Train Mods

[Trolca 15]

Here's the Burlington Northern Covered Hopper set. Some how I missed the error stating that the file was too large.

 

This is the first of two parts.

 

See pictures in previous post.

[Trolca 15]

Here's part two for the Burlington Northern covered hopper set.

 

I'm starting to think that these cars are lacking, either that or I just picked the wrong day to be posting train alterations.

[Smurfer2 7]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 1:00:19 AM[/quoteDATE]

Trolca[/quoteAUTHOR]

Here's part two for the Burlington Northern covered hopper set.

I'm starting to think that these cars are lacking, either that or I just picked the wrong day to be posting train alterations.

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

 

I have two requests. Which of the two downlaods doesn't have the grafiti car? Also when you upload the 4 car sets, could not bind them together in a .dat because I don't really want grafiti on my cars, but if that is to hard or something you don't want to do, that's fine. I'll get over it.

[Trolca 15]

Date: 4/2/2004 1:04:01 AM

Author: Smurfer2

Date: 4/2/2004 1:00:19 AM

Author: Trolca

Here's part two for the Burlington Northern covered hopper set.

I'm starting to think that these cars are lacking, either that or I just picked the wrong day to be posting train alterations.

I have two requests. Which of the two downlaods doesn't have the grafiti car? Also when you upload the 4 car sets, could not bind them together in a .dat because I don't really want grafiti on my cars, but if that is to hard or something you don't want to do, that's fine. I'll get over it.

The first two cars including the graffiti car are in the first set. I rather not make four or five separate DAT files a set. What I could do is split them, either place the graffiti car with the extream weathered ones or have it in its own DAT and all the others grouped together. In this case the extream weathered car and the graffiti car are grouped.

I guess some don't care for the graffiti. I just feel it adds an element of realism. I don't think I've ever seen a freight train without some graffiti.

[kassarc16 4]

Amazing work once again Big T.

Edit:

I feel kinda stupid to doubt you, but have you tried looking at what makes the caboose the last car, and maybe trying to apply it to a first car? I'd love to see multiple engines if it was possible. Now that I think of the lack of progress with tenders, maybe you should just ignore this.

Edit Numero Dos:

A rundown on the BN/BNSF engines will be the 2 availible from Dearnman(sp?), and the one BRF posted? Can I get a pic of that one, BTW?

[kassarc16 4]

Since you're on a roll (ing stock) with BN, here's some interesting ones. I probably wouldn't ask for engines, since the D man has some, but he's focused on SimMars nowadays.

White/Green front EMD:
www.energyconversions.com/picturesemd.htm
Red/Black Striped GP50:
http://home.earthlink.net/~feigenbaums/gp50.jpg

Cabooses:



Old Engine Paint, Older Car:


And some Patriotism:



I'd actually like to see this scheme on a boxcar:

[Trolca 15]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 2:09:19 AM[/quoteDATE]

kassarc16[/quoteAUTHOR]

Amazing work once again Big T. Edit: I feel kinda stupid to doubt you, but have you tried looking at what makes the caboose the last car, and maybe trying to apply it to a first car? I'd love to see multiple engines if it was possible. Now that I think of the lack of progress with tenders, maybe you should just ignore this. Edit Numero Dos: A rundown on the BN/BNSF engines will be the 2 availible from Dearnman(sp?), and the one BRF posted? Can I get a pic of that one, BTW?[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

I've tried alot of things including trying to figure out what makes the caboose property work. Oppie has stated that he too has tried to figure this out. I think it's inbedded in the EXE file which means it's not possible at this time. I do hope a way can be found, not just for multiple engines but also so steam engines can always be linked to a tender car. Why Maxis would want to release a steam engine without a tender is beyound me. I'd say 99 percent of all steam engines had one. The exception would be switchers perhaps or any one that didn't travel very far.

I wish some one at Maxis would read this. A steam engine without a tender is like a diesel without a fuel tank. It just looks so wrong.

[Trolca 15]

A few tanker cars to add to the collection. One is from a members avatar, the other is from Lego.

 

 

Edit:

 

What about hops inc with the as the logo

 

I'm not sure I can. The image is pretty small.

[Ma8thew 77]

No attachment!

[BigRedFish 21]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 2:09:19 AM[/quoteDATE]

kassarc16[/quoteAUTHOR]

A rundown on the BN/BNSF engines will be the 2 availible from Dearnman(sp?), and the one BRF posted? Can I get a pic of that one, BTW?[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

Hello again Kassarc.

I took a look at that black/red zebra GP50 - that's very do-able.  I could probably steal the white stripe from one of my passenger engines to make the other one.   Sounds like fun, in fact.  The visual variety would do a BN set good.

