OpenGeofiction
Railways in Igwepir
Posted by tule00 on 24 January 2017 in English. Last updated on 26 January 2017.Hi everyone
As the title suggests, I’ve been working a lot on the railway system in my city of Igwepir. Some things (main station, old main station, yard, underground platforms) have yet to be finished, but I’d like to hear your opinions, and whether y’all think I’m on the right way. If I’m doing something wrong, be sure to let me know.
Regards
Edit: the Nortkap line is not supposed to end there
Discussion
Comment from Myrcia on 24 January 2017 at 17:59
Not looking too bad but you do have to ask yourself how/why there is such an extensive underground section of the railway. It would have been hugely expensive and inconvenient to build so there has to be a really good reason for wanting to do it. Nortkap, for example, is sparsely populated and already connected with the central station, and the rest of the city, by tram.
Comment from Leowezy on 24 January 2017 at 18:37
Hey there, somewhat close neighbour to the north :)
I assume you are referring to the heavy railways and not the tram network.
I think the general issue with the network I could make out right now is that I can’t really see any cohesive history of the city that leads to the current layout. Try to start from the beginning, when railroads were first introduced; how big was the city at that time? Most likely, one or more railway stations would have been established at the edge of the city at that time, and in this case the most likely option would be a terminus station from where trains can head eastwards, mostly because the next big city Mutstat is located in that direction and due to the general makeup of the peninsular the city is situated on. It seems indeed very likely that the Hafen station would have been that “first” major railway station, and I don’t see why that would have changed. The big new main station underground, and the many kilometers of tunnel underneath the city seem way to expensive to be justified.
I think if you could give a general overview over what kind of history you have in mind for the city, giving feedback could be much more constructive, e.g. saying how things could look better, instead of just pointing out the things that seem a bit off.
Hope to read more from you soon, cheers~
Comment from Leowezy on 24 January 2017 at 18:39
Edit: Myrcia beat me ;) I would second his advice of just having the railway end at some terminus station and have the rest of the city be accessible by tram.
Comment from tule00 on 24 January 2017 at 19:18
You two have in mind that these tracks are supposed to continue (from Nortkap to the south, and from the yard to Waltburg), not end in the city. As for the Hafen station, I figure there wouldn’t be enough space for a major terminus there (plus high speed trains need a station too), so that’s why one was built on the northern part.
Comment from martinum4 on 24 January 2017 at 19:54
Regarding railway tagging in general, the stations (railway stop with switches)/halts (railway stop without a switch) are usually tagged as node, not as area. The high speed station could be developed just north of the central station, as a direct part of it, also i’d place the Albest Street a little more south and take the rails out of the underground. If you want the high speed rail to be separate from the main station i’d place it at the A12 Trunk a bit north, that way you could carry them overground and have enough space for development, also at the bridge you could just add stairs and platforms and a tram stop on the bridge and your station is done, kind of a bit like osm.org/#map=19/52.50667/13.28282 The platforms are a little bit short IMHO, i’d make them longer, for example look at this long fuckers IRL: osm.org/#map=18/47.58421/12.16608
Kind regards
Martin
Comment from histor on 24 January 2017 at 20:04
The undergroubd railway to Nortkap in a tunnel nobody in real life will pay. Delete it, to be realistic. Too the underground rails through the city are not realistic - let them run around the city at the surface. You have a town of middle size - not a metropole!
Comment from Leowezy on 24 January 2017 at 20:36
Regarding Hafen St. being too small for the main railway station; this is Kassel main station, at about the same zoom level. I’d say it would fit perfectly in between the hill with the Stadtruinen on top and the harbour :) And if there’s ever need for expansion; filling up a small part of the harbour or flatting a small section of a hill slope is tremendously less expensive than burying a complete station underground :)
Again, my advise would be to, in you head, develop the city over time and ask yourself “what could the city be realistically expected to do to improve the situation at this point in time?”
Comment from martinum4 on 24 January 2017 at 20:59
@Leowezy: I use the Kassel station daily, it looks really shitty, but the platforms are quite long and these rails are part of the Hauptbahnhof too…
Anyway, Kassel has a really nice tram train system, will build such a thing in my country (because it’s really convenient)…
Comment from Toadwart on 24 January 2017 at 22:49
What a ridiculous coincidence. This station is also modelled after Kassel Hbf: http://opengeofiction.net/#map=18/-20.74345/124.37906 It has been mirrored, and the number of tracks changed. But you will obviously some details which are also there in the original. The two westernmost tracks, in the original the two northern ones, don’t have access to the city tunnel. In both cases there is the “Gleisdreieck” with the yards inside.
