"You're listening to WSPX Sparx FM, Mark "The Noise" Naseby here with you for the next few hours. Coming through your speakers for another day in paradise; it's the city by the sea, the gateway to the Caribbean, our backlots are teeming with garbage but our beaches are covered with golden sands and babes with tans. So suck it, New Jersey - no used needles washing in on our tides. "Time for a quick weather update, let me just look out the window... not a single cloud, rain or mushroom. If you're not stuck in traffic, I hope you're somewhere nice right now soaking up the sun and sucking down a Fab. "Coming up in the next block, more of the new wave and synth pop hits you're craving. We got one from Duran Duran's 'Rio', and another from The Cars' 'Heartbeat City' but first we're going back to '81 with this hit from Ultravox. It's 'Vienna', on Sparx."
Out in the key west inspired area, I think you should add some bits and pieces of a broken bridge. Whether it was destroyed by a hurricane or just left to rot for some other reason, the bridge there would be older and look really worn down as it has probably been gone for a decent period of time.
One thing that you can do to make the trains look more realistic is to put a speed limit for them with TMPE on the tracks , that way you don`t need to slow down the game to make the trains look realistically when they go through the city
I can't wait for the future when you do a Not-Chicago city build, with a full elevated rail system. Your railways are always the most satisfying parts of these videos. They really tie a city together, if you get what I mean. It's weirdly satisfying.
Oh god i love this series so much. Always Refreshing and makes my day better. Its one of the few things where ill never play a game while watching. Id rather watch it later than while doing something else. Much Love, Keep up the great work.
Wow! I can’t believe you named a radio station after me! I want to thank my family, friends, and especially you Mike without you this wouldn’t have been possible.
Established in 1885, the Sunshine Coast Railway was originally built to service hotels along the eastern Atlantic coast of the state. It starts all the way from the northern-most part of the state and snakes along the eastern coast all the way to Sunset City. It carried passengers and freight along the route until it obtained a charter to build track all the way to Sunset City in 1896. With many hotels and companies setting foot in the city, and with the geography south being more swampy, thus difficult to build tracks on, the decision was made to make Sunset City the terminal station for the Railway. The Sunshine Coast Railway however would not be the only railway in town looking to make a stake, the Seaside-Bank Railroad reached Sunset City in 1910, and decided they were going to continue past the city into the Key Islands. their operations were successful, bringing holiday-makers to the small island resorts sprinkled outside of the city. However in 1942 a massive Hurricane destroyed the bridges connecting the mainland to the keys, most of the islands were forever scared. The Seaside-Bank railroad, at the whim of the I.C.C. (Interstate Commerce Commission) during the second world war, were not allowed to spend money on building or re-building tracks and infrastructure, with most effort being put towards the war effort. Following the end of WW2, with road transport and highways taking off in popularity, the interest for rebuilding the rail line was never taken seriously by the state's government again. decades later, in the late 60's - early 70's, when passenger rail and infrastructure was at it's absolute worst, the Seaside-Bank Railroad would merge with its rival, the Sunshine Coast Railway, in order for it to survive. With Miami not being an industry-focused town, and what little industry it had was served by trucking, the main Terminal in its downtown region would begin crumble and need serious repairs if it was going to stay up. Luckily, before the station was proposed to be torn down and replaced with a sports stadium, President Robert F. Kennedy signed the "Nationalized Passenger Rail Act of 1973". This act would give railroads the opportunity to relinquish their passenger services to the Federal Government's new agency "CityLink". Starting that same year, CityLink would take over the Sunshine Coast's passenger operations, and began restoration of Sunset City's beautiful downtown terminal. Today the station sees multiple intercity commuter trains, and 3 long distance trains, most notably the "Shooting Star" and "Silver Dollar" trains from Sunset City to Gramercy. It has become a landmark of the city, and a classical sight to behold.
Very nice build! I love abandoned railroads. 21:20 I think there should be a line of younger trees in the forest where the old line used to be. Also, the old train bridge would most likely be repurposed for cars although it would be nice to have some old pillars in the water just slightly poking through.
I don't know if you have looked into this, but one of the reasons of the traffic issue might be because of this: as you can see, due to the railway crossings, some road segments are very short. This causes vehicles to wait for the vehicle ahead of them to cross that segment before they move, which means a much slower moving traffic. To fix that, you can use TMPE, go intersection settings and press the button that lets cars pass without waiting
Im sure you’ve seen this on google earth but a lot of times there will be tons of abandoned train cars left on abandoned train lines to prevent trains from continuing down the line. This would look amazing along side that main road or behind some buildings!
Fantastic Work! While I’m not the foremost expert on Florida Railroads in the 1980s, here are some facts that could help add to the realism. In 1983, Miami was served by three railroads, Amtrak(represented by City Link), the Seaboard System, which I don’t think has a City Skylines version, and the Florida East Coast Railway. Commuter Service wasn’t introduced until 1989 with the introduction of Tri-Rail. Amtrak’s main service into Miami was via the Silver Service, made up of two trains, the Silver Star, which made a stop in Tampa, and the Silver Meteor, which bypassed Tampa. The single level long distance city link trains will be a good representation of this. In Tampa, the key rail commodity which Phosphate, which is most commonly used in Fertilizer and is abundant to the South-East of Tampa, known as the “Bone Valley” because of the large amount of prehistoric remains found by miners. Perhaps adding mineral shipping from an area like that too Tampa would add a lot of realism. This would be served by the Seaboard System(or whatever alternative there is in City Skylines, bsquidlehausen is probably the go to guy for that). Orlando would be a common go between for freight coming up from Miami and Tampa headed northbound(and vice versa). Jacksonville is probably the busiest area in Florida, with a large number of railroads serving it, Seaboard System, Florida East Coast, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern respectively. Norfolk Southern never went further south from Jacksonville. Amtrak also only ran in Seaboard System tracks. Florida East Coast was strictly freight until the introduction of Brightline a few years ago. There are several neat Florida additions, such as the Tropicana Juice train(or City Skylines version). Which is a real train operated by the Seaboard System from Tampa(where Tropicana is headquartered) to New York. Made up of special Orange refrigerated boxcars(today they’re white cars but at the time they were orange). And the Amtrak Auto Train, which ran from Orlando(technically Sanford, a suburb) too Washington DC. The Auto Train allowed passengers to bring their cars with them as they rode the train north or south. It’s still around today and has a very neat facility. Hope the info I provided helps add some realism and keep up the great work!
