[Weter]

http://www.elvastowe...ttach_id=113518
Really. It can be clearly seen here. Thanks.

[nwkrailfan]

A freshly rebuilt Central Kansas Railnet SD40M-2 departs Larned, KS with an eastbound manifest.

https://i.postimg.cc/Y0Q0CpK6/827-E1-E0-D-02-CC-4-F27-92-CF-20-A7-EFFE5814.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/4d7nj6WF/915917-AD-A952-45-D7-B8-C7-FF57-B3-D2-DF08.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Jnft8sg7/D4-A04615-7-F98-491-B-9-D47-5-B7-F6-E732-D65.jpg

[bwyrick]

Dustin might appreciate this one. Been on a kick lately reviving old roads that may have otherwise been lost to the days of yore in sim time. Anyways, one of the FBL's evening scoots is just moments away from its next station stop of Newton. Behind the brace of newly acquired Hyundai-Rotem cars is something toward the other end of its lifespan, unrebuilt (but well maintained and overhauled multiple times) F40PH #601, itself wearing some fresher paint.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/979637801656135690/Open_Rails_2022-05-26_11-36-18.png?width=953&height=536

[bwyrick]

A westbound FBL scoot leaves Ft. Fairfax behind F59PHI #2001.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/980344728019144704/Open_Rails_2022-05-28_10-28-05.png?width=953&height=536

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/980344728690241596/Open_Rails_2022-05-28_10-30-06.png?width=953&height=536

In the consist are a few bike cars for those whose commute doesn't end at the station of their disembarking.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/980344729457803275/Open_Rails_2022-05-28_10-30-21.png?width=953&height=536

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/980344730258927616/Open_Rails_2022-05-28_10-32-11.png?width=953&height=536

And finally a parting shot of the cab car as the train heads towards its destination of Mt. Oliver.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/898911980843307020/980344731177472000/Open_Rails_2022-05-28_10-32-24.png?width=953&height=536

[Mipman25]

Good to see the ol' Bucket still out and about. I don't think I've ever seen those kinds of Rotems before. Goes to show how washed up I am.

Historic vignettes of the Butler Valley Railway I totally didn't just post in the Tourist Railroads thread.

[bwyrick]

Nah, you're not washed up. They were just built to Westlink specs, with strobes and Gyras since Westlink acts as the operator of the service (like SP was at the advent of Caltrain, hence why their F40s were delivered with full SP light packages). If you look close, you may be able to spy some Westlink logos on the equipment. On the cars, it's at the centerline in the dark grey area, while the F59 just has a small "WL" logo on the rear of the carbody.

[Weter]

#2001 is very nice for me. Cool to see passenger loco in not-hood case design.
What is prototype's manufacturer?

[bwyrick]

Hi Weter, sorry for the delayed response. The prototype is an EMD F59PHI,and the biggest customers were Amtrak (for both the Surfline and Cascades routes, which were sold to Metra in Chicago once their lease expired a few years ago), the state of California (for use on Amtrak California trains), and Metrolink.

[Weter]

Thanks. It looking a bit more friendly, than rough AMD P40 Genesis.

[Mipman25]

Well shucks. The Columbus, Pittsburgh, & Allegheny, my biggest fictional ever, turned 10 on July 21st. The CP&A was the first fictional I really turned up for, focusing hard on the railroad's history and going past cool looking engines in a non-descript setting. Admittedly the CP&A isn't my finest work; even today, I still think there's a lot I could have done differently, and if I had the energy I'd just completely rip up the roster I had before and start anew. Nonetheless, the CP&A was both an engaging worldbuilding project and a series of lessons that helped me refine my craft. For instance, whereas I was desperate to recreate as much of the CP&A as I could in MSTS and find as many routes as possible earlier on, one of the most fun parts of the later CP&A was what didn't exist in the sim. The world's first 2-6-6-0s, gigantic 2-6-6-4s not unlike the Atlantic Coast Line's, RSD-12s with RS3 short hoods, and the massive yard in Columbus are but figments of my imagination. The CP&A was also where I attempted to think past just the rolling stock they used and more about how it affected the communities that grew alongside it, inspired by stories such as the Fried Chicken Ladies of Gordonsville who served fried chicken through the windows of C&O passenger trains during stops. There really is a lot I owe to the Steel City Route.

10 years since the CP&A means a completely new crowd at Elvas Tower who has no idea what I'm talking about. Heck, even I need a refresher. Let's take a look back at the CP&A, how it grew (and shrunk) over time, and what I learned just by attempting to bring it to life.

Let's start with the obvious one. This 2-8-0, along with three flatcars and a caboose, was the first piece of rolling stock to bear the CP&A name. Emphasis on the initials, of course; the CP&A was originally called the Collinwood, Parker, & Allegheny. The CP&A was spun off a potential collaboration with RailfanML's Chicago, Cleveland, & Ohio River. Unlike Mike's more practical system connecting Chicago to the coal fields of southern Ohio, the CP&A went from Parker, PA, down to Butler and all the way up to Collinwood, a Cleveland suburb. I had no idea what I was doing back then.



