[pnrailway]

I came home yesterday afternoon to find an email from Paul Charland telling me that the next beta for the FJ&G was ready. In his email he said: "This beta is complete to the yard limits of Broadalbin, about MP 19.3, the station is at MP 19.7 and end of track at MP 20.0, so the end of the line is in sight!"

"I have only eight structures to draw, might take a couple of weeks, some are two day jobs and Mohawk Furniture looks like three days. After that I'll post another beta and start adding the interactive objects and some scenic details like parked cars. I'm going to draw a Hayes bumper and wheel stops this afternoon and start placing them where they appear in photos. There's also a couple of places where 12 feet of bridge beam is bolted to the track as a bumper, another small job."

So the release is getting closer and it is something I am greatly looking forward to. After downloading the route I made some personal preference changes (a couple items of terrtex, the track, and a few trees and bushes - again, personal preference - that took less time to do then it did to upload the following pictures), and took a couple runs that are partially documents below.


















Paul is doing wonderfully on this route and it has already joined my list of favorites along with Rich Shirley's L&HR and Wayne's L&PS.

Paul

[august1929]

Looking real good Paul - love that first shot a lot. Excellent work by Paul C.

Rod

[timmuir]

Looks like an excellent route so far with lot's of atmosphere. I agree with Rod, that first photo is "Trains" material.

[pnrailway]

Thanks guys, but I feel that Paul really deserves quite a bit of credit. He has put in all sorts of details you usually don't see in routes. Take for instance the scale track see in that first photo you like. Look at this series of just that scale, which others have included, but not with the rail detail Paul has provided with the scale bypass rails for the locomotives and such:









There are all sorts of other little things he has included in copying the prototype that help give the route that short line atmosphere that many of even the payware routes lack to instead include miles and miles of miles and miles.







Paul

[pnrailway]

Paul has been working hard and has at last reached the end of the line. Here are some shots taken on the latest beta version that was received this past Tuesday. As always, as good as Paul has made the route, and it is excellent, that as usual, I couldn't help but tweaking to my own personal tastes.






















Paul

[timmuir]

Beautiful. Can you elaborate, Paul, just what your personal tweaks are? What vegetation was changed-out?

[pnrailway]

timmuir, on May 29 2008, 02:26 PM, said:

Beautiful. Can you elaborate, Paul, just what your personal tweaks are? What vegetation was changed-out?

Ok Tim,

Here we go. I changed the microtex texture for the one I sent you for use on the PET, and terrain terrtex. Next I changed the grass textures used for one's more to my liking and I changed out the maple trees for one I liked from a payware route (from SLI), and of course the track texture from a European MSTS website. That was it, the rest is all pure Paul C's. creation. Took less than 15 minutes to make all the changes.







Oh, and the dead bush shapes are some winter trees from Rich Garber's Cumberland route.

Paul

[august1929]

Excellent Paul - said it before, but this is a must have route and, as you have done, is going to be perfect for tweaking to suit each user. Paul has done a magnificent job on the buildings and looks like the route will match up.

Rod

[rfranzosa]

august1929, on May 29 2008, 05:10 PM, said:

Excellent Paul - said it before, but this is a must have route and, as you have done, is going to be perfect for tweaking to suit each user. Paul has done a magnificent job on the buildings and looks like the route will match up.

Rod

I'm going to have to skin some FJ&G, that's for sure!!

RGF

[pnrailway]

We received another beta from Paul yesterday with the following comment:
This beta concludes actual construction of the FJ&G route... I think!

If I'm correct, all I have to do is do to complete the route is to add:

Parked cars
Highway Traffic
Mile Posts
Three automatic crossings
Sounds
Platform Names
Siding Names
Speed Limits

He is therefore getting very close to completeing actual construction on the route. All that will remain then will be his developing a number of activities for the route, which he dose as well as he constructs routes, and there will also be an Activity Generator template developed for the route. It has an excelent shortline feel to the route and it has been a real joy to have been priviledged to have a small part in at least testing it. Here are a few more shots:





















Paul