Railworks America

Greetings everyone!

After being disappointed with the mediocre representation that Kansas City received in DTG's Kansas Sub route, I've taken it upon myself to try and correct that situation by recreating the Kansas City Terminal area, albeit circa ~1990.

A majority of the route will be set around 1990 or so, however there will be a few places modeled from between 1980 to 1999, for variety's sake.

While the route is still heavily W.I.P, I thought I'd go ahead and post a few screenshots of what I've done thus far.

Progress is probably going to be a bit slow, as I am planning on working on this every other month (to avoid becoming bored/avoiding burnout), and the fact that I'm currently enrolled in a spring semester at my local college.

More pics, since I reached the screenshot limit.

May Progress Update:
(All scenery seen is temporary, and is only present to give an idea of the location.)

More screenshots:

This route (I had lost track of the thread) looks very promising, but I will become more excited in a year from now. As you said, this is a "very" WIP.
By the other side, this is one of the spots in the US where I prefer for a route. I did not fall in the DTG trap and did not buy the Kansas Granger route, due to so many negative comments.
Kansas has passage by CP and KCS (today merged as CPKC), UP, BNSF plus a dozen of local RR´s. You will see as well, trains with borrowed power from CSX, NS and CN.

Good luck with the route.

Thanks!

End of the month update:

Not really anything worth screenshotting, as most of my time has been spent in Google Earth mapping out the locations of old industrial sidings and yards. Route is still being worked on, but while mapping is still happening, progress will be a bit slow.

During the last few weeks, I have been fixing all speed limits in Heartland Granger Topeka to Kansas City, by using this interactive map which I was not aware of. The map shows that most of the Union Pacific main tracks have 60mph speed limits with crossings of 30 mph and not the mess that was left out by the DTG release.

The speed limit "mess" (and it is a mess) spoiled an otherwise good route. It becomes beyond annoying when for no apparent reason the speed limit changes then back again etc. In its original form it's not worth the effort driving it - shame really.

mindenjohn wrote:The speed limit "mess" (and it is a mess) spoiled an otherwise good route. It becomes beyond annoying when for no apparent reason the speed limit changes then back again etc. In its original form it's not worth the effort driving it - shame really.

I would be able in the near future to publish a new tracks.bin with all the speed limits for Heartland Granger. The route with this correction, is pretty nice to drive. It helps there are only 60 mph main tracks. Crossings between tracks approaches are all at 30 mph (as per UP rules). Yards 15 mph and some yard short outgoing tracks at 30 mph connecting to main lines. With this panorama there is only need for a few speed limit signs.

The only I can´t fix yet is replacing the block signals which give me only red and green (no yellow). Obviously, the code for these signals is wrong. This means I will have two trains in contiguous blocks with no warning of a yellow light. The 30 mph crossings between tracks signals seem to work perfectly (red over a flashing yellow).

jalsina wrote:During the last few weeks, I have been fixing all speed limits in Heartland Granger Topeka to Kansas City, by using this interactive map which I was not aware of. The map shows that most of the Union Pacific main tracks have 60mph speed limits with crossings of 30 mph and not the mess that was left out by the DTG release.

I wish you luck! Are you just making track improvements, or will you be doing scenery upgrades?

Brickrail782 wrote:

jalsina wrote:During the last few weeks, I have been fixing all speed limits in Heartland Granger Topeka to Kansas City, by using this interactive map which I was not aware of. The map shows that most of the Union Pacific main tracks have 60mph speed limits with crossings of 30 mph and not the mess that was left out by the DTG release.

I wish you luck! Are you just making track improvements, or will you be doing scenery upgrades?

So far, I have fixed, most of the speed limits in the full line, though there may be still some hidden.
Besides I have added buffers in all line as well (this is actually scenery). I believe a 50 0r 60% were missing.

I consider the scenery pretty good.
Most of the signals in the route are OK, except the block control signals, which they only give me red and green (no yellow). These signals in other routes seem to work well, so I don´t know what is going on:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=25541