Norfolk Southern Coal District Revamp V1.3

This is a revamp of Dovetail Games' "Norfolk Southern Coal District" route. It includes the Norfolk Southern Manor Branch along with a small portion of the Loveridge Secondary. This route is in the heart of Pennsyltucky and follows the Monongahela River for a good portion of its length. Whether you are running a coal drag to or from Bailey Mine, a frack sand train from Emerald Mine, or a local serving the limited ammount of industries, there is no shortage of operations. CSX also operates run-through coal trains on a common basis, entering the Manor Branch from the Loveridge Secondary.

Now that the glamorous paragraph is over with, here is the real stuff...


I completley replaced, enhanced, or added all of the following:

  • Railroad crossings (except for the West Brownsville streetrun)
  • Signals
  • Switch heaters
  • Snow plow clearance poles
  • Track (including hand-throw switches, automatic switches, and matching ballast terrain textures)
  • Trackwork in some industries
  • Searchlight Simulations' functioning defect detectors
  • General scenery (track clutter, signal shanties, vehicles, foamers, etc)
  • Some roads where necessary
  • Some vegitation near Bailey Mine (especially on the farms)
  • Some houses
  • Some commercial buildings
  • The West Brownsville yard office (a close-enough kitbash)
  • Bridges
  • Milepost and Speed signs
  • Other signage (Fiber-optic domes, no-tresspassing signs, etc).
  • and more of course

Important things/limitations to note:

  • The RCAP crossings are loud
  • There are 3 intentionally silent, but light crossings (West Brownsville, Waynesburg, and a farm crossing near Bailey Mine).
  • The West Brownsville wye does not have it's original Pennslyvania CPL (banjo) signals due to game limitations (conflicting signal scripts).
  • The new signals at the West Brownsville wye may be buggy (nothing I could really do to fix it, but it should work for now).
  • The route itself even with scenery enhancements is very boring (I suggest drinking a lot of coffee).
  • The RCAP signals may be buggy and may not cooperate (I tried my best to fix all of these delinquent signals, but some may have slipped under my grasp).
  • Some less relevant scenery, such as houses/towns may have been left default due to time constraints (I may release an update in the future).
  • Some bridges may have been left default due to lack of correct assets.
  • There is one cosmetic defect detector due to there being a lack of an NS style STC detector.
  • I'm not sure of anything else. I'll update this if anything occurs.

Thank you to the folks on the Train Sim Community Discord for your help and support throughout the making of this project.

Requirements

The AP Sky and Weather enhancement is reccomended, but not required.

Requirements

Railworks America • Login

(RWA Forum Access required) (3DTrains Tehachapi assets)

Route Building
Route Building
VULCAN PRODUCTIONS

(Specified in requirements document)

SMM STUFF
SMM STUFF
MediaFire
Switch Point Simulations

Go to downloads, scenery, then the Track Pack and Southeastern Railroad Signage Pack should be there.

Installation Instructions

First, read the requirements document to make sure you have everything.

Next, drag and drop your 'Assets' and 'Content' folders to:

SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\RailWorks

(if your install is elsewhere, still install this to your Railworks install as per usual)


NOTE: You should not need to overwrite any files in this installation unless you extracted the .AP file for the PennCoal assets. Still, please
make sure you are not overwriting files you want to keep.

Additional Comments

Changelog:

Route: Version 1.3.0 (5/12/24)

IN ORDER FOR THE UPDATE TO TAKE PLACE, YOU MUST REINSTALL THE PROVIDED ASSETS FOLDER

  • Added new custom switch heater models to West Brownsville per the prototype
  • Added new switch motors from both Yellowhead Pass (for switch heaters) and Stevens Pass (for normal motors)
  • Added new custom snow plow clearance poles (White PVC pipe style)
  • Added new crossing signs to one crossing on the Loveridge Secondary (Fredericktown)
  • Added new signal bridges to the end of the West Brownsville yard (replaces the old ones)
  • Added a new pipeline (crosses over tracks) at Bailey Mine
  • Roughed up the track on the Bailey Mine RIP track
  • Added coal spill to the Bailey Mine loader track
  • Fixed two switch texture glitches (West Brownsville and Bailey Mine)
  • Adjusted all of the wistle posts to be at a more correct distance
  • Refreshed some terrain texturing under bridges
  • Completley refurbished West Brownsville yard's reciving/exit tracks to match the prototype
  • Updated the QuickDrive scenarios to match the new changes

