Over the last few years, my personal project concerning the Rutland Railroad has been to recreate the railroad entirely in Microsoft's Train Simulator. While there are many similarities to the model railroad enthusiasts there are some vast and distinct differences.
For one the area I am covering is far more extensive than anyone would have room for in the basement or barn for that matter, it goes well beyond the scope of one or two yards and sidings to extend historically to include the entire railroad system. This in itself is beyond the normal for most scenery designers in train simulator, as most will concentrate on a sub-division, short line or even just a railyard.
To get the realistic elevations I used a program called DEMEX which interprets Satellite photos into elevations. It magically extrapolates these photos into numbers and creates a mesh carpet, like a pincushion which allows you to place the track at close to the proper altitudes, within 10 meters or 30 feet of what is there in real life. Obviously larger geographical features like a mountain, riverbed or cuts show up well but determining just where the track ran is a whole survey process that is made easy by laying markers along where the route ran from topographical maps scaled to 1:25. Once the markers are in place you can simply lay the track and curves along the markers adjusting the slope as you go. Obviously there are some drawbacks to this as pre-existing track may not show on the topographical maps or you need to dig one up from that era. This was the case with the corkscrew line as the only map I found that represented it was from after WWII and was in the wrong scale. I got around it by switching back and forth with the newer map and judging where the line probably ran.
If you total up the amount of trackage I have put down over the last two years you'd find the number of mileage up around 800 miles. This is due to the fact I wanted to represent the railroad operationally with many of the connecting lines and track in place. (i.e. The D&H west out of Rutland to Whitehall NY)
My other issue in embarking on this project, which incidentally came up after I began the project is the time frame in which my project would run. I wanted to inclue the Corkscrew Division yet I wanted to portray the Main Line also as it exists today. Therefore many of the old sidings and trackage exist within the scenery that really is not there anymore. My goal was to re-create a historical view for the user as well as re-create an operational system of tracks. Keep it mind I also wanted the scenery to model diesel as well as steam operations.
To implement this I simply created two sets of signage. One for existing track that is there in real life, and another for track that no longer exists. This gives a quick visual cue to the user that the portion of the line that they are running on is historic or still there in real life.
To model the buildings I am using a program called TSM (Trainsim Modeller) from Abacus. Here again I ran into the era debate as earlier buildings don't exist in many cases today, or are in a much different state of repair today than they would have been then. My solution although for purists may not be the correct one was to simply incorporate a mix. To accommodate this through the help of Nimke's and Shaughnessy's books I modeled most of the important historical buildings as they would have looked new in the era they were built, or pretty much as how the layouts and photos I found pictured them. They are scaled pretty much accurate but I did take liberties here and there for artistic liscence and aesthetics.
I reserved the older building textures for areas along the route for non-support buildings such as abandoned warehouses or sheds. I was also able to incorporate this concept through the housing which appears alongside the track. Newer texttures were obviously used for the larger towns like Burlington and Rutland and the yards there are based on modern day operations.
As far as signalling goes, I haven't done much with it as of yet as this is an issue that will come later once I am sure and satisfied that the track is placed properly and operationally sound.
As of this date though I can run the entire line with no major issues occuring and the scenery and mesh are constantly evolving into more of a reality each edit.
Paul J. Mainville
June 5, 2006