SoCal Route

[Rance28]

Hello everyone!

About a year ago I merged the Surfliner 2.3 route with the Cajon Pass 4.2, built the Olive Sub, and redid a bit of the Alameda Corridor. I am calling this merged route, SoCal. It adds about 6 miles of new track and 7-8 miles of new scenery. By all means, it is not perfect, but I decided I should consider releasing it to the public as freeware so that others can enjoy it (as I've moved onto Run8, Open Rails just doesn't have that multiplayer stability). I do still need to reach out to those that work on said routes, but my concern is whether they will even respond (Cajon Pass 4.2 was release ~10 years ago). I did not add any new assets to the route, so hopefully there should be no issue barring me from releasing. And the routes are already freeware, so I don't think there should be any issues in just re-releasing them as freeware. If there are any issues or concerns about me not releasing your work, just PM me and I won't. If everything goes well, I should be able to upload the SoCal route Friday, May 5th.

[qballbandit]

Hope it works out, thank you! I was just now getting interested in downloading this route, but will now wait to see how things pan out for you.

[NW 2156]

Hi,

Myself and Jeff Farquhar are in the process of doing a update to the Surfliner that will add LATC, cleanup track work around LAUPT and try to fix and consolidate shapes to imrove performance in both MSTS and ORTS. There are also plans to try and add in some of the UPRR leading out of LA. I also plan to try and add in the LAJRR and the Escondido Sub. Of course there is many more little things I plan to do. But's going to depend on how things go.

I'm interested in hearing a bit more about the Olive Branch portion of your route?

Thanks.

Robert

[Rance28]

Hello,

I did the ~5.5 mile stretch of track based off of a 2010 Metrolink timetable for all of the speed limits, with most of it being 70/60mph. Most of the line is non-whistle zones due to all of the residentials. It has one station, the Anaheim Canyon Station. The industries are Sunny Delight Beverages at the North End, SA Recycling just after the 91 FWY, and Wilson Industries at the South End. I was not able to put the Defect Detector at MP 0.7. I tried getting a recording of it, but was never able to. I also made the UP LA J Yard, but nothing more.

How far along are you in that update? When I was planning out the merging of the routes, I had a very ambitious plan to rebuild San Bernardino to how it is in 2021/2022, with adding San Bernardino Downtown. And build Metrolink's Valley Subdivision, as it is my nearest mainline subdivision and I would enjoy running ZLCLT from LATC through the Valley Sub to Mojave.

Also, its really nice to see that there are still people working on Open Rails Routes, especially to one of my favorites. (other being Cajon Pass).

[jasonjedi1]

That is a route I'll definitely be looking for in the library. I appreciate your efforts. Merging routes is truly a PITA. My merged coast division has been a nightmare in the making lol.

[Orbita]

Oh my. I'm ecstatic to see Cajon and Surfliner being merged. Now we can run BNSF's DAYGO all the way from San Diego to Barstow.

[UP_4848_Thunder]

This is a very interesting topic and name for this route that I am happy a friend of mine texted me this topic while starring at all Red.

But how so many are making attempts to making SoCal routes better including myself I even consider giving up portions on my route by deleting segments. But how track and data change once in a while yearly where I work its sometimes hard deciding which era and corrections need making on existing portions.

I support this topic and name for a route with many segments and once called my route SoCal Mega till all the different merge names changed it. I got to yet try GoKu extreme TRSE merge and see will it change coordinate.

[jefffarq]

About a year ago I merged the Surfliner 2.3 route with the Cajon Pass 4.2, built the Olive Sub, ....

Interesting that you did that. I merged Surfliner 2 and Patrick Wise's Cajon Pass many years ago, and installed the Olive sub as well, just to see if I could do it. Worked out surprisingly well, so more recently I tried merging that route with my Cima route. Things there haven't gone so well, have had no luck making it work after several attempts.

[UP_4848_Thunder]

Interesting that you did that. I merged Surfliner 2 and Patrick Wise's Cajon Pass many years ago, and installed the Olive sub as well, just to see if I could do it. Worked out surprisingly well, so more recently I tried merging that route with my Cima route. Things there haven't gone so well, have had no luck making it work after several attempts.

