Hello everyone, and happy new year to a hopefully better 2021.
Being that the last day of 2020 today, this is my last post of the 2020 year. I have grown alot on the MRR forums since I joined in March of 2020 this year, and hope to accomplish more in the hobby next year in 2021, into this current decade and beyond. This coming year in May of 2021, it will be the 20th anniversry of when the classic train simulator game, being Microsoft Train Simulator, would have been released in May of 2001 twenty years ago. I first bought the game with my own saved up allowance in the mid-2000s turning my time in middle school. My favourite route featured ingame was Marias Pass in Montana featuring the BNSF railroad. I developed a facinaton with the BNSF and the Dash 9 locomotive, as I like mountain railroading in North America with the endless pines, forests and mountain scenery. The orange livery on the BNSF dash 9s even reminds me of the orange crush pop soda I enjoy drinking. I intend to get the game again once I get a gaming PC, a I long to play the default version again. I had the idea of recreating the freight consist In HO or N scale with the same locomotives and freight cars used by BNSF as seen in the default verison of the game which takes place on the Marias pass route set in 2000 and 2001 before the swoosh logo came into use by BNSF. Because of the outdated, crude graphics with some unreadable blurred lettering its hard to make out which kinds of freight cars are which, expecally the boxcars as I cant tell if they are high cubes or not. I would like the help of the BNSF railroad fans and others to help find out the types, lengths, real life railcar manufacturer, etc of the various freight cars featured ingame These screenshots where from the youtuber "Little Pimpf," gameplay of MSTS 2001 with HD graphics.
Please answer which freight cars typen length etc, in the same order as the screenshots I have posted below.No.#1. BNSF Dash 9 with 48' container length capacity well cars. I love the simplistic look of the blue and pinkish red containers.
No.#2. ICC Burlington Northern Caboose with painted over windows (not sure why). I preordered the version Athearn is releasing in 2021 in their genesis line. I dont plan to paint over the windows.
No.#3. GATX oil tanker cars.
No.#4. Burlington Northern Woodchip Gondolas.
No.#5. BNSF white circle logo round looking sided covered hoppers.
No.#6. BNSF white circle logo flat sided covered hoppers.
No.#7. White covered hopper with "MX," reporting mark.
No.#8. Burlington Northern bulkend flatcar with side extensions to hold lumber loads.
No.#9. ETTX Reporting mark autorack. Double or tri-level? Not sure of logo on the side if its ASTF or not.
No.#10. Burlington Northern Boxcar. Not sure of length, or if high cube or basic height boxcar.
No.#11. BNFE White boxcars? What is their use?
No.#12. BNSF black gondolas.
No.#13. Red Union Pacific centerbeam flatcar with standard beam type. Any idea of the length?
No.#14. Burlington Northern bulkend flatcar.
No.#15. Yellow Union Pacific centerbeam flatcar with standard beam. Any idea of the length?
No.#16. Oil tank car with Burlington Northern white lettering.
No.#17. Red ATSF boxcar. Not sure of length or height?
No.#18. ETTX (same as yellow one posted above) reporting mark ASTF autorack in brown livery. Not sure if double level or tri-level autorack.I see as of December 2020 intermountain released them in HO scale recently. They are a perfect match.
Time for you to start researching. Google is your friend.
I'll pick an easy one, the white box cars are reefers. Easy to tell by the refrigerator equipment area on one end of the car.
BNFE = Burlington Northern Fruit Express.
Your turn.
Mike.
My You Tube
Those windows on the caboose weren;t painted over, they were plated over with steel plates. Because by the time the caboose was starting to disappear, hooligans were throwing rocks and even shooting at them. Replacing the old glass with something up to the new standards like Lexan was expensive, so any windows not really needed got plated over instead.
As for running the program - something from 20 years ago that needed a decent video card to play will probably run fine on the integrated graphics, or certainly nothing fancy or even close to high end, today. Back when Crysis came out, not even the most expensive video card on the market could run it a max details and get a good framerate. Today, it's being dropped as a benchmark because nearly anything can run it well. 20 years is a long time in the computer world.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
If you want to run MSTS on a modern machine, like later than Windows XP you should go to trainsim.com and spend time there searching out how to install it so it will run on windows 7 or newer.
mbinsewi Time for you to start researching. Google is your friend. I'll pick an easy one, the white box cars are reefers. Easy to tell by the refrigerator equipment area on one end of the car. BNFE = Burlington Northern Fruit Express. Your turn. Mike.
