NS Pocahontas District

[kbr]

I just got Maple Leaf Track's NS Engine Pack to have some new engines to enjoy on the NS Pocahontas District Route.

Here are a few pictures. All pictures are of the Pocahontas route.

A few closeups of one of the engines to show the wonderful detail that MLT put in them. I really like the black NS livery.









West Virginia in the autumn.












I have to say that the Pocahontas District Route is a very nicely done route. I've really been enjoying it. It's one of those routes that are hard to believe that it is freeware.

Anyone wanting to check out the route, here's what you need;
pokeyv1.zip - The route, by Austin Yoder which you can get on Train-Sim.
phu_hawk.zip - Update of trees and ground textures by Hawk, also available at Train-Sim.
SR_Pocahontas.zip - scalerail update for the route by 3DTrains, you can get it here: www.3dtrains.com/downloads/scalerail/conversions.shtml

The engines I am using are available from Maple Leaf Tracks and are payware. www.mapleleaftracks.com/

[sgtmajor]

Very nice Kevin!!!! BTW.... I really do appreciate you always listing exactly what is needed for the route.... That makes it easy for a knucklehead like me. (smile)

I have always liked the NS paint scheme! As I posted somewhere else...(smile).... my brother-in-law just retired from NS after about 50 years working for them. (Originally Northfolk Western) He wasn't an engineer... but worked in a repair yard and loved his work. I'll have to forward a link to your screen-shots to him.... I know he'll enjoy them too.

Cheers!

[Dan]

WoW

Those engines look great, Kevin!! Extremely realistic! And photoreal tracks too! Those trees are excellent!

I'm off to look for Pocahontas - shoot, been looking for her for years . . . ;D

Thanks for all the information!

Dan

_{…it’s great being a kid again – without the glue!} ;D

[bhk]

Kevin,
Great shots and those MLT locos look terrific, too.
As it's a coal route I reckon it looks like another download for me.

Bruce

[kbr]

sgtmajor said:

Very nice Kevin!!!! BTW.... I really do appreciate you always listing exactly what is needed for the route....

No problem, I know all too well how hard it can be to hunt down all the needed files for a route, so I'm always happy to help others avoid that problem when I can. That sounds like a great job that your brother-in-law had, hope he enjoys the pictures.

dans said:

WoW

Those engines look great, Kevin!! Extremely realistic! And photoreal tracks too! Those trees are excellent!

I'm off to look for Pocahontas - shoot, been looking for her for years . . . ;D

Thanks for all the information!

Thanks. I've been very pleased with this route as well as MLT's NS engines.

bhk said:

Kevin,
Great shots and those MLT locos look terrific, too.
As it's a coal route I reckon it looks like another download for me.

Bruce

I think you'll like it, Bruce, it's a very nice route.


Today I was doing an activity where you are to pick up a broken down train from the Bluestone Extension track. Getting away from the main line from time to time is rather nice. In the second picture down, you can see me backing up to couple to the broken engine.

[bhk]

Well, looks as if another 250+ Mb of HD space is about to be swallowed up

Kevin, which Activity is that....did you download it or is it part of the route package?

Bruce

[bhk]

Downloaded, installed, updated with the trees and Scalerail and a trio of freeware Dash 9's added to the pile.

These use the freeware MLT Dash 9 as the basis, alias to the default D9 cabview but have an excellent sound-set as part of the download, plus two little features which appear on the cab-panel: the number of cars in the train, in the shape of a small red digital counter; and an acceleration/deceleration indicator.
Also has the option of installing clean or dirty trucks.

File name, in case you're interested, is hrns1d9s.zip and is 22Mb (3 locos plus sounds).
also grab hrnsfx1b.zip (210Kb), a fix for the headlight.



There are quite a few Activities for this route...........nearly all involving coal (fair enough...it IS the location of the largest US coal supplies outside of Powder River Basin) and the number of lines branching off the 150-mile main that the author has included is amazing......12 in total, serving something in the order of 40 mines!

Good scenery, great double-trackage....very smooth; he's done a good job on the alignment, both vertically and laterally.

Very good accompanying documentation that includes maps, real-life operating instructions, timetable and speed restrictions.

This is a nice route.

Bruce

[kbr]

Glad to hear you got it, Bruce. I've been very impressed with this route. You don't see too many routes of this complexity outside of the payware market.

Thanks for the tip on the freeware NS dash 9s, I don't have those so I'll have to grab them. I do have the freeware MLt Dash 9. I might change the cab alias to one of MLT's dash cabs though.

The activity I was doing in those pictures is available on Train-Sim and the file name is: blexhlpu.zip

There's also another NS route out, 'Clinch Valley,' but I haven't tried it yet as Pocahontas, Rogers Pass and KHP are keeping me pretty busy right now, but I do plan to check it out. 3Dtrains also did a scalerail conversion for that one as well.

[bhk]

I noticed that other route....it extends from the southern end of 'Pocahontas'.

I've downloaded that Activity but although Route Riter makes for a pretty straight-forward job of changing rolling stock in the 6 consists (5 ai and one player) I am having a pain of a job trying to change the loose consists.
Looks as I'll just have to bite the bullet and download everything.

Bruce

[Dan]

bhk said:

Downloaded, installed, updated with the trees and Scalerail and a trio of freeware Dash 9's added to the pile.

These use the freeware MLT Dash 9 as the basis, alias to the default D9 cabview but have an excellent sound-set as part of the download, plus two little features which appear on the cab-panel: the number of cars in the train, in the shape of a small red digital counter; and an acceleration/deceleration indicator.
Also has the option of installing clean or dirty trucks.

File name, in case you're interested, is hrns1d9s.zip and is 22Mb (3 locos plus sounds).
also grab hrnsfx1b.zip (210Kb), a fix for the headlight.

Bruce

Bruce, thanks for the screenshots and the downloads! Got them all, but have only had time to load the engines and run them for awhile. Some of the best looking freeware engines I've seen - especially the 'dirty' versions. And, great sounds!!!

This painter, Hugh Reilly, is extremely talented in making something look realistic - amazing!! So much so, I went back and downloaded a couple of his others - Santa Fe & BNSF. He's also done a number of Hopper sets (hr100tp1.zip & hr100tp2.zip). All look very well done and dirty!

Not sure, but believe Kevin said something in a post recently, that 'trains' are very time consuming - he wasn't kidding!! Especially when your trying to learn where everything goes or not go-es.

Dan

_{…it’s great being a kid again – without the glue!} ;D

[bhk]

Dan,
By coincidence, I also did a search for his stuff and ended up downloading his hoppers.

Yeah, it's time-consuming alright.....I spent an hour or so yesterday just changing the sounds of dozens of wagons from the default squeaks and clunks to the sounds used by Maple leaf Tracks for their rolling stock.
It required editing many, many .WAG files!

Bruce