT doesn't show up when you're close to it so I'm thinking of using some of Colorado71's snowsheds to help conceal it.
Tunnel No.3
Exiting tunnel No.3.
That's about all I have for now, hope you're all enjoying it so far!