Challenge - Edenderry Branch Line

[moranb]

I see there is no Irish route entered in the challenge as yet, so I have decided that I will throw my hat into the ring with a short Irish branch line. As, unfortunately, there are very few such branch-lines left in Ireland, this will have to be situated time-wise in the early part of the 20th century. The branch-line I have decided to attempt is the apporx. 10 mile route from Edenderry, a town in Co. Offaly (but known at the time the route was built as King's county), to the mainline from Dublin to the West and North-west of Ireland. The branch to Edenderry was built by the Midland and Great Western Railway company in the mid 19th century and was finally lifted by CIE in 1963. (The mainline is still there, though it is to-day a single track after Maynooth and is used by trains going to the Northwest). The cost was £20,000 of which £10,000 was provided by a local lady by the name of Mrs. Nesbit. In honour of her generosity, the MGWR graciously named the junction to the branch-line as Nesbit junction! I will say a bit more about the branch in the route description.

In selecting this route, apart from its intrinsic interest, I had practicality in mind. Firstly, it is still possible to trace the route in Google Earth as it is one of the areas where detailed orthographic views are available. Google maps are also used in another very useful programme called Bike Rider Planner, available at http://www.toporoute.com/. I will use Google Earth to transfer decals to the route using the newly available RWDecals tool. (This will save at least one full evening's work). I will use the Bike Rider Planner to calculate a gradient profile for the route as in the time available, I have been unable to locate an actual gradient plan. You can also use the Bike Rider Planner to make serial markers for Railworks by tracing the route and saving the tracing as a GPX file which can be converted to serial markers with Mike Simpson's RSTools, but as I have already added the OS25inch historical maps as an image overlay to Google Earth, I will use decals to set out the route. The advantage of the historical maps is that they show the exact location of every signal post, signal box and mile post as well as the station buildings and anciliary buildings and you can locate points and crossings at exactly where they were loated. I understand that I can do some of this preliminary work before commencing on the route proper, so I will do this over the next few evenings.

10 miles is a fairly ambitious route to do completely in one week (and I can only work on it a few hours in the evenings) so it is very unlikely that I will be able to fully complete it within the time period allowed. I will, of course, be using only the default assets for the challenge, but I will eventually substitute more of my own assets from the Dublin-Cork route - which continues to be my main RS/RW project.

BFM

[Acorncomputer]

Hi Brendan

Welcome to the Challenge.

I hope the textures in RailWorks are green enough to properly represent the beautiful Irish countryside.

[moranb]

This evening I set up the route and wrote a description for it. I used RW Tools for this. However, my main achievement was to prepare a gradient profile for the full length as far as Enfield. As mentioned above, I was unable to locate an official gradient and curve profile, so I had to put myself in the position of a railway civil engineer to make my own profile. By and large, Irish branch lines followed where possible the lie of the land and generally avoided major embankments and cuttings. I knew from the OS 25 inch map that the Bench Mark at the station in Edenderry was 252,2 ft which converts to about 76.5 meters. This figure corresponded to the height at the same location in Google Earth. So I knew that this was my starting point. Using the Bike planner programme I mentioned above, I then traced 500 meter lengths along the route. I picked 500 meters because this is the maximum distance for a track segment in Railworks. (When using the Bike Planner, make sure to to switch off 'follow road' in the settings and switch on metric measurements). Under 'Actions'', there is an option to create a gradient profile of the 500 meter segment I have traced. The profile is drawn and the starting and ending height of the segment is shown along with the mean gradient as a percentage. I entered the start and end height for every 500 meter segment into Microsoft Excell and using a simple formula (dividing the distance - 500 - by the difference between the starting and ending heights), calculated the gradient in the ratio form used by Railworks. A negative result means a downward slope. Note that if using this method, you need to clear each segment from Bike Planner before tracing the next segment - otherwise the gradient calculating tool in Bike planner will calculate the gradient for the full length of the trace. I still have to make the introductory screen, but this will have to wait until I am in a position to take some screen shots.

