3 Track Cajon Project

[Tomcat]

I'm going to assume that you are only doing Mojave yard and not the industries around the are right?

I'm open to suggestions. At the moment, Niklor Chemical and Paramount Petroleum, which are just South of the Mojave yard along the U.P. Mojave Sub, have been started. Those I consider to be in my purview since I plan, within the next couple of centuries, to complete the sub all the way to Phelan, where I left off with U.P. track work.

California Portland Cement off of an 8 or 9 mile branch to the West of Mojave is something I haven't decided on yet. If you would like to see it than that would be enough for me to forge ahead at some point and put it in. Then there is Progress Rail off of the line to Trona, which is short enough to certainly put in the track work, but would that add anything to the playability? I'm not sure, but then again the track is there and I have a hard time resisting laying track.

That may be it for industry around Mojave, not sure. Until 2 weeks ago I was not going to put in Mojave so I have not done the research I should do as of yet. The reason for putting in the Mojave yard was only intended as a more logical destination over having the track stop just under the Aerospace Highway overpass, which in hindsight seems like a boneheaded, pointless place to end the track. My thought is now you have a place to stop and do a crew change before firing up Marc Nelson's Tehachapi and continuing on to Bakersfield and seeing what the area really looks like.

Any thoughts? Fire away.

[Tomcat]

Is there a schematic as to what is included in your version of Cajon, assuming the track work is complete by now?

I am looking really forward to this route. Will you release a beta soon, so players can check the track and signalling for errors, while the scenery might not yet be complete?

No schematic yet other than an updated #9 view of the route that I'll put up in the next few days after I finish the track work around Mojave. If you are looking for something else let me know and I'll see about accommodating you. When the beta is released there will be a list of all industries served, where they are and what they receive/ship. This will most likely be a simple text file initially but I would like to eventually piece together a PDF file where each page is devoted to an industry showing the track work, siding names and a paragraph or two on who they are and what they do.

Soon is about the best I can be pinned down to regarding a beta release. The scenery will absolutely not be completed for the release, that's another year away at least. As you may be aware I am trying to recover the 3 months I lost the tail end of 2016 due to computer issues. So, with track work coming to an end a beta is within sight.

As a follow up to some concerns you voiced about asset density, I've been taking mental notes of asset quantity in select areas of the route and have come across only a few areas that approach a 2000 count (you can guess that these are around San Bernardino and West Colton) whereas less populated areas hover around 800 or so and desert proper can get as low as 20 such as along the BNSF Mojave sub.

Edit: Changed 200 to 20

[Tomcat]

Its stunning Tomcat. Hope your having fun.

Thanks Krellnut. Since getting the new laptop 2 weeks ago it's been a real pleasure. I am actually running routes and going through scenarios I was never able to do on the old laptop. Shhh... don't let anyone know that I've actually been taking time away from route building to actually enjoy other peoples work.

[NStrains]

I'm open to suggestions. At the moment, Niklor Chemical and Paramount Petroleum, which are just South of the Mojave yard along the U.P. Mojave Sub, have been started. Those I consider to be in my purview since I plan, within the next couple of centuries, to complete the sub all the way to Phelan, where I left off with U.P. track work.

California Portland Cement off of an 8 or 9 mile branch to the West of Mojave is something I haven't decided on yet. If you would like to see it than that would be enough for me to forge ahead at some point and put it in. Then there is Progress Rail off of the line to Trona, which is short enough to certainly put in the track work, but would that add anything to the playability? I'm not sure, but then again the track is there and I have a hard time resisting laying track.

That may be it for industry around Mojave, not sure. Until 2 weeks ago I was not going to put in Mojave so I have not done the research I should do as of yet. The reason for putting in the Mojave yard was only intended as a more logical destination over having the track stop just under the Aerospace Highway overpass, which in hindsight seems like a boneheaded, pointless place to end the track. My thought is now you have a place to stop and do a crew change before firing up Marc Nelson's Tehachapi and continuing on to Bakersfield and seeing what the area really looks like.

Any thoughts? Fire away.

Honestly I think you hit the nail on the head. Cover the two or three local industries in Mojave, leave the Cement branch out, and mainly use Mojave yard as just a logical end-of-line point. I don't think leaving out the Cement branch or the Kemira plant on the Trona line would hurt anything at all. Progress rail and the chem and petroleum plant in Mojave should provide enough switching for anyone who wants to do that. Otherwise there will be plenty of action out that way just making pickups and drop-offs in Mojave. Not to mention the Borax mine and Edwards AFB.

