Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railway

[nsl714]

Here's another advancement...Signalling!

Tonight I tentatively/experimentally placed signals around the South Upton Wye (in the proper places according to track maps of course), and so far they work! All legs of the wye here were controlled by the tower to the west.



In this example here, a train from Milwaukee is coming towards the camera, and a Mundelein-bound train is waiting to cross over to head west.



After the Chicago Limited clears, the Mundelein train gets the lineup.



This has just been testing in Freeroam. I have yet to try it in regular scenario. Hopefully it will work when it comes to that, and hopefully this bodes well for signalling the rest of the route!

Zach

[nsl714]

I just want to say, scenery is hard.

[Bananarama]

Hard? No. Tedious? Yes!

[artimrj]

Hard? No. Tedious? Yes!

I was going to say that also. Especially planting trees.

[jpetersjr]

Pictures aren't showing up by the way.

[alanch]

Pictures aren't showing up by the way.

They are here across the Atlantic.

[nsl714]

I would wholeheartedly agree, that's the perfect word for it, tedious. The hard part is maintaining my attention on it for an extended period of time!

And JP, I don't know what to tell you about the photo thing. They appear fine here.

Zach

[jpetersjr]

Perhaps was photobucket earlier, because they're appearing now, but earlier they weren't appearing.

[nsl714]

So as the above photo may or may not suggest, I am continuing to experiment with scenery placement. Figuring out what works and what doesn't. Lake Bluff has been pretty well filled out, at least to the west of the railroad. (Also noting the absence of appropriate trolley/catenary supports)



Looking east at South Upton Tower



A suburban development in the vicinity of Knollwood.



Finally, looking south toward the railroad.



With this I must ask, from what is seen here, am I doing too much? Too little? (If that is even a question that can be answered objectively)

Thanks,
Zach

[DrewG]

It looks good. In regards to you asking about scenery, is your route. Do what you think it good, in the end the route is yours to do what you want to do with it.

[nsl714]

Thank you merciless for pointing that out. It is a good reminder that the first and most important person I have to please with this is myself.

In other news, something new this way comes.



Thanks to Mr. Richard Scott, there is now an accurate model of a North Shore interurban car. I am currently tweaking physics, and at the moment am looking at brakes. As of right now, they are kind of working, with a few things not 100% accurate in comparison to the real thing. If there are anyone knowledgeable on how the Sim handles air brakes, please PM me.



Zach

[mrbob19]

It looks good. In regards to you asking about scenery, is your route. Do what you think it good, in the end the route is yours to do what you want to do with it.

True, you should do what you think is good for the route, altough, i would recommend to use a bit of a darker texture at the Forrests and Bushes. Textures overall can give the route a nice look, without the need for too many objects if done right.

and Good looking screens btw!


Cheers,
Bob

[nsl714]

Thanks Bob!

Here's a few more screenshots of the Interurban Car. This variant is known as a Silverliner. By 1950 or so, the North Shore was looking for a way to spruce up their fleet of heavyweight interurban cars (the newest of which were already 20 years old). The solution? Paint faux stainless steel fluting on the lower half of the carbody to mimic cars of that type. It was very effective; people were known to rub their hand along the carbody to assure themselves that it was indeed just paint.

[nsl714]

Scenery is slowly emanating from Lake Bluff. Here's a few photos from this evening with the new cars.













Zach

[Griphos]

Looks great. As to scenery, I agree that you should make it look however you think it should look. The screenshots in this thread often have a lifelike and distinctly American feel. It's details that sell that, I think. I'm not sure you need darker textures. Might make it feel a bit more like the European routes, or the east coast. But you should make it look like you think looks convincing as a representation of the area.