Route: Version 1.2.0 (2/19/24)

  • Removed redundant "No Tresspassing" signs to match prototype
  • Added new signals to the end of West Brownsville yard
  • Added new details to the end of West Brownsville yard
  • Added a new bridge right outside the West Brownsville street run
  • Added some new lights to areas that were not light properly at night
  • Added new details to the first coal facility on the Loveridge Secondary
  • Fixed/updated the fence after the West Brownsville street run to the prototype
  • Added some new buildings and clutter after the West Brownsvill street run
  • Silenced + added a new crossing at Sycamore on the Manor Branch as per prototype
  • Fixed a missing crossing gantry on the West Brownsville street run
  • Added light American flags to some new areas
  • Added road blockades to the silent crossing at Waynseburg as per prototype
  • Placed some new grass asset blocks where needed
  • Added an old bridge/pipe bridge near the Vestaburg crossings
  • Added the Brownsville Wharf including surrounding buildings, roads, and foliage
  • Replaced 1 bridge in Brownsville on the Loveridge Secondary
  • Added 1 bridge in Brownsville on the Loveridge Secondary
  • Added LPM's no-ballast track variant to replace the bridge track (Make sure to copy the provided assets folder for this change to go into effect)

Coal Car Patch (courtesy of ChillsN'Thrills): Version 1.0 (2/18/24)

  • Adds new couplers, sounds, and compatibillity from Searchlight Simulations' freight pack
  • Adds a new loaded and empty variant
  • (Please make sure to tick FRT under the Searchlight Simulations asset menu to get sounds)
  • Courtesy of ChillsN'Thrills

Quickdrive Scenarios: Version 1.0 (2/12/24)

  • Adds 4 quickdrive scenarios in a seperate download due to popular demand
  • No route changes

Route: Version 1.1.0 (2/10/24)

  • Added "No Tresspassing" signs to all bridges
  • Added new lighting to some custom areas
  • Added various new trackside details (boxes, hoses, shovels, etc).
  • Added a coal unloader to the Fredericktown coal facility
  • Added track markers to the Fredericktown coal facility
  • Fixed bugged 'diverging' signals (did not change for train in opposing direction)
  • Upgraded a buisness's scenery near CP Farm
  • Upraded the fence after the West Brownsville street run
  • Silenced West Brownsville streetrun crossings as per prototype

Note: If there are any bugs, errors, or problems, please comment them here. It will really help

Tags: coal csx csxt freight monongahela norfolk-southern penn-coal route route-ep sand ts-routes tsc

Files

Coal Car Patch.zip 283 KB · Added 18 Feb 2024 · Downloaded 252×

(Optional) Coal car patch courtesy of ChillsN'Thrills. See the changelog above to see what it does.

Norfolk Southern Coal District Revamp Quick Drive V2.zip 228 KB · Added 13 May 2024 · Downloaded 139×

4 optional quick drive scenarios

Norfolk Southern Coal District Revamp V1.3.zip 38 MB · Added 13 May 2024 · Downloaded 241×

Route Revamp

Previously uploaded files have been downloaded 388 times before being withdrawn.

Comments

Avatar of Corniest_Cob
Corniest_Cob 9 Feb 2024

Awesome job! This route has definitely needed a refresh for a while, and you knocked it out of the park! The only issue I have found is that there are no quickdrive spawn locations. Other than that, everything else looks great!

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 9 Feb 2024

Thanks! Glad you enjoy it. I decided not to include quickdrive scenarios for now, but I’ll look into it in the future.

Avatar of Claude350
Claude350 11 Feb 2024

Is this a completely separate build or does it install over the old version and if so will the activities already created work?

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 11 Feb 2024

It’s completely separate, so I’m not sure if the original scenarios work

Avatar of pooch
pooch 11 Feb 2024

The Quick Drives do work from Original Penn Coal Route.

Avatar of Claude350
Claude350 11 Feb 2024

Thank you

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 13 Feb 2024

New quick drive scenarios have been added. Enjoy!

