Southern Pacific Shasta Route - Development Thread

[Curt C]

Absolutely! Looks great and I echo the sentiments about the dirt roads. Appreciate your efforts towards detail!

[pschlik]

Hot dang, there's sure a lot to look at! Having the mountain visible on the horizon from miles away will be a real treat to the eyes

[trainmanaustin]

Looking excellent Sean!

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[bobwdude]

Stunning work - can't wait to see more!

[frliss]

Excellent work with attention to detail.

Fred

[PerryPlatypus]

Thanks everyone! Have definitely been focusing (through lots and lots of trial-and-error) on painting terrtex dirt roads. The area around Bolam (between Hotlum and Andesite) has been the predominant "test bed" for this. It is time-consuming work (using a mixture of TSRE's Ruler tool and hand-drawing) but I feel it adds a lot to the realism. The question is whether I want to do that along over 100 miles of route.

Most railfans who are familiar with the Shasta Route know of Dry Canyon/Hotlum Trestle, but few are aware of the smaller Whitney Creek Bridge about a mile south ("west" on SP) of old Bolam. Whitney Creek is a glacial-fed, highly variable waterway that flows directly off of the northwest side of Mount Shasta. The majority of the time, the creek is bone dry or a trickle. But after heavy rainfalls or during high temperatures that cause rapid snow melt on Mount Shasta, the creek can quickly turn into a roaring torrent of water speeding down the slope of the desert. (The Southern Pacific installed a water-level monitoring device over the creek and the dispatcher would stop trains if the water level reached dangerous levels.) In my railfanning adventures a few years ago I made several hikes through this area getting photos. I found most of the roads along the track here are extremely sandy, to the point that many are only traversable with a Jeep or similar. (This is very much in contrast to the roads a couple miles to the south near Hotlum that are EXTREMELY rocky due to the lava flows.)

Here are a series of screenshots around Graham Creek Bridge with the creek in a relatively low-flow state. Believe it or not, at flood stage nearly the entire swath of land under this bridge can be covered in a brown, muddy torrent.

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

Graham Creek Terrtex Work by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

[seagoon]

Stunning!
It's the dirt tracks and roads which help set this apart.

[trainmanaustin]

Looks great Sean!

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[Kuckoo]

Well, if Seligman and especially Mullan are anything to go by...

Getting this will be pretty much a no-brainer.

[spoony1999]

Sad pictures of the lightning caused Lava Fire. Word is the Dry Canyon Trestle also has structural damage to go along with the burnt up ties

https://www.siskiyoudaily.com/picture-gallery/news/2021/06/30/lava-fire-photos-see-desolation-left-behind/7800432002/

[daniellouwrens]

Southern Pacific Shasta Route - Development Thread

I'm saving up my pennies as I wait patiently

cheers

Daniel

[PerryPlatypus]

It's been a while since a Shasta update. I am aiming to have the bulk of scenery (everything besides interactives and a handful of custom objects I need to make) done from the north side of Dunsmuir to the south side of Klamath Falls by the end of the month. After that point, the focus will be on fleshing out the towns of Dunsmuir and Klamath Falls, which will be quite time consuming since those are the most complex scenery areas on the route.

A few more teaser photos. The first 3 are between Worden and Dorris, the last one is near the west switch of Black Butte siding.

[pschlik]

Feel free to take your time! A nice slow cooked route is something the world needs among the ever common trend of rushing half baked products to release.

[jbtower]

Amazing work Sean!!!!

[R. Steele]

Route will be a classic.