NOTE TO TROLCA: Any preference for ID numbers if I leave the passenger and steam space?  I know Dearnen uses 10AA5030 for the BN and 10AA5040 for BNSF, perhaps I should follow that and reserve 503B-3F and 4B-4F, leaving you 31-3A and 41-4A for future use, is that OK?  

In addition to the BN and BNSF engines from Dearnen, you could logically also run his Great Northern GP7, and ATSF models, no?  Probably not the ATSF and GN ones at the same time though.... Maybe I ought to paint BNSF on the sides of the ATSF ones sometime... (and somewhere, some equipment manager at BNSF is probably thinking the same thing!)

Speaking of early GPs and green, here's the picture of the BN steam-engine replacement I attached a few posts back, as requested:

I'm not sure about the accuracy of the paint scheme, but it'll do for now, and provides a little bit of variety.  At least it beats that steam-powered anachronism.  If it's just a matter of it needing zebra-stripes or the white swoosh or something, that's no big deal to fix. 

[BigRedFish 21]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 3:31:30 AM[/quoteDATE]

Trolca[/quoteAUTHOR]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 2:09:19 AM[/quoteDATE]

kassarc16[/quoteAUTHOR]

Amazing work once again Big T. Edit: I feel kinda stupid to doubt you, but have you tried looking at what makes the caboose the last car, and maybe trying to apply it to a first car? I'd love to see multiple engines if it was possible. Now that I think of the lack of progress with tenders, maybe you should just ignore this. Edit Numero Dos: A rundown on the BN/BNSF engines will be the 2 availible from Dearnman(sp?), and the one BRF posted? Can I get a pic of that one, BTW?[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

I've tried alot of things including trying to figure out what makes the caboose property work. Oppie has stated that he too has tried to figure this out. I think it's inbedded in the EXE file which means it's not possible at this time. I do hope a way can be found, not just for multiple engines but also so steam engines can always be linked to a tender car. [snip].

I wish some one at Maxis would read this. A steam engine without a tender is like a diesel without a fuel tank. It just looks so wrong.

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

The caboose is part of the EXE, I'll bet, and it would be so easy to extend in a patch... A programmer with source code could do it in no time.

I'd like to see the caboose property extended to passenger trains, so we can guarantee that a cab car always appears on the end of a passenger train.  The automata engine, when generating the last car of a passenger train, can look to see if a p-car with the caboose property exists, pick one if it does, and use the default car if it doesn't.  All our existing sets would function normally until we updated them to use the new property, which is nice... Trolca, I'm under the impression that you've tried setting caboose on a passenger car to no avail?  If not, I'll find out what happens, I'd feel really silly if it's already there.  And I'd have to re-work all my sets immediately to use it.

I'd like to see multiple diesel engines, so the automata engine would generate an engine for each 12 or 16 cars or so in a train if it's using diesel power... and should a steam train be generated, make it check for a car with a new tender property, and generate a tender to follow the locomotive if such a car exists, otherwise forget about it and keep going as it does now.  Then they wouldn't have to even make a tender, just tell us the new exemplar/value to set, and everything keeps working as normal.

To do all the above requires just a single free bit in an exemplar, doesn't mess up any existing stuff... and caboose and tender can be mutually exclusive if need be. 

While we're bugging Maxis, can we add a steam/diesel/both option somewhere?  That would be really nice.

 

[kassarc16 4]

Thank you again, Big Red. If you hadn't noticed, I've got a soft spot for BN. Growing up in rural NW Washington does that to ya. If I had the time, computing power, and incredibly accurate terrain, zoning, and road maps, I'd try my hand at recreating the I-5 corridor, and more, North of Everett. My hand terraforming really sucks in that respect. I'd lovet to see your Sounder train rumble through Stanwood one day.

In response to your suggestions about Dearnen's other engines, I'd been using the Santa-Fe, BN, BNSF, Canadian National, and Central Oregon and Pacific. I'll get GN now that you mention it. My current region is based close enough to all those areas that it works. I just wish we could control freight paths better, maybe even a lot that could spawn freight randomly. Some of my tracks are too empty.

Keep up the good work people!

And now, your moment of zen.

[Trolca 15]

Here's the tanker ZIP file. I'm not sure why it didn't show up before.

 

NOTE TO TROLCA: Any preference for ID numbers if I leave the passenger and steam space?  I know Dearnen uses 10AA5030 for the BN and 10AA5040 for BNSF, perhaps I should follow that and reserve 503B-3F and 4B-4F, leaving you 31-3A and 41-4A for future use, is that OK?

