New York Division-Bergen Line

[BoostedFridge]

Its the fact that you accept this and 'get cracking' is why your route is such a masterpiece.

I that last shot I see a flat horizon. Did you make all of the terrain on this route by hand, and not with SRTM/DEM?

[ex-railwayman]

so I downloaded this route cause it looks awesome, but I ran RWTools and it says im missing these...
RSC\ShermanHill\RailVehicles\Diesel\SD40-2\Default\Engine\sd40_2_ND.bin
RSC\ShermanHill\RailVehicles\Diesel\SD70M\Default\Engine\SH_SD70M_ND.bin
what are these?

ND stands for No Driver, all of the locomotives included with the Sherman Hill route have 2 bin files inside the Engine folder, so you should have sd40_2_ND.bin and sd40_2.bin and SH_SD70M_ND.bin and SH_SD70M.bin, these are all locked in the .ap file, if you have unlocked it and taken everything out you've not done it properly, or, lost them, in which case you need to look in the .ap file again, we all have these files, you don't need to download them from anywhere.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

[minerman146]

ex-railwayman - I thank you for the assistance. After a night to think about it, I believe my assertion was correct. The SH_SD70M_ND is actually in Suffern Yard on the free roam ( I use it for signal testing). There are 2 sd40_2's in Jersey City at the Marion CP which also are/were used for signal testing.

BoostedFridge:

I that last shot I see a flat horizon. Did you make all of the terrain on this route by hand, and not with SRTM/DEM?

. Yes, its true. NO SRTM/DEM. I had 6 months in on this my "test route" when I got SRTM/DEM working. It was fortunate that Suffern is at an elevation with a round number (300ft above sea level) or the math would have been a bit more challenging. So, terrain is one of the biggest challenges of the route. When the route was first built the terrain to Highland Mills was built relative to the track. I had found in google earth and on my topo that... Well what did was find the elevations for all the stations, calculated the distance from Suffern, and the determined the rise/run to get the grade, and then locked in the gradient when I laid the track. With this method, I got to Highland Mills. Some months later I found my elevation from Harriman started to become off until it was 60 -80 feet too high. This is the reason for the rework of this part of the route. If you consider at the time I wasn't using topo maps and just taking the readings from google earth, it would have been clever if SRTM didn't exist.

Today, I use a topo map, and with google overlay, I use reference points and hand draw all the terrain in layers from lowest to highest in 20 foot intervals. I fine tune the slopes using roads as reference points as in google earth elevations are less likely to be distorted where there are no trees.
I used to be embarrassed that I do it this way. I didn't want to lose the work I already had done and so kept with this method.

The image below shows how I do it and how I normally work. (2 computers and a laptop).

20170203_231817_resized.jpg

[Sagefuncom]

Oh my gosh, I have a PC laptop similar to this!

[minerman146]

Route Update Number 158
New York Division-Bergen Line 9.8.7: Highland Mills

Additions: Extend Scenery in Town of Woodbury, to Highland Mills New York and the Woodbury Trestle.

Dedication: This release is dedicated to Thomas56 for his support and appreciation. He has been here on and off since the first week that the Bergen went on Steam. It was his enthusiasm for this work that so energized our efforts. Thank you Thomas 56 (We hooked you up with that QD to Croxton you were looking for)

This release also concludes the rework of the original route from Suffern, NY to Highland Mills. This was a complete redo of 18 miles of topography, track, roads and scenery. This started Sept 9, 2016 and was complete Feb 23, 2017 in 5 months and 3 weeks of almost daily work. We are just shy of 50 miles of scenery and track. Highland Mills to Jersey City is 47.1 and to Hoboken is 49.15)

20170224091906_1.jpg

[NStrains]

Congratulations Minerman! Your hard work and dedication to making this route so amazing is greatly appreciated.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Looking great as ever!

[minerman146]

I require assistance from anyone who knows how to modify .hgt files. A few posts back Boosted fridge noticed that I am manually creating terrain. Its a fact. The entire Bergen Lines "Sea Level" is 300ft/91.44m. Up to this point, I have had patience enough to take the time and work the valley I have been in for the past 5 months. As I reach the Moodna Creek, I have a 20 square mile expanse to create, because of the viewing distance form the Moodna viaduct. Last night I spent 65 minutes laying a 50m by 30.48m band of terrain loft for about 6 miles as I follow the contour lines on my topomap. I immediately realized that I need to consider a rewoking my .hgt file to see if it can be modified in MicroDem. If successful, I would save at least 40 man-hours. Last night I took a shot in Microdem. I can edit the terrain file (N41W075.hgt) but cannot save in place in its original format. Note, my edit is: In Microdem, go to simple grid arithmetic, then Raise/Lower Z valued, and the change the z value by a negative 91.44m. This does change the file in the Microdem viewer. After that step I save as .BIL and then run BILXSTRM. BILXSTRM will only allow me to convert to .hgt at 1/3 arcsecond and when it does, instead of getting a single file I get 77 smaller files that look this this (N41W075T21). In my extensive testing last night, I cannot get the terrain importer in TS Editor to load the terrain. Its clear after I convert to .BIL and convert back to .HGT, its not accessible by TS at that point. Last, the copies of N41W075 I do have load fine and I get terrain on my route. Its just 91.44 meters too high for me to use.

I require: Steps to successfully reduce the vertical/Z-axis on STRM file N41W075 by exactly 91.44m on all elevation points. Anyone who is willing to edit N41W074 and send it back to me with the correction.