BFM

[NO4472]

HI Brendan, best of luck, If your excellent Dublin to Cork anything to go by it should be great.

h

[moranb]

Just a brief report. I began installing decals at 7.45 pm Friday. It took longer than I expected - mainly due to the time it took to align them properly with the markers. Nevertheless, it would have taken me days to make some 90 decals without RWDecal. However, once they were in place, actual track-laying went quite quickly and I completed all the track as far as Nesbitt junction (some 10 miles of track). I also laid out the trackage at the terminal in Edenderry and the station at Carbury. I found I had to re-learn some techniques - its more than eighteen months since completed the track for Dublin-Cork - and I had forgotten how to install a turntable and I also forgot about the gradient adjustment tool which caused part of the track to vanish - fortunately, I was able to recover it. There is nothing interesting to show as yet, so screenshots will have to wait until later.

BFM

[moranb]

I resumed work on the route around mid-day after completing necessary domestic chores. All the trackwork was finished by around 2 pm. For the next few hours I concentrated on signals, mile posts, and speed limits. I am using the Bath-Templecombe track and track rules for the route. Signals are a problem as upper quadrant signals were never used in Ireland so my Irish branch line is looking more and more like a British branch-line. This evening after dinner, I ran a test train over the route to identify and eliminate sudden changes in gradients. Everything seems to be OK. Later I began work on what I find to be the most time-consuming part - setting out scenery. Unfortunately, there is no fast way of doing this and certainly no way I can complete full scenicking before next Friday. I decided to concentrate , therefore on line-side scenery. Edenderry station was more or less finsihed - if I have time, I will come back later to place more clutter as it looks too clean at present. The full distance from Edenderry station to Enfield station is 10.7 miles.

Three screenshots below. This first is a view from outside Carbury station (not yet scenicked), the second is looking into Edenderry station and the third a view of that station.

BFM


Click the image to zoom in


Click the image to zoom in


Click the image to zoom in

[irishrail123]

Great job
This is allready starting to look excellent. I allready can tell who is going to win this competition.
I love the way you always pick irish routes. Great stuff.
Keep the screenshots coming.
Lukas

[karma99]

Very nice indeed

[moranb]

MIdnight Central European time - and time to call a halt to almost 12 hours of route building - probably the longest period of time I have ever spent on any route. All the infrastructure -roads, bridges, rivers, even a canal - is finished. Lineside scenery as far as Nesbitt Junction is done - I still have the mile and a half to Enfield to complete. As this line depended on the cattle trade for its revenue, I could have saved a lot of time if a cattle loading dock was available. As it was, I had to spend a lot of time fiddling with the post and rail loft to create cattle pens and loading chutes (or whatever they were called) to the wagons. I have now begun to try to fill out as much as I can of the scenery to a distance of about 800 meters each side of the track, beginning at Edenderry. (I miss the vegetation assets from the IOW particularly the distance trees and hedges - as a result there is only a limited variety of bushes and trees so its hard to add variation). To-day's screenshot is a view looking towards Edenderry - from about two miles out.


Click the image to zoom in


BFM

[paulz6]

Great job
This is allready starting to look excellent. I allready can tell who is going to win this competition.

Another impressive entry, but I feel there is a strong contender. Maybe the winner will use creative imagination though!
It is a good job that Geoff is a judge and cannot enter the competition - I think he's been outclassed!

[hertsbob]

Looking exceptionally good. I love that last shot.

Scenery 800m either side!

Blimey.

Cheers

Bob

[moranb]

As I will be working on scenery for the next three days, I thought I would show this screenshot of what the blank canvas looks like after the outline of fields are painted. I used the decals to paint over the fields - the problem is that you cannot see what the result of the painting is until the decals are removed. So the paintbrush needs to be at full strength. I fill in any areas I missed after the decals are removed. So, I figure I have four hours this evening to place as much vegetation as possible. (By the way, I tried placing the vegetation directly on the decals, but the problem is that it is hard to see what has been placed against the mostly green decals).

Back to work!

BFM


Click the image to zoom in

[moranb]

After almost 5 hours, I am just about half way to my destination. To-night's screenshot is of the from just north of Carbury station where the line passes through the extremity of the Bog of Allen - the largest peat deposit in Ireland. Time for bed.

BFM


Click the image to zoom in

[hertsbob]

Absolutely superb. Very impressive.

I am stunned: not for the first time!

Cheers

Bob

[moranb]

To-night's screenshot is of the final destination - Enfield - on which I spent most of a curtailed evening due to domestic responsibilities. Still a lot of detail to be added if I have time. The railway and the Royal Canal run parallel with each other from Nesbitt junction past Enfield. The default canal is much too wide. The route ends beyond the cornfield in the far distance.

BFM


Click the image to zoom in