Railworks America

Since folks have been adding their modifications to the RWA route, I thought I'd toss my hat into the ring as it were. My cloned version will concentrate on adding additional lineside customers, along with changes to improve operational efficiencies at certain points in the route. I think I've been spending too much time at work! My hope is to keep the route free of any payware. With that said, my first change was to add a team track with a loading dock at Riverside. The dock is my own creation, and is my next step up from the "basic cube" demo model. Adding the team track required the removal of all the tile vegetation that was planted using that special wiz bang program the RWA route developers came up with. I tried to work the team track around the vegetation, but it didn't look right. So, I'll have to replant everything in the tile using asset blocks and individual placements. So, here's the fruit of my labors for the past several days.

That is a good addition to the route. You can have all sorts of traffic going to a team track.

The large tile-sized tree blocks are great for frame rates but they do tend to get in the way when doing modifications to the route. As you suggested, delete the entire block ( click and drag near the center of the tile to select the tree block ), and replace it with standard asset blocks. The new TS2015 features for mixed trees in the asset blocks are a big help with this.

Some additional changes completed this week. Added an additional interchange track at Riverside, named Riverside Interchange 2. I've found that when I'm trying to switch out interchange traffic for Waterton, along with inbounds/outbounds for local Riverside industries, having 1 interchange track is just not enough. Part of this change includes shortening Riverside Interchange 1 so it fits between the switches of Riverside Interchange 2.





One other change I've made was on the bridge when you leave Riverside for Waterton. I set the detail level down to 5 so it would show when I have my game graphic settings to Medium. It's a really nice bridge, and deserves to be "front and center" when running. If framerates start to take a hit, I'll find some vegetation to change the detail level on. That's it for this round. More changes to come soon!

Johnsson quarry was next on my punch list. In the original route, you have to do a couple of mile long moves to swap out empties and loads. If an industry warrants a mile long branch for access, it must be generating enough carloads to warrant a runaround and/or car storage spur at the end of the branch. So... that's what I did. Johnsson quarry now has a runaround track prior to the industry, along with car storage spur off the runaround.

Nice additions, Howard. Looks like a case of growing pains in rural America.

I gotta say, I was in the middle of doing some of the same modifications to my map when I saw yours. Absolutely love what ya did with the place!

Clones of this donation-ware route certainly seem to be multiplying, although I'm not sure how many of them have successfully emerged from the route editing stage. It seems to me that these should also clone their original's status by requiring a donation. Since Bob habitually tells us that RWA isn't needy, perhaps a worthy railway-related cause could benefit: supporting restoration projects or railway museums comes to my mind. In other words,pay-it-backward projects.

Just a thought from the Old Prof.

Tom wrote:: supporting restoration projects or railway museums comes to my mind. In other words,pay-it-backward projects.

If anyone is feeling generous I would suggest they give a little something something to the Danbury Railway Museum. http://www.danbury.org/drm/

On a cold snowy day last winter an engineer came in on his own personal time to give me a personal backstage tour. That is where I got the pics for the wonderful job Rick did on the RS-1. They went above and beyond and definitely deserve some kudos.

Thank you for the kind words. I do enjoying make the changes just to see "what can be done". At some point, I hope to release this cloned version to the community. And there is some merit to the thought about having it be a donation type of release, although I would want mine to be voluntary. What I think would be really neat... and I would sign up for this in a heartbeat, is if the original route creators take some of the changes done in the cloned routes, and incorporate them into a v2 service release of the original route. Have the v2 release be a donation release, with the proceeds going to a museum or historical society, such as the one that assisted with the material for Rick's RS1. I think Tom is onto something here.

It's been awhile since I've posted an update to the route, so here some of the changes in the works. All these changes are in the Waterton area. First off, I added a couple of additional exterior roundhouse tracks. Never can have too much storage!



Also new to the roundhouse area is a wye track connected from the #2 main to the yard lead. This will allow an alternate method to turning power on the turntable.



Across the LS&W mainline is a new industry. I was looking for something that I could spot tank cars, as the only other industry that receives them is Michigan Paper. So, I came up with this. Haven't figured out a name yet, but there are two spurs for switching... one for boxcars and the other for tank cars. Along the way, I refigured the track arrangement, adding a stub track for access to the tank car spur. With the amount of open area on this side of the main, I'm sure other industries will sprout up, with additional spurs coming off the lead and the stub track. I also reconfigured the original lead so that it follows the road towards the water. I'm thinking about a later expansion of a true lakeshore line, similar to a line that runs north out of Duluth along the west shore of Lake Superior.

Nice Work!

I never did release this cloned version. I still have scenery to finish up in Riverside, as I had to delete a scenery block in order to get the team track and loading dock to fit. And I still need to finish up the new industry in Waterton. Lastly, I need to figure out what is involved with distributing a cloned version of the original route without violating the original route license. I'll get back to this over Christmas break and I'll see how far I can get. Thanks!

That new industry I placed in Waterton last year now has a name. Other work around the industry, like lighting and vegetation continues. It's slow... but fun none the less.

Looks good :)

WCL6655 wrote:Looks good :)

+1