Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

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PFX
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Excellent James. Amazing how similar my version is to yours.

Having seen your one, it reminded me how much I liked your red ballasted track so I've spent a while trying to recreate the same with Andi06's procedural track and I think I might have something which is suitable? Out of interest, does anyone know the extent of red ballast? I'm pretty sure it was fairly ubiquitous around the whole of central Scotland.

As a minor aside, the rails have now reached Haymarket, though there's no point work at this stage.

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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by cyberdonblue »

My only clear recollections of ballast colours is "dirty" or "oily," (dark grey to black really.) Very white after a relaying job springs to mind too but most things near the track didn't stay clean for very long and a few weeks was usually enough for new ballast to blend in, as it were. I can honestly say though that I don't ever recall seeing red ballast. Very interesting. That's something else I've learnt through this forum.

Cheers

Dave
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Hi Dave,

Red granite is fairly common certainly around the west and southwest of Scotland and I'm fairly certain I recall seeing it further east too. See below for a good example. I actually thought I'd made my version a bit too red but it seems it maybe isn't red enough?

Brief update for today. Alignments and gradients now fixed from Dalmeny to Haymarket and Gyle to Haymarket. I've started adding the track details in, beginning with the large ladder junction at Balgreen.

Cheers,
Innis

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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Admittedly, this doesn't really look like much but there are a shed load of hours spent getting to this stage.

Closing on Edinburgh, things are starting to get a bit more complex around Haymarket. This shot shows Haymarket West junction, the Fife lines having just joined the central Scotland one to the right of screen, with the ladder junction leading to Gorgie. I've also added a section of the Western Approach road (which uses the old Caledonian Railway track bed to Princess Street station) as a helpful guide.

The next tricky bit will be Haymarket Depot and the run in to Haymarket Station.

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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Five hours later and the guts of Haymarket depot are now present.

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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by cyberdonblue »

Excellent progress, Innis. I can fully appreciate what those five hours were like. :o :shock: :? 8-) :x :) :roll: :twisted: :D - and a few more besides :lol:

Keep up the superb standard.

Cheers

Dave
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by klambert »

PFX wrote:Hi Dave,

Red granite is fairly common certainly around the west and southwest of Scotland and I'm fairly certain I recall seeing it further east too. See below for a good example. I actually thought I'd made my version a bit too red but it seems it maybe isn't red enough?
Oddly enough the scots don't like our grey Meldon Quarry stuff. Wierdos.
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Hah! Silly grey English stuff...

Joking aside, I've managed to find some more info which suggests red ballast was common around Lanarkshire from the late 1800s as it was quarried locally (and still is). Red ballast became more widespread across certain areas of Scotland from the early 70s onwards but was still predominantly grey. Amazing the sort of useless info you can find out if you go looking.
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

I've reached a bit of a milestone today, arriving at Edinburgh Haymarket. It doesn't look like much right now but that'll come later. I've added the mysterious platform 0 for a little added interest.

I've discovered some fairly large inaccuracies in the terrain around Princes Street gardens so that may prove a bit tricky, particularly if I follow the actual track gradients which would lead to the line becoming a deep level underground system! More on that when I get to it.

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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by cyberdonblue »

I've had a few instances like that, Innis. It's almost as if the terrain you were expecting has been moved slightly. I've seen heights that I'm expecting being some 100 metres or so further on or to one side or another of where I'm supposed to be going. Similarly, I've seen it the other way, 100 or so metres before I wanted it. You just have to make the best of what you're faced with, I suppose. I've pulled out the "artistic licence" more than once in the past. Not too many people are that concerned with it being EXACT (you'll always get one though - especially now I've tempted fate :lol: )

It's probably something that comes about with TransDEM when you're working over considerable distances like both you and I have been doing. I know Google Earth quite often disagrees with terrain heights I have in front of me but I trust TransDEM a darn sight more than Google and only use the latter as a rough guide. I regularly find a discrepancy of 10 or 20 metres on Google.

Keep up the good work anyway. I'm sure you'll adapt to what you need and get through it.

Cheers

Dave
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

In this case it's height Dave. You can see the hill directly ahead of the line. That's fine, Edinburgh castle sits on top of it, however, there's a hill of almost comparable height where Princes St gardens should be. If you've ever been to Edinburgh, you'll see that the gardens are actually in a depression having been created after the draining of the Nor Loch in the 1800s.

Anyway, I've done a few adjustments already, another one isn't going to do me any harm. :D
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by Nexusdj »

I suppose it depends on what equipment they used to measure the ground height , it may be registering the heights of the buildings that surround the station instead , those are quite tall ?
High visibility pixels must be worn when on or about the line !!
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Nothing particularly tall around Princes St gardens except the castle which towers over the southern side. To the north, there's just a rising slope up to street level. The only thing that could possibly throw up this anomaly is the Scott Monument but that's extremely narrow and given the extra hill is rather large, I'd be surprised if this is the cause. Stranger things have happened though...
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by clam1952 »

Height depends on whar source you used to create the DEM for UK best being Lidar, very accurate if you get the right data as it measures actual Ground level, there is also Lidar for buildings probably not helpful for Trainz though! If Lidar is not available yet then the OS Open Data Terrain 50 stuff about as good as you can get for free, anything else may well have heights base on treeline and buildings, I had that problem with my DEM for the FR / WHR which required a lot of manual terrain sculpting to get it anywhere near correct, it was done with Microdem / Hog though and had a height error of 5m across the whole route as well as a 100m error in an east west direction and was slightly twisted! The dem was created in 2008 before the OS stuff was available. Transdem doesn't have issues with distance or distortion but will still suffer from a treeline based DEM.

I've had to use a combination of Lidar and OS on the L&B as there wasn't full Lidar Coverage, there was a about a 2 or 3m height difference where the Lidar tiles joined the OS tiles which was easy enough to smooth out.

Gradient profiles are often the average not the actual, if and not recommended on a working railway! you stand on a section of track that's at a specific gradient and look up the line you can see that visually it varies. Google earth heights are not anywhere near accurate compared to OS or Lidar Data.
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Re: Central Scotland - Edinburgh - Glasgow - Dunblane

Post by PFX »

Unfortunately LIDAR data is only available for a very limited area of Scotland. It was my first port of call. I've used OS data for this.
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