The Colusa & Lake (36ng) for Trainz

[NormHart]

Well I've got good news and I've got bad news. It turns out I have a photo of the Ben Ely. The bad news is she doesn't match Curtis' 2-6-0s much. I was going to ask Curtis what the build numbers were but I thought to check his builder's plates and sure enough he had the numbers there and from them I'd say the Ben Ely was a much later build. The last number Curtis' engines had was in the 3020s and the Ben Ely was 3753. Judging from the picture she had a much longer stroke, although most of the rest matched fairly well.

However, the good news is while SP sold the Jupiter in 1891 they kept her three sister engines. The Storm CP #61 SP #1273, the Whirlwind CP #62 SP #1196, and the Levianthan CP #63 SP #1197 (I have their later renumber also but I think that happened in 1901?) So if you like bdaneal's Jupiter all they need is a name change/paint job. (what did the SP do to the named engines anyway, paint them all black?) I have already been fooling with them because I wanted to see if I could produce them as the CP engines but I am not all that confident that I can do a good job on them.

[ferroequine]

Norm,

It would be possible to make a CP/SP locomotive of the era I am shooting for, but it'll take some work.
I happened across a site with a few photographs I hadn't seen and discovered this shot:



SP 1226 was formerly CP 149 "Diana" from another set of Schenectedy locomotives of the same design as those you mentioned. This image shows the locomotive as an oil burner, with a standard Harriman cab but it does show what the locomotives were starting to look like around the turn of the century. Interestingly the same site shows a few examples of what the motive power I would need looks like including one of ten wheelers I was talking about. I'll have to hunt for an earlier shot of Diana, I know I've seen it before. A lot depends on what A. J. Stevens had done to the locomotives. On the page below note the image CP 168, per a discussion elsewhere it was noted that by the time of the photograph, only the frame and cylinders were original, everything else was built by the CP in Sacramento under Steven's guidance. This is the reason for the extremely thick driver tires, it was done to match the preferred standard driver diameter.

It would be interesting to find out where the locomotive was rebuilt, as that would give a date to when the domes were changed. I'll have to do more digging when I get home.

As for converting the Jupiter model: Why not do it anyway? Obviously there are some safety appliances that could be added, but the locomotive could be easily repainted for a slightly later scheme (1870s) without much detail change.

What we really need is V&T Dayton... Then we could repaint it into a number of CP locomotives.

Though now I want to repaint the Jupiter into something else... We could repaint 119 into the CP versions of the Rogers they owned as well...

Maybe someday, ages from now, I'll endeavor to make a "1876 Donner Pass" route or something. 1876 being picked on purpose so I can include the early NCNG.

http://lariverrailroads.com/cp_sp_locos.html

[NormHart]

Some interesting pictures there! It appears as though the SP repainting was rather uneven. I was interested to note some tenders had "SP of CAL" lettering and that the Russian Iron survived for some time before being painted over.

I am not so sure that the Diana was converted to oil in that picture, comparing the tender to other tenders on the page it appears as though it closely matches the coal tender on the 1413 but I could be missing something.

I have made some progress with repainting the Jupiter, actually all I have done is remove the lettering and split the files into the three "new" engines. I still need to identify the font bdaneal used. I don't intend to modify the overall paint scheme, just the name and the number.

I have also been experimenting with backdating existing routes to the 1800's, converting the tracks, roads, power poles to telegraph, and etc. Naturally, being an idiot, I started with a fairly large route.

I am hoping that I'll be able to do something with TrainzItalia's Donner Pass Route, when it comes out.

There are a few other routes that might be interesting to backdate to the wood burning era.

[ferroequine]

Since you were asking to see more screenshots I figured I'd put together a short tour.

So far you've seen Sites and the canyon, areas that I've spent a lot more time working on than the rest. In the past few days I started working on the valley portion more. To date I've adjusted the grade to follow the historic maps from Colusa Junction up to Mills Orchard station. My next goal is to finish up the trackage through the canyon to sites which is largely completed excepting a section of grade that is wrong and needs replacement. Continuing down the line the next station is Mills Orchard.

At present this is Mills Orchard. I have not yet found a photo of one of these stations in the valley, so for the time being they've got Mt Montgomery stations as stand-ins. In the distance you can see the hills and route up into the canyon.

Mills Orchard.jpg (112.68 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

Past Mills Orchard there is a nice sweeping curve in the valley as the line heads south to Fairview. These stops were likely little more than a platform but historic maps do show several structures closer to Fairview than the other stations. Yes, that church placement is accurate it is one of two rural churches along the route.

