Winston Wye - WIP

New progress and a complete-looking angle.

Winston Wye - WIP

The second part of Winston Pass I am focusing on at the moment is the dull but action centric Winston Wye. The track you will see on the photo facing down leads to the yard. Many Bone Valley Trains use this wye, though from the far right leg (not shown), to go in and out of the yard. Power moves, turnarounds, and locals, as well as reroutes of said BV trains fancy the left leg. Finally, the track in the background is, of course, the A-line.

A birds' eye view of Galloway Road, the west end crossing of Winston Wye. Signals protect the crossover and the west leg.

 Galloway Road from the North. I have a CSX crew featured for frills.

Galloway Road complete from the south. Expect this or a similar vantage when I am filming the TrainzWatching™ series.

This is an overview of today's progress. Note an abstractly detailed warehouse due to the distance from the track. This attributes to my levels of detail posting from way back when. Old Tampa Highway is the crossing in the Foreground. The old ACL cantilevers dated to the 70s are going to be eventually developed so it will require some patience to see those applied. A CDN signal is in place at the moment in the background.

The remaining input I am willing to commit to for this area is the NE quadrant of Galloway Road with the seemingly difficult neighborhood (hard to make out on Google Earth). A Drive In on the NW side of Gay Road will be a fun challenge, and the trailer park to the NE of that, which will be developed. I also intend to add ample brush to the fork in the west leg turnout. From then I will move on to another area, likely Vitis Junction, to mess around with then revisit Winston to finish it up in the days to come.

Q188 Down Home

It's the basics that are effective, too.

Be looking for this to surface on YouTube soon. I wanted to shoot this to run a traditional, common train down the A-Line since I didn't do much Trainzing in over a week.

South Florida CSX Miami Sub & Miami Sub Layout: Lufthansa 462-10

South Florida CSX Miami Sub & Miami Sub Layout: Lufthansa 462-10: "On June 10th and from there LH's flight 462 from Frankfurt, Germany to Miami, FL will be chartered by an A380. Of course, this enhances film..."

On my HO Scale/Real Train blog for the area I made a heads up style announcement for the impending arrival of the A380-800. Note how I say that "definitely encouraging for the Trainz creation thereof" on the entry. As part of the Florida Business Unit as a whole in Trainz, I am trying to rig up a Miami/Homestead Subdivision which will include MIA when done. That would require one of these big birds to be made to enhance realism not only for FSX as pictured but for Trainz. A perfect combo for your 4:00 PM O721, which passes just before Lufthansa returns to Frankfurt.

Next Area after Winston Pass

Thinking about it and you guys will like this one, I think I will work on Vitis Jct which is the famed junction of the CSX Yeoman Sub and Vitis Sub.

Three Sources For Trainz Routebuilding

When building your route you must aggregate your details from either of four sources.

1. Google Maps Aerial - Updated 2010 for the most part, it provides decent imagery to accurately locate objects and scenery. Sometimes you could see where trees are placed. But in swampy Florida a slash pine and a shrub can confuse you.Nonetheless you can see where much of the stuff is for quick and easy placement.
2. Google Maps Street View - Slightly out of date, but for less volatile areas like Valrico or Homestead it can still help routebuilding. A grape to an apple versus Aerial, you act like you are there though the image is pixelated (in bigger computer monitors).
3. Railfan Photos and Videos - The newer, the better. You get the best idea of what really goes where with a month old or newer video. Photos do the same work as S.V. but can come in better resolution and can be overall newer. You also get a feel for the area in audio, and places like Fort Lauderdale (on the CSX) can sound different ambiently than Hollywood on CSX.

Iconic Locations

The eyecatchers of anyone's trainz layout is simply the icons. Model a place like Rochelle, Folkston, or in my case, Plant City... They're hooked. People like to imagine the added possibility of running trains through these popular spots from the comfort of their home. While I am focusing on the dull spots, I mediate getting another popular spot done. Now I am working on Winston which is a little famous, but soon after I will land at famed Vitis Junction and detail the area up. The only reason I keep doing these less popular spots; Valrico, Park Road, east of Clark Road, etc., is so that I get more done without getting bored of simply doing the good spots.

The Tampa Terminal Route

Is now featured on Skylar's AceTrainz site at:


http://acetrainz.yolasite.com/

There you will find some pictures. It should dwell into more of a photo album and repository while this blog remains a working journal. Forums are also being opened on that site.

