I've used Cadrail when I had a PC (Windows NT 4) and it worked fine, and the learning curve was not too great for a non-CAD guy like me (though I am quit computer savey). I used it to recreate a pencil and paper design produced by Cardiff designs.
Now I used Macintosh (OS X) almost exclusively and use Empire Express, essentially the only Mac choice. EE does not do elevations, 3D, etc., but I used it do design my in-progress layout (see my web page for a sample of its output). I also used it to design my bench work for Sievers. I find it incredibly easy to use.
On the PC, I also used RightTrack from Atlas. It was pretty easy as well.
in article snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, video guy
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at snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote on 7/16/05 5:30 PM:
Good choice for a modeling region. I live in this area, and so I am familiar with the line. In fact, I have an airplane, and one of my favorite games is to track the Chili Line North from Santa Fe up to Alamosa. It is interesting just how much of the line is still there. I believe that I have found some ties on one stretch just north of Taos Junction... But I digress.
The idea of an initial shelf layout to try is a good one. I might recommend Embudo north to Barranca Station and then to Taos Junction with the La maderia branch cutting off. This could be done as an easy switchback along a shelf to try out the basics and then incorporate into a larger more complete Chili Line. Embudo was the station north of Santa Fe and Espanola where a helper was cut in to go up a 4% grade to get out of the canyon of the RioGrande. Barrenca was at the top of the hill with a station and a wye to turn the helper for the return. The grade and the wye are still visible at the top of the hill, at least from an airplane. The line continued north toward Antonito where the Cumbres and Toltec heads west to Chama and Its predecessor the Rio Grande went eventually to Durango but the next step toward Antonito was Taos Junction. There, a branch took off west and downgrade to a lumbering region, A shelf with an upgrade to Barranca and either back down, or further up tot he logging area would provide good initial operation and be easily incorporated into a more complete plan later.
The station at Embudo and the water tank still stand. The turntable area is now a parking lot. A small restaurant provides really really fine food on an open veranda with the Rio Grande flowing by under the old large cottonwoods. You can almost see the 169 and a few coaches under the tank as you eat the Green Chili Burrito and drink the fresh-brewed India Pale Ale...
I think that NG&SLG did an article on modeling the adobe and hanging chili ristras along the line a few years ago...
Great info. , and thank you. Out of curiosity, how steep is the grade up to Los Alamos from the old Chili Line ? I thought I read somewhere that a rail line was proposed there.
No, there was never a rail line up to Los Alamos. The Chili Line was scrapped in 1941, just before the war started. I suspect that if it had still existed at the time of the Manhattan Project then there would have been some attempt to get rail up. But by then there was no more railroad. The AT&FS standard Guage came into Santa Fe, 35 miles east. It entered the same yard as the Chili Line did, but from the south and east rather than the north and west. All the people and equipment and such came through there and then bounced on dirt roads up to Los Alamos. The switchback dirt road was famous. Even now, with the main hill road paved, it is ummmm... interesting to tourists from Iowa. I suspect that a route could have been found that stayed at 4% and twisted back and forth between a few of the canyons leading up, but it was never done.
As an example, the Rio Grande at Otowi, closest to Los Alamos is about
5400' MSL I live in White Rock, a little bedroom community for Los Alamos, and I am at 6300' right on the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge. I look down 1000 feet to the river from the Canyon rim. I do enjoy our scenery... The Los Alamos airport, at the east end of the town and thus lowest, is 7200'. From Otowi to Los Alamos is about 4 miles. You do the math.
In any case, I really do enjoy being in this area. An occasional lunch at Embudo, I rode the Silverton two weeks ago, C&TS just up the road. It is funny, but most of my interests are the C&S narrow guage up in Colorado. When I moved down here in 1980, I did pick up a T-12 and a K-28 and a few coaches so I can run a reasonably authentic Chili Line train in HOn3. The G in the garden is much more like Colorado though...
Keep us posted on how the plans for the railroad are going.
My uncle used to tell me stories about how he and several other scientist types would get "screen-door bored" they would ride their motorcycles up into Bandeleir, climb up to some of the higher cliff dwellings and listen to the whistles that their beer bottles made when they finished them and tossed them over the edge. He also noted that the stream going down the canyon floor was the best place to rapidly cool beer - the water temp is something in the 50's even in mid-summer. He was with the project from start to finish and stayed with the AEC and later ERDA till the 70's. He's long retired, but still "consulting" periodically, my aunt sez (and she really wishes he would quit some day...).
They used to live over on Kiva, moved to a place near Santa Rosa, and then moved back up to a place on Rim Road, now out in Colorado down the road a bit from NORAD. When we would visit him in the summer, we would have to get checked in past the security gates, which I remember got taken out and the guard buildings turned into a restaurant or some such in the late 50's? Haven't been back since the late 70's when Unc retired so have no idea what the area looks like now.
Treasure my autographed copies of "The House at Otowi Bridge" and "Los Alamos Before the Dawn" and a few others from Unc.
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