My only concern, as someone who doesn't have the best spec'd machine, is to hopefully not have too big of a route or too detailed to where it stutters or crashes a lot.

I can hardly wait to see it all finished that's for sure!

[Tomcat]

About at the halfway point with Mojave and doing what I can with the standard assets we all know and love. Asset count per tile in Mojave is hovering around 360 and that will probably top out at 500 per tile when all is said and done.

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.04752--118.17286_15-36-38.jpg

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.04724--118.17266_15-37-18.jpg

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.05158--118.17366_15-37-59.jpg

[Tomcat]

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.05158--118.17366_15-38-07.jpg

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.05849--118.17534_15-40-11.jpg

Screenshot_Cajon Subdivision_35.06002--118.17682_15-41-05.jpg

[Metrarailfan]

Looking great!

[Boss1]

Amazing work!

[Tomcat]

Looking great!

Amazing work!

Thanks guys!

Screen grab from RWInfo showing the whole shebang as of today. Blue area represents extracted terrain tiles. Top left hand corner is the newly laid Mojave yard.

I have to think long and hard about adding anymore track, this very well could be it. I say that because F2 saves to tracks.bin are now taking 10 to 12 seconds whereas all other saves, such as terrain and scenery are near instantaneous. I have had no crashes while running the route but the increase in track related save times is worrisome. For those worried about running the route I can only say that it was developed on a Toshiba Satellite laptop with an AMD A6, .9ghz, 8 gigs ram and generic AMD integrated graphics - now regretfully (or is it thankfully) dead.

I'm thinking to clone the route and lay track in the copy to see if it remains stable. So, what you see below is what will be in the beta and may be all that is ever forthcoming depending on how it goes with the clone.

FYI, total track length is 940 miles, this includes all yard, multiple mainline, branch and siding mileage, not to be confused with route length.

No estimate on the beta release, lately I've learned to not count my chickens before they hatch.

CajonSubdivision02182017.jpg

[gtrtroger]

Marvelous!!

[ssbobz]

W.O.W.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

940 miles of track laid, that's a lot!

The only thing worth adding IMO would be the Palmdale Cutoff, but that will expand the tracks.bin even more.

Better finish this instance first. Perhaps then a cloned copy can include the Palmdale.

[krellnut]

download/file.php?id=34695
Take a look at this pic Tomcat. The tracks bin was 32mb's. The tracks bin wouldn't save anymore, just broke any additional track. 2500 miles, left is Regina,SK. right is Thunder Bay,Ont, Winnipeg in the middle.

[Tomcat]

Thanks guys!

940 miles of track laid, that's a lot!

The only thing worth adding IMO would be the Palmdale Cutoff, but that will expand the tracks.bin even more.

Better finish this instance first. Perhaps then a cloned copy can include the Palmdale.

That's my thinking at this point, better to work on a copy going forward for just the track work.

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/download/file.php?id=34695
Take a look at this pic Tomcat. The tracks bin was 32mb's. The tracks bin wouldn't save anymore, just broke any additional track. 2500 miles, left is Regina,SK. right is Thunder Bay,Ont, Winnipeg in the middle.

Whoa! That's huge.

If you made it 2500 miles and I only have to add another couple hundred to get to 1100 or 1200 for the Palmdale Cutoff then I'm feeling some hope. My tracks.bin is 6mb right now, so plenty of room to grow if 32mb's is where things blow up. I was looking at tracks.bin for other routes and saw Pacific Surfliner's was about 9mb's which is about where I would wind up after adding the cutoff and I have never had a problem running PS. I'll still play it safe and add the cutoff to a clone in case things go south.

[Tomcat]

Thanks to Krellnut I felt much better about adding the Palmdale Cutoff. So much better that I wanted to try a clone and lay some track right away. As you can see I made it to Palmdale, encountering no problems along the way. F2 saves to tracks.bin are holding steady at 10 to 12 seconds... tracks.bin increased from 6 to 7mb's and will probably wind up near my guess of 9mb's. The only problem to solve presently is getting the 21 odd mile straight section from Palmdale to Rosamond to finish within a reasonable number of meters transverse of where it should be. I suspect I'll have to go back to the easement curve at Palmdale cutting or adding several times to get the endpoint as close as possible in Rosamond.

CajonSubdivisionClone02192017.jpg