SE Texas Route Design

[davedingler]

Well, after about a year and a half of struggling with RW route building and failures of umpteen times, I'm about ready to start laying tracks again as well as trying to lay in the scenery and objects.
At one time I had the route from SW of Houston to Beaumont, TX laid and was starting to input the scenery and objects. Due to computer short-comings and a mysterious software change in RW, I lost all of that and was unable to recover any of the backups that I had made

Now, since an upgrade to my computer involving a PS and Video card I have laid out the paths for the route.

Attachment:

File comment: Route Paths

SE TEXAS RR SYS.jpg

The attached jpg file shows the tracks of my route. There is about595 mile of path shown, and the area covered is approximatly 8500 Sq. Miles.

Before adding anything to the route layout, I have a few questions for you experts in this RW business.
1. Track Rules: Is there a preference of the track rules to use?

2. Scenery: What is the quickest and best ways of putting the scenery into the route layout? I have entered most of the decals using RWDecals into the route system but have placed very few of them in the terrain view. (only listed in the flyout of the editor). I have looked into the ReDem program and that sounds like it might work but have not fooled with enough to make a decision. Anyone else used the program? Or should I just keep plugging away and placing the scenery objects that are available in the RW route builder groupe?

Is there anything else that I should be aware of?

I visualize lots of potential for this route. There is lots of oil related business in the Houston area as well as chemical, pipe products, other manufacturing and all sorts of freight to be moved from one area to another. Amtrak runs from LA to Florida and passes through Houston, so there is East-West passenger traffic ans there could be local passenger traffic between Houston and all other points in the route. Lots of Scenerios!

Hope you can help me out.

Thanks in advance

[emdsd90mac]

Wow! You swing for the fence for sure. That's going to be one big route and by the sounds of it one pretty amazing one too. I might be able to help you out a little bit here. ReDEM is a wonderful program and well worth the inexpensive price for importing your terrain data; I have used it on several prospective routes that I too have lost due to me not backing up my files and RW pushing an update rendering my routes obsolete and unusable. ReDEM cannot speed up the placement of objects as far as I know. As for track rules, from the little bit I have read, it's best to stay with one track rule throughout the entire route but, don't take that as the gospel because I am not 100% sure of that one. Good luck and I look forward to seeing your progress.

[davedingler]

ReDEM is a wonderful program and well worth the inexpensive price for importing your terrain data; I have used it on several prospective routes that I too have lost due to me not backing up my files and RW pushing an update rendering my routes obsolete and unusable. ReDEM cannot speed up the placement of objects as far as I know.

Thanks emdsd90mac,

I'm not sure about what ReDem can accomplish. Will put the satlalite image from the USGA data into a 3D imange in the landscape ot RW? Does it include the trees, buildings and other objects that exist when the image was captured? Or does this program just copy the decal information and place 2D image much like the RWDecal program where you have to manually place the decals that consists of 4 or more chunks that have to be painted over to aquire the 3D images, and place ment of all objects.

Thanks,

Dave

[emdsd90mac]

Ok, all ReDEM will do for you is import USGS Terrain DEM (Digital Elevation Maps) for you into the sim. It does nothing with decals or object placement of any kind, all it does is give you realistic looking terrain. When you start out with a new route that has no imported terrain, it's flat as flat can be and that is because it's at sea level. ReDEM will change that and will create that terrain for the specific area that you decide. Now, take a look at the picture, ReDEM will give you terrain that looks like this if that's what you are shooting for. I think it's only a $7 investment but well worth it. Once you have it, go to the help menu and follow the step by step instructions, I printed mine for easier access. If you're using RW Decal then you already have Google Earth; I still use the Path tool in GE to trace out the route or area that I want for the terrain data. I am currently working on a fictional route so I didn't follow any RR tracks, I used rivers and roads to obtain the data for the area that I am modeling which happens to eastern ID along the Snake River. If you haven't used the Path tool before, find it in GE and play around with it for a bit first so you don't get frustrated. Be careful when going in for the kill though and be sure be make your points no more than 500 meters apart or you will get gaps in your DEM tiles once in the sim. Feel free to PM me if needed and I'll do my best to help you out.