June 29th, 2007

I haven't ranted about the state of the hobby for a while...This month's Model Railroader changed that. It was the drawing of how a layout shares a garage with two Corvettes that got to me. I like model railroading, a lot. I also like cars. Maybe not the two '70s models shown in the drawing, but the early to mid-'60s Vettes are among my favorite of that marque. Because of my interest in both things I am keenly aware of the kind of expenditure required to acquire these things. Not having that sort of disposable income, and noticing once more that there were no prototype drawings or Information I could use, I passed on buying the magazine. Sorry boys...I'll be sticking with Virtual Model Railroading a bit longer.

Which brings me to the real focus of this missive...Interest in many of the more frivilous pursuits in life has been at a low ebb for a while. Too many personal triumphs and tragedies have distracted my attention. Despite all that, some progress has been made on the MSTS model of Union Pacific's M10000, "City of Salina".

Those of you who have seen the original BETA version may notice quite a difference in the newer version. The shape I had developed in the old model was OK, but the more I studied the drawing and photos the more I realized I hadn't caught the character of this pioneering streamliner.

Overshadowed by the Burlington's famous shovel nose Zephyrs, the M10000 was actually the "first" of the modern streamliners powered by internal combustion. The prime mover was a Winton / Electro-Motive Corporation "distillate" engine, not the diesel unit used in all later passenger trains. The "City of Salina" appeared too early for Winton's diesel power plant, which wasn't ready for production.

Built by Pullman Standard, the train was constructed of aluminum alloy using technology developed for aircraft. The entire three unit train weighed just 85 tons or roughly the same as one heavyweight Pullman.

Because of the extremely light weight, the distillate engine only needed to develop 600 HP. This was more than enough to move the train, it's crew, 116 passengers, and 25,000 pounds of mail towards 100 mph. A normal heavyweight train, the standard passenger equipment of the time, required locomotives capable of developing 4,000 to 5,000 horsepower. Such trains were quite expensive to operate, especially in the Depression era. The lightweight and low power requirements of the M10000 translated into huge savings for the Union Pacific. The train had a range of 1200 miles.

Like the early Zephyr's, the "City of Salina" was a low profile, lightweight, articulated trainset. The articulation saved even more weight by reducing the number of trucks required to support the train. A three car train of conventional design would require six trucks. The M10000 used only four. A standard heavy weight train would also have required a locomotive. The new streamliner had it's motive power in the lead car. The distillate engine shared the "power car", as it was called, with a Railway Post Office and baggage compartment.

The little train made it's debut on February 12th, 1934. It consisted of the power car, a coach, and a coach-buffet. The ttrailing car is often mistaken for an observation lounge, probably because of it's rounded rear, a design feature of many of the later observation lounge cars. On the M10000 the rear compartment actually contained a buffet kitchen. Hot meals were prepared ahead of time and kept warm by a steam table. The weight savings of the new train were also apparent here. All the dinnerware was made of light weight aluminum. The dishware was an early form melamine called "Beetleware" making the buffet several hundred pounds lighter then contemporary equivalents.

The "City of Salina" was also equipped with washroom facilities in every car, including the power car. The seats were more like those in a modern aircraft than a railroad train. Each reclining seat had a footrest and a folding tray. Carry on luggage was stowed beneath the seating. All the cars were lit by indirect lighting hidden in the ceiling and air conditioned.

Unlike the rather plain passenger equipment typical of the period the "City of Salina" was bright armour yellow. This color, very visible in all kinds of conditions from a distance was trimmed with red and accented with golden brown on the roof and underside. To augment the noticeibility of the bright coloring the power car was equipped with a vertical search light that could be seen for miles. This not only brought attention to the new train, it served as a warning to motorists at the many rural grade crossings the train would encounter in service.

The trains interior was styled by the wife of the roads chairman, Marie Harriman. In a design that foreshadows the work of Dreyfus and Kuhler she chose bands of color seperated by aluminum strips. The coach floor was covered using cork tiles with a runner of carpet down the center. Seats were a golden brown suggesting the exterior trim. Each car had a offset entrance vestibule with the passenger area on one side and the washrooms on the other.

