Powder River Basin

[JohnS]

Do they still run "manned" helpers up the grade between Caballo and Donkey Creek?

[Bananarama]

Manned helpers are still used on the Belle Ayre, Logan and White Tail runs. I also believe there is still a Campbell helper that is kept at Eagle Butte Jct. This comes from the guys at Trainorders.com a couple of years back.

[JohnS]

Thanks Marc. I know traffic declined slightly. I wasn't sure if that also effect the helper service too.

[McCRRR19]

Manned helpers are still used on the Belle Ayre, Logan and White Tail runs. I also believe there is still a Campbell helper that is kept at Eagle Butte Jct. This comes from the guys at Trainorders.com a couple of years back.

There a two sets of the Belle Ayre helpers and these assist West (north) bound trains up White Tail hill, these are the busier helpers on the Orin line. They will occasionally be sent up to Donkey Creek Junction to help the occasional coal load off the Campbell sub that needs assistance East (south) up White Tail, but this isn't too often.

The Campbell Helper is stationed on a little spur off the Eagle Butte Mine lead. Depending on traffic levels, BNSF will have a job assigned to it, or just call off the extra board for it. If it's busy and there is an assigned job, they it typically has 2 units, when it's use is occasional and they're not keeping a crew assigned full time, it just has a single unit kept on the helper track at Eagle Butte.

The Logan Helper is under UP control from January through June, and BNSF has it from July through December. The Logan Helper is just one set (I was told when it was really busy, there was two helper sets) and typically only help trains that stalled out on Logan or one the other hills on the Orin line.

BNSF also keeps manned helpers at Sheridan, WY; Crawford, NE; and Bridgeport, NE.

[JohnS]

Wow that's great info thank you very much

[Tomcat]

Wow that's great info thank you very much

I second that, thanks Tim!

It's been slow going for a while now. I'm on babysitting duty for my 20 month old grand nephew most days, all day long, while the parents and grandparents are at work - makes me wonder why I took early retirement! At least I can still tinker on my nephews' account while the little tike naps - an awake baby and a keyboard is a recipe for disaster.

The past week I spent some time fleshing out Moorcroft on the Black Hills sub. About half done but seems to be shaping up fairly well. Not visible in the shots is the creek just to the right of the tracks which makes for really slow going - it seems that for every mile of track on the Orin/Black Hills/Butte subs there are 2 miles of creek/stream/river to contend with.

Once I'm finished here it's back to the Orin sub and I don't think I'll make it back to the Black Hills for a year or two.

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[Tomcat]

Browsing minerman146s New York Division - Bergen Line Part Deux! thread in Freeware WIP last week I was inspired by his work on Crestwood Distribution so I ruminated on it for a couple of days and then added more detail to Nelson Brothers.

I'm now 100% confident this is Nelson Brothers but I'm still mostly in the dark as to exactly what they do at this location.

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[Tomcat]

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[imnew]

Looking so good! The terrain painting must take a lot of time to get to that level of realism. Just curious... Are you a painter in real life? You seem to have texture painting down to a science.

[Tomcat]

Thanks imnew.

The terrain painting is the biggest time-sink so far and I'm constantly trying to streamline how it's done. I'm not a painter in real life although I have dabbled with it from time to time, not very successfully I might add.

[_o_OOOO_oo-Kanawha]

Thanks guys!

Did a tiny bit of work the past few days along 1 mile of track East of Rozet. I seem to be setting myself up for years of terrain painting, but if I can't do it this way then I don't see much point to doing it at all.

Black Hills Subdivision between Rozet and Moorcroft. First shot is 2D Cloudy, Sherman Hill Weather. Second shot is 3D Clear using Alpenfreight's Simple Weather Mod - both shots around 5:30 pm. Can't decide which I like better; 2D has a wonderful, typical Wyoming sky but the terrain painting is muted.

PRBRozetMoorcroft.jpg

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Wyoming Big Sky Blue will be hard to capture in any kind of weather simulation.
Is the air very dry and hence the sky so clear with these huge contrasts?

Seems like the 3D skydome is sort of smaller radius or darker by texture? There are many parameters to tweak with the weather settings

[NStrains]

Great job on that facility Tomcat! Almost looks as if MM himself did it!

[Tomcat]

Wyoming Big Sky Blue will be hard to capture in any kind of weather simulation.
Is the air very dry and hence the sky so clear with these huge contrasts?

Seems like the 3D skydome is sort of smaller radius or darker by texture? There are many parameters to tweak with the weather settings

The Powder River Basin receives approximately 11 inches of rain per year which seems fairly arid to me. Here in NYC we get about 50 inches per year. I've not been to Wyoming but from pictures it seems like deep blue skies with fair weather cumulus seems appropriate much of the time. During spring and summer impressive thunderstorms can crop up at any time so I thought that Sherman Hill weather would be the closest fit seeing as it's not all that far away to begin with. I'll leave any weather tweaking up to the end user to modify suiting their tastes. The 2D weather is the one that gives a darker overall look to the screenshots with hills and mountains not much more than 1 or 2 miles away from the camera going dark and making textures hard to see. Alpenfreight's Simple Weather Mod is what I use when terrain painting since the look is brighter and makes hills and mountains stand out much clearer.

It should also be noted that my screenshots are all taken within an hour of sunrise or sunset making the shots look a bit darker and moodier than would otherwise be the case.

Great job on that facility Tomcat! Almost looks as if MM himself did it!

Thanks NStrains. I take inspiration from all the routes I have and being compared to MM is nothing but good.

[Tomcat]

The first phase of Powder River Basin is a couple of weeks away from a release. I would not even call this an Alpha much less a Beta, think of it more as an X release as in experimental. I've been able to place scenery along most of the track that I've laid down so far but it is far from complete. There are roughly 25 miles of the Black Hills Sub and 28 miles of the Orin sub so far which works out to approximately 1/8 of what I would go for if I ever get around to finishing the route.

This video is not much more than a backhanded dig at TSW. As I was working on some night lighting it struck me that this was pretty much what I would see when I was a kid and the RR ran right past my backyard. This scene can't be replicated in TSW since headlights don't become visible until just a couple hundred feet from the camera.

[imnew]

Fantastic news! Im more than ready to run your "experimental" route Tomcat. Nice video