DARv2

[Paul Charland]

Hi All,

Uploaded the DARv2 route to Trainsim.com this evening... I think... having Nels let me know if it actually made it or not.

The route comes with 14 activities, took a shot from each and thought I'd post them.

Train 1 pauses at the station in Middleton while an Argus from Greenwood heads out on patrol.



On a rainy morning DAR Train 4 from Kentville can be seen about to enter the CM Bedford Sub at Windsor Junction.



Train 3 on the CN Bedford Sub aproaching Windsor Junction in the snow.



DAR Train 2 arrives at Annapolis Royal from Yarmouth.



A loaded gypsum train waits at the entrance to the Truro sub for M 21 to clear.



DAR S-3 6560 works the yard in Kentville before heading up the Kinsport Branch to Steam Mills for a little work.



Mixed train M 22 from Truro rounds a curve along the St. Croix river at the Wentworth gypsum mine.



A southbound Ballast Extra holds the siding at Berwick for Train 2 to pass.



Train 24 lifts cars at Maritime Co-op in New Minas.



The return movement of Train 24 was always run as an extra. Extra 8135 South can sbe seen crossing the Blue Beach bridge a few miles south of Hantsport.



Train 50 heads towards Halifax along the Minas Basin.



Train 25 passes Hantsport as the moon rises behind Canada Key Fibre.



Train 25 switches the Petrolium, Oil, and Lubricants compound at CFB Greenwood.



Train 26 stops to lift a few cars from the Berwick siding left earlier by Train 25.



Hope you have fun with it.

Paul

[SamuelMClark]

Great in game shots, the one you have of the train coming into Wentworth there to the Gypsum mine is really good, here's a shot of the place I took last Monday I just put the two photos together to make it whole.

[Paul Charland]

Hi Samuel,

When I drew the Wentworth mine i didn't have too much to go by other then the little I found on the internet and Google Earth. Didn't turn out too bad and you know what it's supposed to be. Wonder if it will ever reopen.

Just finished the track through Southwest junction and about a mile of the Chester Sub. Back in the days I modeled I drew an N scale layout of what remained of the Chester Sub to the Lakeside Industrial Park. Would have made a nice switching layout.

Paul

[stem]

The route is brilliant Paul. Have a ton of fun with it in both MS Train Sim and Open Rails. Your labour of love is a masterpiece.

[stem]

Did you post that one on the wiki Samuel? Great shot.

[SamuelMClark]

Paul have you ever finished the line to Yarmouth? I was showing the guys at the Museum your MSTS layout and they were VERY impressed and want to use it as part of the displays for the museum as an interactive portion, I told there where it went for along the line but wasn't sure what your status is for completion to Yarmouth.

[stem]

I talked to the previous board about the same thing. Good on you Samuel for bringing it up again. Personal opinion: there's enough to see running back and forth between Middleton to Kentville and on to Wolfville and Windsor to keep anyone interested. A small computer like a thin client with a decent graphics card tucked behind a 46" TV. Perfect display. Wireless keyboard and mouse for staff to control it from the desk 10 feet away.

[Paul Charland]

Morning Steve and Samuel,

The route is complete from two miles south of Annapolis Royal to two miles east of Windsor Junction, an RDC takes over two hours to go end to end and I doubt if anyone would stand around for two hours to watch the entire run! I have laid the track to a couple of miles south of Digby but there was so little traffic beyond Annapolis Royal (down to a four or five car train by then) I set v3 aside (The track is also laid to Fairview in Halifax in this version, but no scenery was added). To go all the way to Yarmouth would take a year and the lack of traffic just didn't justify that kind of time.

Now, if they are interested in running this they could download a copy of Open Rails which is free. It runs MSTS routes like my DARv2 route but I would have to take a day or two to go through the route and adjust a few forests as OR does not use the same algorithm ad MSTS did to place forests... all this means is there might be a few trees that are on the tracks and roads and the forest region would have to be moved... no big deal to do.

Open Rails has been developing two things, Timetable mode and something they are calling autopilot mode. It will be able to have a person set up a train on a passenger schedule so it stops at stations automatically, and you could set the RDC up so you could just follow it along and it would do a station stop automatically... Someone would only have to reset the activity to restart three or four times a day.

I was just looking at the 1974 ETT and the southbound Dayliner arrives at Windsor Junction at 0900 and arrives at Annapolis Royal at 1205, at 1335 the northbound arrives at Annapolis Royal and arrives at Windsor Junction at 1635. You could set OR up so that it starts running south out of Windsor Junction at 0900 and takes the real 3:05 to run the route, then people would take their lunch and come back and run the afternoon activity, starting at Annapolis Royal at 1335... like the trains would be on the real schedule. You could print one out and anyone interested would just have to check their watch and the schedule to know exactly where the train running on the computer was.

Paul

[SamuelMClark]

Okay Cheers Paul,

Though during their clean up they found a copy or MSTS with both discs so they are good for using that! I'll have to see what I have for a good used computer or maybe buy one for them and set it up, or maybe give them my old laptop which I can currently run it on if I can get another old laptop up and running for my self.

I was hoping you might have completed the route just to have it completed. I think some would try doing switching in a yard to take a few cars to some place, though most would probably do what I do get it started and just drive the main line to see it.

[stem]

With MSTS it will run the best on Windows XP.

[Paul Charland]

I have had MSTS running in Windows 7 for a few years, that's what I completed v2 on. I also have Open Rails running under Windows 7, the difference is in MSTS the DAR route gets about 15 frames per minutes and gets jerky while loading places like Kentville were they is just about as many objects as you can put on one tile. In OR the route is pushing 60 frames per second and loading Kentville is virtually unnoticeable. The other advantage to OR is scenery and objects load well in advance as opposed to having them load on the screen when you're running along.

Paul

[stem]

I agree that Open Rails will end up being the way to go. If you would optimize the route for OR, that would be awesome!

[Paul Charland]

Hi Steve,

I'll be doing that sooner then later. I'm working on a route right now that I'm trying to complete before I'm forced to change to Windows 10, some people have complained Route Editor no longer works with it. OR has been tinkering with there own RE but I'm not sure how close that is to a working version and I have no idea if you'll be able to open a semi-complete MSTS route or have to start one from scratch in their editor.

Paul

[stem]

OR does have a milestone charts that outlines at every stage what the features will be.
https://launchpad.net/or/+milestones