The Goulburn Valley

**JSMR** · 10-21-2026, 06:13

Mooroopna to Toolamaba :

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Attached Files

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 06:18

That's some mighty impressive work for a first try. I did a couple of runs to Cobram on the train back in the 80s..... the last 2 were bus from Shep to Cobram after the passenger service was withdrawn (from memory). It was always worth poking your head out the door to check out what was in the yard at Shep and you've done a really nice job with it and SPC. How are you handling Toolamba..... a run around or "cheating" (

) and just adding a curved section so you can run directly from Shep to Echuca?

**tarrant75** · 10-21-2026, 06:20

That's fantastic stuff! We desperately need new Australian models and routes. Nothing has really been done since the early 2010's for Australia as far as Open Rails, and I've long thought that was a shame. I have the drawings for most of the NSW steam and diesels to model the period of 1960 through to 1990, but the Victorian and South Australian stuff has long eluded me.

The stuff that Russell and TeamAlco, and Brian did 20 years ago was phenomenal, but looking at how far we've come, we need new models.

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 06:28

Spot on Chris. Once I got into the US side of the hobby and saw the advances in models and routes I dropped our local stuff very quickly. It's a shame as we got off to a good start, but outside of those early years only Marek's NR Class really stand out as "state of the art" and IIRC correctly some bloke showed me a start on a C or maybe X that looked very, very good to my eye. Even if there were a few of us with the capabilities and time with all the various states and eras, trying to reach a consensus would be a challenge I'm sure.

I don't mean that as a criticism or "Debbie Downer" to you Jonathon. If you get that released at some point, I'll find something to drive on it don't worry about that. If I ever develop any route modification skills of my own, Bendigo to Castlemaine would be very close to 1st cab. Regardless of where the trains came from, that section could be a fantastic little shortline.... double tracked, close proximity and 2 good sized yards. If I could get it to look like Johnathon's images, I'd be a happy camper with an upgraded version of the track types/scenery etc we now have available.

**Fwwr2248** · 10-21-2026, 09:05

Very nicely done. I recently just downloaded couple of the Australian routes and I really like it. The BHP route with the ac6000 and sd70 is neat too. Keep up the good work.

**railrunner112** · 10-21-2026, 14:41

Never been to Australia but this does hit me with nostalgia as my first ever working downloads for msts as a kid were the steam and diesel engines from steam4me. Took me a while before I realised where to put the routes and create consists.. back to business for a first time route it looks very good! And through a foreigners eye you can really tell it is Australia!

**tarrant75** · 10-21-2026, 15:54

Originally posted by ossie

....some bloke showed me a start on a C or maybe X that looked very, very good to my eye.

Wasn't this one was it? Screenshot 2026-10-21 174934.png

Always thought I'd love to do the Riverina to todays standards Harden to Albury. Do it for the era of the early 80's when my dad and I used to go camping at Bethungra and spend time around Junee and Cootamundra.

Would also love to do Sunshine to Albury in the same period. That would require some more plans, and I don't have access to the Victorian Diesel diagrams.

**JSMR** · 10-21-2026, 16:50

Originally posted by ossie

That's some mighty impressive work for a first try. I did a couple of runs to Cobram on the train back in the 80s..... the last 2 were bus from Shep to Cobram after the passenger service was withdrawn (from memory). It was always worth poking your head out the door to check out what was in the yard at Shep and you've done a really nice job with it and SPC. How are you handling Toolamba..... a run around or "cheating" (

) and just adding a curved section so you can run directly from Shep to Echuca?

I did it based on some older VR diagrams. With a few sidings which are long gone now. Kinda hard (for me) to make everything an exact replication (or reasonably close even) of a certain period or the real yards without accurate track diagrams but figured close enough is good enough.
Track branches off on Toolamba on the Echuca line. Planning in the future to also extending it to Murchison at the silo's there. And also Tocumwal to the north.
Toolamaba yard.
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Tatura :
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Real furrows in some fields :
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Variation in dryer and more greener in irrigated areas with narrow and wide irrigation channels in their (mostly) correct location.

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Merrigum :

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Kyabram. A few roads need fixing here and there x 100 lol :
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Curved street gutters/kerbs :
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Tongala :
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Echuca :
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Lots of grass/shrub/bushes/trees to remove from tracks. Overzealous at times lol. Will replace some with young gum trees. But most of the way there. Need to fix road crossings. Level crossing lights. Boom gates. Maybe maybe track signals which I have no idea how to do. Anway. Future plans. Hopefully get it all sorted in the next month or so.