 

I'm think I need to overhaul my numbering system so it uses Instance numbers more efficiently. It might be easier said than done but if a master spreedsheat could be kept showing what Instance numbers are used by who it would help. One rule that I'd like to keep fallowing is the least significant digit be reserved for extra parts and special effects like head lights and lighting.

 

Example:

10AA050

 

If the Instance number in the example is for a freight engine then the next one would be 10AA060, not 10AA051. The red digit would be reserved for that engine as needed.

The exception to this would be original engines/cars which uses 2000 for lighting.

 

There's 33 Exemplers used for train/el-trains/subway/monorail, even using 7 instead of 8 digits, because they're based 16 (hexadecimal) the total number of engines/cars would be roughly 135,000 unique Instance numbers.

XXXX000X - XXXFFFX which is 1000 in hexadecimal, that is 4096 per Exempler.

4096 x 33 = 135168.

 

Right now my numbering is too spread out. I release everything I've done at once to avoid conflicts with old and new. Once this is done there'll be more than enough numbers for everyone. If I took a third of the numbers, it's still over 45,000.

[Smurfer2 7]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/2/2004 1:16:04 AM[/quoteDATE]

Trolca[/quoteAUTHOR]

Date: 4/2/2004 1:04:01 AM

Author: Smurfer2

Date: 4/2/2004 1:00:19 AM

Author: Trolca

Here's part two for the Burlington Northern covered hopper set.

I'm starting to think that these cars are lacking, either that or I just picked the wrong day to be posting train alterations.

I have two requests. Which of the two downlaods doesn't have the grafiti car? Also when you upload the 4 car sets, could not bind them together in a .dat because I don't really want grafiti on my cars, but if that is to hard or something you don't want to do, that's fine. I'll get over it.

The first two cars including the graffiti car are in the first set. I rather not make four or five separate DAT files a set. What I could do is split them, either place the graffiti car with the extream weathered ones or have it in its own DAT and all the others grouped together. In this case the extream weathered car and the graffiti car are grouped.

I guess some don't care for the graffiti. I just feel it adds an element of realism. I don't think I've ever seen a freight train without some graffiti.

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

Well, if you do it like you are now, than that would be great. I just over fund my railrail so they can keep there cars nice. Your right it does add to the realism, but I don't care for grafiti on my beloved train cars. I guess some Grafiti won't hurt.  

BRF: I'm looking forward to you make engines that aren't replacements because I don't know if I replaced the steam engine or not. I just love your work.

Thanks for the new cars Trolca.

[BigRedFish 21]

Here's another pass at the Dearnen hi-nose GP in BN colors, made using one of Kassarc's photos as a guide.  There are two locomotives in the package, one replaces the steam engine, and the other can be used on its own.

[kassarc16 4]

Ah very nice, thank you. I also see you're using the underpass in your cities too.

[BigRedFish 21]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/3/2004 5:02:19 AM[/quoteDATE]

kassarc16[/quoteAUTHOR]

Ah very nice, thank you. I also see you're using the underpass in your cities too.[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

You're welcome.

Don't go away yet, you also get this:

It isn't perfect, but it's good enough to play with.  I'll probably re-do it at some point.  For now, enjoy.

PS: I had to beta-test that underpass.  It's just amazing work; Marrast really has a knack for night-lighting.

 

[kassarc16 4]

Danke. I just love to see these!! Any new body types out there you're looking at trying to skin? By the way, did you get good images for the Sounder?



Yes, Marrast has done incredible work on those, the avenue one looks great. Can't wait till they are fully functional.

[BigRedFish 21]

While I'm posting this, I should mention that the black/orange stripe BN locomotive is a quick cut-and-paste mod to Dearnen's BN locomotive, as is the high-nose GP, so he should get most of the credit.  I just altered the paint and changed the instance IDs. 

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/3/2004 5:23:34 AM[/quoteDATE]

kassarc16[/quoteAUTHOR]

Any new body types out there you're looking at trying to skin? [/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

I'm slowly learning GMax trying to model an Acela/Bombardier set.  I'm not much of an artist, so it's been slow.  I've had much failure, but I will not quit.  I would like to re-render the BN cars, and make a Metra set soon though, that's my high-priority item.  Most US railroads run the same rolling stock with minor variations in paint and window placement...

I'm on California time so I'm going to call it a night.  See you soon.

