New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

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New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RailWanderer » Fri Jan 11, 2019 6:35 pm

I was requested by Jon Peters to start a thread involving the route we are working on to allow the 4-6-4 J3a Hudson and the Hudson Dreyfuss to be run in some sort of native territory. The route so far is in the 1930s era and is more fictional than not, from Utica to St. Johnsville 4 track mainline super elevated semaphore signaled and uses assets from the Horseshoe Curve, Bessemer & Lake Erie, and some freeware assets from our RWA collections. Jon asked me to help with the route, and I proceeded to acquire good terrain tiles for the route. Boosted Fridge helped me to get the correct resolution tiles and to assemble them as to permit good distant terrain, Thanks to Colin for your help. After getting the terrain tiles in order, I proceeded to lay track and I decided I wanted to try super elevated track. This stuff is tough to work with and is seriously tough to repair, but onward I went. I tried to use as many high angled turnouts as possible to accommodate ridged framed locomotives. I also used Michael Stephan's semaphore signals as I could find no others that looked as though they would work on gantries, and I have used his roundhouse kit, Thanks Michael. Thanks to all for the use of the assets, and being payware, some assets need to have the user acquire the specific routes through DTG for the assets to show.

At the present time I have the yards at Utica done to some reasonable facsimile of the yards there in the 1930s, I am certain there was much more track there back in the day, as there were three or four different railroads focusing on Utica. There is the locomotive facility there, and back in the day there were at least three roundhouses from different railroads. The next area that has been in development is Frankfort which is in now in progress, but I have halted all building since I would like to finish the track and signals.

The following images give you some idea what has been accomplished so far.

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A neighborhood west of Utica Jon Peters has worked on as he was learning to take on some duties with route building.

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A furniture factory Jon Peters worked on just north of the above image.

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Looking across the 4 track mainline, the Locomotive Facilities at Utica.

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Looking east over the 4 track mainline into the yard area with the Utica Station on the right. The passenger station has four service tracks for the station.

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Looking over the Genesee St. Bridge we see the freight yards in the distance and the ominous flood lights for night lighting.

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Looking west into the yard area, station and mainline we see freight cars being unloaded and others waiting for their turn.

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Looking northwest through the freight yards we see the oil storage yards in the distance.

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This is a long distant shot of Frankfort Station, the first town east of Utica, the town of Frankfort is to the right off camera, the Mohawk River is the waterway here, and the Erie canal more to the right off camera.

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Here at Little Falls we can see the effects of super elevation as the train rounds the curve into the station area of Little Falls.

I hope you enjoy what you see here, but with little help this route will take some time to complete. The original plan was to make the Water Level Route from Hudson to Buffalo, an approximately 250 miles, but we decided on starting with what we have now, about 38 miles of linear track, from Utica, through Frankfort, Ilion, Herkimer, Little Falls, and St. Johnsville to allow for the release of the two great Hudson models of Darlan Gomes(DSGDDR). We will release new updates as the route continues to grow as each new city area is added. Any positive feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome.

And thanks for following this thread.
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby Fireexplorer249 » Fri Jan 11, 2019 7:24 pm

The route is looking great so far. I look forward to seeing some more updates on it soon!
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby Overshoe » Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:44 pm

That looks fabulous! !*cheers*!
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby minerman146 » Fri Jan 11, 2019 8:50 pm

I hope you enjoy what you see here, but with little help this route will take some time to complete. The original plan was to make the Water Level Route from Hudson to Buffalo, an approximately 250 miles, but we decided on starting with what we have now, about 38 miles of linear track, from Utica, through Frankfort, Ilion, Herkimer, Little Falls, and St. Johnsville to allow for the release of the two great Hudson models of Darlan Gomes(DSGDDR). We will release new updates as the route continues to grow as each new city area is added. Any positive feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome

Railwanderer, I very much like your approach. Your presenting a WIP in progress with scenery, your doing it linearly in stages (city by city), your in Upstate NY, which has not been done yet, and your using John Peter's work too. The subject matter is a given and very excellent. I wish you much fun and much success! !!*ok*!!
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby jpetersjr » Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:02 am

Some photo's from Utica.

45153594_2138328469532908_4674770274732736512_n.jpg

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Winter.

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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby jpetersjr » Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:04 am

A couple more pics I wasn't able to fit into the last post.


Utica Tower.

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45389568_2141761145856307_6521760122165788672_n.jpg
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby EngineerJohn » Sat Jan 12, 2019 8:54 am

Backdating this area is no easy feat. My understanding is that the network has been butchered up quite a bit between the demise of the NYC up through the rise of CSX gaining control of the water level route.

Utica is an interesting area back in the day as it served as a hub for the NYC's only mountainous trackage, the Adirondack Division, which a large chunk of it is now the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, and the Mohawk Adirondack & Northern freight railroad.

For anyone that's ever been in Utica's Union Station, the entire inside is mostly original and just stunning:

Image
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RudiJaeger » Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:34 am

Some beautiful craftsmanship! Nice work on the route too! !*cheers*!
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RailWanderer » Sat Jan 12, 2019 2:43 pm

EngineerJohn wrote:Backdating this area is no easy feat. My understanding is that the network has been butchered up quite a bit between the demise of the NYC up through the rise of CSX gaining control of the water level route.

Utica is an interesting area back in the day as it served as a hub for the NYC's only mountainous trackage, the Adirondack Division, which a large chunk of it is now the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, and the Mohawk Adirondack & Northern freight railroad.


Thanks for the input John, but I think this endeavor is going to be closer to fiction than not. I don't have the time or the resources to do this route in a historically accurate way. I am thinking in terms as 18potterfan had suggested in the Rolling Stock thread. Hey, anyone want to become head historian of the route? *chuckles heartily*
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RailWanderer » Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:02 pm

I made this short 38 minute video to show the actual length of the route and its current state as far as scenery goes. Be warned: this video has very little scenery at the beginning.....wait for it......bingo Frankfort and Utica is where most of the current scenery work is being done. Our train will be leaving from St. Johnsville and moving west at near 60mph towards Utica the final destination. Near Little Falls there are quite a few low radius curves that show off the super elevation of the track. Enjoy.

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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby Fireexplorer249 » Sat Jan 12, 2019 9:57 pm

I'm loving the detail put into the current scenes. This'll be a fun route to play around on.
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby jpetersjr » Sat Jan 12, 2019 10:45 pm

You can also watch some progress of some custom assets for the route on my scenery thread.

I made this thread to show off some progress on some assets for the route, such as my current project, the old Herkimer trolley bridge.

http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=20854
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RailWanderer » Sun Jan 13, 2019 7:36 am

Fireexplorer249 wrote:I'm loving the detail put into the current scenes. This'll be a fun route to play around on.


Thank you, we try, and I will admit I am no professional at this at all.
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby RailWanderer » Wed Jan 16, 2019 5:17 pm

I thought today I would show how far I have gotten with adjusting the rails and adding the signals, which I have finally gotten back to after being side-tracked several times. I believe nothing should be placed in regards to scenery before the track and signals are in place and working. Sometimes when working with others they can make one loose focus. One of the side tracks was the area of Frankfort, NY which also happens to be the current place where I am working on the rails and signals. Frankfort just happened to also be an area we needed a station, so the station was created and added to allow the focus on the track to continue. Here's an image of that area:

Image
Last edited by RailWanderer on Thu May 16, 2019 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: New York Central Water Level Route (Route Progress Thread)

Unread postby ET44C4 » Wed Jan 16, 2019 7:19 pm

Who modeled the station? It looks excellent.
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