3 Track Cajon Project

[imnew]

Your work is outstanding Tomcat!

[dejoh]

Your work is outstanding Tomcat!

+1

[Tomcat]

Thank you folks!

Alpenfreight's Simple Weather Mod.

A handful of screenshots just before and along Cajon Blvd on a partly cloudy day highlighting the cloud shadows on the San Bernardino mountains.

SanBernardino01.jpg

SanBernardino02.jpg

SanBernardino03.jpg

SanBernardino04.jpg

[NStrains]

That's one of the best things about this mod, the shadows!

[JohnTrainHead]

Your work gives new life to this game!

[Tomcat]

That's one of the best things about this mod, the shadows!

With the improved lighting in Alpenfreight's Simple Weather Mod the shadows (and everything else for that matter) are no longer garish looking. I was initially thinking that I would build with 2D weather enabled, since that is what I am used to, but I went back to do just that and everything seemed so dark and lifeless that now 3D weather is standard operating procedure when building for me.

Your work gives new life to this game!

Thank you but it's almost all the work of the content creators here at Railworks America that really bring the game to life for me and have made it possible for me to even dare consider redoing Cajon in the first place.


In between the hours put in on track markers, speed limits, signals and correcting little goofs here and there I head for the Mojave sub and add things in a completely random fashion to break up the monotony. The Mojave portion will still only be about 10% complete by the time the beta is out and the 90% missing will be all scenery. Track, track markers, signals and mileposts are 100% complete on the sub.

Here is the result of 2 hours of work just putting in the road grid on the South side of the tracks at Boron. The North side is about 5 times the size and won't that be fun - I need a drink! I think I still have the stamina to put that grid work in before I go back to what I should be doing on the Cajon portion before beta time.

Boron01.jpg

[Tomcat]

When is the Beta due?

This looks amazing.

I am doing the Seligman still, but slowly.

That weather mod looks impressive, jaw dropping. Thanks for sharing.

You have put a lot of work into the route.

Thank you.

I'm thinking late September and it will be ready for beta but I reserve the right to change that at any time depending on circumstances in real life. The weather mod can be picked up here on Railworks America, look for Alpenfreight's Simple Weather Mod topic in the Freeware Add-on Releases section. It's a simple install, takes all of 10 seconds, 20 seconds if you backup the 2 files first, which you should do.

I started the route on January 25, 2015. I only know that offhand because that's the date of my first backup. Now it's 18 months and 2000 hours later and there is still a year to go before all scenery will be done. So, yes, a lot of work so far but I find the editor oddly relaxing and I think it beats watching TV.

[Tomcat]

Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, Leuhman Ridge, Edwards AFB

Edwards AFB is 308,000 acres and sitting in the NE corner is Leuhman Ridge (seen in the first shot). On top is the propulsion laboratory and the 2nd shot shows the track on the ridge. The segment branching off NE in the center and then pointing North seems to end right at the gantry built into the cliff face at the top where they test rocket motors, or so I'm guessing. Have no idea how I'm going to scenic the ridge at the moment but I'll come up with something eventually. Only drove up to the top once with a SW1500 while checking the track work and the grade topped out around 4.5% in a spot or two - I have no idea if that is correct but it's what it took to get to the top without bulldozing half the ridge

LeuhmanRidge01.jpg

LeuhmanRidge02.jpg

[gtrtroger]

I visited Edwards in 2005 and was treated to a tour of the Lab. This is where ALL NASA's Saturn 5 engines were tested. It's an awesome facility.

[Tomcat]

I visited Edwards in 2005 and was treated to a tour of the Lab. This is where ALL NASA's Saturn 5 engines were tested. It's an awesome facility.

It looks impressive and I'm excited about doing the scenery here but that will wait till later after the beta is out before I do anything more on the Mojave sub.


Back to the Cajon sub. Early morning Eastbound at Verdemont.

Verdemont01.jpg

[BKRR605]

Back to the Cajon sub. Early morning Eastbound at Verdemont.

Verdemont01.jpg

Is that camera level???

[Tomcat]

Is that camera level???

Does look kind of extreme doesn't it?

We can't tilt the camera in TS2016. I think it's due to several factors; one, the camera is swung back slightly from perpendicular to the track adding to the illusion of the track rising to the left, two, there is a 2.2% grade at this point and three, I was pulled back pretty far and then zoomed in which always accentuates the appearance of the grade...

...or, I just made all of that up! No, seriously, I think it's mostly the 3 factors mentioned above.

[Tomcat]

The route as it stands today in terms of track work. Still much to be done but this is what will be in the beta. For reference, each box in the gridwork is a tile.

CajonSub01.jpg

[NStrains]

One thing I remember not liking about the original Cajon Pass is that the industries in Hesperia, Victorville and Oro Grande weren't completely built out. Any possibility you are doing that?

I'm excited to see this coming along. I don't remember seeing though, did you add super elevation?

[Tomcat]

One thing I remember not liking about the original Cajon Pass is that the industries in Hesperia, Victorville and Oro Grande weren't completely built out. Any possibility you are doing that?

I'm excited to see this coming along. I don't remember seeing though, did you add super elevation?

There is super elevation throughout on the mainlines. On the Mojave sub the curves are very gentle so you may not even notice but it is there. In the spirit of full disclosure, there are several curves on the Cajon sub where I had to fight the dreaded kink between curve and straight and truthfully, the kink won in some of those fights, so there are curves where one or all mains are not super elevated. I hope to rectify this is the future if it is at all possible but probably not before the beta is out.

Many areas in the original Cajon had incomplete track, for example Cargill was not represented at all (Just the elevators but no sidings) and Thorn was just a shadow of what's actually there. Oro Grande had half the track missing and several other areas were only partially, or not at all, represented. My goal is to put in all the track that is actually there and have all the industries represented to expand the operational potential for scenario authors. I would agree that this was a missed opportunity in the original and far more 'local' runs will be possible in my version. I had planned to have the Lucerne sub in before the beta but that is now on a back burner since I decided to finish all the track on the Mojave sub first. I don't remember what the Lucerne is exactly, maybe 22 miles and that is all at 20mph just to get to Cushenbury. I expect that zero people would be interested in running that sub but I will probably, eventually put that in because I'm just plain crazy in that way.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be putting up more #9 views of track work in these areas so you can see what industries are there to be serviced. If you, or anyone else, notice anything I've missed then please give me a shout and I'll get to work on correcting whatever I may have missed or gotten wrong.