For the train line over the water- perhaps you could make it looked like it collapsed (following the storm that could have happened?) That way there is more reason for an abandoned railway!
Love this series. Your interest in American railroads definitely shows. Also, not all abandoned lines are abandoned either. There are “Out of Service” lines that look abandoned but are still owned by the railroad and could be put back into service at any time. It would be interesting to see some old line side structures if at all possible. As for the islands. I think having some existing piers in the water and raised roadbed on the other islands where tracks once were.
I feel like the abandoned train line going through town on the island would become a de-facto walking route. Probably safer to walk down there than by the roads with all the large cars and more lax attitudes to drinking and driving the 80's had. I know invisible walking paths can be a bit finicky, but they could bring a little bit of life to the area.
To answer your question @22:27... A railway 'that's on a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope,' according to American Wikipedia, that raised land is called a 'Berm.' Hope this helps!! I absolutely love your detail work, bruh!!
The rail lines are looking so good! I really like the abandoned island line! An idea might be to have an old terminus repurposed, with some rusting locomotives behind it....
The old Santa Julia railroad crossing would be a perfect place to reuse older structures, especially the span between the mainland and Center Island. There's lots of places where you'll have 2 parallel bridge spans but one is older, often 2-3 feet lower, and with each section supported by 2-4 thinner square pillars as opposed to 1-2 central pillars you see on newer bridges (Ex: Florida Route 528/A1A between Cocoa, FL and Merritt Island/Courtenay, FL). 21:28 If you want to have some of the old bridge remaining most old bridges are demolished to make way for new ones which share their alignment. However if the new bridge takes a straighter, more direct route the old one can be left standing. These abandoned bridges can be left as is (Ex: some sections of the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys) or the remaining stub can be turned into a fishing pier (Ex: Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Skyway Fishing Pier State Park Tampa, FL) Can't wait for the next episode and hope my nerding out about infrastructure gave some inspiration.
SparksFM as name + the flashy logo and the 80s setting give me the vibe of a person that lives wayyy above their status. Like a late 30s B-list local celeb trying to connect with "real" stars but miserably failing, while acting entitled if they don't get recognized or free stuff and being part of local gossip and scandals. Maybe even making stuff up to boost their own career or just to shun brands or people they dislike
For the train line across the water, I think you should have the start and the end of the bridges, somewhat rundown but only have the support pillars going across the rest of the water
The radio station was founded by Jayson Sparks in 1977 and was used to supply the demand of the growing tourist industry by giving the growing car dependent infrastructure a radio station for tourists and to a lesser extent locals to enjoy
Sparx FM is hosted by local radio star DJ Adam, who also frequently does interviews on the show with popular bands like The Bulldogs, who also grew up in the area
I can actually help on this. in the dates preceeding the 1980's the US Army Corp. of Engineers standard for ICW minimum 'structure height' (bridges, overhead wires/pipes) was an 'airdraft clearance of 55 feet at medium sea level (0 feet tide). Thusly any fixed structure above the waterway had to have that clearance. Otherwise it had to be some form of opening span, be that a leaf style drawbridge or swing bridge. However, it wasn't too long before the 80's the standard was only 50 feet above median 0.
I recently built my first PC by hand, and got to play GTA V despite it being a decade later. And holy hell it was so fun, and watching Cities:Skylines always reminds me of how cool it is to see these unique environments and imagine being able to see them from a first person standpoint!
I do love how fleshed-out Sunset City is becoming. It's an incredibly flawed city, but a very interesting one nonetheless. And I can't wait to see more of the characters of the city, as well as the overall expansion of the city's freight, can't wait to see the city's traffic eventually disappate. Also can't wait to see more industry being properly made too. I like to assume that the main SparxFM host might be someone very glamorous, since they did create the entire radio station and likely named it too. But I also like imagining the same main host have a morbid curiosity of the city's darker side, sometimes putting themselves in danger so that they might tell this outrageous story that they just discovered. Just my take on the SparxFM story anyways.
I think the industrial area next to the townhall should be more or less abandoned, and like you said the area would be reused in the future to connect it more to the city centre.
There is a small portion of the original Flagler Railroad that is used as a fishing pier. The rest was torn down to build the Overseas Highway (US1). Thank you for this series. I love my hometown!
A consideration for the backstory of the abandoned tracks is that they could have been railbanked, where the rail infrastructure is abandoned in place but the company still owns the rail corridor with the idea that it can be reactivated and rehabilitated at a later time. The railbanking program started in 1983 so it would fit
You should give Sparx FM a more realistic call sign! In The US radio stations west of the Mississippi River typically start with K, and those to the east start with W. So you could call it something like "W-SUN, Sparx FM 87.1" lol On a side note, if you need someone to record a "shock-jock" style radio intro, I would be more than willing to donate my time lol
When I lived in Miami the local transit authority had taken over part of the abandoned train line and was building an elevated metro which was opened in Spring of 1985. When it was completed, it had a grassy strip with simple bike and pedestrian path beneath it (just plain asphalt, no stripes or anything). Any chance Sunset City will have one?