On the model I've had to imagine what this might have looked like. I have seen few color photos of the train, particularly the interior. Color photography was not as common in that time if it existed at all. I worked from descriptions in the various magazines and books I've collected. I have located a Pentrex video called "Tour of the M10000". Hopefully I can find a place to purchase the DVD.

The basic shapes of the various models required for the "City of Salina" are complete. All of them have been completely redone and are a much better approximation of the train as it appeared in 1934. I've used some things I haven't tried for a while and had to come up with some totally new techniques for the power and buffet cars.

I'm using 2048 x 2048 textures. Surprisingly MSTS has no problem displaying these. Tim Muir and others have had success using this resolution to capture some of the finer details in a model. The many rows of aircraft rivets used on the M10000 are part of the trains character. This is especially true of the power and buffet cars. Much of the uniqueness of the rear of the train is a direct result of the rivet pattern. Likewise the rivets on the nose are as much a part of the "look" as the elevated cab and finned grille.

The articulation was not as hard to replicate as it might seem. I already had the experience of building articulation on a number of heavy electrics and diesels like the Lil' Joe and Baldwin Centipedes. The M10000 is actually a lot simpler. The key is to make the articulated trucks separate models. The "diaphragm" is actually a model with one truck swiveling beneath it. The diaphragm itself swivels relative to the rest of the train. The diaphragm is also scaled slightly smaller than the cars it rides between. This allows it to turn inside the shell of the adjacent models. The overall effect is pretty convincing.

I hope to add more exterior and interior detail. I think the baggage and RPO compartments will be challenging and a lot of fun. I have some photos taken inside the cab and am looking forward to trying out my first attempt at a cab view. I also want to take a shot at modeling the 12 cylinder distillate engine.

On of the modeling techniques I been trying out on this model is seperate alpha textures for the windows. The texture contains the image for the glass and window frame. The alpha channel is done in a dark gray rather than black. This gives the windows a slight tint. It's just enough to leave the impression of glass.

I've also made each pane of glass a separate piece. I've done this in the past on some diesels. On the DL109 series and the Babyface Baldwins the side windows are actually "holes" in the shell filled with a square or rectangular part. This allows me a cleaner edge than I might get with a windows that is actually just a transparent part of the texture. The aliasing / pixelation tends to result in a sawtooth edge to the window frame. The separate glass parts are more work and more polygons, but I like the finished look it gives the model.

One of the major reason for going this route with the "City of Salina" was the cab windows. On the M series Union Pacific power cars and the early Zephyrs the glass is not curved. The technology for making affordable curved glass was not available at the time. So these early streamliners, and contemorary aircraft used a series of angled flat glass planes. The most memorable use of this technique is the famous Talbot Lago sports car.  The car is radically styled for its time, almost tear drop in shape. All the windows, however, are flat planes of glass.

The technique is not going to be limited to this model. The planned Pioneer Zephyr model and other Zephyrs will all require this "old school" way of providing a panoramic windscreen.

Using alpha channel textures for windows has it's problems. If you use textures with transparencies you need two seperate parts for each window. The exterior part is created using Alpha +. The interior part must use Alpha- If this is not done the opposite side of the car is invisible. Using seperate windows solves some of this. Since the actual side of the car uses solid norm, it can't be invisible. You can get away with one exterior part for each window using alpha norm. Yet, this doesn't quite work as well as it sounds. If you want to have that glass appearance from inside the car, you'll still need the interior part.

The other drawback, and this is a HUGE one is disappearing scenic objects. Using either alpha method described above will do away with the invisible car side. Instead, however, you can't see anything on the other side of the car when looking through the windows. There could be an entire city modeled over there and it will not appear when viewed through the windows. From forum discussions and reading I get the impression the fault is in the way Train Sim Modeler handles the alpha channel priorities. I'm still experimenting with the idea.

Another thing I hope to include in the M10000 is people. All the models I have made in the past are unoccupied. I'm not sure how many folks I can add, but I want to pkace an engine crew in that cab. I would also like to add some passengers so the train has a reason for its existance. Who knows maybe it will work out and I'll have a post office employee to sort the mail enroute just like they used to.

Finally, the "City of Salina" will be my first model compatible with MSTS-bin. I'm not sure of all the things involved in that just yet. I'm looking into it.

Well I think that's about it for now...Thanks for listening.