[SVRy_Steve]

Dad was an NP brakeman, then conductor, but also a steam fan and a very accomplished photographer. He shot with a 4x5 press camera and a Rolleiflex. It seems a lot of railroaders were also serious photographers, thankfully. We always had a darkroom at home from the time I was very young.

[timmuir]

Oh, and am I glad of that special niche he filled, being a rail nut and having all that at his fingertips while on the job. Now, we get to enjoy these glimpses today, thanks to you and he.

The Elsweyr Rattler terminates at Moon Lake Yard.

[Weter]

You are lucky.
We might miss very many chances to make precious photos of railroad stuff, as between years 192x and 196x, one might "disappear" for taking photography near railroad objects.

Not saying, any camera (especially professional-grade one) was very rare and very expensive; and where could they process their films/print photographs?

[timmuir]

An unlikely event. (ORNYMG.v.139)



The Milwaukee EF's don't work right in OR for some reason. So now, they're just car house queens.



As seen (dragging driving wheels) on Matt Smith's Mullan Pass route ( a work in progress).

[august1929]

timmuir, on 18 March 2023 - 06:36 PM, said:

Oh, and am I glad of that special niche he filled, being a rail nut and having all that at his fingertips while on the job. Now, we get to enjoy these glimpses today, thanks to you and he.

The Elsweyr Rattler terminates at Moon Lake Yard.

RunActivity32 2023-03-18 09-55-38.jpg

Wow Tim! That is one beautiful shot - the sim at its best. Despite years now spent in the various iterations of Railworks/RailSim/Trains Sim etc. there is a special quality to ORTS or even MSTS that still does it for me. The light is different - somehow more personal and emotive even to the extent sometimes of being almost melancholic!

Although off topic I also have to say that my happiest simming days - ever - were very definitely spent in the old sim and with the good company that still posts here :)

Rod

[timmuir]

Rod! So good to hear from you! It's been too long a time, indeed. I hope you are doing well.

Yes, I have to agree about MSTS's lighting, and now OR's too, its much more lifelike. Monogame is even better in some ways, altho I have to adjust the sim's brightness down from what I usually run OR at (120%).

But aside from that, got to agree about the folks here. Such good company over the past twenty years! I doubt I'd have continued with this "occupation" without it.

A shot from yesterday, testing out some repainted Jon Davis 1860's passenger cars I'm doing for Chris Gerlach's City Point & Army Line. These are carriages from the Confederate side, of the Weldon & Petersburg Rail Road. No W&P locos as yet, so the North Carolina RR's "Lady Davis" is in charge. Lady Davis is a "mythical" locomotive, as it was early reported that the B&O RR's 4-4-0 No.188 was stolen by rebels early in the first days, and was renamed Lady davis after some rebuilding. It was later found by B&O agents after the war in NC, renamed "Calvin Graves" a local "fat cat".

These are the same shapes I used for the B&O set I did earlier, and in the library. They are very dated models, but will work fine for now.

[Stephen Hjellum]

Central Pacific has been working on improving its image, and in a move approved by the board, 10 SD70MN-T4 locomotives #4000-4009 have been repainted in subsidiary California Northwestern's Sacramento Northern Division - Yolo Shortline Railroad "Yellow and Black AKA Bumblebee Scheme" Recently released from Sacramento Shops, rebuilt to comply with EPA regulations, the 10 locomotives were hustled to Sacramento/River City Station to be unveiled to the public.https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52879884015_26c08feb68_h.jpg20230507205413_1 by Stephen Hjellum, on Flickr<br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52879506701_4d3cbcc1fd_h.jpg20230507211926_1 by Stephen Hjellum, on Flickr<br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52879506626_f8f772774e_h.jpg20230507212215_1 by Stephen Hjellum, on Flickr<br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);"><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250);">https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52879506631_3e6c7fdf2a_h.jpg20230507212108_1 by Stephen Hjellum, on Flickr

The plan is to repaint the entire fleet with some exceptions. More to follow!