The FM in Sparks FM should either be white or bright red. So it pops a bit more. Your version of Tampa needs to have some kind of Custom motorbike garage and a Dive bar called The Dirty Shame. The pubs a real place just fyi.
23:27 I think an old train yard would fit perfectly between the road and the water. You could make it half demolished to make space for some industry, but also place some old sheds as kind of an old abandoned freight station. Also, many abandoned tracks are converted to pedestrian or bike paths. Maybe not so much in the 80s but maybe you wanna include something like that
amazing detailing once again 👏 I just could not help but notice the spacing of the parking lot around the radio station. It looks way too tight for cars to actually be able to maneuver themselves into the parking spots. IRL there should be at least 6 to 7 meters of space between opposing parking rows. Hope I don't sound nitpicky - I know it's insignificant in the game, but something you need to consider when planning parking areas IRL - anyway, love your videos
A concept of most abandoned lines, car storage. The former Rutland line into Bennington, Vermont is used for car storage, railcars not needed for the current industrial traffic. You could probably turn the stub to the abandoned line to car storage. Also, for your question at 22:28, it's called grade separation.
With the abandoned track, you should have the part that's still connected to the main track have a couple wagons sitting on it, usually railroads will store them on old unused lines when they're not needed, but if you do that they have to be all the same type or have a lot of the same type. Like if there are a total of 20 half could be one type half the other, or they're all just the boxcar ones, you don't store away a whole set of tankers with one boxcar, you'd keep them together in large numbers so you can just go in and pull them out without needing to waste too much time messing around to get what you need. However since it's on what is basically Key West, it makes more sense to have nothing on it and no track at all except where an old station is that has been restored, and maybe a nice looking old steam train or typically a red caboose out front on a little track. I don't really think storing the wagons on an old rail line would make sense in this city, because it's normally done in the middle of nowhere so very few people mess with them, but you could have one car sitting on a little track that comes off the main one that follows along side, they're typically maybe 3 feet lower to the ground than the main one, and sometimes you can see just one wagon sitting on it because it developed a problem and had to be taken off the rest of the train before it fell apart. Those almost always have a small gravel road going to it from the closest road so maintenance crews can get out to it and fix it, and it would be really cool to have a little maintenance truck sitting beside the wagon and someone working on the wheels of the wagon. Also something to keep in mind, railroads will take the easiest path to get somewhere, they will go straight through everything they possibly could, so if you have let's say 2,500 feet of track going west, but need to avoid something that would be in the way of a straight line roughly halfway through, the railroad would just put a little kink in the track to divert it just enough left or right, railroads now don't do curves unless they have to, they slow trains, but if there is a curve because you can't avoid it, it almost always is as nice and gentle and wide as possible for fast running. Hope this helps with any future planning, and gives a few ideas for what you could add or change to what you've already done. Also the way you detailed everything along the track made it feel like I was watching someone construct a realistic model railroad and it also gave me a lot of ideas for what to do as well lol.
You should make a train line in the swamp, that was built along or in a creek and later sunk into the creek and got flooded. And maybe a train that is ditched into mud or the creek.
This series are really cool looks amazing!!. But maby a good tip for the monorail/peoplemover system, the stations are way to big, normal peoplemover systems have smaller stations so they are space efficient.
(Long lore paragraph incoming) Sparx FM 94.5 or WSPX (W refers to radio stations East of the Mississippi) is an 80s alternative/college rock station hosted by the former rock star Paulie Mars from Minneapolis (Inspired by the Minneapolis music scene in the 80s). Paulie used to be a part of a rock band called The Delegates before it broke-up because the band's lead singer had a crippling drug addiction to either cocaine or morphine. He's massively depressed and cynical with a dry sense of humor and disillusionment with 80s consumerism that is massively rampant in Sunset City. Paulie's sense of humor is the reason the sign is sparkly is to be ironic, cheeky, and misleading the listener into thinking it's just another 80s pop rock station when that couldn't be any further from the case. Despite his experiences he is still passionate about music and loves to find up and coming alternative/college rock bands. Although TH-cam wouldn't allow you to play it this station would've played bands like The Replacements, R.E.M., Husker Du, and early Red Hot Chili Peppers.
If you do the abandoned train bridge to the islands I have an idea, abandoned bridges in Florida are extremely popular fishing areas, usually have parking lots on either side so you can park and walk down the bridge and cast your line, it would be cool if you could come up with something like that, but then again having just the pillars remaining sounds fun and would look amazing.
idk if that has been pointed out already but the reason the nodes get all wonky with node controller is that for some reason, intersections with train tracks get the no collision tag attached by default when using node controller on them. You can manually reenable node collision in the "more options" thing in the nc menu
For the abandon line bridge, what about just the pillars remain, however twords one side or maybe even the middle they are removing track that survived whatever caused it to become abandoned because of safety reasons from the bridge next to it which is still being used?
I know this is probably an iffy detail, but since it is based in florida, some homeless encampments/housing and trash covered areas (like under bridges or in alleyways) would add a lot of realism to the city!
The abandoned trainline out in the key wets inspired area was abandoned due to smuggling of drugs, weapons etc by the mafia. The location made it difficult for authorities to constantly keep an eye on it so they chose to abandon it instead but some say it is still in use. Word on the street is its called "The Express train service" all your nefarious needs delivered with no stop.
