[charland]

DAR Train M22 was the last scheduled mixed on the Canadian Pacific system, lasting into the late 1970s. The train originated in the early morning at Truro, running south 40 miles to Windsor with interchange traffic from the Canadian National for the Annapolis Valley. While in Windsor the crew was responsible for any local work that needed to be performed. The train headed back to Truro in mid afternoon as M21.

After arriving at Brooklyn the crew lifts a woodchip hopper for Middleton and will spot the TH&B car at the Co-op before heading south.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR131.jpg

M22 holds for a northbound gypsum empty at the entrance to the Miller Creek mine.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR132.jpg

M22 passes the Wentworth gypsum mine on the way to Windsor.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR133.jpg

The Mixed makes the station stop in Windsor before backing into the yard and doing the local switching.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR134.jpg

After lifting an empty from Flemming and spotting a load of cans for Avon Valley, the crew heads back across the causeway to Windsor.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR135.jpg

A stock car is setoff for the Agent at Windsor to inspect and have cleaned before it's sent back to Brooklyn for a load of cattle heading back to Newfoundland.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR136.jpg

At Wentworth Road a car is lifted and Domtar and another is setoff for Swinamer.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR137.jpg

That's about all for now, time to have lunch and a nap while waiting for Tr 24 from Kentville to arrive with the northbound cars from the Valley.

http://i479.photobucket.com/albums/rr160/paul_charland/DAR138.jpg

Paul :-)

[Noisemaker]

Looks amazing Paul! :sign_thanks: And are you using Mikosch's Vegetation Pack as well now? Hopefully you're seeing a performance improvement FPS wise with them. I notice the ones with dandelions and such seem to be a little more impacting than the more plainer 'grass and bush' types. But like how you're mixing the more older intense bushlines with the newer ones. Found that works nice on my GTA and Mactier routes as well.

Keep up the great work! :oldstry:

[charland]

Seeing as my video card sucks I've never gotten great frame rates in populated areas. The original trackside brush had almost 4100 polygons per 60 m section (that's two sets of brush on both sides of the track). I've replaced all of these with Mikosch's Vegetation that's only 440 polygons to cover the same distance. Doing so doubled my frame rate to mid to upper teens in most places. Still pretty poor as heavily populated tiles load but much better for the majority of the route... and they look pretty nice as well.

The route is complete, just need to have it tested properly.

Paul :-)

[Noisemaker]

Mikosch really did a great job. And did you manually place his trackside bushes, or develop a gantry.dat for them? I whipped up a gantry system for mine, and is such a ease to place over long stretches, and remove a lot of the more intense bushes as well after. I try to leave a few based on Google Earth. But amazing how much I don't need anymore. Also got into extrapolating some of the ground texture colors and injecting them onto the grass blades carefully based on advice here. Though it's subtle, it does help blend in Mikosch's stuff even better.

Can't wait for the route! Looks amazing! :thumbup3:

[charland]

It took me probably two days to place the original trackside brush manually, took about three hours to remove it. Made a gantry for the new stuff and did the 75 miles in about six hours, only having to clear roads and bridges and manually lay s around passing sidings. Left a few of the trackside trees in place just for a little contrast.

Paul :-)

[Noisemaker]

That's the one bad thing about Miikosch's pack is no gantry.dat. But easy enough to make I suppose. And I don't think you ever used the TrkBush gantries on your other routes? I know you like the long singular piece, and used that to great extent. And those were all manually placed - wow! Thought you must've rigged a gantry for those as well.

[charland]

My other routes are comparatively short. When I'm working on them and the DAR I usually only do a couple of miles of scenery at a time, so adding the tracks side brush was only taking half an hour or so for a couple of miles. The thought of redoing 75 miles wasn't that pleasant and brought to mind when Rich Shirey re-veggied the right of way along his L&HR, he used a gantry... must say that was inspiring!

Paul :-)

[Noisemaker]

The one thing I noticed though are that gantries don't conform to grades unless individually selected after the general placement, and use the 'N' key. Not very noticeable on most routes, but I noticed the longer the gantry model is in length, the more pronounced the 'step like character' becomes on steep grades. And of course tight curves can make long gantries look awful too. But I think Mikosch has the length just right..
I can't see any disparaging angles of them on the DAR so far. :oldstry: