Trainz Dogbone Traction Lives Again

By Sanford Mace

Peter Witt at station with LRV (beyond) in the freight lead waiting to run.

After several long Years (months, days ... time flies) of ferro equine archeology and forensic reconstruction, the Trainz version of Dogbone Traction lives again. Well, actually I have been working on reconstructing the Trainz version of Dogbone for a while. I purchased Trainz 2006 from Al's website because I like monorails, and Trainz is about the only one running anything of that type. Since I had a copy of Trainz and Al's original article at V-Scaler, I decided to try to reproduce the lost version. I did, and here it is. Not exactly like Al's original, but close.

The differences are that Al was producing this to see what an HO layout would look and work like, and I was producing this to run only in Trainz. The major differences, besides using a slightly different set of objects are that there are two invisible track sections at the end of the freight house and station freight lead with track marks on them. This is so the AI trolley will go (almost) to the end of the track and be able to Load and Unload freight with the appropriate commands. The freight leads are multi-industry basic objects and the south loop is just a little larger than Al's specs to let me cram it all in.

Download Package

I've assembled a freebie package for inclusion at the VR Downloads page. Included is a blank version with only track, wire and poles, and the road and road crossing. Turn off Carz if you run more than one train or car on the loop. It is really too small for the crossing gates to stay open very long. I have included some sessions (activities) to help you compare this with the other four Dogbone routes (the being Al's at V-Scaler; the others by me here at VR Reading Room - see the listings for MSTS, BVE and Rail3D). If you run the three PCC cars and drive or watch from the front of the Green Hornets, it looks very much like the others. Also included are some other fun sessionss. Silly Season and its mirror Yills Noseas are just as unrealistic, and fun, as the versions in the other simulators. These helped me, as was the case with the other versions, to understand the signal system. The freight activity, For Al2, just shuttles cars back and forth. Configure the industries to load what you want. Also, if you use anything longer than the supplied consist, either make the South loop bigger so you can stretch the Freight lead out by about another five meters, or eliminate the wait time at the freight house, so you do not stop the mainline traffic too long.

Enjoy! Here are some photos, mostly taken at night.


This is from about the same angle as Al's picture.


Almost the same shot at night.


Midnight freight shuttle.

Enjoy the ride!!!

Sanford

Article and screen shots ©2008 Sanford Mace. All rights reserved.

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