Railworks America

So the Thurmont & Branford is done. Planning on packaging and shipping it out tomorrow. I've decided this because if I don't claim it's "done" then I will tinker with it until the end of my days and it'll never get released.

So what's up next? Well after a couple of dead-end projects, I think I quite like what I've got so far. I want to make the T&B a sort of "shortline giant" in this fictional northern New England that I'm creating, and I'm now hitting the third state in that area: Maine.
Maine's already in Train Sim, with Portland Terminal showing the southern portion of the state and Fort Kent displaying its northern extremities. However, the Downeast region gets no love. A shame, really, since it's gorgeous.

So pack your bags, we're off to Vacationland! Plans right now are a branchline from a CSX/STL&A connection to the coast, and an island railroad a mile offshore.

Current work is on the island railroad called the Pogwassek Island Railway, owned by the T&B as a subsidiary. I like the idea of isolated railroads, since it's the most feasible way to make a railroad "locked in time" in terms of locomotives and rolling stock while still being in the 21st century.
Please note everything is WIP.

I guess it's about time to get these uploaded to the library.

Pretty shade of yaller.

There's probably some mathematical function one could create that shows the correlation between college winding down and my efforts in Train Sim ramping up. I've also been playing with my own Train Simulator side projects (some that probably won't see the light of day), going with the whims of whatever happens to inspire me that month.

I'm being dramatic. I've been preoccupied but that hasn't stopped me from poking at things behind the scenes. This route is one of the aforementioned things!

The island part of the route is done. I've moved to the mainland, working on the (fictional) coastal town of Oak Bay, which takes heavy inspiration from Maine's coastal cities such as Portland, Belfast, and Eastport. Note that everything is still WIP, so if you see gaps in scenery please disregard.



There's a handful of fisheries and canneries in Oak Bay's old port that see service, but the main traffic comes from road salt and woodchips out of a new marine terminal.


I've always had a soft spot for the Maine Central's "green and gold" paint scheme. I don't really know what I want this railroad's scheme to look like yet (heck, I have yet to even come up with a name for it!), but I think I'd want something reminiscent of this.


The single cannery I have in Oak Bay as a customer is somewhat of a stretch: in reality, the fishing and canning industries in the Downeast region of Maine took a massive nosedive in the late 70s and early 80s, something I tried to represent with rotting facilities further inland, on the verge of falling into the river below.

Work is still sporadic, the semester's not over quite yet, but I am in fact poking and prodding and haven't stopped building. It's addictive!

Hi Folks,

Beautiful work - the scenery could be a good fit for the old BAR line (rail trail) out past Machias. I spend a lot of time in the area.

Regards,
Scott

Update: this route is actually done. All I've been doing as of late is tinkering with smaller details and bashing my head against a wall trying to think of paint schemes for two separate fictional railroads. Currently I'm running it with the HH660 in Atlantic Bay Terminal paint and all other locos in Maine Central livery.

My creativity has its limits, unfortunately. Ideas from any would be welcome at this rate.

Recently, I've been going into my "bag of goodies" as AmericanSteam put it in the Any Route Any Era thread and seeing what kind of details I could add without going overboard on DLCs (there's only three payware routes). The most impactful ones I found were signs. Who knew there were so many to choose from!

Looks Good Jack, looking forward to running on it.

For some reason I can't open this in either a drive tab or editor. 32 or 64 bit. I installed using utilities and drag and drop. I don't have a couple of locomotives but that should bring up the black box to F2 through. I tried to run this to check through T_S Tools it said that there appears to be a problem but I'm not sure how or what to check for.

AmericanSteam wrote:For some reason I can't open this in either a drive tab or editor. 32 or 64 bit. I installed using utilities and drag and drop. I don't have a couple of locomotives but that should bring up the black box to F2 through. I tried to run this to check through T_S Tools it said that there appears to be a problem but I'm not sure how or what to check for.

I think you might be in the wrong thread my friend. I haven’t released this yet!

goddrauG wrote:

AmericanSteam wrote:For some reason I can't open this in either a drive tab or editor. 32 or 64 bit. I installed using utilities and drag and drop. I don't have a couple of locomotives but that should bring up the black box to F2 through. I tried to run this to check through T_S Tools it said that there appears to be a problem but I'm not sure how or what to check for.

I think you might be in the wrong thread my friend. I haven’t released this yet!

At second look it was the West end that I downloaded. Old eyes.

AmericanSteam wrote:

goddrauG wrote:

AmericanSteam wrote:For some reason I can't open this in either a drive tab or editor. 32 or 64 bit. I installed using utilities and drag and drop. I don't have a couple of locomotives but that should bring up the black box to F2 through. I tried to run this to check through T_S Tools it said that there appears to be a problem but I'm not sure how or what to check for.

I think you might be in the wrong thread my friend. I haven’t released this yet!

At second look it was the West end that I downloaded. Old eyes.

Well, while we’re here, is it still not working as it should? And can anyone else corroborate with these issues? I wanna see if this is an isolated issue or something far worse.

Working OK here.

Gonna try and package this one up and send it to people who'd like to test it. If you're one of those people, feel free to message me.

Also, if you're willing to try and repaint (5 separate locomotives, no less) then please feel free as well. I've got a few ideas but my painting skill is somewhat lackluster.

It's been shipped off to Chacal for addition to the file library!

Please don't hesitate to reach out if the files inside aren't there or something upon downloading: I think I did it right but my tech skills are admittedly lackluster.

Thanks to all who helped with this! Repaints are in the works so we'll have some stock and locos for our two railroads.