DXMP_Greenwich
Posted: 03 Feb 2013, 06:49
Hey everyone;
My next project, back on the theme of railways, will be based on the train station in Greenwich, Connecticut, a town on CTs Southern coast on the border with New York State.
The reason this interests me is because I used to use the station sometimes as a teenager and I liked the station building itself, also the railway through there has/had some pretty interesting features and history. Specifically, the overhead wiring system used to deliver electricity to commuter and some long distance passenger service was very unusual and visually appealing, a triangular arrangement of wires.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the type of overhead wiring systems now taken for granted on many busy railways was unprecented. The New Haven Railroad would be the first railway company to try to use electric wiring to power trains over a long distance. Not knowing any better, they wanted rigid wires presumably to mirror the effect of overhead bars that had been in experimental use elsewhere. Work started around the turn of the century and they had built overhead wiring from the New York City boundary at Woodlawn/Mount Vernon to Stamford, CT by 1908.
It didn't work as they had planned though, being susceptible to expansion/contraction with changing temperatures leading invariably to wire breaks that today are preventable. New York State replaced its section with modern constant tension wiring in the early 1990s, with CT replacing its section only about 10 years ago.
The latticework towers that hold the wires (for the 1908 built section) were reused and are all still standing.
Question is though, how the heck am I going to model that in UrealEd?](./images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall")
The towers I can do with transparent textures, but the wiring is another story. I don't see how I can simulate the wires with transparent textures, even if I could get a prism shaped brush. Laying down addition brushes for each wire part was what I considered initially, but even if I kept the nodes/polys ratio under control I can still imagine it being a nightmare of complexity with bazillions of small brushes 
My next project, back on the theme of railways, will be based on the train station in Greenwich, Connecticut, a town on CTs Southern coast on the border with New York State.
The reason this interests me is because I used to use the station sometimes as a teenager and I liked the station building itself, also the railway through there has/had some pretty interesting features and history. Specifically, the overhead wiring system used to deliver electricity to commuter and some long distance passenger service was very unusual and visually appealing, a triangular arrangement of wires.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the type of overhead wiring systems now taken for granted on many busy railways was unprecented. The New Haven Railroad would be the first railway company to try to use electric wiring to power trains over a long distance. Not knowing any better, they wanted rigid wires presumably to mirror the effect of overhead bars that had been in experimental use elsewhere. Work started around the turn of the century and they had built overhead wiring from the New York City boundary at Woodlawn/Mount Vernon to Stamford, CT by 1908.
It didn't work as they had planned though, being susceptible to expansion/contraction with changing temperatures leading invariably to wire breaks that today are preventable. New York State replaced its section with modern constant tension wiring in the early 1990s, with CT replacing its section only about 10 years ago.
The latticework towers that hold the wires (for the 1908 built section) were reused and are all still standing.
Question is though, how the heck am I going to model that in UrealEd?
The towers I can do with transparent textures, but the wiring is another story. I don't see how I can simulate the wires with transparent textures, even if I could get a prism shaped brush. Laying down addition brushes for each wire part was what I considered initially, but even if I kept the nodes/polys ratio under control I can still imagine it being a nightmare of complexity with bazillions of small brushes 
)