BTW, I just noticed, I forgot the “famous” Klb signalbox. I also think, I “sqeezed” it too much. Let see, what I can “repair”…
Comment from tule00 on 24 January 2017 at 22:52
Toad, sorry to break it to you, but I didn’t model my station after the one in Kassel.
I will reply to everyone else, but it’s almost midnight here and I’m tired
Comment from martinum4 on 24 January 2017 at 22:59
Lol, why is Kassel Hbf so “popular”? @Toadwart: I think you should use the service attribute more often at the station area, so far all the rails are “bold”, also you forgot about these little yard rails at the end of the platforms, for example this.
Also, did you guys know you can view the track plans of the german rail stations much better? Kassel Hauptbahnhof has way more rails than you expect…
Comment from tule00 on 25 January 2017 at 16:56
Okay, most of you have said the main problem is too much tunnels. What do you think about this idea? The green parts will not be underground anymore.
Comment from histor on 25 January 2017 at 18:14
So you made only half a step.
1) The “railway” to Nortkap nobody will build as railway - may be only as subway-line, if your town are 4-times greater. So, as your town is, you need only a streetcar line.
2) Beneath the park a long tunnel to the east? There the line always will run in a cutting or on surface.
3) To the west the line will not run in a tunnel under the central town, but along the orange street and the streetcar-line following the “old fortification” north of the small wood in a cutting around the heart of the town.
4) Why a motorway like an arrow in the heart of your town and why an expensiv tunnel under yout harbour?
5) If I will live in your town, then I think, there are too few parks and squares.
Comment from histor on 25 January 2017 at 18:23
Please remember - in the time the first railways are constructed from town to town, most of them are private companies, which will earn money with the railway. So they constructed cheap - only a tunnel, if there are no other way.
Only the later build hi-speed-railways since 1960 are build from the state or greater ot state-owned companies and take more money in the hand.
Comment from histor on 25 January 2017 at 18:29
Dein Strand an der Ostseite von Nortkap wird sich wegen der Strömung dort nicht lange halten . Setze ihn doch in eine kleine Bucht.
Comment from tule00 on 25 January 2017 at 21:57
1) Nortkap is not the end of the railway. Of course I wouldn’t build a rail line just to Nortkap.
2, 3) I don’t understand what you mean there
4) At first I wanted the town centre to be somewhere around Revolutionplatz, but later I realized a more logical place is near the water, but I didn’t change the motorway. Later I thought it could be kind of a boulevard entering the town that was later extended towards Waltburg (and potentially other big cities).
5) You have a point. I will add more parks and squares.
When I built the city, I had no idea about railways, and I thought “I’ll make something up so that Reeland had railways built really late, so I can build all railways underground”. Later I got interested in railways, and now I think that was a stupid decision, but it was hard to reconstruct half the city because of that, so I decided to keep underground railways. At one point I looked at railways in Belgrade so I thought I could draw an old railway line and the old main station (Like the Главна “main” in Belgrade), and the other one could be the new main station (Like Београд центар “Belgrade center”). Belgrade is 5 to 10 times larger than Igwepir, though.
Danke für den Rat. Ich weiß nichts über Meeresströmungen.
Comment from tule00 on 25 January 2017 at 22:31
About the Hafentunnel - I’m not sure if I should even built it. That’s why I tagged it as under construction.
Comment from Luciano on 25 January 2017 at 23:04
I agree with previous points that such a long tunnel is “unhistorical.” In most major cities in the world, railroads either
a) came before surrounding urbanization (in which case no tunnel would be required unless there was a large mountain, and then the economics would have make it profitable not to go around),
or else
b) the railroads were built in an era when the concept of “preservation” was still unheard of - neighborhoods were routinely destroyed in the name of creating railroads, and this destruction was viewed as “progress” and a completely positive thing. So the only way a railroad would be in a tunnel would be if it was a completely new route built in the modern era (quite rare).
Otherwise, right-of-ways from earlier railroads would already exist and be used for e.g. infrastructure upgrades and modernization.
I think you’d get a lot more realism, anyway, if you “punched” the railroad through the neighborhoods - that’s the way modern cities evolved.
Comment from tule00 on 25 January 2017 at 23:23
My problem is I’m trying not to delete half of my city for that. It seems that tunnels in Hafen are inevitable, but the Vagheen one could mostly be eliminated. I just need to reposition the Hafenringweg and its tram tracks.