It would be super cool if you could have the first bit of the rail bridge by Santa Hulia, then have a submerged abandoned steam engine just off the beach. It could look like it was on the bridge when it was destroyed and just abandoned
After the success of highly popular disco funk band BJ and the Cokeline Band Sparx FM hired Barry Coyne Pasty as a DJ. However major scandal hit the radio station when it turned out that during the early 80's Barry together with his friend Manny, built a strong cocaine empire in Miami. However as his power began to grow, so did his ego and his enemies, and his own paranoia began to plague Sparx FM before being arrested in 1983. As a radio station Sparx FM is only just starting to recover.
Sparx FM definitely syndicates Casey's Top 40 every Sunday, and probably has some televangelist program on for a couple hours after that before going back to live DJs for the Sunday night show.
I've got an idea. A random building in downtown has to file for bankruptcy and soon gets demolished (it's not King Buns HQ) After this, the Bergunsey family swoops in and buys the plot the building got demolished in. After that, one of Mike's sons', James Bergunsey would open up a company (I don't care the name), and that company's HQ gets opened there
Bro you gotta remove that massive pile driver machine from the parking lot construction site, unless you’re building a skyscraper that thing does not need to be there
As you are building a lot of networks, I would recommend using network multitool mod as it has a lot of different options regarding roads, like creating parallel and loop roads.
The founder of "SparxFM" Patricia Gomez a young Student from that Cuban Area you build last episode. She started Sparx by Broadcasting from her Fathers Garage. now a days Sparx is one of the most popular Stations in Sunset City. Idk maybe her Parents are in the Gang that also Burned down Mike Burgundy's house. Maybe shes still part of the Gang or maybe its the Typical thing of "no i dont wanna live that gang life, let me just become rich and a better person" blah blah. Meh dont know thats the best i could come up with on the spot xd.
I Like Trains! 🤣 One of the things I find weird with trains in the US is just how very, very few road or rail bridges there are and how utterly blase the US is in using level crossings. Level crossings are used in the UK but they are immensely rarer and cities are all about embankments, viaducts, tunnels and bridges.
In a lot of places in the US, keep in mind the railroad came first and the town grew afterwards. Some towns even have train lines down the middle of main street. (Not trams, full freight trains) New lines such as the California HSR are all grade separated.
anniston AL has an abandoned train line converted to a walking path and spans to georgia i believe. could make part of the line on the islands a walking path
Even though this city is not based on Chicago I suggest looking at there rail system where I used to live there where crossing gates almost every mile, anyway yea they have a ot of train and some huge bridges especially the ones that look like they could just lift the train it's like it goes up and the rail yard are something else even the abandoned ones. I just realized I didn't watch the entire video...
This looks fantastic! Really enjoying the series! Would you be able to make available the heightmap for this series? Would love to have a go on your map in Transport fever 2! 😃 Keep up the good work!
So I'm a few months late. But what if you (maybe 30 years later in the game) you create Rail to Trails. Create walking paths where the tracks use to be! Nice video
I was flying into Miami in January and felt I’d accidentally fallen into Sunset City. However the real Miami is far more ugly and decayed in real life which was sad to see.
This is a very minor nit-pick but it is not common practice for rail corridors in the US to be fenced off, a reduction in fences may make sense. Pretty sweet video however.
I love your work on including the abandon train lines. They look great! love other peoples suggestions above too. I wonder, is there a way to make the rail lines rust color instead of the shiny metal they appear as... maybe with the adaptive networks tool or decals? also some abandond rails look more wavy. Maybe even some broken rails? how could that be done in skylines?
"You're listening to WSPX Sparx FM, Mark "The Noise" Naseby here with you for the next few hours. Coming through your speakers for another day in paradise; it's the city by the sea, the gateway to the Caribbean, our backlots are teeming with garbage but our beaches are covered with golden sands and babes with tans. So suck it, New Jersey - no used needles washing in on our tides.
"Time for a quick weather update, let me just look out the window... not a single cloud, rain or mushroom. If you're not stuck in traffic, I hope you're somewhere nice right now soaking up the sun and sucking down a Fab.
"Coming up in the next block, more of the new wave and synth pop hits you're craving. We got one from Duran Duran's 'Rio', and another from The Cars' 'Heartbeat City' but first we're going back to '81 with this hit from Ultravox. It's 'Vienna', on Sparx."
Out in the key west inspired area, I think you should add some bits and pieces of a broken bridge. Whether it was destroyed by a hurricane or just left to rot for some other reason, the bridge there would be older and look really worn down as it has probably been gone for a decent period of time.
One thing that you can do to make the trains look more realistic is to put a speed limit for them with TMPE on the tracks , that way you don`t need to slow down the game to make the trains look realistically when they go through the city
Great idea thanks for the tip
Commenting so i remember to come back to this, thanks
Fun Fact In Europe Trains go fast
@@firestarter1888 cool
@@firestarter1888 Not if they go through a city center. Which they almost never do...
I can't wait for the future when you do a Not-Chicago city build, with a full elevated rail system. Your railways are always the most satisfying parts of these videos. They really tie a city together, if you get what I mean. It's weirdly satisfying.
Ooooh that weird cyberpunk-looking underground road along the river tho
I’ve always wanted to!
Oh god i love this series so much. Always Refreshing and makes my day better. Its one of the few things where ill never play a game while watching. Id rather watch it later than while doing something else. Much Love, Keep up the great work.
Thank you my friend!
Wow! I can’t believe you named a radio station after me! I want to thank my family, friends, and especially you Mike without you this wouldn’t have been possible.
Established in 1885, the Sunshine Coast Railway was originally built to service hotels along the eastern Atlantic coast of the state. It starts all the way from the northern-most part of the state and snakes along the eastern coast all the way to Sunset City. It carried passengers and freight along the route until it obtained a charter to build track all the way to Sunset City in 1896. With many hotels and companies setting foot in the city, and with the geography south being more swampy, thus difficult to build tracks on, the decision was made to make Sunset City the terminal station for the Railway. The Sunshine Coast Railway however would not be the only railway in town looking to make a stake, the Seaside-Bank Railroad reached Sunset City in 1910, and decided they were going to continue past the city into the Key Islands. their operations were successful, bringing holiday-makers to the small island resorts sprinkled outside of the city. However in 1942 a massive Hurricane destroyed the bridges connecting the mainland to the keys, most of the islands were forever scared. The Seaside-Bank railroad, at the whim of the I.C.C. (Interstate Commerce Commission) during the second world war, were not allowed to spend money on building or re-building tracks and infrastructure, with most effort being put towards the war effort. Following the end of WW2, with road transport and highways taking off in popularity, the interest for rebuilding the rail line was never taken seriously by the state's government again. decades later, in the late 60's - early 70's, when passenger rail and infrastructure was at it's absolute worst, the Seaside-Bank Railroad would merge with its rival, the Sunshine Coast Railway, in order for it to survive. With Miami not being an industry-focused town, and what little industry it had was served by trucking, the main Terminal in its downtown region would begin crumble and need serious repairs if it was going to stay up. Luckily, before the station was proposed to be torn down and replaced with a sports stadium, President Robert F. Kennedy signed the "Nationalized Passenger Rail Act of 1973". This act would give railroads the opportunity to relinquish their passenger services to the Federal Government's new agency "CityLink". Starting that same year, CityLink would take over the Sunshine Coast's passenger operations, and began restoration of Sunset City's beautiful downtown terminal. Today the station sees multiple intercity commuter trains, and 3 long distance trains, most notably the "Shooting Star" and "Silver Dollar" trains from Sunset City to Gramercy. It has become a landmark of the city, and a classical sight to behold.
Excellent! This is it!
Very nice build! I love abandoned railroads.
21:20 I think there should be a line of younger trees in the forest where the old line used to be.
Also, the old train bridge would most likely be repurposed for cars although it would be nice to have some old pillars in the water just slightly poking through.
Yes this sounds very good! The bridge is a great idea, there should be a road bridge with some supports poking through the water!
I don't know if you have looked into this, but one of the reasons of the traffic issue might be because of this: as you can see, due to the railway crossings, some road segments are very short. This causes vehicles to wait for the vehicle ahead of them to cross that segment before they move, which means a much slower moving traffic. To fix that, you can use TMPE, go intersection settings and press the button that lets cars pass without waiting
21:02 For your abandoned line you should add some abandoned freight wagons that were left on that side. Allows you to add some graffiti
Great work! You should completely delete the section of track under the highway interchange as if they ripped them out to build the highway
Im sure you’ve seen this on google earth but a lot of times there will be tons of abandoned train cars left on abandoned train lines to prevent trains from continuing down the line. This would look amazing along side that main road or behind some buildings!
Fantastic Work! While I’m not the foremost expert on Florida Railroads in the 1980s, here are some facts that could help add to the realism. In 1983, Miami was served by three railroads, Amtrak(represented by City Link), the Seaboard System, which I don’t think has a City Skylines version, and the Florida East Coast Railway. Commuter Service wasn’t introduced until 1989 with the introduction of Tri-Rail. Amtrak’s main service into Miami was via the Silver Service, made up of two trains, the Silver Star, which made a stop in Tampa, and the Silver Meteor, which bypassed Tampa. The single level long distance city link trains will be a good representation of this. In Tampa, the key rail commodity which Phosphate, which is most commonly used in Fertilizer and is abundant to the South-East of Tampa, known as the “Bone Valley” because of the large amount of prehistoric remains found by miners. Perhaps adding mineral shipping from an area like that too Tampa would add a lot of realism. This would be served by the Seaboard System(or whatever alternative there is in City Skylines, bsquidlehausen is probably the go to guy for that). Orlando would be a common go between for freight coming up from Miami and Tampa headed northbound(and vice versa). Jacksonville is probably the busiest area in Florida, with a large number of railroads serving it, Seaboard System, Florida East Coast, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern respectively. Norfolk Southern never went further south from Jacksonville. Amtrak also only ran in Seaboard System tracks. Florida East Coast was strictly freight until the introduction of Brightline a few years ago. There are several neat Florida additions, such as the Tropicana Juice train(or City Skylines version). Which is a real train operated by the Seaboard System from Tampa(where Tropicana is headquartered) to New York. Made up of special Orange refrigerated boxcars(today they’re white cars but at the time they were orange). And the Amtrak Auto Train, which ran from Orlando(technically Sanford, a suburb) too Washington DC. The Auto Train allowed passengers to bring their cars with them as they rode the train north or south. It’s still around today and has a very neat facility. Hope the info I provided helps add some realism and keep up the great work!
Very helpful! Thank you for all the info!
For the train line over the water- perhaps you could make it looked like it collapsed (following the storm that could have happened?) That way there is more reason for an abandoned railway!
I love how much character the railroads are adding to the build. Can’t wait to see more trains rolling across the map.
Love this series. Your interest in American railroads definitely shows.
Also, not all abandoned lines are abandoned either. There are “Out of Service” lines that look abandoned but are still owned by the railroad and could be put back into service at any time. It would be interesting to see some old line side structures if at all possible.
As for the islands. I think having some existing piers in the water and raised roadbed on the other islands where tracks once were.