Plot twist; that 2-8-0 doesn't exist any more. The CP&A had a nice little run before my laptop swallowed my MSTS installation alive, but thankfully all my screenshots made it through the data recovery. At this point, not much was really done with the CP&A outside of expanding its roster, which was varied yet firmly planted in the age of steam and would have made a nice little model layout. However, it did boast a fancy name train in the form of the Raven. It was a fun time before the crash.



However, the laptop crash would be far from the end of the CP&A, and it would only come back with a vengeance. As a new roster rose from the ashes, a new history did as well. I decided it would be a good idea to extend the CP&A into upstate New York, all the way to Albany. Now the CP&A went straight up from Pittsburgh to Erie, radiating west to Cleveland and east to Buffalo along Lake Erie (at RailfanML's request), and then going in a perfectly straight line through upstate New York to Schnectady and Albany. I was a geography wiz for sure. Upon finding out the CP&A was now a potential New York Central competitor, I turned it into... this.



This bloated, roundabout mess. While I just sort of accepted it was this bloated and went with it, it started to weigh on me. One day in early 2013, I vented to good ol' nkproad777 about how redundant the CP&A felt, completely failing to understand the point of competition between railroads. However, what he suggested in response was genius; cut everything east of Pittsburgh and south of Columbus and concentrate the CP&A in the Midwestern coal fields. I ruminated on this for a bit and eventually realized this was perfect! I was never attached to most of the expansion area anyway, and trimming off all that fat led me to love the CP&A even more. This grew on me so much that two years later in 2015, I decided to officially rebrand the CP&A to the Columbus, Pittsburgh, & Allegheny, more accurately representing their initial charter while retaining the intials I always used. This led me to come up with a more authentic history on how the CP&A began, starting as a merger of two railroads based out of Pittsburgh and slowly encompassing the Midwest.

As of now, the most recent CP&A map still covers this area with some slight expansions to Buffalo and Lake Ontario, forks into the southern coal fields, and a connection with corporate partners Cincinnati & Norfolk and Ohio Midland in Parkersburg. Look west of Cleveland and you might find a familiar name; my current theory is that the CC&OR and CP&A did coexist but the CC&OR went under and became a subsidiary of the CP&A to reach Chicago. Mike, if you're reading, just holler if you want me to retcon this. I also did something really weird with the acquisition of the Cincinnati & Lake Erie interurban but I'm not sure if this is canon yet.



While the system grew and shrunk, the roster increased exponentially. The CP&A was essentially a crash course in modeling even from the very beginning; I always knew I wanted a custom 4-8-4. This was initially a CC&OR idea but transferred to the CP&A once it split off. While I did need Fleegle411's help for the freight animation, I managed to alpha out every neccessary part from Mike Laxer's NYC Niagara and kitbash that Northern of my dreams before the end of 2012.



But that was child's play. I knew I had to go farther if I wanted some real power for the Raven. I didn't just want to throw parts on a Northern; I had to streamline it. And that I did; using a completely new FA made in Sketchup, I streamlined two Northerns that would become the Raven's dedicated power a year later.



My modeling ambition somehow only got crazier when Fleegle sent me the source files for Cliff Timm's 2-8-0 (with permission of course). Gmax took some getting used to as a longtime Sketchup user, but by the time I got used to it Sketchup was a thing of the past. I could create entirely new locomotives for the CP&A now! This let me fill in gaps for missing models, such as this vintage 2-8-2.



And to top it all off, I decided to give the Northern a more authentic makeover in late 2015. I had learned enough since 2012 to know that I was using a very short 4-8-4 made in the mid '40s to represent a 1937 locomotive, and even if the initial thought was taboo NALW's UP 4-8-4s were tempting me. I decided to rip one apart and this time create a new FA myself. The work paid off; this is one gorgeous locomotive!



I even learned a ton in terms of branding. While black and yellow was the plan from day 1, my lack of understanding in creating convincing paint schemes led to some awkward, angular, and even blocky paint schemes. While this would be a good approach for a simplified livery circa the late '50s and '60s, on a first-generation diesel it does not look pretty.



It was the words of model railroader Tony Koester that permanently changed me. "Here's an easy test: if your freelanced first-generation diesel paint scheme doesn't seem at least vaguely familiar, you've probably gotten too creative." I took this philosophy and ran across the entire planet with it. I religiously followed designer paint schemes to the point where I was even hounding others to do it. To all of you who had to endure this, I sincerely apologize. Nonetheless, it reflected very positively on the CP&A and the diesel fleet had the sleek look it rightfully deserved.



And likewise with my logo. The CP&A's logo, which was supposed to have wings, was just an oval with three lines sticking out each side (see above). Straight lines with boxy endings. Real stylish. A year after the CP&A rebrand in 2015, I decided to give the logo a pair of wings that could truly fly.



Even the wings in the CP&A's spartan '60s rebrand had style to them compared to those blocky rectangles.



And I think that ends this little hot streak of 10-year anniversaries that slowly add more and more gray hairs to my head. It's weird because it doesn't even feel like it's been ten years. It feels like a completely different human being came up with this. I wish I got this out on the 21st, but real life ended up getting in the way yet again.