I have done the same no problem and broke them up to fit in update one after the other and included the most up to date when new updates were made at interesting spots. I made a new Barstow hump yard included it to Cima and Cajon separate ways.

But with SoCal I have made splits in certain areas when TSRE got involved.

[Rance28]

I also tried to merge Cima with my merged route, but for some reason, TSUtil did not like a road section in Sloan. No matter what I did, I just couldn't get it to work and gave up. Otherwise, merging Surfliner 2.3 and Cajon Pass hasn't been as seamless for me. This is my second attempt at it, yet again, running the route through TSUtil, I have a mountain of track and road database issues. After play testing it a few times, it runs fine. All of the tracks, roads, railroading crosses, signals, and speedposts work. I am just concerned that further additions to the route might not be possible with how terrible the track and road database issues are. Hence why I do not want to release it immediately. And realistically, I might want to delay the release to rebuild it again. But, I go to college fulltime, so I am unsure at how much time I am going to have to actually fix it.

[NW 2156]

Hello,

I did the ~5.5 mile stretch of track based off of a 2010 Metrolink timetable for all of the speed limits, with most of it being 70/60mph. Most of the line is non-whistle zones due to all of the residentials. It has one station, the Anaheim Canyon Station. The industries are Sunny Delight Beverages at the North End, SA Recycling just after the 91 FWY, and Wilson Industries at the South End. I was not able to put the Defect Detector at MP 0.7. I tried getting a recording of it, but was never able to. I also made the UP LA J Yard, but nothing more.

How far along are you in that update? When I was planning out the merging of the routes, I had a very ambitious plan to rebuild San Bernardino to how it is in 2021/2022, with adding San Bernardino Downtown. And build Metrolink's Valley Subdivision, as it is my nearest mainline subdivision and I would enjoy running ZLCLT from LATC through the Valley Sub to Mojave.

Also, its really nice to see that there are still people working on Open Rails Routes, especially to one of my favorites. (other being Cajon Pass).

My efforts are built on updates to the Surfliner V2 not currently available. As this is a collective between 3 different parties.

Right now we are doing LATC and working on lots of scenery items.

But the plan remains to add in a bit of the UPRR and do some general tidying up to improve FPS and tile loading issues in the LA area.

I will still be adding in the LAJ RR and a short stretch of the corridor to the Pacific Harbor Lines. As well as the Escondido Branch. There is also a yard missing in the Oxnard area on the route. This being the place the UPRR interchanges with a local shortline.

Take care.

Robert

[UP_4848_Thunder]

My efforts are built on updates to the Surfliner V2 not currently available. As this is a collective between 3 different parties.

Right now we are doing LATC and working on lots of scenery items.

But the plan remains to add in a bit of the UPRR and do some general tidying up to improve FPS and tile loading issues in the LA area.

I will still be adding in the LAJ RR and a short stretch of the corridor to the Pacific Harbor Lines. As well as the Escondido Branch. There is also a yard missing in the Oxnard area on the route. This being the place the UPRR interchanges with a local shortline.

Take care.

Robert

That sounds like an interesting effort. I have been updating my areas basically at the Ports to Commerce with new terrain textures, track data layout fixes. I may be deleting out sections of LATC- El Monte to re coordinate the new section of Dayton Yaylor yard section up the Valley sub to Palmdale and new Gemco area.

Yea if you need to fix up Oxnard or Gemco yard sections those are where I work and can pause on my fix in that area. This new terrain trick has got me changing needing to slow down :-)

[NW 2156]

Hi,

I will keep that offer in mind.

Right now we've added in the Autorack yard and San Diego trolley maint facility. The SD depot has also been completely rebuilt to make it a solid one piece shape. We are also consolidating the catenary supports into a single object for the straight sections of track. Trying to fix the FPS stuttering in the SD area.

I am going to need some help in making new buildings. Jeff is handling all the track work. I will be placing the scenery and trying to balance out everything while not overloading the tiles and creating more FPS issues.

I will need some one off custom shapes to make this all work.

Thanks.

Robert

[jasonjedi1]

Is there any update to the merged route being uploaded? Thanks.

[Orbita]

Personally, I'd like to know too. But, it's an ambitious project that shouldn't be rushed to completion. Progress updates would be nice time to time, but it's totally up to the route authors/creators.