I feel like the abandoned train line going through town on the island would become a de-facto walking route. Probably safer to walk down there than by the roads with all the large cars and more lax attitudes to drinking and driving the 80's had. I know invisible walking paths can be a bit finicky, but they could bring a little bit of life to the area.
in vancouver canada, there's an old rail line going through an area called Arbutus and all the residents use it as a walkway and garden space
SparxFM...with your host, Jammin" Johnny Jackson...playing the best New Wave hits!
To answer your question @22:27... A railway 'that's on a level space, shelf, or raised barrier (usually made of compacted soil) separating areas in a vertical way, especially partway up a long slope,' according to American Wikipedia, that raised land is called a 'Berm.' Hope this helps!!
I absolutely love your detail work, bruh!!
Your videos are some of the greatest on this platform, they're calm, interesting, funny and just really entertaining. Been loving this series
The rail lines are looking so good! I really like the abandoned island line! An idea might be to have an old terminus repurposed, with some rusting locomotives behind it....
The old Santa Julia railroad crossing would be a perfect place to reuse older structures, especially the span between the mainland and Center Island. There's lots of places where you'll have 2 parallel bridge spans but one is older, often 2-3 feet lower, and with each section supported by 2-4 thinner square pillars as opposed to 1-2 central pillars you see on newer bridges (Ex: Florida Route 528/A1A between Cocoa, FL and Merritt Island/Courtenay, FL).
21:28 If you want to have some of the old bridge remaining most old bridges are demolished to make way for new ones which share their alignment. However if the new bridge takes a straighter, more direct route the old one can be left standing. These abandoned bridges can be left as is (Ex: some sections of the Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys) or the remaining stub can be turned into a fishing pier (Ex: Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Skyway Fishing Pier State Park Tampa, FL)
Can't wait for the next episode and hope my nerding out about infrastructure gave some inspiration.
SparksFM as name + the flashy logo and the 80s setting give me the vibe of a person that lives wayyy above their status. Like a late 30s B-list local celeb trying to connect with "real" stars but miserably failing, while acting entitled if they don't get recognized or free stuff and being part of local gossip and scandals. Maybe even making stuff up to boost their own career or just to shun brands or people they dislike
For the train line across the water, I think you should have the start and the end of the bridges, somewhat rundown but only have the support pillars going across the rest of the water
The radio station was founded by Jayson Sparks in 1977 and was used to supply the demand of the growing tourist industry by giving the growing car dependent infrastructure a radio station for tourists and to a lesser extent locals to enjoy
Sparx FM is hosted by local radio star DJ Adam, who also frequently does interviews on the show with popular bands like The Bulldogs, who also grew up in the area
I can actually help on this. in the dates preceeding the 1980's the US Army Corp. of Engineers standard for ICW minimum 'structure height' (bridges, overhead wires/pipes) was an 'airdraft clearance of 55 feet at medium sea level (0 feet tide). Thusly any fixed structure above the waterway had to have that clearance. Otherwise it had to be some form of opening span, be that a leaf style drawbridge or swing bridge. However, it wasn't too long before the 80's the standard was only 50 feet above median 0.
I recently built my first PC by hand, and got to play GTA V despite it being a decade later. And holy hell it was so fun, and watching Cities:Skylines always reminds me of how cool it is to see these unique environments and imagine being able to see them from a first person standpoint!
if you’re making a little tampa and are a train enthusiast, you have got to make the plant hotel
Man we need this map on workshop asap! It is so good.
Please upload it.
I do love how fleshed-out Sunset City is becoming. It's an incredibly flawed city, but a very interesting one nonetheless. And I can't wait to see more of the characters of the city, as well as the overall expansion of the city's freight, can't wait to see the city's traffic eventually disappate. Also can't wait to see more industry being properly made too.
I like to assume that the main SparxFM host might be someone very glamorous, since they did create the entire radio station and likely named it too. But I also like imagining the same main host have a morbid curiosity of the city's darker side, sometimes putting themselves in danger so that they might tell this outrageous story that they just discovered. Just my take on the SparxFM story anyways.
this series is something special when it comes to cities skylines build series', loving it!
Would be cool if the remaining rail in the Key West inspired city was turned into local light rail as a way to use the old right of way.
You're welcome for the tip on pointy Quay corners ;)
Super pumped for the Dodge Island episode!
I think the industrial area next to the townhall should be more or less abandoned, and like you said the area would be reused in the future to connect it more to the city centre.
love this series its so satisfying to watch
There is a small portion of the original Flagler Railroad that is used as a fishing pier. The rest was torn down to build the Overseas Highway (US1). Thank you for this series. I love my hometown!
A consideration for the backstory of the abandoned tracks is that they could have been railbanked, where the rail infrastructure is abandoned in place but the company still owns the rail corridor with the idea that it can be reactivated and rehabilitated at a later time. The railbanking program started in 1983 so it would fit
You should give Sparx FM a more realistic call sign! In The US radio stations west of the Mississippi River typically start with K, and those to the east start with W. So you could call it something like "W-SUN, Sparx FM 87.1" lol
On a side note, if you need someone to record a "shock-jock" style radio intro, I would be more than willing to donate my time lol
When I lived in Miami the local transit authority had taken over part of the abandoned train line and was building an elevated metro which was opened in Spring of 1985. When it was completed, it had a grassy strip with simple bike and pedestrian path beneath it (just plain asphalt, no stripes or anything). Any chance Sunset City will have one?
The FM in Sparks FM should either be white or bright red. So it pops a bit more.
