Route reviews, starting this week!

Route reviews will be when I will judge other people's routes. Here are a few main points.

1. I will be 100% honest and fair. I am not going to rant and rave about how wonderful a single-texture route is. However, I am not going to complain about how a creator of a prototype route missed adding in a tree.
2. I will criticize. And some of those criticisms may be a bit rude. Read #3 for more detail on that.
3. I am not here to bash the route or creator of the route. I am 100% against trolling or flaming. I won't use the words stupid, dumb, stop, or say the name real name of the creator unless it pertains to a certain object in a screenshot. I won't say derogatory phrases to potentially put down the creator of the route.
4. I will grade the route by using a points and a star system. The system will go by 10 categories. The average of the 10 star ratings will be the overall star rating. The total of the points will be the overall points. There will be a maximum total of 100 points.  

What I can't do + Emerald Pass

Today, while I was working on the BNSF Mojave Sub, I realized that I don't like building prototypical routes. I like doing what I want to. This is why I decided to revive Emerald Pass for TS12. Today I finished one baseboard. I plan to make the route close to 110 miles long, with Emerald City having a major yard, and the summit will be there also. You ever seen the movie "Unstoppable"? If you have, you know about the fictional railroad AWVR. Yes, it stands for "Allegheny West Virginia Railroad", but it just fits well in the desert. I decided to do that after I didn't want just BNSF signals, BNSF containers, etc. The locomotives courtesy of Blawnox Locomotive Works. I expanded the Automatic Numbering system, so the numbers weren't so cramped. Here are some WIP shots of the baseboard I completed:

The overview

Down low

Where the tracks cross over Bison Creek

Looking to the West at the MP 31.4 signal bridge

Looking East at the MP 31.4 signal bridge

Daggett-Mojave!

Just began a new route today, Daggett-Mojave. It will feature the last few miles of the BNSF Needles Sub, and all of the BNSF Mojave Sub. The route will begin just a bit east of the Hidden Springs Rd. just east of Daggett, which is part of the transcon, and go into Barstow Yard, where the Cajon Sub goes south, and the Mojave Sub goes East. Here are some screenshots!

The signals at MP 733

Looking down on Hidden Springs Rd.

Looking East, towards where the texturing begins

Looking West, towards where the city of Daggett will soon be. Yes, there will eventually be vegetation there, also.

Obviously no one is going to bother to vote.

So I'm going to take down the poll. I am tired of seeing a poll running for more than 5 days, and only seeing two guesses. It is humiliating, especially considering the last poll in July only had 4 guesses. There will be no more polls on this blog for a while...

The quiz poll is up!

Yes, as I promised last week, it is up. Hope you studied!

My re-creation of Lane-Seaside

Long-term readers of my Crossing Talk blog know that one of the more popular routes from back in the day(2010) was my Lane-Seaside route on the fictional Kingston Island. Yes, it was the one with Bernard. People who have been reading it since at the latest January 2011 know that Lane-Seaside was deleted with Trainz 2009. Well, I have decided to re-create it on TS2010!!! Like the TS2009 route, I started in Downtown Lane. However, with the assets on the Download Station, and help from trusted third-party Trainz sites, this route will be much better!!!

Here is a sneak peak:

Acacia Rd., Stadium District, Downtown Lane, KI:

More screenshots are to come soon, but I need to say one more thing. I will add in a quiz poll. If you read Crossing Talk regularly before October 2010, you may disregard the following message. To all people who began reading Crossing talk after October 2010, then there are a lot of posts saying Kingston Island, or the state abbreviation, KI (example: Lane, KI). If you want to go back in time on Crossing Talk, a lot of the posts regarding Trainz before 2011 are Kingston Island(or KI). I know I took pictures of the screen back then. Those were the old days.

Kingston Island Alt Hwy. 37 fictional grade separation project

First of all, I know there is no Kingston Island, and I know that there is no alt I-37 grade separation project in real life, so don't go yappin' about that.

And the grade separation continues on the second crossing.

In 2009, there were 5 crossings on the 90-mile long alt I-37. In 2010, there were four, the one in Bernard had been converted. Soon, by August, there will be three as seen here. This is all part of a major grade separation project. Every grade crossing owned by either Sounder or BNSF that crosses the alt I-37 is to be converted to  a grade separated crossover by 2016. Let's give you some more details about this crossing shown here:

• It is the busiest alt I-37 crossing around, with around 50 daily Sounder trains, 16 daily Amtraks, 41 daily BNSF, and 2 daily KILS (Kingston Island Local Services) on weekdays.
• The four lane road is expected to be closed in May. At that time, while the four lane road is being torn up, a temporary two-lane crossing will take its place.
• The overpass will be open in August or September.
• The crossing is located at MP 2.4, near Eastern.

