Chester Model Railway Club - includes narrow gauge, specifically Tralee and Dingle
Paul showed us how to make our first animation and has been a great
help since.
Terry's helped us by sorting out our level crossings.
2ft narrow gauge Trainz models
Andy at the awkward squad - our web host - web design, maintenance and hosting, and photography
Steve says: Roland has produced an exceptionally useful programme. It is payware but very reasonably priced and, when you start generating your own layouts in Trainz with accurate, smooth terrain, you soon realise that it's worth every penny/cent. You can model any railway in any part of the world. Once you master the techniques used in TransDEM generating a route takes only a few minutes.
In my experience TransDEM is the most rewarding and successful way of making prototypical terrain for Trainz. It combines topographical data which can be downloaded free from the NASA web site (all details included in the TransDEM manual) with digital maps - either from CD or scanned in. The results are excellent.With TransDEM you can produce smooth flowing terrain.The degree of detail is only limited by the resolution parameters of Trainz itself.
For the Irish narrow gauge, for example, I have already generated an enormous layout covering the whole of County Donegal. This will form the base for individual layouts of stations and specific routes which we will release. I could not have achieved this without Roland's programme and I'd thoroughly recommend it to every Trainzer.
Please note that Roland's site is in German. An English-language version of TransDEM is available. The new version provides even more functionality. Not only will it generate terrain and mark on the railway route and other features, it will also pre-lay track splines throughout and, if 3D dxf information is provided (basically the route+gradient profile) then TransDEM will build embankments and make cuttings. Here are some of Roland's screenshots. These are screenshots from the beta-version 1.2.
Terrain generated and track laid following the route but without gradient profile information applied.
Terrain generated and track laid following the route and with gradient profile information applied. The maximum height of embankments and depth of cuttings is set by the user within TransDEM. Tunnels are cut as usual within Surveyor.
The width of embankments is still affected by the limitations of Trainz's terrain parameters.
