Pennsylvania Railroad Confirmed in RW3

[johnmckenzie]

I reckon I will. Thanks!!

[kevarc]

It was not a radio, it was an induction telephone with very limited range.

http://kc.pennsyrr.com/faqs/trainphone.php

[TVRRMAN]

Maybe you can answer this one for me - Why was everything fitted with radio phones?

The PRR pretty much pioneered the radio while everyone else was still using hand signals and paper bulletins. Pretty much everything on the PRR got radio antennas. Steam Locomotives, Diesels, Cabooses, and Passenger Cars.[/quote]

John,

Not everything PRR got Trainphone. units exempt from it were typically units not used in mainline usage (The H Series lacked them, as did the yard switchers - Alco S Series, and FM's with exception to the H20-44, which did receive them. The H20-44 also doubled for a road unit.

In the Passenger Car roster, the antennas were typically found on the Business car fleet, lounge cars, and the tail cars.

While posting, I'll also take time to address the Tuscan colored F7 idea: In reality, the only "F" Series locomotives in the PRR fleet painted Tuscan were not straight F7's, but FP7's, and I believe only one A-B-A pair was painted as such. The B unit, despite being mated up with two FP7's and in matching Tuscan, was merely an F7b with passenger gearing. The few FP7 A-B-A pairs that were on the roster oddly enough were utilized more in freight service than wit the passenger trains they were intended to haul.

[johnmckenzie]

It was not a radio, it was an induction telephone with very limited range.

http://kc.pennsyrr.com/faqs/trainphone.php

Yep, saw that - thanks

[micaelcorleone]

If it wasn't for the PRR much of what you know about U.S. railroading probably wouldn't exist in its current form. They were setting standards before standards were even standard. :) That railroad was a pioneer in railroading in multiple forms.

Yes, indeed. It's incredible to see how much progress there was.
Just watched this film: Trains on fire - Pennsylvania Railroad 1955 - "What in Blazes" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkUQ3rTfU4s
They had built-in CO2 fire extinguish sytems in the 50s (!).

[styckx]

Yummy..

[thecanadianrail]

Yummy..

ooh flatcars, piggyback service, and......uhh, what is that other one between the piggyback cars?????

[styckx]

No idea. Looks like a low cut ore cars?

[ozinoz]

The next question is, how much are users going to be prepared to pay for this new route?? This route only comes FOC when you purchase the new version, it is not included in the upgrade path. While it looks nice from what has been seen, personally, if it is not steam friendly (service facilities etc) then I will pass.

[thecanadianrail]

The next question is, how much are users going to be prepared to pay for this new route?? This route only comes FOC when you purchase the new version, it is not included in the upgrade path. While it looks nice from what has been seen, personally, if it is not steam friendly (service facilities etc) then I will pass.

where is the proof in this, where did you hear this???

[Chessie8638]

thecanadianrail: where is the proof in this, where did you hear this???
TS2012 FAQ.

Right off the TS2012 FAQ:

Yes! Train Simulator 2012 will retain all the locomotives and routes previously included with RailWorks 2, PLUS a brand new EMD F7
locomotive and a new UK locomotive to be revealed shortly. Also, we will have an amazing new route, fully optimized to show off all
the new technology, this will be available bundled with every new purchase of the Train Simulator 2012 Steam Edition. Existing users
will be able to buy this new route as DLC from our Steam store.

ozinoz:The next question is, how much are users going to be prepared to pay for this new route?? This route only comes FOC when you purchase the new version, it is not included in the upgrade path. While it looks nice from what has been seen, personally, if it is not steam friendly (service facilities etc) then I will pass.

Hopefully (have my doubts) Altoona will be modeled accurately for the time period. In 1958 Altoona still had multiple Roundhouses.

[ozinoz]

Altoona would dwarf anything previously modelled in RW and would probably bring it to its knees. Large yards in the US are probably beyond the performance curve of what a home sim can provide. Not only is there yards etc, they need to be populated with static and AI traffic.

Still, happy to wait and see - only a month to go. Fingers crossed for another vid tomorrow...

[steve_the_slim]

The Barstow-San Bernardino route has a massive yard. Granted, it's probably pretty under-populated in most of the scenarios, but it shows big yards are doable.

[Chock]

I'll be happy to pay the additional cost for this route, and not only because it happens to be in my particular area of interest for US railroading, I would buy it anyway in order to support the company since they are banging out the upgrade for free. We are getting a lot of bang for no bucks whatsoever with that upgrade, and whilst it is true that the upgrade is in a sense the carrot/stick platform for further add-ons, thus economically viable to knock out for free, I still want to show appreciation for the work they've put in because it would have been easy for them to stay with the present 3D engine and graphics and milk that for all it was worth, but instead the new engine demonstrates a commitment to wanting a quality product that will improve the actual notion of simulating driving a train. The fact that it is a route I'd particularly want is of course a big plus for me, but I would have bought it anyway.

With regard to fully modeling the PRR's Atloona works in it glory days, I suspect that is unlikely, since at its peak the site covered 255 acres (that's well over three million square feet) and it had considerably more than one hundred works buildings on that site, which in addition to being a massive modeling task, would be tricky to model anyway since most of them are now gone and it would therefore require a lot of research in order to get them right.

For those who like trivia, the Atloona Works was such a massive and important site to US industry that it was targeted by German secret agents in 1942, who arrived in the US by U-Boat (i.e. submersible Type VII U-Boats, not the GE U25B LOL). Their mission was codenamed Operation Pastorius, and was intended to sabotage quite a lot of targets in the Eastern US, including the Horseshoe Curve, the Atloona loco repair facilities, the hydroelectric generators at Niagara Falls, Aluminium and Cryolite facilities in Illinois, plus several railway stations in the region including Pennsylvania Station at Newark. It was foiled by the fact that one of the agents wanted to defect to the US and turned himself in, his interrogation eventually led to the arrest of the other members of the team, most of whom were executed although some were imprisoned and later deported to West Germany after WW2. There was actually a film, (very loosely) based on this event made in 1943 as a bit of a flag-waver, not very imaginatively, but undeniably emotively entitled, 'They came to blow up America'. Although it is a bit naff, with mostly cardboard cut out Nazi characters, it does actually star a decent actor, George Sanders, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and did win an Oscar for his role in All About Eve, so it is a bit better than most films of its ilk.

Al

[styckx]

Conway yard is massive and runs just fine.