New York Division-Bergen Line - Part Deux!

[ASCVRailroad]

Love the Bergen line! Its perfect especially for running joint NYSW/NS trains.

[minerman146]

I Came, I saw and I kicked some donkey around right in the Hoo-hah!

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Well, 4 days and with 29 clocked hours on this whole nightmare - I think I can repaint ... box cars.
Im goin to bed, I earned it

[minerman146]

Good evening folks and welcome to this edition of the Wednesday Route Report.
So, lets check that status shall we?

[ X ] Oh lord no.
[ ] Halleluiah !

Route progress was going fine, until I got highly distracted. More on that, down the page. Middletown, has its own challenges all well within our capability to overcome. We have our highways and roads running all over, the Graham line running in a cut through the prime scenery area, and some complex consignees that require a good deal of detail work to pull of. Were we stand is 90% of roads and track done, 5% buildings and no trees. But we did put in 5 highway over passes and embankments for all of our Highways. The Town of Wallkill - Middletown Station is in at its current location and nicely detailed. No pictures yet, it needs its surrounding scenery. On to the big distraction.

For the past 5 days I have taken an extreme interest in overcoming my personal obstacles to repainting. I have particular needs and expectations for the end results.
And so, motivation was very high to crack this nut. As you can see from the previous posts, I was able to disassemble, reconfigure, and decorate rolling stock. It was ridiculously tedious and grueling. I took notes from each step of the process: how I enhanced and manipulated the images used, then on how the target worked, its, file structure and function its pathing to the various layers that make the model look like it does and finally placing everything perfectly, recompiling and placing the alpha back in, converting the dds back to TgPcDx. It took me 29 hours to go from zero, to last night where I could see my model on the Bergen. And I liked it a lot.

What I learned was there are huge limitations to repainting. And finding the source graphics seems the most challenging. If hadn't lucked out and found high resolution black and white images, this would never have happened. I know this because i got cocky and started looking for other roads that would be relevant the Bergen and after 6 hours of scouring the internet and trying to work with color, I realize that would need to learn graphic design to create my own artwork. For the interim, I am going to crank out as much EL stuff as my heart desires, with loads of detail and as much faithfulness to the subject as I can. The joy I felt seeing accurately rendered EL stock, made it hard for me to go to sleep last night!.

As, you my loyal reader know, I have been crying for DLC for my route since the begging. It was the lack of said DLC that had me go to this year 2001 - hybrid- 1970 thing I have going on. To tell the truth I offered Travel by Train $1,000 to build the EL GP35, if he would build it and try to get it in game. He declined the money moments after my offer and did it because he saw in me, a passionate artist, like himself and he couldn't take the money. I respect him immensely for that. He was not the last, as 2 more times, I have made this offer. The end result is partially finished livery, that I cant post a picture of and a project that was agreed upon, but hasn't started. I have spent some money on research and permission to build said livery, but alas, I might have to do it myself. And I might, when I finish the route.

Over the past 5 years I have poured my guts into this route in the hope that I could encourage or inspire the powers that be to take interest in the Erie Lackawanna. While almost all of you to a man has taken an interest in this route, and heaped praise upon me, I am still unfulfilled. And so after this long journey, I know I will not see an EL route, EL rolling Stock or EL anything, on Steam. The only way it could ever be done, is by building the entire thing, with my own team and money, and accept the loss as a tax deduction. This does not diminish my feeling and respect for the free-ware community. Those who are inspired by their passion, to create, for the enjoyment of other like minded folks. And they do so for the simple satisfaction of their work and the praise and admiration they receive from their peers. I am blessed to know and to be one of these people.

So, I will do for myself and you, to bring the dream alive. I will stop when I am satisfied.

Until next time, I will either be painting or working the route.

Carry on!

[minerman146]

Ok, I squeezed this Central RR of NJ unit out in 2.5 hours. I hope you can figure out where I am going with this.

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I am not comfortable yet with actually changing the colors or adding dust yet, I am merely adding "decals".

[minerman146]

Making more progress ... new D&H car and fixed the CNJ. I'm just working with the numbers where they are. I learned how to tint the texture to get a different color.

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After this weekend its back to the building Middletown.

[minerman146]

Well, I still didn't get to the route - but now I can. I finished something complex. I wanted to do something with color I remembered these as a Creamsicle color. All I remembered was ORANGE. So now I know what I have, there were 20 of these leased to the EL right after Merger. And I learned something new, these are RBL Cars or Refrigerated BunkerLess. They are all numbered correctly AND I was able to modify the stencil to add NIRX, box car type and build dates. Deconstructing who this was built was no easy feat for me. This was really all for practice. And its really cool that can make this stuff. Wish me luck!
On to the pictures...

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[RudiJaeger]

Minerman, it looks like you toned-down the intensity on the logos and script for both the black and the white versions; nicely done! I think your first efforts are indeed "Bergen-worthy". Congrats on some fine paintwork!

[minerman146]

Minerman, it looks like you toned-down the intensity on the logos and script for both the black and the white versions; nicely done! I think your first efforts are indeed "Bergen-worthy". Congrats on some fine paintwork!