Your version of Tampa needs to have some kind of Custom motorbike garage and a Dive bar called The Dirty Shame. The pubs a real place just fyi.
you can scale a procedural objectgroup by pressing the distort option under "more"
A dirt path bridge looks like a pedestrianized rail bridge - which happens a lot in the US. I would do that.
23:27 I think an old train yard would fit perfectly between the road and the water. You could make it half demolished to make space for some industry, but also place some old sheds as kind of an old abandoned freight station.
Also, many abandoned tracks are converted to pedestrian or bike paths. Maybe not so much in the 80s but maybe you wanna include something like that
amazing detailing once again 👏 I just could not help but notice the spacing of the parking lot around the radio station. It looks way too tight for cars to actually be able to maneuver themselves into the parking spots. IRL there should be at least 6 to 7 meters of space between opposing parking rows. Hope I don't sound nitpicky - I know it's insignificant in the game, but something you need to consider when planning parking areas IRL - anyway, love your videos
For the bridge you could make it at sections, like abandoned and destroyed.
Maybe some pillars and fallen pieces
A concept of most abandoned lines, car storage. The former Rutland line into Bennington, Vermont is used for car storage, railcars not needed for the current industrial traffic. You could probably turn the stub to the abandoned line to car storage. Also, for your question at 22:28, it's called grade separation.
With the abandoned track, you should have the part that's still connected to the main track have a couple wagons sitting on it, usually railroads will store them on old unused lines when they're not needed, but if you do that they have to be all the same type or have a lot of the same type. Like if there are a total of 20 half could be one type half the other, or they're all just the boxcar ones, you don't store away a whole set of tankers with one boxcar, you'd keep them together in large numbers so you can just go in and pull them out without needing to waste too much time messing around to get what you need.
However since it's on what is basically Key West, it makes more sense to have nothing on it and no track at all except where an old station is that has been restored, and maybe a nice looking old steam train or typically a red caboose out front on a little track.
I don't really think storing the wagons on an old rail line would make sense in this city, because it's normally done in the middle of nowhere so very few people mess with them, but you could have one car sitting on a little track that comes off the main one that follows along side, they're typically maybe 3 feet lower to the ground than the main one, and sometimes you can see just one wagon sitting on it because it developed a problem and had to be taken off the rest of the train before it fell apart. Those almost always have a small gravel road going to it from the closest road so maintenance crews can get out to it and fix it, and it would be really cool to have a little maintenance truck sitting beside the wagon and someone working on the wheels of the wagon.
Also something to keep in mind, railroads will take the easiest path to get somewhere, they will go straight through everything they possibly could, so if you have let's say 2,500 feet of track going west, but need to avoid something that would be in the way of a straight line roughly halfway through, the railroad would just put a little kink in the track to divert it just enough left or right, railroads now don't do curves unless they have to, they slow trains, but if there is a curve because you can't avoid it, it almost always is as nice and gentle and wide as possible for fast running.
Hope this helps with any future planning, and gives a few ideas for what you could add or change to what you've already done.
Also the way you detailed everything along the track made it feel like I was watching someone construct a realistic model railroad and it also gave me a lot of ideas for what to do as well lol.
Would be cool if you add a light rail line paralleling and partly utilising the alignment of the abandoned rail line!
Pretty sure it's a bit too early for that.
You should make a train line in the swamp, that was built along or in a creek and later sunk into the creek and got flooded. And maybe a train that is ditched into mud or the creek.
I don't even know how I recognized the aerial view in 1:17 but I work about 5 streets south of those rail lines going west-east. What a coincidence!
This series are really cool looks amazing!!. But maby a good tip for the monorail/peoplemover system, the stations are way to big, normal peoplemover systems have smaller stations so they are space efficient.
This is a dream episode for me I’m a city skylines fan and a train lover this is awesome!
I like the abandoned rail idea too, they're interesting to see
(Long lore paragraph incoming) Sparx FM 94.5 or WSPX (W refers to radio stations East of the Mississippi) is an 80s alternative/college rock station hosted by the former rock star Paulie Mars from Minneapolis (Inspired by the Minneapolis music scene in the 80s). Paulie used to be a part of a rock band called The Delegates before it broke-up because the band's lead singer had a crippling drug addiction to either cocaine or morphine. He's massively depressed and cynical with a dry sense of humor and disillusionment with 80s consumerism that is massively rampant in Sunset City. Paulie's sense of humor is the reason the sign is sparkly is to be ironic, cheeky, and misleading the listener into thinking it's just another 80s pop rock station when that couldn't be any further from the case. Despite his experiences he is still passionate about music and loves to find up and coming alternative/college rock bands. Although TH-cam wouldn't allow you to play it this station would've played bands like The Replacements, R.E.M., Husker Du, and early Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Hearing u say my name at 24:51 is so cool (Jonathan).
If you do the abandoned train bridge to the islands I have an idea, abandoned bridges in Florida are extremely popular fishing areas, usually have parking lots on either side so you can park and walk down the bridge and cast your line, it would be cool if you could come up with something like that, but then again having just the pillars remaining sounds fun and would look amazing.
You have an asser in the workshop which is abandonned track, it's network rail tracks. Works great! Look amazing! No need to decorate!
idk if that has been pointed out already but the reason the nodes get all wonky with node controller is that for some reason, intersections with train tracks get the no collision tag attached by default when using node controller on them. You can manually reenable node collision in the "more options" thing in the nc menu
Compton has very many great train lines so you can maybe look to them.
just the pillars.
Man, you are talented. Love this!
For the abandon line bridge, what about just the pillars remain, however twords one side or maybe even the middle they are removing track that survived whatever caused it to become abandoned because of safety reasons from the bridge next to it which is still being used?
As a Tampeño I can’t wait to see what you do with the city!