Comment from histor on 25 January 2017 at 23:33
Ich versuche es in deutsch
2) Beneath the park a long tunnel to the east? There the line always will run in a cutting or on surface.
Die Strecke vom Bahnhof nach Osten nördlich vom Park sollte in einem Einschnitt laufen - es geht aber auch auf einem Viadukt. Das könnte sich sogar gut machen in dem Stadtviertel am Hafen (kleine Plätze unter der Eisenbahnbrücke - lebendiges Kneipen-Viertel)
3) To the west the line will not run in a tunnel under the central town, but along the orange street and the streetcar-line following the “old fortification” north of the small wood in a cutting around the heart of the town.
Der Bahnhof sollte etwas mehr nach Nordwest geneigt sein (wie die Hi-Speed-Strecke) und die Bahnlinie dann der orangen Straße in einem Bogen um die Stadt folgen. Wo im Westen die Fahrradwege beginnen, dann eine Kurve (meinetwegen kurzer Tunnel) zum Rangiergelände. Bei diesen Fahrradwegen kann dann auch die Strecke zum Nortkap abzweigen und in einem Bogen westlich um die Stadt herumführen. Wenn die Strecke uber das Kap weiter zum anderen Ufer laufen soll, dann natürlich mit einer Brücke oder einem Tunnel. Die Strecke vom Bahnhof zur Verzweigung kann auch viergleisig sein, weil es 2 Hauptstrecken sind.
Ja - Du wirst dann einiges abreißen und neu zeichnen müssen, wenn es gut aussehen soll. Das ist ganz normal. Aber das mit der Eisenbahn wäre eine Stunde oder 2 Stunden Aufwand. Wenn Du willst, zeichne ich dir das.
Comment from tule00 on 26 January 2017 at 15:36
Ich verstehte dich in Englisch, aber ich weißte nicht über welche Park/Straße du sprach.
Fühl dich frei, es tun. Ich werde es besser aussehen lassen.
Comment from wangi on 26 January 2017 at 16:36
Everyone’s got an opinion :) Share much of what has already been said - the tunnels are not really plausible. Plus you’d not have a link to Nortkap and bridge/tunnel beyond, because you would just have a line around the bay instead.
So, some specific examples of how i would have done this myself.
Comment from tule00 on 26 January 2017 at 16:43
The first idea looks nice at the Hafen part. The second one can’t go that way, because the route you want to build on surface, goes under the heart of the city. Also, the Nortkap line is supposed to go south, so I’m not sure about that spur.
Comment from wangi on 26 January 2017 at 17:24
The problem with the Nordkap line going to the south is it needs a big bridge or tunnel to do so. For a big city, perhaps. But much more realistic is those communities to the south being served by a line which leaves from the east of the city and loops round the bay.
Many cities had loads of housing cleared to make way for Victorian railway mania… If you imagine the blocks north of Albest Str being cleared and then somewhat covered back over by commercial developments?
Comment from histor on 26 January 2017 at 21:21
@ tule00 = “Fühl dich frei, es tun. Ich werde es besser aussehen lassen.”
Fühlte mich frei …. I hope you like my changings. If not, it is easy to delete my changesets ## 289 960 and 289 992 from an adninistrator. Or if some details you like in other style, surely you can revert.
Station-platforms I made 400m for modern trains. If you want it shorter (250 m?) you may change. Vagheen-station only has two tracks like an suburban-railway station - here no trains are starting and ending and there is no hi-speed-stop.
Best regards - histor
Comment from tule00 on 26 January 2017 at 22:18
I feel sorry for my old system, but I like this one, and it’s more historically realistic, so I think I will keep it.
I made the Vagheen station wide because I wanted to use local trains - like a substitute for U-Bahn, but for a smaller city. Is that realistic? Maybe the trains could go all the way to Spentel?
Comment from histor on 26 January 2017 at 22:35
Vagheen - I think - is a relative small suburb and it has a streetcar-connection to Igwepir. So there is not enought travel for a “U-Bahn”. But if you see to the new Vagheen-Stop at the viaduct it looks like an elevated “U-Bahn” and can give urban athmospaehre to that area. Local trains -realistic seen - never will end or start in Vagheen, because it is too near to Igwepir-Tzental.
So as Igwepur now is drawn it can be a town for 150 000 or 200 000 people - so streetcar-lines are the best sulution.