GREAT NORTHERN 4-6-2 Heavy Pacific Steam Pack

This is a set of Great Northern Steam 4-6-2 Heavy Pacific locomotive repaints made from Dick Cowen's 4-6-2 Heavy Pacific Britkits Steam Pack.

Link: http://stourbridge-lion.webplus.net/page26.html

Pretty much all of the required textures were already supplied by Dick as part of the Steam Kits. So he deserves the majority of credit for providing this set. All I did was assemble them as appropriate, in folders and then added a couple of updated texture files of my own.

What is included:
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Four GN steam locomotives paint schemes are provided for this GN Heavy Pacific Steam Pack with two types: one live (drivable) and one dead (for static display) and two versions: Freight for Weathered and Passenger for Glossy.

Note:  The reason for the four paint schemes was I wanted to include the "Glacier Green" paint scheme.  In doing my research the official GN color scheme for steam power was your basic black with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack. Even though GN did have an official glacier green color there was no official glacier green paint scheme (although GN Historical Society stated that emerald green was the commonly used color) so different GN locomotive shops painted them in various colors. I settled on three best known versions plus you basic black.

The four paint schemes are:

Folder: GreatNorthern_Black-Freight  = Weathered black with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack
Folder: GreatNorthern_Black-Passenger  = Glossy black with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack

Folder: GreatNorthern_Emerald_Green-Freight = Weathered emerald green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack
Folder: GreatNorthern_Emerald_Green-Passenger = Glossy emerald green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack

Folder: GreatNorthern_Glacier_Green-Freight = Weathered glacier green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack
Folder: GreatNorthern_Glacier_Green-Passenger = Glossy glacier green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack

Folder: GreatNorthern_Olive_Green-Freight = Weathered olive green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack
Folder: GreatNorthern_Olive_Green-Passenger = Glossy olive green with red cab roof and staybrite boiler stack

Also, I have included a configuration batch file, which will allow further variations.

The configuration options associated with the above paint schemes include:

1.   Black Cylinder Caps, Black Walkways and Black Wheels  (default configuration)
2.   Black Cylinder Caps, White Walkways and White Wheels
3.   Aluminum Cylinder Caps, Black Walkways and Black Wheels
4.   Aluminum Cylinder Caps, White Walkways and White Wheels
5.   Chrome Cylinder Caps, Black Walkways and Black Wheels
6.   Chrome Cylinder Caps, White Walkways and White Wheels

Also, in this pack is included the GN_Tenders pack (based off of the Britkits freeware tender packs)

The tenders come in two versions as well:

Black Wheels
White Wheels (has a WW in the name listing)

IMPORTANT:
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Before you install, if you have the version 1 GN Steam Pack installed, please uninstalled this pack as it no longer works 100% after the Britkits Steam packs updates and could interfere with this GN Steam pack version 2. Instead of bundling all the steam types into one pack like last time I have broken them into their separate locomotive types to make installation easier.   

Also, you must have the most recent Brikits Steam Packs updates installed (February 2015) in their default location and working.

Dick is now delivering these as .ap files so you must uncompress these into the appropriate folder under BritKits\Steam\RailVehicles\USRA_4-6-2-H.

You should have the following folders inside the USRA_4-6-2-H folder:

Audio
Buckeye
Crew
Default
InputMappers
Lights
Particles

Also, it is helpful if you have a good working knowledge of how auto-numbering works, as while the locomotives are pretty much hands off (I used GN steam roster for numbering the selected steam types) the tenders are all grouped in a separate folder, providing a variety of possibilities to mix and match tenders to each locomotive.

If you want the lighted tenders to match the locomotive you will need to manually update the numbers on the number boards to match with selected locomotive.  This can be done using RW_Tools Consists editor or in game using the scenario editor.

To Install:
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I used Railworks Utilities packager for packaging this set. All shape (GEO) files have been removed.  I have supplied an InstallMe.bat file to quickly copy the appropriate shape (GEO) files to the newly install Great Northern Steam folders.

NOTE:  The batch file will only work if you have the required Britkits Steam pack installed and uncompressed in its default location. If not you will have to manually copy the shape (GEO) files to their appropriate folders for each Great Northern folder (eight) under each engine folder.

Unzip the downloaded .rar file to a temporary location.  This will create a folder called GN_Heavy_Pacific_Steam_Pack, and within this folder is an .rwp file, which contains this GN steam pack files plus this readme file and a picture file and a thumbnail picture file.

Install the .rwp file using the Railworks Utilities.exe (located in the Railworks root directory). Or if you are like me, unzip to temp location and then copy and paste to the assets folder.

Now go to Railworks folder, open Assets folder, then Britkits folder, then the Steam folder, then the RailVehicles and lastly the USRA_4-6-2-H folder (Typical Default Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Railworks\Assets\Britkits\Steam\RailVehicles\USRA_4-6-2-H).

You now should see all your installed steam folders as shown above.

Then click on and run InstallMe.bat file. This will copy over all the required shape (.GEO) files from the default folder to all the GN folders. Hit enter to continue. When complete it will delete itself from the directory.

That's it for the installation!

Optional:
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You now can click on and run the GN_Steam_Configurator-462H_Pacific.bat, which is a menu driven batch file that will allow you to configure the locomotives (as stated above) within each GN folder.

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To use these newly installed locomotives make sure that Britkits\Steam is checked in the fly out box or they will not show up.  All have a prefix of GN so all will be grouped together in the engine drop down listing.

That's it.....enjoy, Gerry