UP-Gila Sub

[PerryPlatypus]

The signals and the distant mountains look great! Is it your intention to leave all of the nearby terrain as it is using aerial imagery, or eventually replace the textures right along the track with higher resolution TERRTEX? My dad shot a lot of pictures up on Maricopa Hill just before the UP merger. I find this rugged, remote desert scenery to be interesting, so I am pretty interested in this route!

[eolesen]

This route had taken the back burner for a while, but forum member UP_4848_Thunder asked if he could take a stab at doing signals and speed limits. He did an outstanding job.

[sburr]

Erik, thanks for doing these routes and the sacrifice of time and effort required to do it right like you are. It's a shame there are so many rotten apples out there pursuing their own selfish vendettas which hurt the rest of us. Keep your head up and keep up the good work.

[MMSS]

Amazing how some people act out their inner insecurities on others then wind up hurting a whole community in the process. Just stumps me how one can be so lonely and low. But glad you will continue the Gila Sub & however you release it in the future either free or payware, it will be a must for my MSTS/OR library. Thanks for your continued efforts & knowledge shared on here on TS.

[delamate]

Eric,

Thanks for the heads up. I am very sorry to hear that you are having these problems. It is an unnecessary burden for you. Thank you for pursuing alternatives.

John

[eolesen]

Not satisfied with the damage he's caused to the community as a whole already, a former member of the community well known for his stalking behavior and retaliation has taken it upon himself to contact both my hosting provider as well as ICANN in an effort to shut down my personal web domain, including the route development pages for this route.

Rather than give him an option for filing spurious DMCA reports on my content as he did with Elvas Tower, I've decided enough is enough. Access to the route download will be for authorized users only, and I'll eventually work thru one of the existing payware providers to come up with a licensing scheme and download process for getting the updates.

[eolesen]

As mid-month approaches, so does the end of this sprint. A patch file has been uploaded and available via the download page with a few scenery updates plus the profile and track textures I posted to the superelevation thread.

In particular, the 85 signal boxes at the control points all received nameplates...

[If you downloaded the patch between 2130 and 2330 Central tonight, re-download it to get the correct nameplates... I had the milepost and CP name transposed plus a typo...]

[delamate]

Congratulations, Eric! This is a wonderful accomplishment. Thank you for you dedication to your route projects. Many of us are the beneficiaries.

John

[eolesen]

Thanks to some unexpected time free'd up by the holiday weekend, I'm happy to announce that the mainline is completely done between Tucson and Yuma. I still need to go in and do some of the set-out sidings and expand the yard tracks around Yuma, but by and large the worst parts of the track laying are now complete.

End to end, it's 257 miles of mixed single & double track mainline, with more than enough sidings available to permit fleeting of stack trains in both directions with some patience and creativity. I may attempt a few timetables to represent a somewhat prototypical operation, but not until signals are in place.



The good news is that it will free up the next sprint entirely for signals and scenery...

As soon as I have a developer beta zipped up, I'll share the links for those who are interested.

[opskeeper]

Looks Good.... Quite a climate & scenery change from the "Packerland & "Harvard" routes.

Stefan

[eolesen]

The last curve before CP Bosque, at which point the Gila essentially runs all the way to CP Mohawk without more than what seems like a ~15 degree change in alignment...



Tomorrow, closing the gap from CP Bosque thru Gila Bend and out to CP Theba, a distance of around 25 miles...

[eolesen]

Today I focused on the 15 miles west of CP Estrella into CP Bosque, which was probably the most challenging section of track in terms of elevation changes and curves (although Fortuna to Wellton may wind up to be just as challenging).



Heading west from Estrella, where the double track ends...



Have I mentioned lately how Google Earth terrain really makes the mountains come to life?...



CP Shawmut, which is technically double track, but on wildly different trajectories...



West of Shawmut, a few more curves as the Gila Sub descends into the desert floor

[delamate]

Thanks for your continued work and the good news!

John

[eolesen]

I normally try to time my sprints to match a calendar month, but things are a bit off right now. I'm a week into this iteration, and so far there are 40 miles of track added to the west end of the route.

The section between Fortuna and Wellton via Dome is a lot of curves and elevation change, so I won't be tackling that right now.

Instead, I'm going to take the easy-squeezy stuff between Wellton and Estrella, including Gila Bend.

I've already done 23 miles to Mohawk, and it's "only" about 75 miles to close the gap to Estrella. While that sounds like a lot of track, the reality is that there are two 10 mile and two 15 mile stretches of straight-as-an-arrow alignments (tailor-made for my Tangent tool) , plus a couple of 3-5 mile sections. All in all, about 25 curves. Wellton to Mohawk was done in the last two days, and my focus has been on running the long straight sections first, and then working out the curves.



Whether or not I can get all that done in the next 15 days is yet to be seen, but if I can keep up the pace, I may be able to have the entirety of Tucson to Yuma finished by the end of the year (assuming two more sprints).

[Komachi]

Oh AWESOME to see this is still a thing being done!!! I've been wanting a route to stretch the legs of the Texas Eagle and Sunset Limited.