US Tracks

[BrandonS261]

Hey everyone just a quick question here. I was wondering if there is a way to add more track pieces to the US Tracks database? Seeing there are not many switches and many other pieces that are "Missing" from the database. I have slowly been replacing much of my track work to USTracks for sidings or anywhere that has jointed rail in my Midwest route and using Scale Rail for the mainlines to give the routes a more accurate look and feel.

Brandon

[dcarleton]

At one time Eric had exported most of the XTracks pieces using the profile from Norbert's USTracks with US3 textures. That package included the types of pieces you are describing, but without the US3_ prefix.

Note that the "Default Tracks - Option 2 (USTracks)" package currently in the library uses US3 textures but does not use Norbert's profile. It uses a profile compatible with ATracks.

[eric]

I backed away from doing anything with USTracks, because those shapes were much better quality than what we had from XTracks and MTracks.

I am currently upgrading the script that created these and once I can lock down the last couple of frog calculations will probably have a new version of ATracks, MTracks and possibly NTracks and Dual Tracks.

[dcarleton]

Now that is wonderful news. Thank you!

[lsdigu]

Tracks without flickering? That would be great! With your old USTracks package, I managed to get the flickering under control by saving the ace textures in Trans mode. I’ve now equipped 11 routes with modified default-track-ustracks. If I may make a request, please create a version with Ytracks. I could really use that. Best regards, lsdigu

[eric]

Not trying to steal Brandon's thread... I'll have more details on my project at the right time.

Brandon, if I'm satisfied with the quality, are there specific shapes needed? The lead time for getting new pieces into the TSection is a consideration although the new substitute function in ORTS may make that easier to consider for specific routes.

[BrandonS261]

No rush the main thing I need are switches. Seems like the only ones that work are the #5 and #10 switches. All other switches seem to be non existent when it comes to #3 and #6 switches.

[eric]

For the most part, ATracks should match the USTracks profile. Once I finish rebuilding ATracks (many fixes for frogs and crossings), I'll do a test using the US3 textures.

[BrandonS261]

sounds good. I am using the US3R shapes and textures for Jointed Rail sections. I ended up changing up the ballast textures to match the Scale Rail tracks ballast and it actually doesn't look half bad.

Here is an example of what I mean.

Screenshot 2026-10-25 113257.png

[Rick-MONON]

I've found that some flickering in OR comes from the texture file being too small.