Avatar of acidbottle
acidbottle 11 Feb 2024

Hi there, looks an awesome revamp for sure, unfortunately it does not show anywhere after install. Still have original route only. Any help appreciated, meet all requirements listed and deleted the cache files.

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 12 Feb 2024

It will not show up in the quickdrive menu, as it does not come with quickdrive scenarios yet. Try looking for it in the “build” menu. Thanks for downloading!

Avatar of acidbottle
acidbottle 12 Feb 2024

Cheers DM75, apologies for that, not in the habit of looking in the build tab but it's there and working just fine, many thanks! Another vote for a QD or some scenarios for this great route in the future.

Avatar of pooch
pooch 12 Feb 2024

AP Weather doesn't seem to work on this route.When it's cloudy it just looks grey,overcast.Stumped.

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 12 Feb 2024

That seems like it’s working, but anyways, AP’s weather EP works on the route for me. I have the older version, but the route ep itself shouldn’t affect that. I’d recommend checking to see if it’s selected in the asset box either in route builder or scenario editor. If not, check and see if your time of day files match in the route folder

Avatar of pooch
pooch 12 Feb 2024

AP weather EP is checked off,and it's still using the original Penn Coal files for weather.

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 12 Feb 2024

I’d recommend checking the time of day files in the route’s asset folder (assets/rsc/PennCoal/timeofday). The AP installer only works for some European routes, so you have to do US routes manually.

Avatar of DocTrench
DocTrench 17 Feb 2024

This is a bit of dumb question, but roughly how much does this route rely on yellowhead?

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 17 Feb 2024

A smallish bridge or two not too far from West Brownsville. It also covers a few buildings and maybe some clutter assets. It’s definitely not the most important requirement and the route’ll be fine without it

Avatar of DocTrench
DocTrench 17 Feb 2024

thanks, I've given it a go and you did one hell of a job with this revamp

Avatar of Claude350
Claude350 12 Mar 2024

I'm getting low frame rates with the route, upper teens, low 20s. I do have a pretty decent CPU and a 4070 RTX card. Is anyone besides me having this issue? I've reduce graphic settings, video settings, still the same. Anyone else experiencing this and if so how did you resolve the low frame rates?

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 13 Mar 2024

Hmm. I have a much older and less powerful system than you have there, but the route seems to run in the 40-60 range for me depending on how many trains are on it. Where in the route is causing the low frames? Also, is it every route or just this one?

Avatar of Claude350
Claude350 13 Mar 2024

I was running the first scenario. I tried another route and I was well into the 70s with frame rates. I may delete the route, then reinstall it.

Avatar of JAH
JAH 14 May 2024

Can someone please help how to maintain speed while descending and maintain speed on a level track with the SS SD70ACU on this route.

Avatar of Alex Fried
Alex Fried 16 May 2024

went over a hot box scanner but never heard it go off. Any ideas?

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 16 May 2024

Yes. You have to use searchlight simulations-compatible stock. There is also 1 static hotbox as listed in the description

Avatar of Alex Fried
Alex Fried 16 May 2024

ya i though the coal cars where scripted with ss stock but the scanner never went off. but now i realize the locomotive was dtg so maybe thats why. Also the bnsf sd40 from ss doesn't couple up to the coal cars.

Avatar of Alex Fried
Alex Fried 17 May 2024

ok must of just been the unit not being ss but now they work

Avatar of nickwilson159
nickwilson159 22 Sept 2024

If you're looking for an NS STC detector vocabulary set, check here:

https://defectdetector.net/kits/audio

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 25 Sept 2024

Thanks for the link! I'll see if I can do anything when time permits

Avatar of Matth3wburgess
Matth3wburgess 19 Nov 2024

Hello, I have a few questions:
1: Is there any reports of any errors with the route.
2: Does this route come with some scenarios.
3: Does it overwrite the original.

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 23 Nov 2024

Hi,
This route should not have errors.
It comes with Quick Drive scenarios that are available separately in this page.
This route does not overwrite the original.
I'm glad to help if you have any other questions!

Avatar of The Quebec Railfan
The Quebec Railfan 24 days ago

I downloaded something in the requirement list and it all deleted the track in every route.

Avatar of DieselMatt75
DieselMatt75 24 days ago

There is nothing in this enhancement that would do that. Also, please be more specific so if it is something I can help you with, I can.

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