Hey Mike thanks. I realize I must reasurch, doing the work myself. I realize its important to ask questions but one needs to do the work themselves and ask when you need be.
Thanks for helping me understand.
mbinsewiTime for you to start researching.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I forgot all about that site Bear. I did join sometime ago. Great resource!
The slots in the end doors of autoracks are located at the upper decks. Thus the pictured cars are tri levels.
Note that you're talking about finding models of models here essentially, and a few of those (#1, #6, #7) are downright s**ty graphics assets. Why bother.
The container well car isn't a great design, and the #6 and #7 examples are someone mapped a "texture" image of a different type of car onto a 3-D shape that doesn't fit properly.
For example, the "MX" is not a valid reporting mark, it's half a reporting mark and number because the image texture does not visit the 3-D model properly and it's cut off.
Seriously, don't try too think too hard about "matching exact models" here, since the simulator just has a few generic models and basic shapes, just "skinned" with different graphics, some better than others.
If you want to essentially run the same train in the simulator and on the model, just kinda roughly match car types and paint jobs. The sim honestly isn't giving you a huge variety anyway.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
Never mind, Chris said it while I typed.
But if you want to know more....
Engi1487 No.#1. BNSF Dash 9 with 48' container length capacity well cars. I love the simplistic look of the blue and pinkish red containers.
No.#1. BNSF Dash 9 with 48' container length capacity well cars. I love the simplistic look of the blue and pinkish red containers.
Generic and seriously a rather terrible rendition of a well car, and the containers aren't even graphically positioned properly either, since you can see them over the trucks. The whole point of the well car design is to hold the containers as low to the rails (between the trucks) as possible due to the extreme height of stacked containers. Hard fail.
There are tons of different designs and sizes of well cars available out there in model form.
Engi1487 No.#2. ICC Burlington Northern Caboose with painted over windows (not sure why). I preordered the version Athearn is releasing in 2021 in their genesis line. I dont plan to paint over the windows.
As others stated, the windows were basically removed/plated over to remove a maintenance item/thing that can get broken on a caboose that's basically only used as a shoving platform anymore. This is actually a pretty good graphics skin.
Engi1487 No.#3. GATX oil tanker cars.
Generic tank with low res graphic skin.
Engi1487 No.#4. Burlington Northern Woodchip Gondolas.
The texture graphic looks like an FMC built car. I think LBF made a version of this car, and I think Intermountain has re-released the old LBF model in their "Value" line... at any rate Intermountain has a chip car that will work. Walthers has (or has produced in the past) a chip car that is a Thrall or Gunderson version, and this would work too - pretty sure BN had some of those too.
Engi1487 No.#5. BNSF white circle logo round looking sided covered hoppers.
ACF CenterFlow twin bay hoppers. This is a really good skin, 3-D model and textures done properly.
Engi1487 No.#6. BNSF white circle logo flat sided covered hoppers.
Crappy (it's really bad you guys) custom skin job pasting the photo of probably a Trinity center flow type hopper onto a square body of an older design. No telling from this image what the original 3-D model shape and size was really intended to be.
Engi1487No.#7. White covered hopper with "MX," reporting mark.
Another poor paste job of a photo of a (probably) PS 4750 or similar car onto a smaller sized 3-D hopper shape.
Engi1487 No.#8. Burlington Northern bulkend flatcar with side extensions to hold lumber loads.
The photographic skin at least would be from a series of Thrall-built 60' bulkhead flatcars. (Try to use that proper term "bulkhead end" not "bulkend". A "bulkhead" is an actual structural thing. A "bulkend" is not a word.)
Flatcars have stake pockets along their sides which the side stakes (I wouldn't call them "side extensions") fit into when loading stacked "stuff" (like poles, pipes, etc.) onto the car.
The old MDC/Roundhouse, now Athearn bulkhead flatcar has its accuracy issues and is a pretty old model by modern standards, but is essentially the closest thing out there.
