Big Sky Country

[buzz456]

Liking the RWEnhancer so far.

Park City.jpg

Along the Yellowstone.jpg

Distant Mountains.jpg

More distant mountains.jpg

[buzz456]

First off I want to thank everyone who worked on this route from Walter's awesome track laying where pretty much the whole route trackage for the MRL is done, all almost a thousand miles. Bob did a whole lot of signalling and naming places and tracks and what all, most of that stuff that you don't see but has to be there is we are ever to have any ai stuff. Jon Peters and EMDSD90MAC built a ton of custom objects to make at least some of the route to real life as well Steve doing yeoman's work on the scenery in Billing's and Laurel which still isn't done. In the meantime I got most of the 100 miles or so from Park City to Bozeman scenery down with help from Slick204.
Everyone kind of drifted off with changes in their real life or just some burnout from working on this thing. I finally got ambitious and put down all of the level crossing signals for I think all of the route that has scenery on it. In a few weeks I'm going to be looking for a few beta testers to see how this thing behaves on someone other my computer. The only payware route is Marias Pass. What i'm looking for eventually is to find some more people that would like to bite off a chunk of this but first we have to find out how stable this thing is. Anyone interested shoot me a PM if you want to be a tester. I should be able to provide all of the free assets as a pack or two or three. Most of you probably have most of it. If all goes well we can release what's done so everyone can enjoy it.

Again thanks to everyone who has already contributed.

Screenshot_Montana Rail Link_45.65980--110.78319_10-25-01.jpg

[Tomcat]

Woohoo!

Thanks Buzz for holding on to the reins of this massive beast and a big thank you to Walter for the intestinal fortitude required to lay down all that track. I'm pretty excited to finally get a look at this once you are ready to release.

[jpetersjr]

Sounds like a plan to me.

[Footplate1]

Hi Buzz, this is something I am really looking forward to, 1,000 miles of track, wow how many gigs is it? Not for a low end PC, good job we have 64 bit now as it certainly helps with the performance.
Any idea on when you will be releasing the beta. Wishing you all the best and hope everything holds together.
Paul

[Footplate1]

Hi Buzz, looking forward to this route, 1,000 miles is a lot hope it all holds together, how many gigs is the route at now?
I hope everyone has a pretty descent PC as this will be quite demanding on the cpu and gpu, thank God we've now got 64 bit which helps considerably.
Paul

[artimrj]

I converted 100s of switch stands from manual to automatic so we could use AI easily. To do that I had to break the track and re weld it back with the new setting of switch stand. Named the majority of siding markers. 100s of them as well. The route is very nice. Buzz is a master at laying down scenery. He did a major part of the Lafayette route we made.

[buzz456]

Hi Buzz, looking forward to this route, 1,000 miles is a lot hope it all holds together, how many gigs is the route at now?
I hope everyone has a pretty descent PC as this will be quite demanding on the cpu and gpu, thank God we've now got 64 bit which helps considerably.
Paul

Since the computer only has to load a small portion of the route at one time it's only loading it up that takes any time. It runs pretty much like any other route.

[jamesphh]

Think it will run on 8 gig? Never got around to adding another 8.
Only problem I have ever had was with a scenario for Tehachapi.

[buzz456]

At long last I'm getting ready to release the part that mostly has the scenery down that being from Huntley to Bozeman. There are still some unfinished parts in Billings and Laurel but I'm hoping we can pick up a person or two to at least finish this part of the route. In the meantime Montana Rail Link just took delivery of some new Trinity Rail gondolas. This is the closest thing I can find right now to paint. This particular one is from the DTG Cal Train route.

SW1200 is pushing some of them around in the Livingston yard getting ready for service.

Screenshot_Montana Rail Link Huntley to Bozeman_45.66430--110.55910_12-01-27.jpg

Screenshot_Montana Rail Link Huntley to Bozeman_45.66435--110.55890_12-01-43.jpg

[wlenz781]

It is amazing to see some good American routes being built by the community. These pictures look amazing and I can't wait to see this released and test it out.

[AmericanSteam]

What are the differences between Big Sky and MRL by Zawal routes?

[BoostedFridge]

What are the differences between Big Sky and MRL by Zawal routes?

Zawal's route is the MRL 10th Subdivision, from Missoula to Paradise via Evaro Hill.

The 'Big Sky Country' Route is ultimately going to be the entire ~900 mile MRL route. I'm not sure the phases that it will be released in though.

[wlenz781]

So, will the whole 900 miles be in one single route? I am wanting to do the KCS mainline between Kansas City and Shreveport, but figured it needed to be in Subdivisions as it is probably 600 miles. If you guys are doing this in one single route, then it might be possible to do the KCS line in one single route and then break it up in scenarios.

[krellnut]

Its the whole 900 miles in one route.

Montana Rail Link.jpg