Living in the US, I have heard the wooden logs on tracks called ties and/or as sleepers.
You should make an old junk yard with scraped cars where shady stuff happens
I know this is probably an iffy detail, but since it is based in florida, some homeless encampments/housing and trash covered areas (like under bridges or in alleyways) would add a lot of realism to the city!
The abandoned trainline out in the key wets inspired area was abandoned due to smuggling of drugs, weapons etc by the mafia. The location made it difficult for authorities to constantly keep an eye on it so they chose to abandon it instead but some say it is still in use. Word on the street is its called "The Express train service" all your nefarious needs delivered with no stop.
It would be super cool if you could have the first bit of the rail bridge by Santa Hulia, then have a submerged abandoned steam engine just off the beach. It could look like it was on the bridge when it was destroyed and just abandoned
4:31 well here in America we call them wood things in between the rails
No, we call them ties like he said
@@romanrat5613 well here in maryland we call them wood things in between the rails
After the success of highly popular disco funk band BJ and the Cokeline Band Sparx FM hired Barry Coyne Pasty as a DJ. However major scandal hit the radio station when it turned out that during the early 80's Barry together with his friend Manny, built a strong cocaine empire in Miami. However as his power began to grow, so did his ego and his enemies, and his own paranoia began to plague Sparx FM before being arrested in 1983. As a radio station Sparx FM is only just starting to recover.
Sparx FM definitely syndicates Casey's Top 40 every Sunday, and probably has some televangelist program on for a couple hours after that before going back to live DJs for the Sunday night show.
Sad Mike standing by the railway had me worried
I've got an idea.
A random building in downtown has to file for bankruptcy and soon gets demolished (it's not King Buns HQ)
After this, the Bergunsey family swoops in and buys the plot the building got demolished in. After that, one of Mike's sons', James Bergunsey would open up a company (I don't care the name), and that company's HQ gets opened there
For the abandoned train bridge, you can put only pillars in the water.
Bro you gotta remove that massive pile driver machine from the parking lot construction site, unless you’re building a skyscraper that thing does not need to be there
Done
Love this series!
As you are building a lot of networks, I would recommend using network multitool mod as it has a lot of different options regarding roads, like creating parallel and loop roads.
you should have multiple Sparx FM signs across the one side of the radio station building. just to give it some flare and something to look at.
If you want raised ballast for your abandoned swamp railway, the mainline networks from Railway2 should be ideal.
u should have a brightline train in your city if there is a mod
The founder of "SparxFM" Patricia Gomez a young Student from that Cuban Area you build last episode. She started Sparx by Broadcasting from her Fathers Garage. now a days Sparx is one of the most popular Stations in Sunset City. Idk maybe her Parents are in the Gang that also Burned down Mike Burgundy's house. Maybe shes still part of the Gang or maybe its the Typical thing of "no i dont wanna live that gang life, let me just become rich and a better person" blah blah. Meh dont know thats the best i could come up with on the spot xd.
👍 and mabye she had a co host that crossed her and mysteriously disappeared mabye it could tie in with the train line or specifically a train bridge
@@jo2832 love that idea
I Like Trains! 🤣
One of the things I find weird with trains in the US is just how very, very few road or rail bridges there are and how utterly blase the US is in using level crossings. Level crossings are used in the UK but they are immensely rarer and cities are all about embankments, viaducts, tunnels and bridges.
In a lot of places in the US, keep in mind the railroad came first and the town grew afterwards. Some towns even have train lines down the middle of main street. (Not trams, full freight trains)
New lines such as the California HSR are all grade separated.
Did you guys hear this new guy Lush Rimbaugh on Sparx FM? Man, he's something else.
SparxFM should tie into a mega corporate music concert area. Next to a mall.
anniston AL has an abandoned train line converted to a walking path and spans to georgia i believe. could make part of the line on the islands a walking path
lots of rubish, lots of weeds, lots of decals on the ground and I was realy happy with how this is looking
7:36
Even though this city is not based on Chicago I suggest looking at there rail system where I used to live there where crossing gates almost every mile, anyway yea they have a ot of train and some huge bridges especially the ones that look like they could just lift the train it's like it goes up and the rail yard are something else even the abandoned ones. I just realized I didn't watch the entire video...
Hey TwoDollarsTwenty what map theme do you use for the grass, bud
This looks fantastic! Really enjoying the series! Would you be able to make available the heightmap for this series? Would love to have a go on your map in Transport fever 2! 😃 Keep up the good work!
Banger of an episode!
I love my trains and my Florida this is amazing
So I'm a few months late. But what if you (maybe 30 years later in the game) you create Rail to Trails. Create walking paths where the tracks use to be! Nice video
The rails are what the train rolls on, what sits under the rails, are the ties.
I was flying into Miami in January and felt I’d accidentally fallen into Sunset City.
However the real Miami is far more ugly and decayed in real life which was sad to see.
this map needs put on the workshoppppppppp, I love it and have wanted to do a Florida build on Cities but there aren't any good maps
Sparx FM, with your host, Donovan Shneidlerhiem.
This is a very minor nit-pick but it is not common practice for rail corridors in the US to be fenced off, a reduction in fences may make sense. Pretty sweet video however.
I think it would be cool if you added the sand mark caused by the pillars of the keys’ bridges that we can see at 19:06 on the google earth images
I love your work on including the abandon train lines. They look great! love other peoples suggestions above too. I wonder, is there a way to make the rail lines rust color instead of the shiny metal they appear as... maybe with the adaptive networks tool or decals? also some abandond rails look more wavy. Maybe even some broken rails? how could that be done in skylines?
your videos are just a pleasure!!