Cascadia Route inaccuracy that is really bothering me.

[MrPotter]

Howdy. Let's get this out of the way first, I fricken love this route/dlc/mod what have you. Literally bought Train Simulator 2020 just for it. Was very confused by the missing assets packs but took a minute and realized what "For best results, the following two DLC packages, available on Steam, should be installed on your system" really meant. The S2 is rad as is the Y1 and the coaches. Skykomish looks AMAZING I have done everything included so far with the base route content after dropping over 100 bucks to play it all correctly.

And I love it. 5 stars. A++. Handclap. Whatever top praise rating feels best to you creators, that's what I am throwing your way.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.

I have driven up and down Tumwater canyon literally thousands of times.

Thousands.

The current Hwy 2 route that runs through the canyon was placed there after the abandoned railway section was removed. There are miles worth of sections along that path that could never have supported a two lane road as well as the rail line. Many points are literally cliff face, 2 lane road road, 4 feet drop into raging river. There's also the fact every picture on the internet depicting Tumwater prior to 1929 shows just the railroad and no highway or road. And I guess my problem that that Tumwater and Leavenworth (which to be honest I also have a few minor complaints on the town's layout but nothing worth bringing up here) where the reasons I wanted to play this so much in the first place. The impossible amount of space through the canyon just takes me out of the immersion.

I don 't really have a point or goal with this post. I really do love the Cascadian Route and I am glad I bought it. I just... wish Tumwater didn't have that road?

Is there anyway to make that road not exist?

[wacampbell]

>Is there anyway to make that road not exist?

And there you have hit on the best part of this hobby. Having bought Train Simulator and the Cascadia route you now have all the tools you need to customize your copy of the route. Quite often local experts and people who actually lived there in the time know the area better than anybody. I can't provide a full tutorial here, but to get started, go to the BUILD tab in Train Simulator and CLONE a copy of the route. Click on the clone and press EDIT to open up a whole new aspect of the hobby. If you make something good, you can contact the authors of the Cascadia and may be able to get permission to distribute your changes as an update kit to the route.

[MrPotter]

Well holy crap that's convenient.


Oh that means I can also take out the far too many wooden snow sheds past Wellington/Tye. I believe the information plaques there along the Iron Goat Trail said the longest wooden snow shed was only like 260ish feet long. There were many of them at spots where they considered most needed, but they literally didn't cover the tracks from tunnel to tunnel down the hill.

Neat.

[GreatNortherner]

Well holy crap that's convenient.
...
Neat.

Yes, it really is! There's a ton of resources available to get you started -- tutorials here on RWA, route building Youtube videos, or the official TechDocs here: https://sites.google.com/a/railsimdev.com/dtgts1sdk/

The road in Tumwater canyon is my "fault". I even had some old postcards (mainly or all from the GNGoat website) at hand before I built that section, and these clearly show the situation just like you've described it. But then somehow the road ended up there anyway and I can't remember what caused me to do that.

The snowsheds though might be a different story: I have found sources that indicate that there were, indeed, quite a lot of these on the old line. Here's a couple of them: https://trn.trains.com/railroads/railro ... evens-pass
https://trn.trains.com/~/media/files/pd ... 1205_a.pdf -- that seems to be almost the entire Tye line covered with snowsheds.

Some wonderful old pictures can be found in the Lee Picket collection: https://digitalcollections.lib.washingt ... t/id/1599/
https://digitalcollections.lib.washingt ... 23/rec/332
https://digitalcollections.lib.washingt ... ett/id/951
https://digitalcollections.lib.washingt ... ett/id/873

Cheers!
Michael