Rudi !
I was hoping for a review. Yes, indeed, I toned down the Black and White - you noticed that !

[minerman146]

Time flies when you enjoy this great thing of ours.
Cocktail Hour begins now, it's time for the Wednesday Route Update Post.

But first, lets check the Friday update status.
[ X ] Hahahahahahahahah Ha ha ha... ha... no.
[ ] The time has come!

Sorry for all the chortling over no route update for this week. First, I want to thank everyone for checking out the repaint pictures. In particular, thanks goes out to RudiJaeger a true friend of the Bergen (yes, we do have an enemies list. Don't get on the enemies list ) who commented. Rudi ! "Bergen-Worthy" that took me 2 days to get that. I am skipping the usual progress report, as it was very minimal, at least to me. As I was working on repaints. The whole repaint thing was extremely distracting and time consuming. From that I had a revelation, which I would like to speak about.

This project has been on of monumental delayed gratification. The idea that it would take years to build this required me to focus not on the overall vision and purpose, but just each block, one kilometer at time. Then, each street, road, house tree and down, down, down to the smallest detail I had the energy to do. Talking to Harry Adkins and trying to work out a mechanism to get these pdf files I had and to get the images on a model, brought me to this place. That place, what I envisioned almost subconsciously, is a working, functional representation of the New York Division. The elements of that function is what makes up the ability to simulate all operations that could occur on this route. This would be from originating to classification of trans, the station (yard) drop offs and pickups and finally the delivery to the end customer. This is Train Simulator, and while you can certainly drive a train, the simplest being the pickup and drop off of passengers. I think, and I will demonstrate with the Bergen, how to operate this railroad. How I am doing that is by giving the freight context. Context in place and time and location. The scenery had to be very good to immerse you in this locale so much that wouldn't have to think about what was missing, but just mentally accept it is real. By doing that, no wherever you are on the route, you will enjoy the trip even to some crappy siding running at 10 miles an hour. Then you, the engineer, would be more willing to take the time to do the more mundane but financially essential part of working the railroad which is to generate revenue.

There are two versions of the route. What you see along the main, mostly modern era, I try to keep it at the year 2001. (which is why I replaced the Freedom Tower with the World Trade Center) The other, is my passion. Underneath, aside, or otherwise coexisting with modern time is rich, deep past and time of my youth. I call it a ghost. Think of it as a parallel universe. And you guys know about all the elements that I added to the route to make this work. I learned that it, in fact will work. So in the end, the Steam Workshop will have its DLC based Norfolk Southern - New Jersey Transit thing. And here in the world of freeware will exist my route. It has been very tricky to do both things at once. I was concerned I wasn't up to recreating the route again but older. I am not going to commit to rebuild. I am going to make the one route serve both eras.

The repaints is what did it for me. Just see the rolling stock rendered as I remember it, brings some much character into the Bergen, its just astounds me. I really think the whole thing is gorgeous. Seeing those old box cars in the correct context is just mind blowing. It works out much better than I imagined. So, repainting a fleet of ready to go, easy to find, era accurate rolling stock is where I'm going. With this stock, you wont have to look an endless string of numbers in the coupler view, you can match your manifest visually to different stock from all over the US from the 1960s early 70s. And that will make classification have a purpose. Visually you will be able to look at your train and have a good idea where its supposed to go. This is going to make shunting and yard moves interesting. And if I got you interested, you will do the scenarios and like them. Heck, I will like them! And with the new count of consignees (74), there is enough customers to build a pretty decent train, drop it off at the appropriate siding/yard, and deliver.

I hope that sounds like fun to you.

Carry on Guys!

[Overshoe]

I hope that sounds like fun to you.

Carry on Guys!

You bet it does.

[AmericanSteam]

83 pages and climbing. Soon to be a novel.

[minerman146]

83 pages and climbing. Soon to be a novel.

Your telling me! This is a two volume set!

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People are still reading the other thread that ended almost two years ago.
I would be cool to know if people just find this on the internet, start reading one night, then 6 hours later when they are done, leave and are never heard from again.

[LuisaA]

I'd like to think that they will start being interested in Erie like i did myself

[minerman146]

I'd like to think that they will start being interested in Erie like i did myself

It is unfortunate that sometimes I read but do not comprehend. For that LuisaA I apologize.

Thank you for having communicated my purpose for being here and doing this....
"I'd like to think that they will start being interested in Erie like i did myself"

My father said and still says that the Erie was something special. I think it was the people, maybe the Erie has some kind of spirit all of its own, I dunno. But you get it Luisa - you do.

[minerman146]

Well not so much route work.. but we do have a new box car.

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I continue to dig more deeper into the painting and massaged the texture, altered the base color then put a tint on it to get that old box car color.
I also was dyin to get the Cushioned Car and DF logs on for interest. And the other thing I notice is every darn piece of rolling stock bought after the merger has a big fat Lessor sign on em. So, everything was mortgaged on the EL for the entire time.

I just gotta say it ... this is what the darn box car is supposed to look like.