[Genma Saotome]

Division Street was the official name for the yard on Goose Island... AFAIK it had more tracks in place than is possible to set down with MSTS 16 foot center to center track spacing and "normal" turnouts, but I think I've captured the basic layout that was in use... just missing a few parallel tracks. My rendition (click on it to get the full sized view) looks like this with all of the working tracks in yellow, numbered 1 to 36 from the west side, and industry spurs and leads with the white background:


What I'd like to do is add sprite text over the tracks. I have an idea for what some tracks were used for and am clueless about a few others, with the rest having an opinion somewhere in between. I'm hopeful someone has an opinion or two they'll share that will help me figure how the yard was worked. But first things first... everything that came into this yard is based on a turn... either out and back again for servicing nearby industries or in and return to the very large Galewood Yard, some 10 miles to the west. So no thru trains of any kind.


Being for the most part single ended it's pretty clear that the yard lead has to be at the north end, the one track that runs across the bridge. For the rest:

• Track #1 is close to the Milwaukee Freight House.. very short, maybe one car... or perhaps the locomotive?
  
• Tracks #2 and #3 are adjacent to the east side of the Milwaukee Road Freight House.
  
• Tracks #4 to #6 are spaced further apart than normal which suggests public team tracks.
  
• Track #7 is the scale track
  
• Tracks #8 and #9 are adjacent to the scale track but nothing else... might these be used to hold cars for weighing and/or weighed cars?
  
• Tracks #10 to #12... I saw one old diagram that suggested steam locomotive servicing... but being unclear it could have been for tracks #8 and #9.
  
• Tracks #13 to #18 are closely spaced, stub ended. I'm guessing these are either storage for protective service, long term storage, or possibly used to classify cars but I've no idea which.
  
• Tracks #19 to #22 are double ended, leading me to think that at a minimum these are inbound, possibly used for outbound as well, because of the run-around.
  
• Track #23 looks like it's the run around track.
  
• Tracks #24 to #26 area also double ended but what lies beyond leaves me completely puzzled about their purpose.
  
• Tracks #27 to #34 are all very short... a couple of car lengths. which leads me to think they're used to hold locomotives, maybe the cabeese, MOW cars, and perhaps a RIP track.
  
• Tracks #35 and #36... more of the same to no idea.

To summarize, I'm reasonably sure I know what tracks #2 to #7 are for, and #23 as well. The rest I'm not so sure on and am hopeful other opinions can inform.

Anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share?

[Genma Saotome]

An an aerial view with north over on the left side.

[Coonskin]

Unbelievable. Superb trackwork placement.

Dave, me thinks you're like me in one respect: You WAY "overbuild" a route! :freezing: However, in your particular case, you make me look like a novice at overbuilding!!!

Will that monster load into MSTS? Or is it Open Rails only?

[Genma Saotome]

Coonskin, on 08 December 2013 - 07:18 PM, said:

Unbelievable. Superb trackwork placement.

Dave, me thinks you're like me in one respect: You WAY "overbuild" a route! :freezing: However, in your particular case, you make me look like a novice at overbuilding!!!

Will that monster load into MSTS? Or is it Open Rails only?

From the start I intended it to be for Open Rails. It might work in MSTS but other than RE and AE I don't ever use MSTS anymore so I don't know if it will run there or not.

It is a lot of track and w/ Scalerail it means a lot of drawcalls. I've come to realize I need to replace every SR track shape that falls under a street... put in a shape that's just the rails. That will reduce 2 or 3 draw calls per replaced shape and as there are a lot of shapes under streets the change should improve performance a bit.

The only trick I used w/ the track placement came w/ the realization I couldn't get the angle right w/o including a degree or two of extra curvature coming off the diverging path of each turnout tied to the yard lead. 150r was pretty close to the standard MSTS end curve -- and I was using 06d turnouts -- so the slightly larger radius still looks right and the extra degree or two puts the tracks parallel w/ the various streets.



Any thoughts on the purpose of any of those tracks?

[Genma Saotome]

It's only been 5 years since i added a screenshot here :unsure: ... here are two very recent images.


I was very unsatisfied with the default Lake Michigan water texture ( a lovely blue) as applied to the Chicago River so I made something new and applied it to a big square. The result is pretty decent.

In the background is Goose Island and as you can see there is only construction tertex at this point.


In the past couple of days I created a Chicago city dirt texture and with a quick swap have something to use on berms, which I hastened to apply. Getting the art for tertex and shapes to match is a real challenge because the scaling is so completely different. This looks pretty good because I applied a 4x step and repeat to the tertex. That makes the grain far less apparent but it will prevent using the paint brush in TSRE, so I'll have to redo this.

This image is short from about the very center of the one above it.

[timmuir]

:jawdrop2: :jawdrop2: :shok:

Amazed, I am. :thumbup3: :thumbup3:

[CrisGer]

Holy Freaking Cow Dave. that is a swichman's paradise. Is that a hump yard? your work is astounding, your patience and skills beyond belief. I know that area a bit from my own time in Illinois as my family had many shipping instrests along the River and Lakeshore and I got tours as a kid of many such areas...but wow you sure have captured the feel that river texture is good. well done!!!!!

more pics when you have time pls. what a beautiful work you are doing there.

Chris

and ya,.... :friends: :victory: :clapping: :jawdrop2:

[Genma Saotome]

4k view, two monitors. Division St yard is in the foreground. Images is 7k pixels wide.


Closeup of some of the industry on the west side of Goose Island.

[conductorchris]

I am really impressed. You've got the urban feel already.
Gritty urban railroads have a special place of affection for me.
Christopher

[Genma Saotome]

conductorchris, on 27 December 2021 - 03:44 PM, said:

I am really impressed. You've got the urban feel already.
Gritty urban railroads have a special place of affection for me.
Christopher

Yeah, those Not Built cubes absolutely smell of coal smoke. :blush:

I do like making these models... great fun, and along the journey I'm learning a lot more on how to make textures look better. Some are simply beyond reach: Every notice the coal dirt of city buildings? I'd love to be able to do that but I think the only solution is a custom shader that blends an overlay layer into the rest of the model.