The KILS Eastern local crosses both the still open four lane crossing, and the temporary two lane.

Cajon Pass so Far (again)

After Trainz deleted my old Cajon route, I started a new one, from the other side. Hidden Springs Rd. at Daggett:

Yeah, it's not much yet.

1000 page views!!!!!!

As of today, this blog has reached 1,000 page views!

BNSF stacktrain (again)

The same stacktrain as from the last post at Caliente approaches Tunnel 1:

Sasquatch

While a BNSF intermodal struggles upgrade at Caliente, sasquatch watches happily:

New Cajon Pass route

With the old one being deleted, I decided to start north instead of south this time. It will cover about five miles of the Needles Sub, starting at Hidden Springs and going West to Daggett and Barstow, Then it will go south on the Cajon Sub down to Colton. Here is a pic. from Hidden Springs:

As with all pictures, you may click it to enlarge it.

In-n-Out

Weird, huh?

The biggest screw job?

Okay, my computer just gave me the biggest screw job I have ever encountered. No, not on TS2010, where they usually happen, but on TS12. For some reason, it deleted BOTH Cajon Sub and Daggett-Edwards. AND the DEMs that I put them on. For some reason, it deleted every DEM and routes placed on DEMs in the entire game! I will just stick with Kingston Island...

Kingston Island: Sounder Eastern Sub: Exploring the Eastern station

Trainztalk is back!!!

Okay, I know that Sounder, in real life, is a commuter railroad in Washington, but in my world, it is the Kingston passenger service, along with the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner #2. Sounder(on KI) is getting new cars, which are actually Metro North cars, but once again, pretend.

Okay, so on Kingston Island so far, there are three Sounder stations, but I am planning on there being about 35 total. There are two Amtrak/Sounder stations, and one Sounder only station so far. At milepost 4.7, there is a point where the freight and passenger tracks split, and they do not join back together until Lane. When they are separate, The passenger tracks go right along the southern beaches, and the freight tracks so about 5 miles to the south of the north beaches. The only freight trains that go along the passenger tracks are when there is a train that has a problem that needs to be maintained at the Marianna yard, locals that need to end up at the Marianna yard(L-ESPMAR, L-MARESP, L-KENMAR[the Kingston local that goes between Kendrick yard and Marianna], and the C-ESPWSP rock train), and trains that are rerouted due to a problem with/on the freight tracks.

These are the Sounder stations that I have so far:
Eastern Seaport
Eastern Village
East Marianna

At the Eastern Transit Center, all Sounder and Amtrak trains, and Bosch Lines buses stop here.

A look down the Station Access Road:

An overhead look at the station, with a sounder train 209 parked on track 4(many trains originate here).:

Waiting to cross the street to get to the platform:

NOTE: The station is before milepost 4.7, so both passenger and freight go through the station.

A family happily waits for their train, Sounder 107 so they can go watch some good beach volleyball action at Waveside station:

Meanwhile, A woman who just shopped in the Eastern Village walks to the stairs to get to train 107 so that she can meet up with a friend at Sierra Beach so they can watch some of the surfing action and have a lunch on the pier:

Quiz over

...And there were only four guesses.
1. I expect all readers to vote/guess, polls are ALWAYS on the sidebar
2. None of you guessed the correct answer. The answer was A(Walong.

Just an update

Hi. My computer/monitor just gave me another screw job. Thanks for autosave. The Riverside Industrial lead is easy. I just started laying signals(no, NOT crossing signals). That is all.

TS12 Mojave Sub: Tunnel 2

After getting a screw job resulting in me losing a 30 minute's worth of work, I decided to take a break from Cajon  Sub, and play around with the built-in Mojave Sub

A BNSF stack train emerges from tunnel 2

NOTE: I was very happy to be able to get this shot, as, for some reason, tunnels make the computer's frame rates drop down to 1.5 FPS. >:(

Cajon Pass so far-the start-part 1

This is all I have so far:a house, a school bus barn, a Stater Bros. warehouse, a LARGE parking lot for the Stater Bros., A portion of Barton Rd., Terrance Ave, and part of La Cadena Dr., and a few trees and textures:

As with all pictures, you CAN enlarge them by clicking on them.

Goodbye Daggett-Edwards, hello Cajon Pass

I am putting a boring desert route on hold to work on a more exciting California desert route. I am now doing Cajon Pass. This one will go from just south of Colton(including the diamond intersection with the UP Alhambra/Yuma Sub) to the Barstow Yard, where it will then meet with the BNSF Mojave/Needles Sub.

Here is my mere progress so far:

I am already working on the Barton Rd. overpass, which is a major pain. I need to make sure every overpass and tunnel has enough clearance for double-stack container trains.The Barton Rd. overpass just barely made the cut for that test.