[PNWTransitFreak]

Irritated with the lack of modern-day light rail operations (more like livid), a group of traction fans, T. Mitchell, Z. Collier, M. Presson, D. Hancock, and myself are pioneering a new light rail system. I won't elaborate, yet, however, this should be all that needs to be said.

[Chile Bill]

RTTractionKid, on Jan 6 2009, 07:32 AM, said:

Irritated with the lack of modern-day light rail operations (more like livid), a group of traction fans, T. Mitchell, Z. Collier, M. Presson, D. Hancock, and myself are pioneering a new light rail system. I won't elaborate, yet, however, this should be all that needs to be said.

Well you folks are taking on a project that you feel passionate about, and you also live in an area that has a relatively new light rail/transit system.

Way beack when, about the time you were born, the only way to get around the Sacramento area was by car or bus. That has all changed.

You folks won't have to dig through historical archives for information or dig up information on abandoned trackage paths. Almost everything you need can be found in public records or at the library.

I am sure that there are a lot of folks that will love to see a project, like the one you are starting come to reality.

Keep us posted on your group's progress. Doing this will ease the tensions and frustrations you feel about the lack of a modern transit system for MSTS.

Bill

[PNWTransitFreak]

I'll keep a blog of sorts on here then. If its ok, could this thread moved to a more appropriate area within the board? Thank you.

Our group is not very formal by any means. I'm not even sure you can call us "a group". Basically, Tom and I had the idea, and started asking our peers. I'm very happy with all of us working together. At one time or another we've all met and did some type of project together. I consider each and every person in this project a friend, and I do look forward to seeing what we do in the future.

Tom is just astounding, he knows rail-sounds, can see a scene, and model it beautifully! Him and I talk for hours on end about rail operations, whether it'd be mountains, flatlands, commuter, or shortline, Tom is on it and we both love to learn! Tom is a artist of any medium and excells gracefully at it.

David is my rock. Someone you can talk to and cares, and we too have conversations that just no one else would understand. I've learned alot from David, and that's something is rare in a friend (no pun intended). David is a very good route builder, and has a very keen eye for details and making scenes look so life-like you can touch it! David and I have done many projects together, and is a source of inspiration; his Pacific Northwestern Railway Co fictional inspired me to create the Cascade Valley Railroad. He also was the source of TrailBlazer and its advocate when I was in doubt about it.

Mike...well, Mike is special. My older brother and a role-model in so many ways, I couldn't leave him out of this. Him and I worked with each other for three years at Regional Transit as engineering interns. That's where our friendship started, and its been goin' ever since. He's a master of the Route Editor, and ScaleRail. His skills are some of the best I've seen, and is invaluble as a fountain of knowledge in many aspects of railroading as well.

Zach, I swear him and I share the same fire. He's not as flamboyant as I am about it, but him and I will not stand-down on this one. He too has taught me about transit operations in other parts of the world, and is the coordnator of the NRT fleet. His insight and skills in painting have been put to the test of NHT, and will be a breeze with this one.

I honestly can't say how grateful I am for a good bunch of friends, and what they all mean to me. This is something that hits home for all of us and, as Bill stated, alot of people will enjoy. Guys, thank you so much!


This past weekend I was in Jackson at Mike's house. We discussed the system in detail, what him and I would like to see in its infrastructure. Him and I debated building a route from scratch, but after assessing our skills between the group, we decided that it would be easier to use an existing route. I later talked to Tom and David about the subject, and they too agreed. We are to use the Downtown Trolley as the route. We are going to modernize, update, and super-detail the entire route. One of our first goals is to figure out its actual length, as that's not disclosed in any of the route information, as far as we know.

Zach and I discussed Friday and Saturday night the equipment of choice. We chose to use two unique vehicles. For the intracity streetcar system, Bombardier Flexity LRV's, and for the more rigourous intercity regional running, Breda T-70 LRV's. Both of them have proven themselves around the world, and should do the same for us. The paint scheme we are to use is based off Manchester Metrolink (GMPTE)'s new gold and graphite scheme. Zach and I believe that it looks good, its simple, and on a model, easy to paint, and it will disguise multiple mapping errors. The Flexity cars can only run solo, so they'll be used on the streetcar routes. The Breda's, which can be MUed will be used everywhere else.


