Reusing part of a route
In the course of creating routes over now, some 24 years, I found a way to reuse part of one route as part of another. This is not merging routes as such but I will explain my latest venture in this issue.
I created the Knoxville Division, L&N, some time ago and then later expanded it to include Southern Rwy. lines into Knoxville, TN as well. Thus I had Corbin, KY, a rather complex yard although I did not attempt to recreate every track in it, and I had Middlesboro, KY which is a small terminal with, in days of old, two branches that ran in one case back into Tennessee and in the other, in a more or less westernly direction in KY. Both were 5 miles or so in length. Now, I wanted to create the Cumberland Valley Division, L&N, which in days of old was a major source of black diamonds from many mines, including a few in the Middlesboro area that seem to have been jointly served L&N & Southern. I had not completed the Middlesboro area on the Knoxville portion yet, so I used MSTS/RGE to create a new route that covered the desired area, from Corbin through Pineville to Cumberland and Benham, and the Scotia branch further east to the now defunct Scotia mine. Also the current main route from Baxter the Hagans switchback and then on to Big Stone Gap, VA and since Middlesboro was included and I had done the Cumberland Mtn. tunnel I would also include the old line from Middlesboro to Hagans. So far we have just created enough tiles to generate the terrain for the area. We must create a track and road database file in the new route by putting a piece of track and a piece of road in some unlikely spot. We must also copy the contents of the old route's shape and texture folders into those folder on the new route but DO NOT OVERWRITE ANYTHING ALREADY PRESENT.
Now, I checked the north & south end coordinates of the main line through Corbin. I had also included a few miles of the Cumberland Valley line. I wrote a list of the world files that were involved and which had any objects in them. Then, I copied these files from the Knoxville route to the CV route. Likewise I did the same thing with the world files containing Middlesboro which was finished by now. At this point, if I was still using MSTS, I could expand the world files and remove any entries of dynamic track. TSRE apparently expands and then does not recompress world files so if they were checked visually to find the dynamic, they would already be expanded and all one needs is a suitable text editor - I like the Context editor. We will remove the dynamic track because unless we have the data file that goes with it, TSRE will crash if a piece is selected. We can always go back to the original Knoxville route and see what the parameters of a dynamic piece should be as well as the coordinates. At this point we could use the rebuild process if we are still using MSTS. I am not, and I prefer to check things as I go, so I select each piece of track and road as I go through the copied areas and if necessary adjust here and there if I cannot get rid of a bad joint. I just completed this process for Middlesboro and the whole process only took about 2 hours, 1/4 hour of which was spent with my oldest kitty in my lap. PrettyGirl is almost 16 and she declared me as HERS as a 5 month old kitten.
I had already laid track from Corbin, some 40 miles to E. Pineville and then from there to 3 miles or so north of Middlesboro. Now, there is a handy curve coming up and I will use a piece of dynamic to connect what I have done, with what I just copied in. I may extend this division to it's fullest extent which was Norton, VA and if I do, I have already laid the track from Big Stone Gap to Norton. That is on a route that I sent to Kenny Eaton.
So if all this seems complex, I will tell you it is tedious but not difficult or complex and it serves two purposes. One, it saves time in not having to do the same location(s) more than once and two, it means that all routes that use a particular location will have the same configuration. I did the entire Nashville Terminal as a seperate route so that I could use it as part of 3 routes on my list: Louisville Division-Louisville to Nashville, Chattanooga Division-Nashville to Chattanooga, and Henderson Division-Nashville to Evansville.
Jerry Sullivan (aka: landnrailroader, retired from CSX, Southern, and as docent C&TSRR)
I created the Knoxville Division, L&N, some time ago and then later expanded it to include Southern Rwy. lines into Knoxville, TN as well. Thus I had Corbin, KY, a rather complex yard although I did not attempt to recreate every track in it, and I had Middlesboro, KY which is a small terminal with, in days of old, two branches that ran in one case back into Tennessee and in the other, in a more or less westernly direction in KY. Both were 5 miles or so in length. Now, I wanted to create the Cumberland Valley Division, L&N, which in days of old was a major source of black diamonds from many mines, including a few in the Middlesboro area that seem to have been jointly served L&N & Southern. I had not completed the Middlesboro area on the Knoxville portion yet, so I used MSTS/RGE to create a new route that covered the desired area, from Corbin through Pineville to Cumberland and Benham, and the Scotia branch further east to the now defunct Scotia mine. Also the current main route from Baxter the Hagans switchback and then on to Big Stone Gap, VA and since Middlesboro was included and I had done the Cumberland Mtn. tunnel I would also include the old line from Middlesboro to Hagans. So far we have just created enough tiles to generate the terrain for the area. We must create a track and road database file in the new route by putting a piece of track and a piece of road in some unlikely spot. We must also copy the contents of the old route's shape and texture folders into those folder on the new route but DO NOT OVERWRITE ANYTHING ALREADY PRESENT.
Now, I checked the north & south end coordinates of the main line through Corbin. I had also included a few miles of the Cumberland Valley line. I wrote a list of the world files that were involved and which had any objects in them. Then, I copied these files from the Knoxville route to the CV route. Likewise I did the same thing with the world files containing Middlesboro which was finished by now. At this point, if I was still using MSTS, I could expand the world files and remove any entries of dynamic track. TSRE apparently expands and then does not recompress world files so if they were checked visually to find the dynamic, they would already be expanded and all one needs is a suitable text editor - I like the Context editor. We will remove the dynamic track because unless we have the data file that goes with it, TSRE will crash if a piece is selected. We can always go back to the original Knoxville route and see what the parameters of a dynamic piece should be as well as the coordinates. At this point we could use the rebuild process if we are still using MSTS. I am not, and I prefer to check things as I go, so I select each piece of track and road as I go through the copied areas and if necessary adjust here and there if I cannot get rid of a bad joint. I just completed this process for Middlesboro and the whole process only took about 2 hours, 1/4 hour of which was spent with my oldest kitty in my lap. PrettyGirl is almost 16 and she declared me as HERS as a 5 month old kitten.
I had already laid track from Corbin, some 40 miles to E. Pineville and then from there to 3 miles or so north of Middlesboro. Now, there is a handy curve coming up and I will use a piece of dynamic to connect what I have done, with what I just copied in. I may extend this division to it's fullest extent which was Norton, VA and if I do, I have already laid the track from Big Stone Gap to Norton. That is on a route that I sent to Kenny Eaton.
So if all this seems complex, I will tell you it is tedious but not difficult or complex and it serves two purposes. One, it saves time in not having to do the same location(s) more than once and two, it means that all routes that use a particular location will have the same configuration. I did the entire Nashville Terminal as a seperate route so that I could use it as part of 3 routes on my list: Louisville Division-Louisville to Nashville, Chattanooga Division-Nashville to Chattanooga, and Henderson Division-Nashville to Evansville.
Jerry Sullivan (aka: landnrailroader, retired from CSX, Southern, and as docent C&TSRR)