[timmuir]

I've been working on the rail road... lurking in the shadows....experimenting with the onboard terrtex painting suite of TSRE5, here drawing shadows under a group of Mike Grey's beautiful highwheel logging apparatus. Crazy, huh? By dragging the yellow pointer "through" the objects' bits, as illustrated, with the settings indicated on the right, following the shapes, a reasonable shadow can be described, even for complicated shapes. A steady hand and good eye helps..wish I had 'em. The basic images for cloning these textures are all from Textures.com, in their ground coverings, soils, grasses, sand, etc., some having been edited in various ways.



This suite of tools is so cool. For me, painting scenery is very relaxing, a good stress reducer.



Similar terrtex work over here.





This old route (for those who don't already know), was started in 2004 and has gone through many many changes, some catastrophic in it's 19 year "life". It's been a Pacific Northwest traction route (standard and 3-ft gauge), a Pacific Electric Ry free lance route, a logging railroad, a 1940's-50's PNW branch line and now this 19th century free lanced version; basically an extended shelf layout, a series of connected scenes that is also a switching layout, altho I spend much more time building, adjusting and painting than running, maybe a 95% to 5% ratio. It's also my test bed for new stuff in the works, hence the proliferation of works by Chris Gerlach, where I test-check his models for the Civil War Army Line route.

[steved]

Tim, that sure looks great.
It's amazing how much stuff you can shoehorn into such a small area.
I hope the Puzzle Route isn't in danger of being abandoned though.

Randy

[timmuir]

Thank you Randy.

Quote

It's amazing how much stuff you can shoehorn into such a small area

That probably comes from being a traction modeler. ;)

Quote

I hope the Puzzle Route isn't in danger of being abandoned though

.
Not so much abandoned, as it is relegated to storage for now. It has an issue that I don't want to deal with at this time. I put it back into my ROUTES folder to show you what I mean. I took a couple of screen shots, but weirdly, the sim did not send them to the usual folder. The last one was still on the clipboard, so I was able to open it in Paint Shop Pro.

Within seconds of opening, objects begin to disappear. But not all and not all in the same range (note engine and tender).


Another weirdness, this route never displayed water drawn in three out of the four world tiles, only in the one tile in which the original Inglenook Puzzle layout was on.

[Genma Saotome]

timmuir, on 26 March 2023 - 05:58 AM, said:

An unlikely event. (ORNYMG.v.139)

RunActivity32 2023-03-24 15-25-44.jpg

The Milwaukee EF's don't work right in OR for some reason. So now, they're just car house queens.

IIRC, OR does not pass thru the command for the trailing locomotives to pump up the air and so with only one unit that's active it's basically impossible to manage the brakes.

[Weter]

IIRC, later, it was an option introduced, allowing to specify, should compressors be synchronized through MU cable, or to work independently.

[timmuir]

Genma Saotome, on 26 June 2023 - 09:04 AM, said:

IIRC, OR does not pass thru the command for the trailing locomotives to pump up the air and so with only one unit that's active it's basically impossible to manage the brakes.

The brake thing is not good, of course, but the issue with OR I'm speaking of is that not all the EF-5's drivers rotate at the correct speed. It's not a problem with the model because they worked fine in MSTS.

[timmuir]

Weter, on 27 June 2023 - 07:25 AM, said:

It sounds as a problem with *.eng-file, as ORTS is more strict.
Check wheel radius in wagon() and engine() sections.

Thanks to your suggestion, I found my errors, although it wasn't the wheel radius entries in the .eng or .wag files, as I found after experimenting with those numbers. It was the actual animation speed set forth in the shape files for the trucks, all of which were at the default "30" set by TSM upon creating the .s file. I rewrote them all to 51, the number I've been using in my steamers.

Power up the coconut-powered butt-kicking machine for yours truly...my bad.

It still doesn't explain to me why some of the wheels did rotate correctly before, even with the default speed of 30...oh well. All's well that ends well. I'm happy they run in OR correctly, such as it is.



The rewritten trucks on the E29. Taking siding at Garrison, on Matt Smith's NP Mullan Pass.



These models are long in the tooth. Have there been any other models made of the MILW box cabs in other simulations? It would be interesting to see them updated to current standards with all the new features implemented.

[pnrailway]

A few shots up in the North East.