Engi1487No.#9. ETTX Reporting mark autorack. Double or tri-level? Not sure of logo on the side if its ASTF or not.
The slots in the end doors are so they can clear the ends/corners of the deck plates when the clamshell doors open. That tells you quite clearly how many levels it has...
Engi1487 No.#10. Burlington Northern Boxcar. Not sure of length, or if high cube or basic height boxcar.
Here's a hint - white (or contrasting colour if the car body happens to be white) panel at the top of the car side shows the part of the car that is above standard height.
Engi1487 No.#11. BNFE White boxcars? What is their use?
BNFE reporting marks was basically "Burlington Northern Fruit Express". They were used pretty exclusively on refrigerator cars. Note the vents/louvers/grills/cut out sections on the sides on one end of the car for the mechanical refrigeration unit.
Engi1487 No.#12. BNSF black gondolas.
A sort of generic graphics skin of a fairly modern style of gondola. The Atlas Thrall gon would be similar.
Engi1487No.#13. Red Union Pacific centerbeam flatcar with standard beam type. Any idea of the length?
Standard size of all modern centrebeam flatcars is 73'0" inside length of the loading platform between bulkheads.
Engi1487 No.#14. Burlington Northern bulkend flatcar.
Same as #8 but without load.
Engi1487No.#15. Yellow Union Pacific centerbeam flatcar with standard beam. Any idea of the length?
See #13
Engi1487 No.#16. Oil tank car with Burlington Northern white lettering.
Pretty much same as #3. Low res skin on generic tank shape. Note that any railroad marked tanks like this are pretty exclusively in internal company service usually for diesel fuel. Due to the extremely speciality of tank cars, railroads did not supply them the shipper. Shippers owned or leased their own cars. (Mostly leased (long or short term) from the major leasing and rental companies like UTLX, GATX, etc.)
Engi1487 No.#17. Red ATSF boxcar. Not sure of length or height?
Probably a 50' car. Hard to tell from this angle which series they chose to create this skin from, but it's probably one there's not an exact model for. But there are models out there in similar red ATSF colours. (ATSF used these colours on MANY series of cars; basically anything that had a cushioned underframe got the red paint and "Shock Control" lettering.
Engi1487No.#18. ETTX (same as yellow one posted above) reporting mark ASTF autorack in brown livery. Not sure if double level or tri-level autorack. I see as of December 2020 intermountain released them in HO scale recently. They are a perfect match.
I see as of December 2020 intermountain released them in HO scale recently. They are a perfect match.
See #9
Also, if you're really interested in the actual BNSF Marias Pass, and what ran over it, I'd suggest doing your research on YouTube videos of the actual trains at various locations on that line - not what someone putting a scenario together in MSTS thinks was running there. That person MAY have done their own research, or they just threw all the available BN,BNSF, and ATSF assets they could find at it to make a "BNSF manifest freight"...
Depends what your goal is here - representing Marias Pass in model form, or just matching the train you ran in MSTS.....
However, I am also getting a sense of a lot of scattered interests from your posts; so perhaps my answer is actually the same thing: just throw a bunch of BNSF cars together. Don't overthink it, because the MSTS route designer probably didn't either...
If you still have msts installed the info is in the wag files or for locos it will be in the eng files.
CGW103 If you still have msts installed the info is in the wag files or for locos it will be in the eng files.
cv_acr Also, if you're really interested in the actual BNSF Marias Pass, and what ran over it, I'd suggest doing your research on YouTube videos of the actual trains at various locations on that line - not what someone putting a scenario together in MSTS thinks was running there. That person MAY have done their own research, or they just threw all the available BN,BNSF, and ATSF assets they could find at it to make a "BNSF manifest freight"...
cv_acr Depends what your goal is here - representing Marias Pass in model form, or just matching the train you ran in MSTS.....
With the information others have provided, that I will figure that out. I could even create two sets of consists, one matching MSTS and the other in what Marias Pass really looked like.
cv_acr However, I am also getting a sense of a lot of scattered interests from your posts; so perhaps my answer is actually the same thing: just throw a bunch of BNSF cars together. Don't overthink it, because the MSTS route designer probably didn't either...