The Anthracite version of the Lehigh Valley route.

[oldgreyowl]

My granddad and I have been looking at which route to start making acivities for. We have still a few to finish for the MP5 route and also 1 or 2 for the WF9 route.

We have looked at this route and read up on what we could find about the current state of play. It would appear the NS got involved in a big way around 1996 and have got the line busy. Because we are in a virtual world with our trains, we would like to start thinking about what activities we can write for this route.
We see it basically as all NS working, hauling coal, intermodals, chemicals,metals( as if the Bethlehem steelworks are still running ), automotive and paper,clay and forest products. With these activities we will as usual try to keep the stock to be used as freeware.I know that quite a lot of you who have driven our earlier activities will already have the SLI BN pack and if there are any NS locos that use this pack, they wil be included.
Neither of us have any practical idea of what runs up and down the Lehigh Valley, and this is where we would hope that you would throw ideas our way as to what should and shouldn't be on these rails.

Thank you for reading this post and showing interest.

charlie

[oldgreyowl]

As an afterthought, We are looking at the older end of the downloads for the freeware stuff, and if your are aware of any downloads that will not work in OR, would you please let us know.

thank you

charlie

[Don6218]

The big problem with some of the "older" download freeware is quality when the sim is run with OR. When OR takes over the lack of detail and on rolling stock you can end up with "Flintstone" wheels. There should be enough newer item to satisfy any and all acts, once the very early stuff is passed over.

A lot of the earlier stuff is also being updated either by the original author or by others. There are also "Low-Poly Strings" that can be used as well, the lack of detail is not noticed when passing by.

Lots and lots of freeware available, just pick and choose for variety and quality.

[conductorchris]

I had a lot of problems with the anthracite route and I know I was not alone. As a result I do not run it.

A good idea of what routes people like can be had by searching for everything in the routes category and searching by popularity. Not that you'd necessarily want to strictly be guided by popularity, but it can be helpful.

Christopher

[oldgreyowl]

Thanks to both of you for your input.

charlie

[oldgreyowl]

Having checked the popularity stakes, there is little doubt that Marias Pass is the overall favourite,followed by Ohio RR and Pokey. There seems to be very liitle that could be new for MP, it seems as every inch of track has been covered more than once.

Chris, what kind of problems did you encounter? And wouldn't this updated version correct some of the errors?

charlie

[conductorchris]

It has been awhile and the problems could have been of my own making. I think none of the activities worked because the paths were broken (solution would be to make new paths, but at that stage I didn't know how to do that, plus it was a bit of a complex job). As I think about this, it seems it shouldn't affect you in making new activities. If it works for you, it should work for us. We could use some LV activities.
Christopher

[oldgreyowl]

Cheers, Chris, thanks. Onward and upward lol.


keith

[dcarleton]

Paths are not broken, but a senior member of the community (who hadn't yet downloaded the route!) warned the community that all paths would be broken if they downloaded the route, leading some to believe that the route is not playable for this reason.

For what you're doing you should be just fine.

[oldgreyowl]

Well, I have driven from Jim Thorpe down to Bethlehem Steel, without a problem.

keith

[gatordad]

I have installed this route and the only issue I find is missing signal heads/lights. Gantrys are present but light heads are not. I've searched the web sites and have confirmed this is an issue but can't find the fix. Signals show in the track monitor.

[90hd]

I have installed this route and the only issue I find is missing signal heads/lights. Gantrys are present but light heads are not. I've searched the web sites and have confirmed this is an issue but can't find the fix. Signals show in the track monitor.

Run route through Route Riter. It will find missing files and add from other routes if there present.I run Lehigh Valley with no problems....

[90hd]

Gatordad, is correct about signal heads are not present..I also haven't found a fix. Other than that all in all not a bad route.