Feather River Canyon Announced

[rarecommonsense]

Ohhh my gat!!! *In ownagepranks voice* lol.. this is looking crazy good. Looks so alive, and filled with charm. All that greenery.

[Haystack]

This route is looking amazing

[McCRRR19]

Okay, this is what I'm familiar with.
I didn't know about the other line to Reno as well as Fernley NV.

wpacific.jpg

Nice map Eric, probably from the early Western Pacific era.
Here is a screenshot of Google Maps of the current Fernley, NV area. It would seem that old branch was condemned.

fernley.jpg

This is a screenshot showing the full route from Oroville to Winnemucca in the Nevada desert where the route meets the main line coming from Donner. I would love to have that part of the desert route:

FeatherRiver.jpg

You can see the announced terminal of the DTG route at Quincy Junction where a branch goes to the north, following the eastern slope of the mountains range, up to northern Oregon.

FYI The Reno track you are asking about is partially still being used today on about seven miles from the Reno side. UP stopped maintaining, and disconnected the track at the Reno Junction from the South direction about seven to ten years ago. The track took what you could call almost a narrow gauge mountain path (at I think 15 to 25mph) into Reno and became too hard to maintain, up to the section that is closer to Reno. Every time they tried to use it something would de-rail and would be a nightmare to re-rail. By DTG not building the route to the "Reno Junction" you will not be able to transverse one of the longest, and most beautiful open valley's (Sierra Valley) west of the Rocky mountains. So open in fact they have had crosswind problems with container trains being blown over. The weather is influenced by the storms passing south through the high sierra area and can be quite cold, and windy in the Winter. I am not sure how many "body's" DTG have working at building these Route's so it is hard to justify hammering them for not putting out a "finished" product, I do know that the Terrain Data from USGS. coming through that whole area( Oroville to Portola) is a mess, so maybe an up date down the road would be a possibility. After all if Marc can do it with his Route what is the excuse DTG can use that anyone will swallow! I guess they are used to us buying unfinished product's and getting away with it. Buzz, sorry this went a bit long.
Cheers Mountainrail2012

The "branch" you are looking at, at Fernley, is not WP's branch to Reno, but what is left of Southern Pacific's "Fernley & Lassen Railroad" which ran up to Wendel and Susanville running on the west side of Pyramid Lake and crossing the WP on a diamond at a place known as "Flanigan" east of Wendel. The F&L was part of SP's "Modoc Line" but the Flanigan-Fernely section was abandoned around the 1960's, if I recall correctly, and the SP used trackage rights on the WP between Flanigan and Winnemuca for trains using the Modoc line. WP's first few miles of WP's branch north out of Reno was originally the narrow gauge Nevada-California-Oregon Railway which ran had grand plans at one point but only made it as far as Lakeview, OR. The Reno branch then ran their own route leaving the old NCO alignment and running south of the Air Force base, but at the CA/NV border they used the NCO grade again up to a place called "Chats" where the WP had their own grade for the last 2 miles or so to Reno Jct. The old NCO depot and one of the engine sheds is still standing in Reno. UP was using the northern section of the Reno Branch for storage for a while, along with the old branch to Loyalton, but this was a number of years ago. They might even do it again with the down turn in traffic.

Also, at Quincy Jct. there is a line that goes south. This is the shortline "Quincy Railroad" which serves the Sierra Pacific Mill at Quincy. The line that goes north is at Keddie, and that is the "Inside Gateway" completed in the 1930's. WP originally operated the the line as far as Bieber where trains were interchanged with the Great Northern from Klamath Falls, OR. In recent years BNSF purchased the Bieber-Keddie portion from UP and operate it for themselves using trackage rights on the UP from Keddie to Stockton.

Tim Stricker
Gillette, WY

[Ericmopar]

Okay, this is what I'm familiar with.
I didn't know about the other line to Reno as well as Fernley NV.

wpacific.jpg

Nice map Eric, probably from the early Western Pacific era.
Here is a screenshot of Google Maps of the current Fernley, NV area. It would seem that old branch was condemned.

fernley.jpg

This is a screenshot showing the full route from Oroville to Winnemucca in the Nevada desert where the route meets the main line coming from Donner. I would love to have that part of the desert route:

FeatherRiver.jpg

You can see the announced terminal of the DTG route at Quincy Junction where a branch goes to the north, following the eastern slope of the mountains range, up to northern Oregon.

