Erie / LTV Mining Railroad

[Bananarama]

Marc,
Is there any chance your Erie Mining structures could be ported over to Rail Works for this route or does Abacus own the right to them?

Regards,
Rich S.

I didn't create the structures - those were done by Mark Branscum - one of the original members here at 3DTrains. I do have them here, but keep in mind they were done in 2001 and are woefully under-detailed. Better to create new, IMHO.

[Racer]

This afternoon I am working on the next 12 mile section of track from the Cramer Tunnel up to the
Murphy City Maintenance yard. This 12 mile stretch will have a rise of 375'.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Wasn't this a road that ran F-units until well into the 80's or even 90's? F-units heavily rebuilt to make them absolutely winter hard?

Did this road also use those inexhaustable dual train line pressure-differential air brakes, or was that DM&IR with its "quad" ore jennies?

[Bananarama]

AFAIK, all maintenance was performed at Knox yard (just south of the Concentrator), and that Murphy City only contained a siding and house track. If it ever had a maintenance facility, it was many decades ago and long before LTV took over. Perhaps Dave Schauer or Doug Buell on the Yahoo OreRail list has more info. (Be sure to contact them off-list, as the group frowns upon posting on modeling subjects.)

The F-Units were used by LTV until June 2001, and then a few times several years later after the Cliff purchase. Except for a loss of a couple of B-Units that derailed, all were on the property since purchased new in 1958 (originally painted cream and blue). I believe at least one of the LTV/Erie F's survived and is down at the Lake Superior Museum of Transportation in Duluth and is fully operational. The Yahoo F-Units list may have info on the disposition on the other units. (However, the "Surviving Covered Wagons" text in the files section hasn't been updated since 2004.)

[Racer]

Tonight I have completed the rest of the track work around the Power Plant
and also westward up to the Trow summit.
I am thinking this may be a good time to try and branch out into some of the key scenery.
One of the key pieces would be the final portion of the route from the mines.
The ore boat itself.
Getting this to look impressive and function properly in sim is a must have for realism.
The plan would be to have an AI dock loading into the ore carrier holds with smoke coming from the stack
as she is docked at the ore dock.
I plan on doing all of my modelling in my Solidworks program and moving them into 3D Studio Max for the conversions into Railworks.
I have had very good success with doing this in the past with other models for other sims.

[glenn68]

I am paying close attention to this thread. Racer please keep us up to speed!