NERW - North Eastern Pa Div

North Eastern Rail Works presents the NERW PA Division Route
Version 1.1a - Released 25 March 2012

About the route:

The NERW PA Division route is fictional. It is not prototypical either. The DEM data came from about 20 miles below Pittsburgh PA. The rest is fictitious except for the New Wadsworth area which is slightly modeled after Wadsworth Ohio. Many liberties were taken here. As you will see there are a lot more signals than on a prototype route, this was done to help AI traffic negotiate the route better. In yards it also lets the engineer see which way the switches are set. It is 50 miles long and there are many industrial sidings and Passenger stations for making a variety of scenarios.

This route was started in RW1, transitioned to RW2 then RW3/Train Simulator 2012. It is now only playable in RW3 as new RW3 specific items have been added, lighting, track uneveness and a new skydome thanks to Great Northerner.

Work started on this route in June of 2010. Over 19 months 2,400 man hours have been applied to it so far...

Required assets:

Scale rails Freeware Edition - All 3 editions are required from this page - http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17128

Scale roads Freeware Edition - Be sure to get the update also here - http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15933

Rural Landscapes Freeware Edition - Get it here - http://www.3dtrains.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=15573

You will have to be a member of the 3DTrains forum to access these files.

G-Trax Huskie Container set - Get them here http://www.gtraxsims.com/ Click on the picture of the Container Cars.

Files:
NERW_PA_DIV_ASSETS_v1.1a_03-25-2012.zip is the Assets file. This package was setup using RW_Tools and has the RW_route_setup.exe file in it.
NERW_PA_DIV_1_1a-25MAR12.zip is the route file. This file containing the actual route has an .RWP file to install via the package manager.

Installation:
1. Unzip all files to a temp folder.
2. Run RW_route_setup.exe to install the asset sets.
If you have Vista or Win 7, be sure to right click on the .EXE file and run as administrator or it will not install properly.
3. Start Railworks and install the NERW_PA_DIV_1_1a-25MAR12.RWP file with the Package Manager.
4. Click on the Tools and Documents TAB and Clear the Cache.

That's it. Your ready to go.

Credits:
Being this is a freeware route made entirely with freeware assets, there are many people who are indirectly involved with the creation of it. I am going to try and list everyone who was involved, if I overlooked anyone I apologize now and please know it was an innocent mistake.

The two guys who helped me build it:

Rich Wade - built the Wade area and city and created several terrain textures for us. Trevor Henderson (TD) - built the Henderson Cement factory and town and painted the Henderson Cement SW1200.

My beta testing and support team:

Chandler Baer, Mike Martin, John McEwen, Gary Gardner, Harry Adkins, Mike Spinelli, Rick Foss, Toripony, Bill Peck, Mike Arndt, Tim McIntosh, Jerry Conaway and Tom Pallen.

The Assets came from these people:

Tim McIntosh (pikehkr) - for his version 3 signals. We use the CSX signals. Beta tested 1st release.
Michael Stephan (GreatNortherner) - a multitude of assets and rolling stock
Marc Nelson - 3dTrains products - we use all of his freeware versions. If you purchase the hi rez versions, the route looks even better.
Jerry Conaway (SMMDigital) - Crossing gates, assorted houses and buildings, they are all over the route. Beta tested 1st release.
John Lippai (spec5sx) - Houses, buildings and clutter, used all over the route.
Toripony - Guardrails, horses, rocks and sidewalks.
Pete Bauer - Buildings, houses and vegetation.
JB Fried - loaders and unloaders.

More freeware asset providers I obtained from other freeware routes, I do not know real names, all I have is their developer's folder names:

Acorn
Attix
Blackpatch
Brendan
Buckeye
CaptainBazza
Darpor
Decapod
Desruptor
Eyore
FRSD
Hef
Icepak
JADsHome
JeffLayf
JoeWhittaker
JPetersJr
Karma99
MaineLines
Mazz
Mcs
MG
MigDesign
Mundo
Newbuoy
newS
Niall
Wallace
Nobkins
NZTSWS
Pere S
niper
RailroadSim
Railx
RSDerek
RVR
SAD
Samad
Sean
Sharsh
Simpson
Sunshinerene
Wilburton

Many thanks goes out to all of you who develop freeware products for us to use in our route creations, we could not do it without you.

