Knoxville Division (L&N) Progress

[landnrailroader]

Kenny, I should have mentioned that I have been making some changes on the Clinchfield Routes. They were the first that I did and are nowhere near my present demand for good track. In doing it I am going to X-tracks and M-tracks so as to have more curves as near as possible to actual in degree, and also using #15 turnouts where there are control points. I don't think it would be good to combine those into one route, it would be HUGE, and I am findiing out that smaller routes were better, simply because a big route takes so long to fluff out with details. I have never mastered painting the ballast, and the transfers worked okay in MSTS but not so good in ORTS, so if I do a route for you, I'll leave them off. Although the two routes would be seperate, both would use the same Erwin yard, likewise my Big Sandy South route will use the same Elkhorn City as the Kingsport Sub. The big bridges were my best items and so they will remain.

Jerry

[kennyeaton]

Jerry,

I would love to package this as well as the Pocahontas and East River districts I have dressed up. I really don't know how to package them to upload. All three routes have some payware in them. The best I remember some of them came from the old Streamlines Mactier which was a free download and I believe the bulk of them came from Rich Garber's Ohio Rails Bodiddly RR as far as payware is concerned. If you or anyone else has any input on the permissions inorder to share these routes, please let me know.

Kenny

[landnrailroader]

You might pose that question to Eric in a private message. Since he owns the TrainSim site, he would be the first to get a nastygram if anyone objected. As far as I know the ones you mentioned are long gone from the scene so all that you might need to do is list them as contributors. Packaging a route is not difficult but it does involve some odd things. First one needs to have a load image which normally would have the railroad logo on it, list of contributors - although I like Lukas Lussar's comment --- "and those we have forgot", and perhaps the time period of the simulation. Then we often have another image that shows a map. I use paintshop which is less expensive than others. I also kept a "antique" PC which has Win-XP on it and I use that to create routes from scratch. I also use it to shape terrain because TSRE can do it, but it requires the use of .hgt files which do not have enough resolution to suit me.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Kenny,

Russell, KY through Pikeville isn't a branch, that is the Big Sandy Sub., formerly the Big Sandy Div. mainline. It has several branches off of it. I have done the southern part of it from Paintsville south and have the tracks done and many, but not all, roads. Now I might extend it north to Catlettsburg where the junction with the Kanawha main line is (i.e. Russell to Hinton) and let you have it at that point, if you would release it for distributioin when you are done, or I could handle the distribution part for you when it is done. As I have done it, all the branches are included, including the abandoned branch over into Meade & Pound, VA, and the abandoned part of the SV&E branch (unique in that it was constructed by a hopeful B&O, but then bought by the C&O. I could probably continue it west from Catlettsburg to Russell and fake the big yard there, then later copy that stretch into a Russell to Hinton. Part of that latter would include the Nicholas, Fayette & Greenbrier which I have done some on. It is difficult to tell how the switchbacks were located so I would do it with the later loops - "S" curves i..e.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Kenny, I would be glad to package the route for you. If you know what payware you used, the first choice would be to replace it with freeware. If, however, the vendor is no longer in business it should be okay to point out these items specifically in the list of credits. Only a few of the many vendors, over the past 22 years we had done routes, are still in business. Worst case I expect would be that vendor would tall us, likely Eric, to take down the route.

Eric, you manage this operation, what would be your thoughts or requrements on this subject.

Jerry Sullivan

[eric]

As long as items are attributed, I'm fine with it as both routes -- Ohio Rail 9 and MacTier -- are here in the library.

If the scenery objects are from one of Rich's payware offerings, then that's not allowed without permission.

As Rich ( rgarber ) is still around , it might be worth checking with him directly. He moved onto Railworks and Trainz.

[kennyeaton]

Hi Eric,

I don't think I was aware of the Ohio Rails route being available in the file library here. I purchased this route from Rich's website a year or so ago. After looking at the route here, it appears to be the same one. When I installed this, the route folder was labeled Bodiddly RR. The Mactier route I downloaded free from Streamlines. Quite a while after downloading, I purchased BNSF Scenic Sub and DRGW Green River routes. Almost if not all the scenery I used from Mactier were also in both of these routes. I think I have about 75 routes I have downloaded from this site. I have taken a little scenery probably from every one of these routes and used them in the few routes I have went through reworking. I wouldn't know where to begin to mention in credits all the folks that created this stuff. I've reworked a few of Jerry's routes. And being an old N&W Pokey Division conductor, I've reworked Austin Yoder's Pocahontas District as well as East River District.

If you are ok with this, I'll get with Jerry and package this up and upload it to the site.

Thanks
Kenny

[eric]

We do work on an honor system -- nobody's auditing the upload shape by shape, but if one of the content creators complains, we do have to act, so I'd suggest documenting what you can as sources.

[landnrailroader]

That is what I figured. Kenny, I have sent several private messages to you over the past few days. I have a near 100% N&W route that you might like to detail. I've gone ahead and digitized the Big Sandy up to a point slightly northwest of Catlettsburg, KY where the Big Sandy junctioned with the Kanawha Sub. The latter was from Russell to Handley, and I believe it best to break the C&O at that point, using the same very small yard at the join point and a couple of miles beyond east or west to provide a staging area. Then the New River Sub. is from Handley to Hinton and both have very signficant branches, like the line to Logan, until recently went further south to Gilbert where it intersected the Virginian (N&W). The branch from Prince to Beckley extended further to a mine now abandoned that was over the Virginian at Surveyor and several miles beyond. Some of this trackage I have done as part of fixing up Simon Van de Laak's Virginian route which has a couple problems that we have not been above to find. It works fine in TSRE or ORTS but not MSTS. When starting a route it is easy to import (copy) track or roads from an existing route simply by copying the world files involved. Then if using MSTS you just do a database rebuild or in TSRE just go through and select/deselect each piece. Terrain needs to be fixed.