Laying the tracks part 2

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Entry posted by adavis287 · February 9, 2016

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Here is the second part two of our journal in laying railway through the city. The previous post was meant to be one journal, but I ran out of file uploads. Thanks for the comments, as I am now going to be using imgur, so these two-parters should be a thing of the past. I have also taken on comments about the bend in the road from Browns Line. As takemethere has very kindly shown, by using one-way road instead of avenue, it alleviates an extra tile needed to convert from avenue to road and allows the 90 degree curve. It also adds additional realism with the height of the bridge and the centre markings. If anyone can recommend a good terrain smoothing mod, I would really appreciate it. I have left the terrain unchanged for now, as I'm sure a mod will do a much better job than myself when I get round to it. Here is a snapshot of the altered bridge:

Moving on. Next is the Kipling Avenue overpass. This is also where the railway starts to fork. Based on the width of the railway, there should be just under four tiles worth, but because it will be crossing the avenue orthogonality, I will go with three.

The line coming off at the south follows an almost orthogonal route through the rail yard, whereas the northern branch follows the same fractional angle of the main line, but it had to be offset using a diagonal route, because you cannot have two parallel FARR one tile apart.

The final road/rail interface along the mainline is Islington Avenue. This is unfortunately where the railway is at its widest (458 m or 28-29 tiles!). As NAM does not have puzzle pieces for road viaducts over FARR, I will need to use diagonal rail under the entire length of the bridge. Dual diagonal rail seems to resort to the Maxis default, so I will stick to spacing them further apart, although even these will resort to Maxis default for the road viaduct intersection.

Here is my attempt at it. It does look rather ugly, but perhaps when the rail depot comes into place and the lines are expanded, it won't be quite as "bare". I've used 15m viaduct avenue for the entire stretch. Next step is to smooth off the bridge at either end.

At the northern slop of the bridge it meets Judson St (which I've marked off using my previous map coordinate system). The intersection is very close, so the gentle ramp for the avenue viaduct is out of the question. The much steeper ramp will be needed; this also allows a few spaces for turning lanes. Whilst I was figuring out if I had enough space for turning lanes, I completed the intersection in its entirety, so here's a first glimpse of Toronto's road intersections.

At the southern ramp of the bridge, it meets New Toronto St in almost exactly the same circumstances as Judson St. One major difference is that there is now enough space to fit a smooth sloped ramp AND the turning lanes. Again, I have completed the intersection. This one looks much nicer with the gentle ramp and I have also started to curve the avenue off at a fractional angle immediately outside of the screen. This is one of very few "kinks" in the city's strict grid system. Presumably it kinks to align with the optimum location for the bridge over the rail tracks.

Let's bring back the OpenStreet Map and focus on the railway line heading north to the boundary of the map. It's 120 tiles east of the western boundary. For the most part, it is a dual track, with spurs merging on and off along its route.

There isn't a built-in 72 degree rail split with the latest NAM, so I've converted the main line to follow a diagonal path for the junction. The northern line can now branch off smoothly with a NAM puzzle piece. The main line does look a little strange and it's hard to tell which one is the main line and which is the minor!

There is also a small dual line serving local industry that branches off closer to Browns Line. I've gone for a different approach to its junction here, which does leave a rather sharp bend in the rail.

It heads north towards Horner Ave., where it splits into two single track lines and terminates.

I think this concludes the entry on rail. Obviously, there is more rail serving local factories and of course the huge rail depot(s), but as far as laying down the tracks, we're done here. Next up is laying down the (main) roads! Thanks for reading.