Support:

A support forum has been established at http://www.vnerrforums.com/rwforums/
Web site at http://www.vnerrforums.com/nerw

Disclaimer:

This route has been tested by several people with different machines. There were no problems encountered except for the occasional missing asset. The assets were not missing though, they did not get installed. Reinstalling fixed the problems. The majority of theseproblems are due to the UAC in Vista and Windows 7. All who had problems had Railworks installed to drive C: under the Program Files structure. If you encounter problems with your install, immediate action would be to re-install everything again in correct order overwriting your first install. Be sure to right click on the EXE files and Run as Adminstrator for Vista and Windows 7.

Be also advised if you are using pikehkr's signals and they are an older version they will be overwritten with this newest version (v3). Pike says it should not effect you other than giving you the newest version.

Future Plans:

With the advent of RW3 we have new features, some of them broke old things. You will see glowing assets in places. This glow is from the upgrade to RW3. Over the next few months I will be fixing these assets and will release a package of fixed textures when complete.

If we get more processor power from the upcoming update, then I will be going back over the route and adding more detailing to it. I tried to keep it as FPS friendly as possible, but a lot more can be done to enhance it. If RW3 does not improve then the route is finished.

About North Eastern Rail Works - the NERW:

The NERW is my 5th project of creating a game out of a game. The NERW is a part of the NERR Network which contains 3 virtual railroads and one virtual airline. In 2001 I started the North Eastern Railroad using MSTS. You apply to it like you are applying for a job. A test was given to make sure you knew a little about what you were doing. You would then download trains and activities, run them and then enter in a Trip Report of your run. Your hours are totaled up on a Callboard and you can earn rank and virtual dollars. In essence your are working for a virtual railroad. The NERR uses 29 route to make up a virtual USA. Activities were created that spanned routes, even all the way across the country. It is 11 years old and still getting new members.

Two other virtual railroads were created. One using payware products for MSTS and another using only one route that has a regimented set of activities to run. You can't run the second one until you run the first one.

After waiting a few years for MSTS 2 to arrive, then it got shelved, I lost interest in MSTS and handed the VRs off to my friends who continue to run them. I started a virtual airline using MSFS9 and FSX.

In May of 2010 I saw Railworks and decided to give it go after a no go with Rail Simulator from EA. A month later I started the route. Now with the route done, I can start writing scenarios and start up a new virtual railroad for Railworks
.
I already have a crew of 6 guys writing scenarios now for the NERW route. These are all available at the forum and will be released to the public along with all the rolling stock created for the route via the upcoming web site and through Railworksamerica.com.

This time instead of a full blown VR, I am just going to have a Logbook for the engineers to enter trip reports in to keep a record of the activity of the club. All downloads will be open to the public regardless if your a member or not.

Legal:

This route is free. Always will be. The assets are free, but they are owned by many other people. Nothing is to be used in a project you intend on selling, unless you have permission to do so from the original authors. Free means free. The route will only be available at the NERW site, the Railworks America site and the Ohio Valley System VR.

You may not upload it anywhere else.

You may not make available any modifications you make to it. I do not want different versions floating around.

You can however do to it anything you like as long as it is for your personal use only.

Lastly you do not have permission to create scenarios for it that you intend on selling.

Links:

In case your interested in some MSTS still or MSFS, here are my other projects.

vNERR - North Eastern Railroad - http://www.vnerr.com
vPARR - Pacific and American VR - http://www.vparr.com
vCNWRR - Cascade and North Western VR - http://www.vcnwrr.com
vNEAir - North Eastern Airlines VA - http://www.vneair.com

Bob Artim aka artimrj