Jolly Good Fun ... Narrow Gauge rails in North Wales

[maxtedrw]

How about some scale ( yes correct dimensions ) 49lb Narrow Gauge Rail as used by Talyllyn and Festiniog ? - Work in progress - tonights efforts

[maxtedrw]

Chairs need a bit of editing on looking at some pics - they need to come up the rails and the wedges need to be deeper. Just checked in my various books of pictures of heavier gauge NG rails of the 40-60lb mark and they do look more like this ( 3 3/4" rail depth) than the over size PP track which looks to be about 5-6" deep and 90lb per yard standard gauge track.

[maxtedrw]

[Better Chairs and rail /sleeper seperation I think.

Compare of PP and these tracks

[thephantomphish]

Excellent work on building custom track!

The detail of the PW (Permanent Way) depends on what era to represent, as the FfR has has two main types of track. My knowledge of such matters is limited and hindered by the time I have been away, but from memory there were two types of track. Bullhead rail with chairs and keys was the historic approach, which was steadily replaced on the mainline by flat-bottomed rail, which changed the visual effect of the line.

There are many photos online which show both types in all their glory - the link below is one I have chosen to illustrate this as it shows, unusually, the loop at Rhiw Goch with the 'mainline modern' flat-bottomed track in the loop, but the 'heritage' bullhead rail on the main line and the siding. What strikes me most is that the sleepers are somewhat stubbier, fatter and more closely spaced than may be expected, for both types of rail.

http://www.jhlphotography.smugmug.com/T ... /i-zxQFnnC

I am impressed by the evident skill it must take to produce custom made assets - I tried to investigate just editing the station name-boards and failed miserably!
Thanks again, as always, for continuing to help develop this route even whilst it isn't released yet! If I stopped spending so much time driving your locos up and down the line I'd get more work done...

ThePhantomPhish

[xguerra]

- Rhiw Goch still has Bullhead in the up passing loop and in the siding.

- The bullhead at Porthmadog all went with the remodelling project.

- The bullhead at Minffordd was recently changed out for flat-bottom rail, and it's slowly disappearing in Minffordd as part of the Wagon-Tracks project.

- There is still Bullhead in much of Boston Lodge and Glan Y Mor yard. I'm not sure about Glan Y Pwll but I think most of it is still bullhead.

It will be very difficult to mix and match track everywhere because of how the game renders track transitions. Usually you want to stick to 1 or 2 track types, but within that you can have dark/light ballast and various grades of wear and weathering.
What Richard has come up with will be very special and if anything much more detailed and functional than the PP track currently is.

As for era, do what you know best. I've been coming to the FR since I was about 4 so like you, I've seen a lot of eras.

[maxtedrw]

Actually that would be quite possible. So long as the track ballast and railheights were the same the rail type and chairing ( chairs for bullhead and pins for flat bottom ) would be possible. You would then have sharp transistions but all on the same ballast so there would be no step. I shall experiment.

[maxtedrw]

Improved chairs and shorter sleepers. Happy to do a track conversion version for you to look at. Just about to start playing with Slate building textures for all of my buildings to see if this works.

[naddle]

Belting track Richard will you be releasing a pack

[maxtedrw]

Yes - I think this will form the beginnings of a 50lb pack. I have some decisions to make about things like textures first - and buffers. However, if thePhantomPhish would like I could have a go at re- working his route with these tracks and so he will determine what buffers / sleeper spacing / ballast / point levers he wants to see with the tracks.

Likely to be one of the longish term projects - I have my cars to finish, the update to LMVLR to start, and to make some more CMLR wagons - Oh and make this years steam loco.

[thephantomphish]

Hi Everyone,

I must say that the track is looking fantastic, Richard, if you want to drop me an email ( stevefleming1979@yahoo.co.uk ) we can maybe arrange something? It would be very much appreciated! With all things associated with this route, an element of compromise between detail, functionality, and practicality within the programme is going to be essential - the real thing has so much variety it would be almost impossible to get 100% accuracy for the purists. I am also getting to the stage where I have done almost all I can with what I have, so help will be very welcome!

I've been pursuing something of a red herring recently - I realised that whilst the FfR route is pretty much as good as I can achieve, the Cambrian stretch was woefully underdone. So I have spent some time focusing on the detail of that area. It is most likely that no-one will ever drive it, but if it was left as bad as it was I suspect there would have been a few voices claiming it to be an 'unfinished' product. Plus there is the 'other line' which I haven't even started on (mainly because there was no scenery around that area). It has actually been quite refreshing to see signs of progress rather than correcting errors from months ago!

On a testing-related note, I think the main bulk of the project is done and have very little to correct, I even managed to do a run with the default Hunslet to Blaenau with 4 coaches behind whilst keeping pressure twitching at the safeties (although I can't imagine that happening in real life!). The worst thing was the Winter Testing - for some reason the route looks either white-washed out close up, or terrible from a distance. Anything beyond a certain distance doesn't show scenery or snow so you end up with lurid bright green hills as a backdrop. Hopefully that is an issue with the weather systems of the game as used in that scenario rather than the route, but that's something to play about with later...

As BR used to say - 'We're getting there' !

Thanks for your time,

ThePhantomPhish

[thephantomphish]

Dear All,

My previous post a few days back seems to have disappeared into the ether, I won't repeat it all in case it should pop up again.
Just a brief update that 4 new screenshots are up now from the Cambrian bit of the line, which probably does not merit the time spent on it (for just a 5 minute drive from Porthmadog to Minffordd) but I felt that it would be remiss of me not to give it some proper attention.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =532725517

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =532725844 - I'm particularly happy with the way the football ground worked out, although it's a bit more imagination-based-on-reality than most of my work on the main route. This side of the line is still very much under development.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =532726145

And finally, back under and alongside smaller tracks:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =532726742

On the subject of smaller tracks, Richard Maxted I hope to find some way to have private communication with you regarding your fine work on 2' gauge metals (I still have no private messaging on this forum as yet)!

I'm getting closer to the stage where this could be released at a standard to keep me happy - it really is a wonderful, fun, and challenging route to play about on!!

ThePhantomPhish

[xguerra]

Looks fantastic!

With regards to the washout during winter, it could be in part to do with the weather systems. If you are using the PP weather, it is likely that it is outdated.
Maybe try one of the 3d weather settings and see how it compares.

[maxtedrw]

email sent Steve. Suggestion ... if you are building the route and assets you may find it helpful to adopt the approach I did which is to release the route and assets seperately rather than in a single bundle. This means that as you start to build / aquire custom assets you can update the route without having to do either a full upload. A sort of modular approach. I found it a very useful technique where ( like my route ) it is a living route that will get changes and improvements from time to time.

So far as the winter textures are concerned this is because there are some of the default textures that are not "winterised" correctly or at all. It is possible to identify which these are, edit the texture, and replace it. I had to do this on the LMVLR to ensure that ( I think it was forest texture ) didn't show as a horrible green blotchy thing in winter.

[atlasduff47]

Looking really good, you are doing a cracking job!

Really looking forward to this.

[maxtedrw]

Buffers as the same as the other tracks added, now to do Talyllyn type upright buffers and FR type buffers. Anyone have a good pic of FR type buffers as I can't find any by Googling images...