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Dogbone Traction, Part 2 (continued)

By Sanford Mace

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Create the Dogbone Route

Now go look at the original line specifications. Pretty close! So lets get started building. To build this you will need a text editor and BVE 2 or 4. If you are using BVE 2 you will also need the Track Viewer. If you are going to add other objects, you will need BVE Structure Viewer. If you are going to add or use curves or track types not included, you will need Curverail_Editor by Advanceboy.

  1. To make this easy, we are gong to use the objects I predefined for the Dogbone I built. So open your favorite text editor and copy the section in the Straight Circle route from the first line that says with Route down to the line that says with track followed by .height 0.3,. This gives us our initial setups and objects.
  2. Now put in a line that says 0,;Begin Loop, .curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0,
  3. Now create this line: 125,.sta Car Stop 125 m;9.0013;9.0023;0;1;1;ATS;;10;50;Bell.wav,.stop -1,
  4. add a temporary line to allow us to run the line while it is being built: 5000,.sta Car Stop 5000 m;9.0013;9.0023;0;1;1;ATS;;10;50;Bell.wav,.stop -1,
  5. Change rail(1), rail(2) and rail(9) to:

    6. .rail(1) \dogbone\Dogbone_15l.csv,
    .rail(2) \dogbone\Dogbone_16l.csv,
    .rail(9) \dogbone\new18.csv,

  6. We are not going to duplicate my Dogbone noir Al's, but make a new one for you to play with.
Your route should look like this now from the with track section:
with track
.height 0.3,
0,;Begin Loop, .curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0,
125,.sta Car Stop 125 m;9.0013;9.0023;0;1;1;ATS;;10;50;Bell.wav,.stop -1,
5000,.sta Car Stop 5000 m;9.0013;9.0023;0;1;1;ATS;;10;50;Bell.wav,.stop -1,
Save this as newdogbone.csv . This produces a line straight route. Open this in BVE 2 Track Viewer or BVE 4 in the track viewer mode (Control M).

Now let's add a curve. We know that the curve will be 3 lefts and a right and we will add 1 straight section. This makes 5 25-meter sections (BVE works in 25-meter sections) to make the curve 125 meters. We will have 2 curves for a total of 250 meters. Our route length will be more than 600 meters and less than 700 meters, so start with 650 meters. This leaves 650-250 meters or 400 meters for the straight sections. Each can be about 200 meters long. We are in the middle of the first straight, so lets start the first curve at 100 meters.

Now a perfect 4-element curve with 25-meter sections is 100 meters, around which would make the radius 100/2/pi (C=2*pi*r) or a radius of 15.915 meters. We know that BVE only does whole number radii, so let's make this a left-hand 16-meter curve.

Add these lines:
200,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; First left
225,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; Second left
250,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; Third left
275,.curve 16;0,.railtype 0;0,; First Right
300,.curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0,; Straight
And the route should look like this:


Figure 10.

Ignore the curve types for now; just look at the route. Note the return track is not quite parallel and there is an overlap with the outbound track. We need a slightly wider curve and a better adjustment curve at the end. Make these changes:
200,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; First left
225,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; Second left
250,.curve -15;0,.railtype 0;0,; Third left
275,.curve 18;0,.railtype 0;0,; First Right 45 degree
300,.curve 350;0,.railtype 0;0,; Adjustment curve
325,.curve 00;0,.railtype 0;0,; Return Straight
Now we have this:


Figure 11.

Note that the world edge is in front of us, so we need to make the route longer. Also, the track is not lined up quite right. We will make some adjustments to the curve sections and add 25 meters to the length of the route

Make these changes, again by eye. If you like it different, change it.
475,.curve 300;0,.railtype 0;0,; Adjustment curve
500,.curve 18;0,.railtype 0;0,; First Right
525,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; First left
550,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; Second left
575,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; Third left
600,.curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0,;Main straight

Now it turns out that the total length of this route to repeat is 650 meters, so If we repeat the code and add 650 meters to each command, we have a loop. Add a line that says 649,;End of Loop .

Final code is:
0,;Begin Loop, .curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0
125,.sta Car Stop 125 m;9.0013;9.0023;0;1;1;ATS;;10;50;Bell.wav,.stop -,
200,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; First left
225,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; Second left
250,.curve -15;0,.railtype 0;0,; Third left
275,.curve 18;0,.railtype 0;0,; First Right
300,.curve 350;0,.railtype 0;0,; Adjustment curve
325,.curve 00;0,.railtype 0;0,; Return Straight
475,.curve 300;0,.railtype 0;0,; Adjustment curve
500,.curve 18;0,.railtype 0;0,; First Right
525,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; First left
550,.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0,; Second left
575,.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0,; Third left
600,.curve 0;0,.railtype 0;0,;Main straight
649,;End of Loop,,

Now copy the code several more times and add 650 to each length (or put it in a spread sheet and let it do the work). See the code at the end of this section for what it should look like.

Delete the temporary line at 5 Km since we do not need this any more. We now have a basic loop. So lets begin to clean it up.

Replace every code in the first column with the one in the second column.
.curve -17;0,.railtype 0;0 .curve -17;0,.railtype 0;3
.curve -15;0,.railtype 0;0 .curve -15;0,.railtype 0;1
.curve 18;0,.railtype 0;0, .curve 18;0,.railtype 0;9
.curve 350;0,.railtype 0;0, .curve 350;0,.railtype 0;12,
curve 300;0,.railtype 0;0, .curve 300;0,.railtype 0;12,
.curve -16;0,.railtype 0;0, .curve -16;0,.railtype 0;1,

We now have smooth curves, so lets add the station, house and road objects. NOTE: most objects and walls will be to the right of the running track to make our life easier.

Add these lines and repeat every 650 meters, making sure to advance positions (100, 110, and 130) accordingly:
100,.freeobj 0;9;21;-.2;90,.freeobj 0;31;15;00;0,;Line side House with Tree
110,.freeobj 0;2;-2.5;-0.08;0,.freeobj 0;2;-27.5;-0.08;0,,.freeobj 0;2;-27.5;-0.08;0,.freeobj 0;2;-52.5;-0.08;0,;Road left and right
130,.freeobj 0;8;-6.5;-.3;-90, ;Station
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Article and screen shots �2006 Sanford Mace. All rights reserved.

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�2006 Sanford Mace. All rights reserved.