High Speed Rail Project

[Running Naked in the Snow 2]

Sorry about the double-post, but I would like this to be known.

The 30th street station I modelled is now completed and is at the next step. But i cannot export it because the BAT addon script itself wouldnt install on my computer, leaving me with an GMAX copy with no way to export it to see whether it looks good in sc4.

That being said, Im still investigating into the bat4max addon for my 3dsmax, but we ll see how that works out. I feel like I have to let you guys know one caveat about this:

this station is gonna be huge. at last count, the building itself is 13x13 tiles. Thats without any additional transport (this building I made with the intention of enabling it as an railroad station along with HSRP to enable NAM's underground railroad). I may proceed with this turning this lot into an multimodal transit center. But, it remains that I worry about the fact that this will take an obscenely huge area in your cities; my city-building style is primarly focused on the mid-rise cities. Even for me, theres no spot for it in my downtown-- not all 13 by 13 of this. (and thats before I lot this)

I did not realize until it was too late; now I m not sure whether I should proceed with this model. IF you guys want to see this come to fruition, even with the size, I will do so. I feel conflicted because this is my first big model and Im proud of it; yet I cannot export it and its huge even on SC4 standards.

I learnt from my lesson and will scale down accordingly for my next models. Hopefully those would fit into the landscape much better than this one. I really do regret the oversight.

Without further ado, heres the picture of the final model:

[lexar 0]

awesome!

[bwatterud 7]

The model looks awesome. Great idea to try to have it work for NAM underground rail. And don't worry about the big size; real buildings are big too.

[rickmastfan67 0]

That thing is wickedly sweet!!!!

[JayStimson 211]

Looks very promising.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Looks very promising indeed! I don't mind if it's big, since you'll find high speed rail stations only in very large cities anyway. Looking at the pic, I got one idea: It looks like the part with the HSRP tracks is four tiles wide, which "wastes" a lot of space. You should render this as a separate prop (this will speed up the rendering a lot, I guess), and put parking lots below it. Since you can't build anything below elevated tracks, maybe some flat overhanging props with parking lot textures and a few cars that show up between the HSRP supports would be nice. For the outer two rows of tiles, you could use the standard Maxis textures and props.

[tommiej 0]

i'm really looking forward for this station!! but got one reminder, remember that if you want to place two HSRails next to each other, you will need to make some weird turns.. it would be very nice if some one could make a puzzle piece that could turn one track into two tracks, like a railswitch, only then a very long one..

does this makes sense? because english isn't my first language..

[shasta 1]

This station looks INCREDIBLE!!!!! Don't worry about the size. Big cities need big terminal stations. This goes without saying, but you should definitely keep going with it. Also, I like the idea of making this a multimodal station. You should add a subway connection to the lot when you get that far along.

[Running Naked in the Snow 2]

what do you guys think of this: I can add an parking garage under the overhanging HSRP station part, small 2-story garage with TE enabled on the street side behind the station, with road coming through? I dont know whether this is realistic since there will be vibratons coming from the HSRP above, but for aesthical purposes...?

[stephenh2 0]

I can see i will need to redesign my test city for this BEAUTIFUL behemoth, AWESOME! And if it can be used with other modes of transport that would only help to justify the awesome size. As something that beautiful, and well made, deserves ALL the space it want's, hell, the real station and accompanying rail yard is also MASSIVE, but that only adds to the visuals. So by all means, keep the current size, it looks to good to be fiddled with or resized.

Edit: technically, in terms of realism, the only thing below the overhead rail (in real life it's Septa's part of the station, with Amtrak being in the main Concourse with the below station platforms) is an avenue, and part of Amtrak's rail yard. The parking garage (from the looks of it) is actually beside the HSR part, and is a monolith is and of itself. But yeah, a parking garage under it would work to.

[Running Naked in the Snow 2]

Originally posted by: stephenh2 Technically, in terms of realism, the only thing below the overhead rail (in real life it's Septa's part of the station, with Amtrak being in the main Concourse with the below station platforms) is an avenue, and part of Amtrak's rail yard. The parking garage (from the looks of it) is actually beside the HSR part, and is a monolith is and of itself. But yeah, a parking garage under it would work to.quote>

Yes, I m aware of the parking bememoth besides the HSRP part (septa irl) but I dont want to add another 10 tiles to this lot, and this was the only thing I could think that would meet the requirements of a transmodal center without the addition of an ugly parking garage. But, my biggest question-- is it realistic? I havent seen much HSRP in real life, and its almost impossible finding pictures of real-life HSRP stations and their parking arrangements (who in their right state of mind would take pics of parking garage?), and Im not sure if this is also practical because vibrations and in this nation's current paranoia-induced security measures, it wont fly. But, will people buy it for SC4? thats my question of the day.

Also, speaking of Amtrak being underground, I have the intention of rectifying that situation by enabling train station on this so you can use this alongside NAM's underground rail puzzle pieces. Lets see how that works out.

Thank you for your input, stephen. I would like to hear more before proceeding.

[Apfelbaumpflanzer 0]

The model is very cool.

I can't await  the release

[stephenh2 0]

Well, from the pictures i have seen of real life stations, the parking garage is typically not under the tracks, if anything it's above them. Most likely due to the aformentioned vibration issue. Even the stations in japan (i so want to go there!) only have, at the most, shops under the tracks. Although this could have other reasons like the fact that the supports required for the weight of the train would make a parking garage cramped and thus dangerous. But it is also possible (im guessing) in real life to have part of the garage under the tracks, and the majority in a separate structure. I would say more, but the answer to this question is basically WHY im in Architectural Engineering! lol So i will definitely be able to give a definite answer in...oh.... about 4 years! give or take... lol Of course by then SC5 will hopefully be out...