FYI The Reno track you are asking about is partially still being used today on about seven miles from the Reno side. UP stopped maintaining, and disconnected the track at the Reno Junction from the South direction about seven to ten years ago. The track took what you could call almost a narrow gauge mountain path (at I think 15 to 25mph) into Reno and became too hard to maintain, up to the section that is closer to Reno. Every time they tried to use it something would de-rail and would be a nightmare to re-rail. By DTG not building the route to the "Reno Junction" you will not be able to transverse one of the longest, and most beautiful open valley's (Sierra Valley) west of the Rocky mountains. So open in fact they have had crosswind problems with container trains being blown over. The weather is influenced by the storms passing south through the high sierra area and can be quite cold, and windy in the Winter. I am not sure how many "body's" DTG have working at building these Route's so it is hard to justify hammering them for not putting out a "finished" product, I do know that the Terrain Data from USGS. coming through that whole area( Oroville to Portola) is a mess, so maybe an up date down the road would be a possibility. After all if Marc can do it with his Route what is the excuse DTG can use that anyone will swallow! I guess they are used to us buying unfinished product's and getting away with it. Buzz, sorry this went a bit long.
Cheers Mountainrail2012

The "branch" you are looking at, at Fernley, is not WP's branch to Reno, but what is left of Southern Pacific's "Fernley & Lassen Railroad" which ran up to Wendel and Susanville running on the west side of Pyramid Lake and crossing the WP on a diamond at a place known as "Flanigan" east of Wendel. The F&L was part of SP's "Modoc Line" but the Flanigan-Fernely section was abandoned around the 1960's, if I recall correctly, and the SP used trackage rights on the WP between Flanigan and Winnemuca for trains using the Modoc line. WP's first few miles of WP's branch north out of Reno was originally the narrow gauge Nevada-California-Oregon Railway which ran had grand plans at one point but only made it as far as Lakeview, OR. The Reno branch then ran their own route leaving the old NCO alignment and running south of the Air Force base, but at the CA/NV border they used the NCO grade again up to a place called "Chats" where the WP had their own grade for the last 2 miles or so to Reno Jct. The old NCO depot and one of the engine sheds is still standing in Reno. UP was using the northern section of the Reno Branch for storage for a while, along with the old branch to Loyalton, but this was a number of years ago. They might even do it again with the down turn in traffic.

Tim Stricker
Gillette, WY

Thank you for clarifying that Tim.
That explains why the turns just north of Reno are so tight.
Someone else had commented about the turn radius' near Reno, and said it looked like a narrow gauge line. After a couple of days, I looked at some satellite photos and wondered if that actually was one of the old narrow gauge routes that ran north south through Nevada.
There is one horseshoe curve up there that is really tight, and it made me wonder how they got mainline freights through there at all. Someone had commented on numerous derailments along that stretch of track when W.P. tried to use it.

[McCRRR19]

Yeah, the only pictures I've seen of the WP trains on the Reno Branch are from the 1960's or 70's and all they showed was a single highnose GP and a handful of cars on a lightly maintained weed grown track. I'm not positive on WP's operations of the branch, but I do believe the local that operated on the branch was based out of Portola.

Tim Stricker
Gillette, WY

[ZekTheKid]

[OpenRailer90]

Untextured model of the U30B from Railsimulator Facebook page.

[PapaXpress]

Did you miss the VRC posting in the U30C thread?

And no, its not the DTG model.

[JerryC]

I'll bite. Textured U30B, from VRC.

12471856_410652279131544_5054830999170726120_o.jpg

[Rbsanford]

Pretty dam beautiful.

[Haystack]

I noticed someone commented on FB about "all we need now for this route is the Zephyr" and RS.com replied and said stay tuned..

Just thought id post this for those not on FB. Might not mean anything but we shall see

[wisrailfan]

This route looks amazing. Looking forward to it being released. Most of my favorite MSTS routes have now either been completed or are WIP for TS 2016. Thank you to all the content creators who've made this so enjoyable.

[thecanadianrail]

I'll bite. Textured U30B, from VRC.

Will you also be doing the Green and orange version WP had aswell?

[JerryC]

Check Facebook.

[jalsina]

The "branch" you are looking at, at Fernley, is not WP's branch to Reno, but what is left of Southern Pacific's "Fernley & Lassen Railroad" which ran up to Wendel and Susanville running on the west side of Pyramid Lake and crossing the WP on a diamond at a place known as "Flanigan" east of Wendel. The F&L was part of SP's "Modoc Line" but the Flanigan-Fernely section was abandoned around the 1960's, if I recall correctly, and the SP used trackage rights on the WP between Flanigan and Winnemuca for trains using the Modoc line. WP's first few miles of WP's branch north out of Reno was originally the narrow gauge Nevada-California-Oregon Railway which ran had grand plans at one point but only made it as far as Lakeview, OR. The Reno branch then ran their own route leaving the old NCO alignment and running south of the Air Force base, but at the CA/NV border they used the NCO grade again up to a place called "Chats" where the WP had their own grade for the last 2 miles or so to Reno Jct. The old NCO depot and one of the engine sheds is still standing in Reno. UP was using the northern section of the Reno Branch for storage for a while, along with the old branch to Loyalton, but this was a number of years ago. They might even do it again with the down turn in traffic.

Also, at Quincy Jct. there is a line that goes south. This is the shortline "Quincy Railroad" which serves the Sierra Pacific Mill at Quincy. The line that goes north is at Keddie, and that is the "Inside Gateway" completed in the 1930's. WP originally operated the the line as far as Bieber where trains were interchanged with the Great Northern from Klamath Falls, OR. In recent years BNSF purchased the Bieber-Keddie portion from UP and operate it for themselves using trackage rights on the UP from Keddie to Stockton.

Tim Stricker
Gillette, WY

Thank you for this information. It clears a lot of my doubts.