Switchin' Is Railroading

[harryadkins]

Available now from All Aboard for the Fort Smith To Heavener route is a new expansion which includes 16 new standard scenarios. Scenarios which focus on switching the industries and yards in the Fort Smith, Van Buren and Heavener areas. Included with this package is a repaint of Rich Chargin's Alco S2 which you can freely and easily acquire (instructions in install manual). I warn you that these are not simple drive from here to there scenarios. You'll do simple to complex railroad maneuvers and a few times figure out how to solve a complex switching problem. Rich Chargin's Alco S2 was the inspiration for this package where the modeling is impressive, the sounds are gorgeous, and the physics (Rich tells me to thank Rick Grout for that) give you the feeling you are pulling some weight. Package includes 16 scenarios, install and colorful main manual and the FSC RR repaint of the Alco S2 by Rich Chargin.

[charliechan]

Good Morning:

I purchased on the day they came out and am having a great time. Swapped out the SD40 for the GP30 on the first few scenarios just to make it interesting

I am just getting started on the scenarios with the S2 and I think things are going to get better

[Chacal]

Awesome. This reminds me Fort Smith is the only Rich Garber's route I don't have. I'll get it soon.
I can honestly say his routes, even the old ones, are the best Railworks investment (quality/price) I've made.
And they come with lots of scenarios, which is my primary criterion for quality.

[harryadkins]

I ran the first scenario last night (#19) and had a great time. It had lots of switching and prototypical AI trains. I used RW Tools to substitute Kansas City Southern locos and cabeese. It was well crafted.

[NStrains]

In today's time, what railroads are active on this stretch of track modeled? From what I can tell it would be KCS and UP as the class I railroads. But I'm having a hard time figuring out the other short lines that are active. I think this is something I'm going to grab regardless! I basically have all the other routes they made and I'm quite pleased with them.

[harryadkins]

The mainline is Kansas City Southern from Heavener, OK, to Fort Smith, AR. At Fort Smith, it connects with the UP, the Fort Smith RR, and the Arkansas Midland. As with most of Rich's routes, there are lots of good switching opportunities. There are several KCS locomotive repaints available and at least one bay window caboose. I also did a couple of locomotive reskins for the AM and FSRR that are available here in the RWA library. All of the scenarios use default equipment.

It's one of my favorite routes.

Harry

[OldProf]

Awesome. This reminds me Fort Smith is the only Rich Garber's route I don't have. I'll get it soon.
I can honestly say his routes, even the old ones, are the best Railworks investment (quality/price) I've made.
And they come with lots of scenarios, which is my primary criterion for quality.

Just a quick note: DTG has not "adopted" this route, so it must be purchased from the Allaboard site ( allaboardrails.com ), where both the route and this scenario pack can be purchased "for a limited time only) at a $10 US discount when bought together.

[Shaa]

Glad to see this posted here. I've also picked it up and I'm enjoying it as well. I hadn't run this route for some time and I'm really getting back into it. The sale of the Combo route and scenarios is only thru July 1st so act fast if you want both.

Old Prof....As for what I remember I don't think Rich wanted this route to be on Steam. I had communicated with him back in the Ohio Steel days and at that point he wasn't pleased with how long fixes took to come out if at all and actually recommended to me to purchase direct so I could always have the most up to date version. I can see that viewpoint just by looking at the Berlin-Wittenberg route. The latest version was never released to those who purchased it thru Steam since the final fixed version would break some workshop scenarios. Of course that's the side of the story released by the creator not DTG or Steam. So take that with a grain of salt.

[OldProf]

I found my copy of the original installation files for Fort Smith to Heavener, so I bought only the new scenarios pack from Allaboard. While waiting for the download codes to arrive, I installed Fort Smith, which I had removed at some time in the past. After downloading the Switchin' Is Railroading pack and checking its readme files, I installed it (I'd already installed the required ALCO-S2 and its fix). Scenario 19 (the pack's 1st) ran successfully (but see notes below about route), but not scenario 20.

Scenario 20 problem: all well through the 2 pick-ups and the run to Howe, but then the drop-off at Howe resulted in a failure message. This d/o involves dropping the cars from the second p/u, which are designated in the instructions by a consist number, with no numbers provided for the cars that make up that consist. The consist, of course, cannot be identified by its number while running the scenario, but I'm 100% positive that I dropped the correct cars. Having saved the scenario just before the drop-off, I quit and resumed, but the drop-off still failed. RATS!!!!

Fort Smith route problems:
1) while running scenarios 19 & 20, lots of those obnoxious "walls" popped up and vanished: black walls, tan walls, corrugated grey walls; some horizontal, others vertical.
2) lots of abrupt lighting changes, which I seem to recall as being related to the sky dome used in this route.
3) quite a few of those "milk bottles" that indicate missing assets alongside the tracks -- probably some bit of scenery.

At this point, I am not a happy customer!

EDIT:
I looked at scenario 20 in the Timetable Editor. The first pick-up instruction includes cars 30215, 30483, 30915, 31527, 31374, 31398. The second pick-up instruction includes cars 30215, 30483, 30915, 31527, 31374, 31398, 686377, 31443, 31838, 204748, 202071, 218204, 224381. These are followed by a drop-off instruction that includes all of the cars required in the second pick-up instruction.
So, the player is instructed to pick-up cars 30215, 30483, 30915, 31527, 31374, 31398 twice! This might well make the drop-off instruction impossible to complete successfully. I'll try resuming the scenario form the train's arrival at the drop-off marker and see what happens.
In my opinion, the use of "consist numbers" that do not reveal the car numbers contained in them is not a good idea.

2nd EDIT: dropping all cars where instructed did the trick, allowing me to complete the scenario successfully. The use of consist numbers potentially creates confusion, however, and reinstalling the route did not remove the walls and bottles:

Walls:






Bottles:

[Bananarama]

Look for the Kuju car fix that Buzz posted.

[jalsina]

Look for the Kuju car fix that Buzz posted.

I experienced this issue months ago with Ohio Steel 2. The problem is the vehicles set.
Here it is the thread with the solution posted by Buzz:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14756&p=167537&hilit=ohio+steel#p167553

You guys are convincing me with that Fort Smith route. I love Ohio Steel 2 as I did long ago with Rich's MSTS Ohio Rail

[NStrains]

Does this route use super-elevation? I know the other ones don't but just curious really.

[OldProf]

I've looked at the "Switching Ven Buren Quarry" scenarios and am confused because Scenario 30, described as the long version, and Scenario 31, described as Part 1 -- of a 2-part division of the long version -- share the exact same description and playing time: 105 minutes. In my opinion, some text editing is required to make sense of this.

[harryadkins]

I completed Scenario #20 tonight - Change of Plans. It is well crafted and I had no issues. I did substitute KCS power and cabeese with RW Tools.

Harry

[OldProf]

Look for the Kuju car fix that Buzz posted.

Found that and applied it -- no more walls! Thanks to Buzz and Hack.