Southern Pacific Shasta Route - Development Thread

[mikeebb]

>>Renzenberger not Ratzenberger<< Thanks! I was channeling what some of my friends (who worked for SP) used to call them ...

[mikeebb]

The route is called the La Grande Subdivision for a reason, not the "La-Grande-plus-half-of-the-Huntington-Sub". Hinkle to La Grande covers one full crew district (terminal to terminal). East of La Grande is a different subdivision and crew district. If we were to extend it to Huntington, it would probably take an extra few years of work, but maybe then we could charge well over $50 per copy. Don't get me wrong, La Grande to Huntington is nice scenery, but you're talking about almost doubling the size of the route (or an entirely separate route), and we do have to consider that not all customers want to keep seeing routes from the Pacific Northwest.



As for the size of Mount Shasta - it should be spot-on in location, size, and height. I did not make the mountain just by eyeballing it; the mountain and the entire route has been created using GPS-coordinated terrain contours and geolocated aerial imagery so that everything is positioned correctly. I have spent several weeks of my life hiking and camping in this territory, taking photographs, and in the area around Andesite and Hotlum the mountain really is right in your face. A few of the screenshots do have a slight "telephoto lens" zoom.

Link to two photos of mine near Andesite:
https://railpictures.net/photo/537469/
https://railpictures.net/photo/542427/

The main issue of course with a merge is the payware vs. freeware, but someone could I suppose try to merge the two routes on their own computer. Back in SP days, Siskiyou Line crews normally ran through Ashland to Dunsmuir, not changing crews at the junction at Black Butte. In the CORP era, the CORP locomotives would get completely cut off from the train, and an SP (or later UP) manifest would pick up/drop off cars from the interchange.

The era of my route (1995-1996) places it during the period where CORP had just taken over the Siskiyou Line, and had reopened the tracks over Siskiyou Summit in July 1995 (which SP had closed a few years prior).

Couldn't find a "Ratzenberger" van by a Google search, so I'm curious what those look like, if they were a common SP crew van?

Thanks for the explanations! Yes, Shasta is imposing. Perhaps I was remembering it from another angle, such as along I-5 near/north of Weed, since I used that route more often than 97. And the correspondence of the pictures of the prototype and the route is excellent (and both show some "telephoto effect" compressing things which is probably what I was triggering on). Good job!

If you can find and decorate some white Suburban and van models for crew vans, those probably would be good additions to the scenery for activities that have a crew change somewhere. A patch activity, for instance, might have one parked next to the tracks where the activity starts.

EDIT: useless information - that lumpy ground on the northwest side of Shasta is actually the remains of a huge landslide - like Mt St Helens but bigger. Shasta had what they call "edifice collapse" at one time.

[Kist]

[QUOTE=PerryPlatypus;1979036]The route is called the La Grande Subdivision for a reason, not the "La-Grande-plus-half-of-the-Huntington-Sub". Hinkle to La Grande covers one full crew district (terminal to terminal). East of La Grande is a different subdivision and crew district. If we were to extend it to Huntington, it would probably take an extra few years of work, but maybe then we could charge well over $50 per copy. Don't get me wrong, La Grande to Huntington is nice scenery, but you're talking about almost doubling the size of the route (or an entirely separate route), and we do have to consider that not all customers want to keep seeing routes from the Pacific Northwest.


Correct, the size of the project (Blue Mountains) would be twice bigger than now. But who knows, maybe on the future... I would't mind to support the project. That is one of the reasons MSTS, now OR is nice, the scale is 1:1 it take hours to travel between other stations and etc. I read about your Route the Shasta, you are not planning to go or start from Redding CA (what I searched on internet that stretch is called Valley Subdivision) Anyway I really appreciate how hard work and effort you guys do to make this routes, all the best

[seagoon]

>>Renzenberger not Ratzenberger<< Thanks! I was channeling what some of my friends (who worked for SP) used to call them ...

Maybe you were thinking of John Ratzenberger, who played the postman in "Cheers"!

[PerryPlatypus]

Thank you Wade for the info on the crew transports! I'll try to look into whether they were used out of Dunsmuir and/or Klamath Falls in the mid 90's.

Mike - geology is always an interesting topic to me, so it's not "useless information" to me. I knew a fair bit about Shasta geology, but the reason for the lumps on that side of the mountain is new to me, thanks!

Kist - Yes, I had considered going down to Redding with my route, but yeah, it would be a similar problem to your Huntington suggestion with the La Grande Sub. Dunsmuir to Redding is just a fraction of the Valley Subdivision crew run, so it would make for some fairly awkward activities that cover just a small portion of the prototypical crew district that goes from Dunsmuir all the way to Roseville.
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A couple shots from the area around Cantara Loop that is gradually taking shape (still need to add much more lush undergrowth in this area, and eventually a custom shape for the bridge). Cantara Loop is famous as the tightest curve on any original Southern Pacific mainline (14 degrees), and is infamous for causing numerous stringline derailments, including a particularly bad incident in July 1991 where tankcars of herbicide spilled into the Sacramento River, causing extensive environmental damage and sickening many people in the Dunsmuir area (not good for a town that has touted it has the "best water on earth"). As a result of the derailment, promises were made by the railroad to add a protective structure along the inside of the curve to prevent railcars from completely falling into the river during a stringline derailment; it would not be until after the UP-SP merger that the ugly structure would actually be built, so I will not be including it in my route.

Cantara Loop is in the heart of the 2.2% max. climb from Dunsmuir to Azalea; it is here the SP was finally forced to climb out of the confines of the Sacramento River Canyon, because just upstream from here the canyon became too narrow and steep to continue building along. The environment here is a dense temperate forest, in stark contrast to the dry sagebrush and pine forests just 20 miles to the north around Andesite. The massive stratovolcano Mount Shasta itself is largely responsible for this phenomena; rain clouds from off the Pacific Ocean gather along Shasta's southwest slope and dump most of their precipitation in the Dunsmuir - Mount Shasta City area, and thus the clouds are mostly dried out by the time they reach the north side of the volcano.

SP westbound through Cantara Loop by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

SP westbound through Cantara Loop by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

SP westbound through Cantara Loop by Sean Kelly, on Flickr

[trainmanaustin]

Looks good!

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk

[dgionet]

Wow,

Great work Sean. Are there any helpers here (I can't see any)? There must be tremendous forces in action if climbing with such curves without helpers.

Denis

[PerryPlatypus]

Hi Denis,

This westbound train is actually dropping downgrade towards Dunsmuir. Very heavy air set and dynamic brakes roaring! The majority of tonnage on this route is "westbound" as SP called it (geographically it is really going south, but in general SP called any trains heading in the general direction of San Francisco as westbound). The ruling uphill grade that westbounds climb on this route is 30-40 miles east of here on the other side of Grass Lake Summit, and is a much more modest 1.0%, so low priority trains are given just enough power to climb that 1% at a crawl.

Manned helpers did assist some eastbounds up the 2.2% through Cantara Loop, but after the 1991 derailment SP put extensive limitations on eastbound trains, including restricting train length and banning helpers for several years, I believe.

[dgionet]

Thanks Sean,

Should have looked a little more the first picture. Going downward indeed!

Denis

[mikeebb]

For the one who wants Redding ... there's a little route in the f/l that is a short run through Redding itself - just north of the river to about Anderson. Old, but very highly detailed for its time. Some minor switching opportunities. Might be worth looking at for fun.