NorthRail's paint scheme, as shown on a Breda T-68 vehicle. The paint is a varient of GMPTE's (Manchester UK) scheme.

This afternoon I returned home I began to develop a routing system and a vehicle roster. Other support equipment will be painted as well for the system. The streetcar routes will be lettered, following the model of San Francisco's METRO routes. The interurban runs will be numbered, followed by an "R" or an "X", I've yet to decide. I did repaint LRV 401, and I'll show Zach tomorrow, and see where does he want to go with the paint scheme. I've added a few public relations headsigns and the like. Also, during that time, I thought about what Bill said last night, and opted to keep a blog here on Elvas, assuming the Admin Team is ok with that. The rest of the gang, and the community is welcome to chime in and ask questions.

I'm not sure what I or anyone else is going to do next, as we're all going to school to start the spring semester, and time will be very limited. In the meantime, this is going to be fun, and I doubt any of us is going to put this one down.


A Zach painted training train in NJT colors leaves Northarbor for downtown.

[engineerzach]

Hello guys,

I am very happy to be a part of this project, and, as stated above, I'm doing most of the Repainting of cars and equipment for NorthRail...

Thank you for the kind words Di'mario, but I am no where near as good as some of the others here, however, I do try to improve myself.. That said, I am going to start posting pictures of the work I’ve been doing, I am in communication with Di'mario so he can give me ideas, as well as pointers, and opinions... right now, this seems to be our paint scheme for the Breda cars.. I hope you like it! Feel free to comment with your ideas and opinions!

Thanks for listening!

Zach



(Please keep in mind that this is a WIP shot, and I am no where near Finished)

[dodger]

Hello Zach,

Looking good mate, if i may ask it would be great when you have finished it if you could give it a light weathering around the base of the model?

Its an interesting project , i for one will keep an eye on whats happening,

Keep it going,

Cheers,

Dodger.

[PNWTransitFreak]

Well, nothing is really too new. I've been workin' with Mike and we've begun to ScaleRail/Road the route. I've begun to paint a few transit buses for the routes car spawner (at least my copy). I'll be emailing Marc permission soon to use the bus and its textures. In the meantime, I've been gettin' ready to go back to school, my last semester in Sacramento begins on Wednesday (I'm so happy!) and hopefully by years end I'll be 700 miles north ^_^.

I've been running the route writing down my ideas and what I see for it, at least from an operations standpoint, re-assigning speed limits. I've also been workin' on one of Tim's wonderful Perley Thomas Streetcar models. The Northarbor Line (Route F) and the Downtown Line (Route J) will operate with these and another heritage car, which has yet to be determined. I've began to plan out a set of routes, mostly lettered, when that is completed I'll share that information as well. The historic cars may not even display their "letters", as to preserve the old time's sake of displaying only a destination or origin of the route. It took me four hours to think of a proper display, and its still been bugging me all week.

Signalling has presented itself to me as a quagmire. I'm not sure of which signal system I'd like to adopt (outside of Regional Transit), or build our own system. Most modern-day Light-Rail systems have adopted their own systems, yet based off tried and true systems. ABS (Automatic Block Signalling). There's no fancy dispatching involved, there's no calling each other for roll-by's and such. (I'm really starting to hate this spell checker...I know how to write and spell...damn computer) I know what crossing signals I'm going to use :D I'm going to use Joseph Hovet's signals (aka Jovet) and him and I have been talking about oddball signal practices, i.e. Repeaters, Delayed Indications, Call-Ons, and such. The crossings will be the same as any you'd find on a freight railroad, standards, lights, bells, cantilevers (which I love!) and the one thing I see missing on almost every route; the breaker/fuse box.