As for taking pics of 30th St. and other train stations, you can, but it depends on how you do it. For example I have some pics of 30th St, and a few videos of septa train entering and leaving (the vid is ok, but it was taken with a photo camera). But when i took them i was in one case, with my mom and little brother, and in the other, i had luggage. Taking pictures is ok, BUT if you look like your taking pics you shouldn't be, or constantly looking over your soldier, then YES you will get red flagged and well, yeah, self explanatory after that... There are entire websites devoted to train pictures, so yeah, it all depends on your demeanor.

[Andreas Roth 607]

Originally posted by: tommiej i'm really looking forward for this station!! but got one reminder, remember that if you want to place two HSRails next to each other, you will need to make some weird turns.. it would be very nice if some one could make a puzzle piece that could turn one track into two tracks, like a railswitch, only then a very long one..

does this makes sense? because english isn't my first language..quote>

 

Ah, yes, now that you mention it...

@Running Naked in the Snow: The HSRP curve radii are rather large, so it's not really possible to create switches that split off the HSR tracks directly to the adjacent tiles. You will have to separarate the platforms by one tile in between, like it is done with the HSRP station that is already available. I guess it's not really a problem, since you have reserved more than enough room for the platforms anyway. Just make the outer ones smaller and widen the center platform instead. It will still span the amount of four tiles in width, but obviously, you can move the structure on the lot so it covers only one half of the outer tiles.

About placing parking garages below the tracks: Well, as long as they are independend from the track supports, I don't see any problems. Vibrations might be an issue, but only if the garages are connected with the supports. I'm not sure how many parking decks you could fit in, though - not more than three of four, I guess.

[crazyyaya 4]

sweeet

[Rockx 0]

I'd first like to say that this project looks great!

However.. I'm getting a strange bug that nobody else seems to have. My diagonal HSR tracks don't seem to function. Heres a few pics to describe it:

Straight HSR works perfectly:

But diagonal seems to not work at all:

All my other networks work perfectly. Im using SC4 Deluxe, with the update 1. The only plugins I have installed are the latest NAM and HSRPbeta1.

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

cool station

[tothe175854thpower 0]

Sure is cool to see 30th Street Station being made. Yes, the station has mammoth size in real life, and it even has Comcast Tower, estimated to be 975 feet tall, about to be completed next to it. Underground parking garages would be most reasonable because of how much space above ground parking lots would take up, unless the above ground parking would be included seperately.

[stephenh2 0]

Hey tothe175854thpower, did you mean the completed Cira Center is next to 30th st.

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=ciracentre-philadelphia-pa-usa

As im pretty sure that it's blocking my view of the yet to be completed Comcast center

http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=comcastcenter-philadelphia-pa-usa

And Rockx, i think there is a solution somewhere, but you may just want to re lay the track. Was it originally Monorail, or was it laid as HSR to begin with?

[Shingure 56]

I love the 30th Street Station... It looks just like it. I drive past it every single day and well it looked exact....There is one question... Is it subway compatable.

[Rockx 0]

It was laid as HSR to begin with. I've tried relaying the track, but it still doesn't seem to work. It's happened on every city i've made, even after i did a reinstall of the game (just in case it was a conflict with some other plugin). Quite strange.

Here's a (very ugly) workaround that i used to make corners:

[stephenh2 0]

That's very unusual, i thought curves, just worked. The only time they didn't work for me was when they weren't connected to the station. I would say built a station, then relay the tracks through it. I would upload pics of the HSRP main station working with curves, but they require editing to fit within the size limits for attachments... And im already multitasking enough already. I'll check back later, and hopefully have the time to post the pics.

[moneyrobbers 0]

I wanna no why can't any of my high speed trains go around corners or points. BTW i have the Uk version of the game

[mjig_dudy 11]

well, i recently had a look at the paths, and they all seem pretty messed up, but then i also have the UK version of the game, which could well be what is causing the problems.

if anyone with a RHD version of the game could take a look at the paths using buggy's draw paths cheat we can have a look weather it is for all version or only the LHD version.

[Rockx 0]

Well I guess we found the common link. I am also using the UK version of the game.

[david1314 44]

I checked the paths on a US version of the game.

The LOD interferes with the actual paths themselves, so the draw paths function doesn't show the HSR.

I could see where it was interfering through on zoom 3 only (presumably because higher zooms exclude the area where the path is correctly, while on zooms 1-2, the small interfering portion does not display over ther LOD).

Working with 3 pink points on the diagonal that could be seen, I couldn't tell the orientation of the path.

[DragonStallion 0]

From my reading of this thread, the High Speed Rail project is 1.)a modification of the Monorail with the improved capacity for higher speed and larger passenger loads, but between entire cities. 2.) That the system is designed for straight as possible track design with little to no grade and turns that won't derail the system.

This sounds like real life HSR alright. The only high speed train here in the US, Acela Express runs at 75 mph or double that when looking at track conditions in the Northeast Corridor

[lexar 0]

does it happen to others when you put el-rail over the hsr the rail under it turns to monorail track? what can i do?

[Godzillaman 21]

is the high speed rail going to be in the new NAM?

[Tarkus 6,932]

Godzillaman, to answer your question, the answer is unfortunately no.  However, we have discussed the possibility of using the Draggable GLR code to actually so that the HSR would stand alone and not replace the Monorail.  It may be awhile, though.

-Tarkus