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Moving on we reach the railroad's crossing of the central valley canal. Built in the late 1880s this portion of the line is not well represented on any maps I have available at this time. Additionally the bridge is just a stand-in, I am not sure what sort of bridge was here.

Canal Crossing.jpg (126.84 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

[ferroequine]

After crossing the canal the next stop is Lurline. In this screen shot you can see the canal crossing in the distance.

Lurline.jpg (199.93 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

After crossing more valley we reach Colusa Junction and the Northern Railway (CP/SP) crossing. I have not yet found a photograph of the buildings that were present at the junction, however maps are consistent as to the trackage and location of major buildings. Today this location is called Cortina and not a trace of the C&L remains here.

Colusa Junction.jpg (142.95 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

After crossing the standard gauge we press on through the valley.

Grass Forever.jpg (126.51 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

[ferroequine]

Once you're past the junction there isn't much but a lot of straight track and grass. Eventually the historic farms and other scenes will break up the monotony. Right now, it's a lot of boring. The most interesting parts of this section are the slough and canal crossings which are home to countless birds and other animals. For now we'll skip past this several miles of valley. The most impressive of the crossings is Hopkin's Slough which was the first trestle built on the line outside of Colusa.

Hopkins Slough.jpg (100.38 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

As we approach Colusa we begin to see more signs of civilization and the trees along the Sacramento River. While included in the terrain data, the Sutter Buttes are still not visible from here at maximum draw distance.

Colusa Outskirts.jpg (114.03 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

Colusa has been neglected by me since I did a quick job of assembling downtown. Right now the hodgepodge of buildings looks good enough, but does not accurately reflect what the final town will look like. For now, it can only be seen from afar.

Colusa.jpg (121.09 KiB) Viewed 71788 times

[NormHart]

Looking very good!

I am not very clear on how backdrops work in Trainz. For our auto racing mods we would use a wall with the distant terrain on it. It basically had no lod distance (kind like the sky) and surrounded the entire track. If that kind of capability is in Trainz you could have the Coastal range, the Sierras, and the Butte. (In one case we used screen captures from NASA's World Wind and in another we had someone take photos from the center of where the track used to be.) These backdrops were always in view and where unaffected by either draw distance or fogging.

[Pencil]

That route is looking incredible - thank you for sharing the pictures!!

Curtis

[NormHart]

Ah, it turns out that Trainz does support "any angle billboards" which is what I was suggesting for Sutters Butte and possibly the far Coastal Range hills and Sierra Nevada.

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... -SpeedTree

How these work at long distances, 5km plus, would have to be investigated.

[ferroequine]

This interesting photo fell into my lap the other day. I am probably not supposed to share it but it's so interesting I had to.
So, to compromise you get "tiny" vision, for research purposes of course.



Is that ugly or what? Notice the rear truck is a freight car truck (minus outriggers for brakes). I almost wonder if it shares some basic dimensions with the B&B's 0-4-2T (also ugly) Porter.

[Pencil]

That's cute! There was another little Porter on the cover of one of the recent NG&SLG's that (had I not have to work for a living) I would have loved to model.
Back to this one - it almost looks like the tender is rigidly attached to the locomotive - is that the case, or is it just an optical illusion?

Curtis

[ferroequine]

The tender is part of the locomotive, you can see a similar model available in the 1889 Porter catalog here. I'll have to see if someone has the spec sheet for this one, I am curious to know more about it's as built appearance.

What is surprising is this locomotive lasted as long as it did. If you notice the locomotive is now an oil burner which puts this photo firmly into the 20th century but still pre-1914.

[NormHart]

I recently got all hot and bothered about wood burning narrow gauge logging locomotives and discovered these,

normhart_20130510_0001.jpg (66.85 KiB) Viewed 71033 times

They are both the 36" gauge E&P Eureka locomotive.

The one on the left is by bdaneal and the one on the right is by togog.

I don't know if either would fit your 4-4-0 needs...

Norm

[ferroequine]

Norm,

I've been in contact with Togog and have been working with him to create Colusa & Lake #2, more or less as she should look for the 1890s. In return, I've been helping him with Baldwin information for a couple projects of his own. Hopefully I can get C&L #3 on the project list as it was slightly different than #2.

CL2-at-sitesdepot.jpg (137.62 KiB) Viewed 71014 times

There are a few minor things left to finish, but I suspect it will be released soon.

[NormHart]

Sweet! Glad to see the project progressing.