[ED_4]

Has anyone here ever tried running this GM&O route? It's a huge route. It's not new but huge in file size and also content.

I was running a simple activity I made to explore the route here and tried it with this nice big cotton belt steam engine of Skip's Railroad, Doc George and Chris Lee. I thought I'd run this huge engines since I now it has lots of coal and a huge tank to haul its own water.

Knowing first hand that this route isn't built for steam engines, I decided to gamble that it would make it at the end of the run from Winner Road at the westernmost end all the way to the northeastern most end at the Chicago Union Station. The number of miles to travel? A whopping 460 and some odd miles. :)

Alright then, it's going to be a long day. :) Anyway, equipped with my run. I just decided to see what I see.

I didn't really take a lot of shots until the very end over at the Chicago Union Station. I really didn't see much in the sense of scenery. Yes there are portions that were highly densely packed with all sorts of things. But on the over all sense of this route, I saw is mostly just the rail and the typical green textured ground. This was around 70-80 % of the run looked that way.

Anyway, here are my shots. Notice on the first shot here, my milepost is indicating I'm very close to Chicago Union Station - it being just a mile after the first mile post.


So here's a nice closeup on St Louis Southwestern 819.




I like this drawbridge here.




Another real up close to the front of the steam engine. This had animated flags and the bell. The funny thing about those same animation, it is also dependent on my speed. The faster I went, the more speedy the flag and bell swayed. The flags swaying sideways and the bell swaying forwards.



Check out the traffic jams here on the pictures.


The intersection is like a madhouse. Each went regardless of the traffic. :)


Here's the overpass. Odd though, it is invisible. LOL Route Riter didn't register anything wrong so I'm not sure about this one.



Another of the bridges.


One of the lines leading west.


I guess this is Chicago. Frank Sinatra's kind of town.




Here's the Union Station entrance.


And right at the very end of the terminal.


I didn't build too complex as an activity as it's a look around. Didn't want to fill it with all sorts of other traffic. Most of the line I rode was also single track. At the end of that long run. It took a good 8 hours 35 minutes.

But only because I had to break some super slow speed limits along the route as I didn't see any crazy sense to keep them that slow. Straight and level and no sign of a curve or traffic. So I busted the speed limits. LOL

I was trying to keep to the time table. If I didn't, I would also run out of water. She was carrying around 23,000 gallons of water just like the real one would.

In the end I had about 27 minutes to spare on my time table and also about 4 thousand gallons on the tank of water.

If I had kept to the crazy 20-25 mile per hour speed limits on some sections, it would have been about almost 2 extra hours longer. And probably not make it as I was averaging out to roughly around 2,500-3,000 gallons to the hour.

Fairly low considering how tight I kept those levels in. Manual firing of course. The autofireman would probably had run me dry if I did. I never run my steam engines on that autofireman. Always my own manual firing.

Anyway, there you have it. My super long run on a steamer without even refilling. There aren't any places to on this one.

This post has been edited by ED_4: 19 May 2008 - 12:27 AM

[Chile Bill]

Who made the route?

I honestly do not see a lot of great detail. Pretty bland texturing. The 8th and 9th shot with what I think is traffic showing on the right looks like someone just tossed a bunch of Hot Wheels cars on the floor and took a picture of them. Pretty BAD.

I think I know who the route builder (destroyer actually) is, but in all honesty, if it is who I think it is, he never released a single route that was ever completed or didn't have MAJOR trackwork problems.

You might be able to salvage the route, but my guess is that you can't rebuild the track database. There are probably random track sections buried outside the field of view that were never removed and Dynamic track sections that do not connect to the ajoining track sections, etc. Known problems, but the route was released anyway..

[ED_4]

Chile Bill, on May 19 2008, 03:28 AM, said:

Who made the route?

I honestly do not see a lot of great detail. Pretty bland texturing. The 8th and 9th shot with what I think is traffic showing on the right looks like someone just tossed a bunch of Hot Wheels cars on the floor and took a picture of them. Pretty BAD.

I think I know who the route builder (destroyer actually) is, but in all honesty, if it is who I think it is, he never released a single route that was ever completed or didn't have MAJOR trackwork problems.

You might be able to salvage the route, but my guess is that you can't rebuild the track database. There are probably random track sections buried outside the field of view that were never removed and Dynamic track sections that do not connect to the ajoining track sections, etc. Known problems, but the route was released anyway..

Yeah, there were tracks that look like switch tracks to nowhere. :) You are pretty much right about that. I guess you already know who made it. The readme.txt file showed Jim Duncan of Midwest Rail Group.

