Roadwolf's Blog

Our birds are doing well.  Paddy is as friendly as ever, and is learning not to bite as hard as he used to.  He is also pooping on command on a regular basis, and we have him somewhat trained to use a perch above some newspaper to poop on.  Beryl is also doing well.  Him and Paddy enjoy flying around outside the cage from time to time.  They both generally get along well, and they even preen eachother.  Strangely enough Beryl has been seen trying to mount Paddy…  Paddy always reacts surprised and kinda looks at Beryl like WTF?

Little Bird is still without any flight feathers.  I imagine she will molt soon.  When she does, I wonder how good (or bad) of a flier she will be?  Paddy is a VERY good flier still.  He has learned the apartment very well.  Beryl is still learning to fly,  he is not as adapt as Paddy, but he can generally keep pace with him.

It was fun today to watch and play with all the birds.

Filed Under: Beryl, Paddy Add Comment »

I have begun work on the scenery on my Newfoundland Route.  So far I have done a nice job on the port town of Barrie.  Here are some images of the process.

As you can see, Barrie has progressed nicely.

I am working towards the East now with scenery, along my already completed route.  I also have a route made which is about 20 miles long, which diverges from the mainline a few route miles West of Barrie.  This tracks services a iron mine and a few other small industries.  It is out of CTC, and has no passing sidings, so it may only be serviced by one train at a time.

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Well I got my copy of Trainz 2010: Engineers Edition in the mail yesterday.  I am happy to say that the integration and merge with my TRS2009 content was fairly smooth.  It took 2 content imports, and a re-committing of a bunch of content, in order to get my TRS2009 content to work in TRS2010.

This will allow me to work on my new route easily while using layers and speed trees.

Expect progress on this soon.. 

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Scajaquada Route Images and a sneak peak at the Newfoundland Route:

A local freight traces through the valley as it approaches Empire, on the Kachinahey Sub.

A Grade Crossing on the Scajaquada Line.

This is an example of the grass splines and detail level.

The Scajauqada Route is a made from scratch fictional route.  The route covers some 150 route miles.  About half of the route has completed scenery, however there were some inheriant design flaws in this route which made it undesirable over time.  One was the proximity to a large city right off the bat.  Trying to build a large city in Trainz is stressful to say the least.  Another was the lack of use of any track elevation techniques.  The trackbed is all set to 0 on the height index, and the land around the track is molded to look like it is rising or falling.  While this was a lot easier to do, it created a less challenging route.

I also used block scenery for this route,   I would dress up a section about a kilometer square and then copy and paste it to detail a large amount of land at once.  I would then go over the trackside features more carefully, and add telephone poles,  grass splines, and other such trackside features as desired.  This was a fairly efficient method.

I then got interested in Trains DEM, and for my first serious attempt at a DEM route, I choose the challenging terrain of Newfoundland in order to build a fictional route.  As you can see from the image below, the DEM terrain is a lot more realistic.  I am however waiting until I get Trainz2010 to begin to add scenery to this new route – as I do wish to use the layering system and speedtrees.

If you know Newfoundland well, and think you can guess where the image below was taken from, let me know

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I am currently working with TrainzDEM to produce a realistic, and challenging fictional route based on the geography of Newfoundland.  I hope to be able to assemble quite a large route, in excess of 300 miles with some branch lines as well.

The line technically starts where St. Johns Nfld is located geographically, and winds its way North West along a rocky coastline.  The primary industries will be iron ore extraction, forestry (on one southern branch line), coal, petrolium products, and plastics.  There will be one main port with a container yard, and an intermodal facility at about mile 200.

There will also be regular passenger services on the line.

The line will start out as a single tracked block controlled line with passing sidings every 5 to 10 miles or so.

Industries will spring up around towns which will focus on the manufacturing of iron, lumber, coal and petrolium, and the processing of these items into processed materials or consumer goods.  There will also be a small isolated cattle ranch which will utilize old cattle cars, as well as a single grain silo located down a branch line.

Gravel and other materials will also be collected and shipped via train, as will fresh food (sea food) which will require special rolling stock.  There will be a small autorack yard at one of the main towns as well.  Peatmoss and fertilizer will also be a natural resource.

We will be assuming that the land link portion of this line will connect to the mainland.  Therefore:

Incoming freight:

• Automobiles
• Some Grain and Food Cars
• Containers
• Some Chemicals

Outgoing Freight:

• Gasoline
• Diesel
• AvGas
• Coal
• Coke
• Gravel
• Containers
• Iron (Processed) / Steel
• Sea Food
• Plastic
• Peat Moss
• Fertilizer

There should be a yard located around the 50 mile mark, which will be close enough to the majority of the industries which it will be serving.  However several trains may have to head from the mainland to the yard, then back out again once their sorted to local industries that they passed on the way in.

Either way it should be interesting.  I am planning on developing this layout completely in Trainz2010 using speed trees and layers to assist me.

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Well I figured it was about time for me to post an update here.

I have been hard at work lately, as well as balancing my time with trying to get my TF2 servers organised.  My previous gaming clan, the FastLaneCrew decided they could no longer support the servers, so they handed them back to me, and I thusly had to build up a small clan to support them.  So far things are going well, and I am working on getting everything running smoothly.

My Green Cheek Conure, “Paddy” is doing well.  He has started a molt, likely because of this hot weather we have been having.  But otherwise is doing fine.  The wart on his eye is gone that’s to some anti-biotic the vet provided for him.  Paddy has been a joy for me to have around.  While he is kind of like having a child in some respects, he is generally easier to take care of.  Paddy has attached himself to me, and he will often ask me to scratch behind his ears and enjoys cuddling under my hand when I am trying to type (which can get annoying…).  Him and Beryl generally get along okay, and I have let both out of the cages at the same time, and they both like to fly around together.  ‘Little Bird’ however is still a mean bitch towards Paddy..  She however has not gotten her wings yet, so we don’t let her out.  I have tried to convince Nightbird to start training the Parakeets again, but I don’t think that is going to happen.

Work is going well.  I am on night shifts now, which is interesting.  The job involves walking long underground tunnels…  I can’t really go into the specifics of it, as it is heavily monitored by DHS, but its pretty neat.

I have had a craving to go hiking lately – perhaps even to Zoar Valley again, so I can relax in the nude for a bit… lol  Meh, what can I say, it feels very liberating to do that…

I was kicked out of the firehall as my work schedule interfered with my drills which I was required to attend.  I did get permission to get excused from those drills from my chief, however apparently that fact was forgotten when the board of directors meeting took place and they were like… oh hes been missing drills…   no shit…   its called earning a living.

Not to worry, I am likely moving out of Buffalo within a year or so.  That hall was fairly boring, and I am not missing much.  In my opinion, they have some serious problems there, which should be sorted out.  But they won’t be, and eventually the hall will get shit-canned, and they will sit there scratching their heads wondering why.  Likely for the best I am no longer involved.

I shall try to post more often now that I am kinda getting settled into my new schedule.

Filed Under: Beryl, Buffalo Life, Flying Circus, Paddy, Roadwolf's Rants Add Comment »