Winston Pass

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

to catch a train as late as it could

In the A-line, in the A-line

With GEVOs and '60s and what have you

which had a schedule that it failed to do

Only on YouTube, Only on YouTube

Winston Pass Part 2

Continuing to detail the area. I should have a video tutorial up in the coming weeks in my "levels of detail" with Level 1 close to the tracks, Level 2 out another couple hundred feet, and Level 3 way out there. The giant warehouse doesn't look to be railserved though. The vantage is a realistic one from SR 570.

Winston Pass - WIP

My current area which is west of Lakeland, FL is Winston Pass, a passing siding between the 570 (Polk Pkwy) and S Lakeland. I believe this industry in the background is all but abandoned, just to put it out there. The passing siding houses trains and cars stored/tied down and also has industries spurring to the north (left). In the middle is famed Winston Wye into the yard.

Next Area...

My next area of work will be Winston Wye. It is the location that trains Q603, Q613, Q604, and Q604, the phosphate, sulfur, and numerous locals use to turn out into the yard. A wide open and rather rural area, the wye is a popular railfan spot for the ability to spot so many of these trains. Sometimes one can experience meets of trains yard bound and trains that fly on the A line. I may also delve into the industries like Publix (plastics section) to ascertain a switching experience (see one of the earlier posts).

Routebuilding Issues Part 1

It often happens that the route builder gets bored of doing the same area on and on. Happens to me a lot, nonetheless.

Here's my solution...

I was working on Valrico last weekend, having chunks of area done up in full detail. The pattern looked like a checkerboard by Monday when the north side of the mainline between two crossings, then the south, then the north were detailed, the flip sides neglected. Of course working three days straight on little more than a junction in the back woods is tiring and otherwise boring. Now, there's a bit of commitment the routebuilder needs to make. My and I'm sure a lot of others' fault on this is that areas are often left unfinished, yeah I'll go back to it later, later, later, and never do. But this time I was devoted to finish the area. So it takes some determination to finish an otherwise tedious area. But my interim solution - Working on County Road 582 and Kathleen Road. Picking a completely different landscape can be entertaining when considering boring areas like east of Valrico Junction. As aforementioned, the drive to return must be there. If not, you'll end up with a not so motivational, incomplete route. Even so, the routebuilding process can be made much more efficient as well as you do not waste time struggling to complete areas that burn you out. Enthusiasm and the lack thereof leads to vaporware. This is one of many ways to combat that.

Mojave Sub

This route IS fun! It is the best built-in ever!

K820

Utilizing the versatility of UP power in Central Florida I bring K820 with two GEVOs. Surprisingly one alone stalled out on the hill track in Lakeland. Good game physics.

Florida - The Sunshine State

Trainz has a nifty feature for good weather fog. Now, Florida isn't reputable for fog in most cases except winter nights where if you drive an open top convertible, your seat will be moist, but the setting can forge the effects of high sun on a slash pine forest. I feel that I have made this scene near Valrico, Florida quite effective to show heat since the good weather fog whitens up the scape, making it look like the sun is harshly shining like a Pokémon uses Sunny Day... Meanwhile the area was just complete late this evening.

 Pine forest looking west

 Overlooking N Valrico Rd. The Valrico Sub deep to the Bone Valley splits here.

Industrial Districts In Trainz

The Vitis Sub is known by local railfans to pass by a rather fascinating industrial mini-park in Kathleen, FL. But that park can promote a huge challenge when switching.

CR582 north of I-4 is just north of the Superior Carriers transload and another warehouse. The warehouse takes roughly 5 to 6 spots, and I believe that number and the commodities vary so the train has to match up car with spot. Superior Carriers is like Transflo and takes a lot of corn.

This takes 4 tracks and 20 or so 16k tanks, and an occasional covered hopper.

And on top of that.... there's a gradient between the two. Get your dynamic brakes out.

Lance Mindheim covered switching by corn cars to be possibly difficult as the right grade of corn has to match in a blog entry about tight layouts. He is by the way in charge of a model railroad layout of Miami, basing off its eccentric qualities.

Now, CR582 is the newest area I began on in Trainz, to take a short break from Valrico which I worked on all weekend.

The fun part of Trainz is you can simulate anything for chump pennies and nickels per day, and all you pay for are a good computer, hardware, the game itself, and any payware of your desire.

I guess the argument here is that V-scale is an extremely effective means of model railroading and practicing the switching ops CSX does. You can still practice the same hurdles and obstacles a CSX crew goes through 5 days a week. That's what makes simulations fun.

Like the switching layout I intend to work on, Trainz can do the same work and will for Auburndale, Plant City (east of Park Rd.), Tampa (Transflo and Drew Park), and here.