Although for sheer high number of mileage you can go very far on this route. That's just on one side of the route. There's another set of lines just east of the one I took that got even more tracks so main number of miles on the mainline with this will probably run close to the 600 miles or so. But then there's just the problem of just seeing all track and not even a single shot of grass visible for miles on end. Just the ground textures and the track oh and some set of power transmission lines that run along the track. It's a great time killer I can tell you that. :) :)

But I just wanted to see what the hubbub I've been reading that this route is this and that. And then just to find out that it really is just mostly sparseness with high densty scenery in small patches strewn out throughout the route. Yeah, it's nothing all too spectacular in the end.

To me the sparseness of Jonathan Lewis' Rio Grande Southern is a far better cry than this one since at least in that you really don't see total blankness of the route without any tree in sight. With exception of the tracks and power lines running parallel to the track. At least in Jonathan's Rio Grande Southern, there there's trees all thoughout the route. Not high densities, but at least there's that. Anyway, I guess it's just something to just leave at the storage discs for me. I can't complain too much though, since it is free.

And if you want sheer number of miles well, very few can't beat this one, with exception of the Monon2 route. I guess there's always the Monon2 route which I read is just teeming with scenery on top of the fact that it's got tons of miles of a total of about 800 mainline miles. :) So :) for just looking anyway.

This post has been edited by ED_4: 19 May 2008 - 06:22 AM

[Chile Bill]

Quantity of anything doesn't equate to Quality... This route may have lots of miles to drive a train, but through what? Flat, default textured, baren terrain? I can't see any fun in driving a train through that. OK, maybe at night, with no lights on..

If you want lots of miles and decent scenery to keep yourself from getting bored, maybe the Monon2 route is a better choice. This route crys for the recycle bin and that should be emptied as soon as possible after the route finds its way there.

Bill

[ED_4]

Chile Bill, on May 19 2008, 07:42 AM, said:

Quantity of anything doesn't equate to Quality... This route may have lots of miles to drive a train, but through what? Flat, default textured, baren terrain? I can't see any fun in driving a train through that. OK, maybe at night, with no lights on..

If you want lots of miles and decent scenery to keep yourself from getting bored, maybe the Monon2 route is a better choice. This route crys for the recycle bin and that should be emptied as soon as possible after the route finds its way there.

Bill

LOL Yeah, I hear you. I was already about to do it anyway.

So you have the Monon 2 route? I have read and seen all praises of it. Is it really as they say and show?

I have it, just not installed yet. I was afraid it might not fit in my allocated space for MSTS. How huge is it installed?

I also have Chiland (just moved at another partition now) that is mentioned it's part of, so I have seen what that is like. Anyway, thanks for the quick response.

[Chile Bill]

ED_4, on May 19 2008, 11:48 AM, said:

LOL Yeah, I hear you. I was already about to do it anyway.

So you have the Monon 2 route? I have read and seen all praises of it. Is it really as they say and show?

I have it, just not installed yet. I was afraid it might not fit in my allocated space for MSTS. How huge is it installed?

I also have Chiland (just moved at another partition now) that is mentioned it's part of, so I have seen what that is like. Anyway, thanks for the quick response.

I don't have the Monon 2 route so I can't give you any idea how large it is when installed.
Running out of disk space? Sounds like it's time to take TRS2006 off the system. That wil free up enough space for a couple more routes at least. That uses at least 1 gig of space and probably more. My TRS2004 is in the closet. I didn't like the cartoon graphics compared to MSTS either.

I have been spending all my time with the GMAX tutorial rewrite for the last week or so and have not been into MSTS except to test the loco created from the tutorial.

[ED_4]

Chile Bill, on May 19 2008, 12:11 PM, said:

I don't have the Monon 2 route so I can't give you any idea how large it is when installed.
Running out of disk space? Sounds like it's time to take TRS2006 off the system. That wil free up enough space for a couple more routes at least. That uses at least 1 gig of space and probably more. My TRS2004 is in the closet. I didn't like the cartoon graphics compared to MSTS either.

I have been spending all my time with the GMAX tutorial rewrite for the last week or so and have not been into MSTS except to test the loco created from the tutorial.

I make do with what I have. That's why I got my routes in DVDR's in those instances. It's easy storage. But the nice thing of TRS2006 is that it's got a working turn-table and maybe if I plan to finish it my rendition of the Marias Pass route. I only have the basic rail and terrain. At least it gives me an idea what making a route feels like without the headaches of MSTS' own Route Editor. :)

And my MSTS is in a separate partition from TRS06 so they don't occupy the same space.

Thanks anyway. I'll just give it a try one of these days. Right now I'm just doing a routine check and clear on my routes that work from the copies of the DVDRs. It's time consuming but I make do. I can't afford a new hard drive yet.

This post has been edited by ED_4: 19 May 2008 - 02:59 PM