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 18:10

It really is amazing work for a first time (or any time) attempt! With the way country yards have continued to be downsized since the 80s/90s I'd certainly be going for a "near enough" and/or "whatever I wanted" approach to it. I grew up on the Warrnambool line and I'm sure if I was modelling it, while I'd aim for the era I grew up in I'd certainly have no issues adding an extra road/goods shed etc if I thought I could use it. If you're building it/modelling it/reskinning it.... whatever makes YOU happy. I spent a lot of time staring at the Echuca yard as a kid and you've really captured the feel and look of it as well. If you decide to go modern(ish) and want to do some reskins to add the old rice train louvres that spent years in the yard, I photographed all of them before they got scrapped. (If you're going to Murchison you might as well push on to Seymour and totally fill one of the gaps in the Victorian routes.

)

I assume you've seen this site:

List Of Signal Diagrams

https://www.victorianrailways.net/signaling/completedia/sigdialist.html

The diagram for Shep isn't dated and there's also the VicSig site which has some additional diagrams (Echuca) that aren't on the VR page.

It really is an amazing looking set of screens. Congrats!

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 18:20

Originally posted by tarrant75

Wasn't this one was it? Screenshot 2026-10-21 174934.png

Always thought I'd love to do the Riverina to todays standards Harden to Albury. Do it for the era of the early 80's when my dad and I used to go camping at Bethungra and spend time around Junee and Cootamundra.

Would also love to do Sunshine to Albury in the same period. That would require some more plans, and I don't have access to the Victorian Diesel diagrams.

That would be the C I remember Chris.

For what was (as I understand it) a fairly small community, the amount of Australian routes that were made was a real testimony to how hard some of you early guys went at it and it'd be nice to be able to wave a wand and bring all those routes (and models) up to modern standards. Whether it was Allan's Adelaide, Russell's Ballarat or a couple of the NSW routes you guys did I spent countless hours on them in the early days and it really would have been great if the Aussie stuff had continued to evolve up to modern ORTS standards.

Your old man and mine must have been similar personalities. We did a lot of driving holidays in the 70s and the amount of stops/detours Dad was willing to make to allow me to look at trains was pretty amazing. I never got to see the spiral back in the old days but Tailem Bend, Murray Bridge, Cootamundra, Junee, Werris Creek, Parkes, Goulburn, Echuca, Bendigo, Murtoa, Dimboola etc are great memories from that time. If only we'd had digital cameras/video back in those days.

**JSMR** · 10-21-2026, 19:12

Originally posted by ossie

It really is amazing work for a first time (or any time) attempt! With the way country yards have continued to be downsized since the 80s/90s I'd certainly be going for a "near enough" and/or "whatever I wanted" approach to it. I grew up on the Warrnambool line and I'm sure if I was modelling it, while I'd aim for the era I grew up in I'd certainly have no issues adding an extra road/goods shed etc if I thought I could use it. If you're building it/modelling it/reskinning it.... whatever makes YOU happy. I spent a lot of time staring at the Echuca yard as a kid and you've really captured the feel and look of it as well. If you decide to go modern(ish) and want to do some reskins to add the old rice train louvres that spent years in the yard, I photographed all of them before they got scrapped. (If you're going to Murchison you might as well push on to Seymour and totally fill one of the gaps in the Victorian routes.

)

I assume you've seen this site:

List Of Signal Diagrams

https://www.victorianrailways.net/signaling/completedia/sigdialist.html

The diagram for Shep isn't dated and there's also the VicSig site which has some additional diagrams (Echuca) that aren't on the VR page.

It really is an amazing looking set of screens. Congrats!

Yes I used that site.

I had technically spent some time extending the Bendigo - Gisborne route down to Sunbury. Only added 1/10 of the fields/grass etc just on that section. That was exhausting and time consuming. I had also added the Ballarat Redan line around to the cattle yards and maltings that was there. Adding a lot of shapes etc. Also took some time.
So I was thinking how could a route even as short as the one here be made in a short time? Its a fiddly business and my yard work creating sidings/yards etc is awful. And creating shapes? I thought blender was for fruit. No way I could do that...ever.

Which leaves the question, how could I do all of that above in a week barely knowing anything about it? Simpe : Claude Pro. 95%+ of the route, shapes, new ones made from photos - stations etc, new grass, roads, fields with furrows, roads with nature strips and gutters/kerbs, station dirt/ballast mixed, trackside ballast/dirt Farm houses, house lots, channels and rivers in actual locations based on real data. No maps used. All Claude. It placed everything itself. Including the bridges over the water.

I only opened TSRE to check it.

I reckon based on my knowledge and what I've done in the past, the above would take me 6 months at least. Heck, a year. Getting frustrated. And wouldn't be accurate. Barely a week here.

