Marias Pass Two

[PapaXpress]

Actually this was brought up a year or so ago. I say go for it

[hertsbob]

If you meant how can they MAKE a route that they've never seen? That's a good question.

Apologies, I was trying to be cryptic and mysterious.

But to carry on with the same theme; I've never been to 1950s Yorkshire/Lancashire, I've never been to Wyoming, I've never been to Montana, I've never seen the MSTS version of Marias Pass and I don't own Trainz at all.

[glenn68]

Marias Pass came with MSTS.

[hertsbob]

Thanks for that, I hadn't realised.

In which case I was mistaken. I believe I ran a switching scenario on it once until I came across what I presume is the MSTS front coupler bug thingy.

[dcushing]

Has the trackwork and surronding environs changed much over the last, say thirty years to prevent running Burlington Northern green weenies in scenarios? This route looks perfect for Michael's BN heritage equipment.

Duncan

[Derek]

A good question, how to make an area look and feel like the area.

Most of the routes we make are put together with mostly generic assets and a choice selection of route specific assets, we can not make every house, shop and barn along a 170 mile route.
However the trick is to capture the feel of the area. (Colours and shapes basically)

The rise of the internet has made a massive difference, before the internet and google earth/street view/bing maps etc, research was done through books, movies/TV shows etc and if funded a research trip.
It also helps to speak to people who live in the area and make friends who help and advise.

On Die Hard Vendetta and Constantine I was lucky enough to visit LA (and the sets for Constantine), I was the only one to do this from our dev company (bits Studios) So I had to pass on to the other guys what it looked and felt like with photos and concept art. (may have to share these on my blog one day)

I spend my life looking at pictures and researching many different areas for future projects, I can not hope visit all the places we have discussed but I have certainly ear marked a few that I'd like to explore first hand! :)

regards

Derek

[donjgatlin]

any idea of when its coming out?

im getting awfully sick of the european re-relases and content... i have no use for that.

It will probably be a while. Normally after the first images appear of the route it usually averages 2-3 months before the release date. Given that the first pictures (not the announcement) was made early this month, you can probably anticipate getting the route sometime in the March-April time frame. They've already stated that Kent Highspeed will be out in late February. I'm not sure if there is just one team working on the route or if they have multiple teams who work on multiple routes. Given the release date for Kent, I'm guessing that Marias Pass is going to take longer to get released if this is the case. Just my observation/predictions here though. Hopefully someone could fill us in on how the process goes on who does what and time needed (even though projects are different).

[Griphos]

Well, the internet seems to be a tool that works. There are routes you've worked on for places I've never been, like the lovely route you are working on in your own time posted on your blog. But there are routes in areas I do know, and I've been quite impressed with the fidelity.

Looking forward to this route. I know that country pretty well.

[Derek]

With my own route, yes I have been there but the stations are put together with only a very small selection of images.
Building historical routes is a very similar challenge, just need to sort myself out with a TARDIS!

d

[imnew]

Derek and hertsbob and anyone else:

Im a route developer myself and in my opinion a cabride ( if available ) is one of the most important things a route creator can use. Like so many other railfans I collect cabride and regular railroad dvds. There are two cabride dvd's available for Marias Pass. Filmed in the mid 80s, the picture quality is so so, but it does show you mile by mile what a real engineer sees infront of him.

For example:
http://www.train-video.com/rvp19-1d.html Covers Whitefish and ends west of East Glacier.
http://www.train-video.com/rvp19-2d.html Continues to 5 miles West of Havre.

I made a thread back in 2011 with links to websites that sell cabrides aswell as regular railroad dvds. I also sent those links to RSC and got the response that they would use them in future route developments.

For anyone interested:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3322

Looking forward to running long heavy freights over Marias Pass.

[PapaXpress]

Donner took a year to do correctly, so I hope they spend some time (well, maybe not whole year) to make sure Marias is given the same attention to detail.

[hertsbob]

I agree that cab rides can be invaluable for scenery placement where they're available. I generally only deal with the trackwork for a couple of the RSC releases and for the Wearhead & Teesdale route, although I'm going to be throwing some trees about with the latter at some stage (more than likely for Derek to delete and replace )

For me the most important thing is to have access to some decent documentation for gradients, but even if that's not available I'm not too fussed. Although it may sound odd I get into a particular mindset for different routes and as a result it takes me a couple of weeks to get my head round different routes to begin with, but once I'm in the zone then off I go.

I look forward to seeing Marias Pass screenshots just as much, if not more, than the rest of you guys as they are basically all I'll see of it before it's released. Can't tell you how strange it is being completely familiar with a route in its green-field state and then suddenly seeing it transformed with scenery.

[dcushing]

Now that the High Speed line is out fo the way perhaps we'll start seeing more information and screen shots for Marias Pass. It, and the Western Lines of Scotland hold my interest a lot more than 50 miles of high speed passenger service.

Duncan

[Rich_S]

For me the most important thing is to have access to some decent documentation for gradients, but even if that's not available I'm not too fussed.

I agree with the first part of your statement Bob. Having built three routes for MSTS and currently working on a route for Rail Works, having a good track chart that lists gradients or gives you the ability to figure gradients, track curvature, track layout and signal placement is very important to me. There are several sites on the Internet that specialize in Track Charts and Employee timetables, a few that I've used are:

http://www.trainsite.8m.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/RailfanDepot

I noticed the Railfan Depot has the BN Montana Division Track Chart on CD in PDF format.

Regards,

[CSX2057]

There were a few things I spotted in Donner Pass. But it was a easy fix so I done it myself.