 

[Dearnen 11]

On the topic of Instances, I thought I'd give a quick rundown of the system I've been using.  I staked my claim beginning with 10AA5010 as follows:

 

ATSF warbonnet 5010

ATSF bluebonnet 5020

BN 5030

BNSF 5040

CNW 5050

DRGW 5060

KCS 5070

SP 5080

UP 5090

CSXT 50A0

NS 50B0

Shortlines 50Cx (NECR 50C0, G&W 50C1, CORP 50C2)

CN 50D0

GN 50E0

 

The idea was to give myself room to make more engines of the same company with very close instances.  I wasn't thinking straight when I made the ATSF bluebonnet - it should have been 5011.  When/if I am able to get back to the engine works, I've got the following on the slate:  CSXT gray 50A1, Wisconsin Central 50C3, Guilford Rail System 50C4, SP Black Widow 5081.  I hope this explains the system I used.

 

I love the BN cars Trolca.  And your work, Big Red Fish, is cool.

 

-Dearnen

[BigRedFish 21]

I'm glad I have the Dearnen stamp of approval; I've been worried that I might be stealing your thunder, D.  Hence the pathological credit obsession.  But since you're on Mars lately I'll keep making steam replacements to go with your locomotives if that's OK.  Your hi-nose GP was a prayer answered. 

 

When I manage to successfully customize a model, I'll have to make my own skin for it, which should be entertaining given my utter lack of natural visual artistic ability... I really have to work at it, one pixel at a time.

 

As for ID's, I'm using the B010-B0FF series at the moment.  I made the same error as Dearnen when I put the BN GP9 on B020 instead of B011, but I can always fill the cracks later.

 

[Smurfer2 7]

I'm enjoying your trains BRF. They're great.'); height=15 alt=Insert smilie src=https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/9.gif width=15 border=0> Though you've convinced me to get that beta underpass.

[BigRedFish 21]

Thanks Smurfer2!

The underpass needs work, though, the cars float in mid-air and turn around instead of going through. But it LOOKS so cool... when it's done it's going to be the best mod ever. Well, one of 'em anyway.

I'm out of commission for a little while, as my Windows drive just crashed. Fortunaltely there are two other working drives in this system, so I'll be re-arranging my Linux partitions and putting Windows on a SCSI drive this time. That should be the end of that problem. I think I rescued all my work but I won't know for sure until later.

I guess the good news is, next time I boot up, I'll be running SC4 on two CPUs. That should be a treat!

Hasta later, y'all. I have some systems work to do...

[kassarc16 4]

Oh no!!

Get Well Soon, Computer!!

Trolca will just have to pick up the slack.

[Trolca 15]

My plans to provide an update for the Train Mod download is going to be put off another weak so I can reassign Instance numbers to all of my post Rush Hour work. Once I get done with that I'll add some more to the Burlington Northern set, some of which will be based on the images provided by kassarc16.

[kassarc16 4]

Can't wait Big T.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Hey, these train cars are really neat.  BUT.  35 pages of this topic?

 

Do not tell me we (aka normal people who don't follow this thread hourly) have to sift through 1,045 posts to find a few neat train cars to add to the game, do we?

 

You really need to post a link to a hosted site which has all of your little train cars - WITH INSTRUCTIONS (hint) - on how to pick, choose, and use.

 

Thanks!

 

Your stuff is awesome - thanks for working on it - but I would love to use your beautiful works of art! 

[Trolca 15]

[bEGINQUOTE]

4/5/2004 3:14:41 AM[/quoteDATE]

zilfondel[/quoteAUTHOR]

Hey, these train cars are really neat. BUT. 35 pages of this topic?

Do not tell me we (aka normal people who don't follow this thread hourly) have to sift through 1,045 posts to find a few neat train cars to add to the game, do we?

You really need to post a link to a hosted site which has all of your little train cars - WITH INSTRUCTIONS (hint) - on how to pick, choose, and use.

Thanks!

Your stuff is awesome - thanks for working on it - but I would love to use your beautiful works of art!

[/quoteMESSAGE][/bEGINQUOTE]

Thanks for your comments. Currently there isn't any site hosting my work that I'm aware of. As soon as I get done with changing all the Instance (ID) numbers, I'll package all the post Rush Hour work into a single download and place it in the Mods section of this site.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

Oh, that's awesome!  Just what I wanted to hear!  I guess I'll just wait unti you release them, then!

 

Good luck on it, Trolca!  Your trains are awesome!

[Equinox 1,209]

Whoa !! :

 

 

That's almost hilarious!

It really reminds me, though, of this picture in my chem lab book:

It has like an old-looking train breaking through the side wall of like a second-story building, falling onto the road below.

I have no idea as to what's behind that, does anybody know?

I believe the caption read Human error at Montalparnesse? or something with a weird name in it.

 

Anyways, Trolca, your Octan tanker is I think my favorite one yet. 
Keep up the awesome work.