This would help immensely with me shorting the time to finish the Bergen and resolve the issue of laying terrain out another 45 miles.

Please help a brother out!

[ex-railwayman]

Sorry, I can't help you with your issue, but, I can help out with some promotional screenshots of your current scenery endeavours up at Woodbury, I also obtained some suitable EL rolling stock for the occassion and your viewing pleasure, a bit of cheerleading to cheer you guys up.........

Part One.

Cheerz. ex-railwayman. (Steve)

RailWorks 2017-02-25 14-48-07-47.jpg

RailWorks 2017-02-25 14-56-59-69.jpg

RailWorks 2017-02-25 14-59-04-72.jpg

[ex-railwayman]

Part Two.

RailWorks 2017-02-25 15-01-42-56.jpg

RailWorks 2017-02-25 15-07-32-99.jpg

RailWorks 2017-02-25 15-11-31-42.jpg

[NStrains]

Minerman, is there currently a QD that takes you all the way to Woodbury and/or starts there? I haven't been able to find one that starts or stops in Woodbury to be able to see the new work without creating a Free Roam.


Just a few shots from a quick run this morning.

Screenshot_New York Division - Bergen Line_41.14006--74.17162_09-52-05.jpg

Screenshot_New York Division - Bergen Line_41.17635--74.18651_09-59-13.jpg

Screenshot_New York Division - Bergen Line_41.19954--74.18337_10-02-18.jpg

[minerman146]

ex-railwayman - Yes this is exactly what I need to see after 2 weeks of route work! Your hitting all the high notes of the build. Those marshes are awesome. I always wondered what must go on in your mind when you see this terrain that is so faithful to reality when you have never actually seen the place. For me, the complexity of this terrain is half the fun. The other half is blowing my own mind when I view it from the train when I am done with a section. Try your run again from West to East at 1030 am in the winter - cloudy. Then just keep looking to the West as you go down the Valley.

NS-Trains: Yes I made a freight QD going East all the way to Jersey City its Called "Thomas56 to Croxton"

ALL: I sent an email to SQK4477 to see if he has any insight on my elevation strm issue. Anyone else, who wants to jump in, please do. The moment I get it working, I will post shots here and declare it resolved.

[sqk4477]

I require assistance from anyone who knows how to modify .hgt files. A few posts back Boosted fridge noticed that I am manually creating terrain. Its a fact. The entire Bergen Lines "Sea Level" is 300ft/91.44m. Up to this point, I have had patience enough to take the time and work the valley I have been in for the past 5 months. As I reach the Moodna Creek, I have a 20 square mile expanse to create, because of the viewing distance form the Moodna viaduct. Last night I spent 65 minutes laying a 50m by 30.48m band of terrain loft for about 6 miles as I follow the contour lines on my topomap. I immediately realized that I need to consider a rewoking my .hgt file to see if it can be modified in MicroDem. If successful, I would save at least 40 man-hours. Last night I took a shot in Microdem. I can edit the terrain file (N41W075.hgt) but cannot save in place in its original format. Note, my edit is: In Microdem, go to simple grid arithmetic, then Raise/Lower Z valued, and the change the z value by a negative 91.44m. This does change the file in the Microdem viewer. After that step I save as .BIL and then run BILXSTRM. BILXSTRM will only allow me to convert to .hgt at 1/3 arcsecond and when it does, instead of getting a single file I get 77 smaller files that look this this (N41W075T21). In my extensive testing last night, I cannot get the terrain importer in TS Editor to load the terrain. Its clear after I convert to .BIL and convert back to .HGT, its not accessible by TS at that point. Last, the copies of N41W075 I do have load fine and I get terrain on my route. Its just 91.44 meters too high for me to use.

I require: Steps to successfully reduce the vertical/Z-axis on STRM file N41W075 by exactly 91.44m on all elevation points. Anyone who is willing to edit N41W074 and send it back to me with the correction.

This would help immensely with me shorting the time to finish the Bergen and resolve the issue of laying terrain out another 45 miles.

Please help a brother out!

Hey Miner, I'll take a look :)
Don't forget to factor in the 'tree height' (avg. 6meters) since SRTM is tree top reflection and not topography elevation. On the BSRR, I started with SRTM, and then had to go over EVERY foot of topo and shave-off elevations based on the USGS elevations.

Have you checked-out the tools on this page?
http://vterrain.org/Elevation/SRTM/]

*** TRY VTBUILDER ***
Looks promising! I have your hgt imported and am messing around with the ELEVATION --> OFFSET ELEVATION VERTICALLY menu option

I have the hgt imported and the elevation offset of -97.44 done (in meters)
Now to save back to .hgt :)
https://www.lifewire.com/hgt-file-2621580
"Note: If you're using VTBuilder to open your HGT file, it's not done within the regular Open Project menu item. Instead, you must import the file into the program through the Layer > Import Data > Elevation menu."

~SQK

[minerman146]

No forward progress with converting back to .hgt or even .bil.
I will keep trying - I am surrendering all available build time to resolve this.

[sqk4477]

Ha Seriously! LIKE Nobody wants to convert back to HGT

ok, try this.

1. IMPORT HGT
2. Edit Elevation
3. Elevation Export as: XYZ ASCII Points
4. Take the .txt and drop it here:
https://mygeodata.cloud/converter/xyz-to-hgt

*I'm trying this now