YVRR Jan 2014

[NormHart]

I am always surprised when I find a new route that I had no idea was even on the DLS. This route was even more of a surprise than most. I've been seeing bendorsey's rolling stock for the route for ages and I had also noted his many bridges, industries, and buildings for the route and I've wondered when or if anyone would build/release this route. Apparently it happened about two years ago and I completely missed it. So thank you trainboi1 for releasing the YVRR locomotives since that inspired me to go searching through the DLS and lead me to ballcd's magnificent 79 mile route.

It downloaded into TANE with only a few missing assets and while it doesn't use all the bells and whistles of TANE it really looks lovely. Sadly it has four bridges that the track has broken loose from and, thanks to TANE's limits, you are forced to save it as a new route when you repair them so it is unlikely that any sessions will be forthcoming. Also sadly it appears that the session that ballcd did is also broken. I am still trying to track down and repair stuff so I am not completely clear on why it is broken. I can foresee hours of fun here.

[NormHart]

Gads, I had not realized anyone had completed the Sierra route either!

How cool is that? And ballcd included the connection to West Side. Ummm.

Good heavens, it is only 49 miles between Oakdale and Merced. UMMMMM!

[Trainboi]

Heh.
I've done some work on the YVRR route, and I believe Andrew is doing some more touch-ups. I might take a look at converting it to use TANE speedtrees and such as well. So far, the corrections I've made have been pretty self-explanatory:
-Fixed bridges(they were broken when I picked up the route. Not sure if that's been fixed)
-Added the remains of the original logging incline
-Added the overhead rollers at the base of Emory incline and made that a little more reasonable
-Added invisible trackage at the top of both inclines to enable functional simulation
-Rounded off some corners in the Merced canyon between Bagby and Moss Canyon
Pretty simple things, but there's a lot like that which I'd like to fix.

[NormHart]

At this point I haven't changed anything except the bridges. The missing assets irritate me, I mean download a 600+ MB file to get a fire hydrant, I don't think so. Send an email to get certain assets from a creator that won't put them on a website or on the DLS, really? That's nuts!

All in all a couple of great routes, I've driven on roads that are shown in each route, I lived just outside of Sonora for a short time and the routes match my memory pretty well except I seem to remember a lot more pine trees. If I start updating the trees I'll probably spend a couple of days examining the areas in google maps and bing first.

[Pencil]

I loaded that route up back when it came out, but never bothered to hunt down all the dependencies. If you guys get something working in TANE, that'd be great!

Curtis

[Trainboi]

I have the YVRR operable in TANE, but am revising a lot of the trees.

[NormHart]

I have the YVRR operable in TANE, but am revising a lot of the trees.

I downloaded it and Sierra directly into TANE with little problem except all the missing assets. Trainboi1 are you seeing any signaling? I'm not sure it that is one of the missing assets.

I've been looking at some lever and rod operated signals by bloodnok and was wondering if there were any US versions you guys know about.

[Trainboi]

Neither road was ever signalled as far as I can tell. The YVRR has a solitary pair of signals in Merced for interlocking with the ATSF, but other than that, there isn't anything. (I should mention as well, I managed to get down so that my ONLY dependency on the YVRR was a reskin for the Merced oil tank, which was never released)
For good US signals, look up "US&S" and "GRS" on the DLS.

[NormHart]

I downloaded both the YVRR Jan 2014 and the Yosemite Valley RR v1 and the bridges are broken in both. In fact I have been unable to find any difference between the two so far.

I also found a map of the northern incline's connected rail lines. http://yosemitevalleyrailroad.com/Maps/YLCo.NoSide.jpg Quite an extensive logging operation was conducted up there by the Yosemite Sugar Pine Lumber Co.

They had 2 x 2T Shays and 3 x 3T Shays all standard gauge but I've not been able to figure out how many of their single bulkhead log cars they had. One of the Shays might have operated at the base of the incline unless they depended on the YVRR to handle assembly of trains.

I have not found any speedtrees Sugar Pines and I own all the payware mcguirel has done for TANE. I do not see any in JVC's content. I'll contact mcguirel to see if she is well enough and interested enough to tackle the them.

[Trainboi]

If McGuirel does some sugar pines that would be the first scenery payware I ever get... Also, from what I can see the YVRR was entirely responsible for operations below the incline.
Some speedtrees being added:

Many of them aren't perfect matches - there seem to be no laurel speedtrees, which is something of a pity - but in general I've kept oaks to oaks, pines to pines, etc.

[NormHart]

Well looking at the trunk of the Auran "Tree Conifers" they look very much like sugar pines, at least the bark is pretty close, the pine cones not so much. Height is a little short at only 60 meters.

I'll stick a flock of them up at the top of the incline and see what they look like.

BTW this whole discussion is kinda leading me to think that the whole new Tnext thing might actually be a good thing. I can not see myself participating in large projects due to my undependable health but for touching up a preexisting route with a group, could be fun.

Edit, I went ahead and did a group of the Auran conifers and also did all dmdrake's Sugar Pines. Turns out Auran's trees are only a paltry 40 meter tall. here are some screenies


Auran's too bad the pine cones look like giant pears


all dmdrake's from the short side


All dmdrakes's from the tall side. Note the Auran trees don't look too bad from a distance.

The color on the Auran trees is kinda light, both trunk and foliage, IMO.

Edit: mcguirel is not able/willing to work on Sugar Pines atm

Edit: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... ost1511208

[NormHart]

Well since I had gotten all of mcguirel's payware speedtrees I thought I'd get JVC's stuff too. Big mistake IMO. Only 36 trees in three types are speedtrees (maple, birch, and beech) the remainder including all his pines and all his aspens are fancy planar trees about the same as dmdrake's except not transparent. His grasses and flowers are nice but the trees are not all that exciting. I doubt I'll be using them.

[NormHart]

ballcd has uploaded another route to the DLS!

<kuid:187625:100098> Angels Branch Sierra RR (Tane)

From Jamestown to Angels Camp, quite nice but sadly missing quite a few dependencies including some ground textures that are not found by http://www.trainzkuidindex.com/. I am hoping that he/she will upload them soon since the route came out yesterday.

[NormHart]

I could not figure out why mcguirel's ponderosa pines were so small, it turns out there is a multiplier in the config.txt and the trees she listed as 53 meters were actually 32 meters in game. This discovery lead me to explore modifying her trees to something more like the real sizes of the mature trees 40-50 meters and some as tall as 80 meters. Naturally I had to see what the route would look like with them replacing the multitude of non-native pines and firs the route came with.










I've mixed some of mcguirel's Doug firs (also up scaled)

That looks more like the forests I worked in.

[Trainboi]

Doesn't look as much like the YVRR though - at least not as much like the Briceburg-El Portal section I drove today. The trees are selected more for appearance than species, and as much as it irks me (that's not how I like to work), it gives a better experience. Typically the trees I saw were at most 20 meters; it isn't until you start getting into El Portal and beyond that you see any very tall trees. Naturally, there were plenty of taller trees elsewhere, but it looks rather more like you're working on the Madera Sugar Pine Co. or something...XD
That said, if you decide to work on a MSPCo. route, those trees will work pretty well.