Now that I've had a test on how it works, and once I tidy this one up, creating more routes will be so much easier. I dont know how well it would handle grades as I kept this flat. Does have a shallow 0.1% down toward Echuca. So I need to test it. But it added in elevation based on real data. It added the slope up the river. And added the gums around the river edge. It added the Shepp Lake (1980's Shepp lake with the beach pool, speed boats and skiers going around while eating Ollies Trolleys chicken was peak!).

So a test is needed, and if it can do grades, maybe even tunnels, Melb-Syd or Mel-Adl shouldn't be a problem. Which is exciting. SO many possibilities. Even a basic layout to run the Ghan to Darwin, Indian Pacific to Perth or Brisbane - Cairns.

Exciting times.

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 21:39

I have no route building skills but enough knowledge to be impressed as hell by what you've achieved and I'm guessing your comments about Claude Pro will have a few people looking at it. That seems like an incredible time saving/shortcut on what little I know about route creation. Requests from people asking for "custom" objects for routes have been a regular feature on this forum over the years so I'm sure AI generation of them will be a game changer. How far have you pushed the shape creation as a matter of interest? My mind immediately went to the comment I made to Chris above.... is Claude at a point where it could go to work "making over/modernising" an existing route, or hell, even producing a new T Class model? I've drifted away from AI in relation to ORTS this year but from where it was at when I was messing around with it about this time last year to what you've been able to do over the past week is a huge difference.

**JSMR** · 10-21-2026, 22:59

Originally posted by ossie;n2356141 [B

That seems like an incredible time saving/shortcut on what little I know about route creation.[/B] Requests from people asking for "custom" objects for routes have been a regular feature on this forum over the years so I'm sure AI generation of them will be a game changer. How far have you pushed the shape creation as a matter of interest? My mind immediately went to the comment I made to Chris above.... is Claude at a point where it could go to work "making over/modernising" an existing route, or hell, even producing a new T Class model? I've drifted away from AI in relation to ORTS this year but from where it was at when I was messing around with it about this time last year to what you've been able to do over the past week is a huge difference.

Yeah sure is. I use it for work a little but tried experimenting. The paid version is far advanced over the free. I intially tried both chatGPT and free Claude to create this route. I gave up. I tried the pro and when I realised its potential I said, go for it. I was pretty surprised what it was able to do.

I'm sure it could modernize a route. Atter doing this I had it mind seeing what it could do on some exisitng routes.. The Ballarat route - extending it to Ararat ,Maryborough, Geelong. Bendigo - extending north to Echuca, South to somewhere in Melbourne. Or at the very least adding the trackside vegetation rather than nothing. Updating buildings, stations etc. Its more than possible.
I did ask it about extending since the track/route may not sit exactly where it should according to the real loaction. It said it would check, cross check with the json files I'd send it from openmaps and adjust for its location.

I have so far added a couple Inc flies for the GM class and actually just 15 mins ago for the C class. I dont know HOW realistic it is, but it seems to know and cross checks actual documents and grade charts - if asked - to match known performance. Seems legit over just a plain ENG file.

I dont know if its better to create a new one or enhance the exisiting - quite a few T's out there. - I have 11. But its easy to create 'new' ones with new numbers.
It can create better external textures, also the cab. I did one cab for a US loco that had a poor 2d Cab. It made it so sharp but I couldnt figure out the transparent window texture part. But that was with the free Claude. Pro I'm sure can do its thing and make it work.
New eng files.

I'm sure it can probably create the whole thing from scratch too. There's a couple T's and X31 at Seymour. Who wants to go and take some quality pics to use for a new cab?

I'm a noob at using AI, but I'm sure the possibilities are pretty endless with it.

A shame it cant create a cheap ram stick!

**ossie** · 10-21-2026, 23:30

I must have hit the wrong button earlier and didn't save my edit. I came back to say I'd been doing some reading after asking the question about what it was capable of and got a bit of the same info you've provided here, thanks heaps. I know we shouldn't be surprised about the progress of AI at this point but I have to say I was still gobsmacked to read your comments and then follow up myself as to what it is capable of offering to ORTS now compared to 12 months ago (or less) when I first starting digging into the possibilities.

The short answer was that as a language model it can't yet create ORTS models from scratch but the examples of scripts it can create for Blender right through to Adobe Photoshop to assist in the heavy lifting was impressive. Between Pete Willard's Blender tutorial, the tools and info people have put together for TSRE and what you've now told us about Claude, outside of time, I've basically run out of reasons not to try modelling or routes. There's been some amazing progress in 12 months!

As for cabs, I don't have pics but if you watch Aussie Train Driver (Adam) on youtube, depending on what he's driving (or even some of the late Rod William's videos on YT) you often get a decent enough look at the cab that some screenshots and Claude's help might get a decent result.

The Goulburn Valley

The Goulburn Valley

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