The freight railroad aspect. The DownT route has a small freight-type railroad on it. At MP 30 it transfers with the traction line. Now, keeping in mind the route was not intended for modern day use, this is where proto-lancing becomes fun. I've thought about it, and bounced the idea with Tom to create a small shortline railroad (or any of your choosing) that uses the light rail lines at night to switch the various industries on both the diesel railroad and the light-rail/interurban system - OR - using some rebuilt GE 96-Tonner Interurban locomotives keep the "interurban" feel going by having small freight operations on there using "modern" juice jacks. I like the latter idea, but both will be appeasing. The one thing I've noticed in this route, and I love is the fact that this route can be anywhere in the country. Including the mid-west of the south. There's so many possibilities on this route, its mind-boggling! I mean you have passenger, transit, freight, high-speed, low-speed areas, street running, private ROW running, middle-of street ROW running, a port, a valley, towns a city, I mean its so much wrapped up in one route...and yet its never cease to amaze me...and I doubt it ever will. I wonder if my groupmates share that enthusiasm?


Now, onto something that I've been thinking of while writing this, and I have a few ideas that I'd like to test.

Thanks to Zach, I've fallen in love with the Bombardier Flexity LRV's. Keeping in mind the limitations of that equipment, the not being MU-capable (well, visually) I was wondering that, instead of rebuilding the end of the vehicles (which is way beyond my skill), simply create a FA of the coupler, OR create a whole new WAG file and its shape being the coupler, having its "pivot" point being the front or rear of the vehicle. Now with that in mind, it would allow prototypical operation of the cars in sharp curves, and if somehow buff/draft forces be eliminated or reduced, then the would be rigid when viewed, like a real LRV would. I know that sounds a little "out there", I'm still working on the idea, and I'm not too sure how many limits can I test...my fear is that it would remove the lighting of each end of the vehicles and therefore render the whole idea use-less. I'm just trying to look at this from many angles, keeping in mind the limitations of MSTS, and within that, BIN. Now, as for actually doing it... I can! But each cab is mashed into each other...which is where my idea was born. Removing the operator, I don't really care about, as at RT operators that are deadheading are allowed to sit inside the unoccupied cabs. Its not uncommon to see three operators or more a train deadheading to their respective locations (one man per cab ONLY). Well, that's my "idea" if you will....if anyone can give me some insight or support with this, it would be greatly appreciated. Meanwhile, I'm gonna crack open Sketch up and try and build a coupler or something rather. B)

[PNWTransitFreak]

Well, after being up all night - and about to do it all day - I'm tired, but I can't sleep...errands and chores call. Its 05:14 and this is what I came up with after redoing the headsigns...for the fourth time tonight...The number is 1308...Zach picked it, he told me why, but that explanation escapes me at the moment.


History has its place. Its to be made here.

[engineerzach]

Hello Folks, I've not had a chance to work on the cars much, Midterm exams are comming up, and School as been getting rather stressful. I plan to work on them more this weekend and a bit more next week, since we have half days because of exams..

Dodger: Thank you for the advice, I figured something was missing, I just couldn't put my finger on it. I will add that next. ^_^

Thank you DiMario for choosing that car after all, and as for the number, I choose it because that was the date that we started this project 1-3-2008, or 1308...

Thanks for the support guys, I hope to get working again soon! B)

Zach

[PNWTransitFreak]

Well, its been a while since any of us has worked on this project...I'm not sure if its still going or not. David Hancock and I have somewhat modified the project to a slightly different measure. My other friends, please forgive me for not mentioning it til now. PNW Transit is a small route that David and I are working on. I've been trying (with little success) to create a track-plan that am I am satisfied with, so in the meantime, David has been creating a new paint scheme for the Bombardier Flexity vehicles. I've been looking at other systems for inspiration, and I have a few things that this route will feature. Now, with that being said, the 'adaptation' of the Downtown Trolley has been dropped. With the new scratch-built route, David is doing the track-work, Joseph Hoevet (Jovet) the signaling and me the scenery and landscaping. Outside of that, I've been looking for a fleet of restored cars to run, and working on a new plan for the trackage and other infrastructure for the route. At this point I have a large database of freeware shapes that I plan on using in the route. I'm undecided on releasing it or not. So, that's where I'm at today. This project hasn't 'died' really, its just evolved into something different. The planned length is 18.5 miles on four separate routes. The route pictures below is the MountE.





A recently restored PE "Ten" car strolls around the block stretching her legs for the first time. PNW Transit is the operator of the Northerner Light Rail service and runs a fleet of restored street and interurban cars, as well as state-of-the-art LRVs on a 18.5-mile long system.