S&D

[alisterbetts]

Absolutely fantastic! I live near the route and it's great to drive - well done

Just waved at Ivo near Masbury - he looked a little horrified at 45036 on a rake of blue and grey mark ones........

[117305]

Absolutely fantastic! I live near the route and it's great to drive - well done

Just waved at Ivo near Masbury - he looked a little horrified at 45036 on a rake of blue and grey mark ones........

Im sure he got that shot in -wonder what he thought of the 37 and nse rake ive been thrashing alone the line -oh and its a great route as well

[slipperman12]

Hi Paul,

One expects that .exe set ups would get everything sorted but it doesn't

Sorry to disagree, but it DOES! It finds where your Train Simulator folder is from the Registry and installs D017 and D019 wagon folders and Common.Loads folder together with one txt and one jpg file into the TRAINSET folder. Of course, if your Registry entries are wrong, then that's another story!

This particular item was released in May 2007, it's still on version 1 and there have been more than 2,200 downloads, so I don't think there can be much wrong with it!!

Cheers,
Ged

[jimmyladd]

Fantastic route, contratulations to Clive, you've excelled yourself. The only critisim I can levy against the entire route is the use of american style telegraph poles round Templecote, but i am just a little bit OCD about them! LOL. Absolute gem of a route otherwise. One very odd thing though, when I had got the route installed and stable I had a quick look at the acts and saw a slow passenger train to Bornemouth with a 3MT and thought I'd change 82044 for the orriginal 3MT that I got Reg Furniss to do for the Burton Derby route years and years ago, No 82004, only to go back into the route to drive it to see that instructions ARE for 82004 anyway!!! how weird is that!

Sorted the telegraph poles, now I'm happy! LOL

[michaelhendle]

I think if I can't master the steam loco's I wwould still leave it in the era it's ment to be but would just use Hymek,and class 37 diesels in green alond with the 121 dmu and trailer,and maybe a 47,although peak diesels were used on the Birminghham-Bath section.

I've a 1961 timetable for Bath and a Peak was used on one of the the Birmingham trains,just wondering if it would have been to heay for the S&D,as I diesels would have to be a last resort.

What killed the S&D was when Western Region took over the route,they routed all long distance trains from Bournemouth Via Basingstoke- Reading-Oxford,thay also at the same time nearly killed the Waterloo-Exeter route by single tracking the route beyond Salisbury.
Again it goes back to the old days when no love was lost by the GWR and the LMS,SR Railways.

Michael

[michaelhendle]

Just a thought maybe Clive or some of our better steam loco drivers coudl give us a few hints on how to get at least as far as Midford,by giving a few hints onn what cut off % to use and what regulator settinng,bearng in mind the WC's were notorious for slipping on this route.

Michael

[lateagain]

According to Ivo's books the only diesels that ever made it onto S&D metals were a few specials run in DMU sets right at the end of the lines time.

47's certainly made it to Swanage back in the transition era but not over the S&D metals AFAIK.

Of course the beauty of a simulator is that given a route you can speculate to your heart (and the libraries) content .

A realistic projection of the S&D's survival would however probably be a rather bleak and uninteresting one? It may have started with DMU's, moved on to 156's and 158's (as similar lines that survived have done) and freight would probably have died almost completely with wagonloads and drop off freights demise. The pit may have kept some traffic and the LPG depot at Furzebrrok may have given it a brief burst of life with Avonmouth bound tankers but these also died out with new pipelines.

The station buildings would have been sold off/boarded up/vandalised and simple ghastly SWT style "shelters" would have become the only buildings. The guards would be "conductors" too so no need for any permanent station staff. The boxes would have gone, along with any extraneous track and electric signalling probably controlled from a remote centre. There may have been some commuter service at either end but with both terminals demolished where would the line have routed. The branches stood no chance so they would be gone.

Bleak? Well the trouble is that the world changed in so many ways towards the end of the S&D's life and even the changes that were on the cards were a small swing to what's actually happened. You could put forward a very good argument for the track staying with modern DMU's, staffing practices and signalling? but even then the massive growth in car ownership and road development would make the economic survival of routes like the S&D a heavily subsidised affair I'd have thought.

So brush up the steam driving skills you diesel buffs. Celebrate the S&D as it was in railways finest hour? A modern S&D would be dull as ditchwater compared to scene like this

Geoff

PS it occurs to me that moving a ram like this nowadays would probably land the poor farmer in breach of SO MANY regulations from SO MANY bodies that he'd never work again

[bartdude]

Thanks Clive,a brilliant route ! Can't wait to run it properly in Open Rails,when they get the signals working in the next release due hopefully later this month ! Most of the stock in the activities do need a bit of modifying though and not all train simmers are versed with those abilities. However I'm learning fast ! That notwithstanding it's a brilliant piece of work mate and routes like this and the ongoing Open Rails project will keep me from Railworks 2 and its lack of routes for the near future !! All I need now is for someone to do an expanded or re-worked London & South East and I'll be made up !!

[d1010]

Diesels were only used on the demolition trains Class 08/22/35 class 45 ran into Bath but not over the S&D as far as i know

[alisterbetts]

The modern S&D would have be dull compared to it's heyday, however, the hills wouild have remained and so would heavy peak traffic. In addition to DMUs, the SR would have sent DeMUs, Crompton/TCs and from the north possibly 25/3145/46/47s and Hydraulics on summer additionals - compare to the traction the Bristol-Weymouth (or even S&C) route has seen since steam. Most of our railway is dull but the S&D would have retained a lot of it's character.

Btw just spotted Ivo at Templecombe and noticed 'Bambi' on the Showerings building in Shepton - top stuff.

Right, I'm off to see how a Crompton + 8TC would have performed......

[casperdog]

Hi Micheal

Just a thought maybe Clive or some of our better steam loco drivers coudl give us a few hints on how to get at least as far as Midford,by giving a few hints onn what cut off % to use and what regulator settinng,bearng in mind the WC's were notorious for slipping on this route.
Michael

Here goes . This is for the Bullied from Bath but the same goes for the 2P act except you'll have to set the dampers to 100% using the 'm' key. Make sure the brakes are in the 'running' state while moving. You'll need the F5 view up.
Start: Cut off 35%, regulator 70%. Hopefully no spinning and you should go through Bath Junction at about 25 MPH.
Sand on. Wind up the regulator to 95 % and increase the cut off until the steam usage figure is just below the steam generation rate. From then on its juggling with the cut off and the regulator so your boiler pressure doesn't drop too much. Everytime water is injected, the boiler pressure drops. Thats the time to reduce the usage as much as possible. As soon as the water has stopped injecting open everything back up again but try to keep your usage slightly less than generation.
Hopefully you've 'burst' out of Devonshire tunnel at 30 MPH and a boiler pressure of 240. Use the run to Radstock to try to get the pressure back to 250.

The climb to Masbury is pretty much the same except its longer. Dont worry about trying to run at speed limits its the boiler pressure you need to look after. If you let it drop below 230 you;ll probably not recover on the Masbury climb.

Good luck and don't forget to put the brakes in 'running'. any other setting steals steam.

cheers
clive

[passedcleaner]

Hi good your having fun' I've been deliberately avoiding the forums for the day but.............

Blandford whatever state the engine is in! Blandford was reached in approximately 1hr50m, so for 49 miles thats about...well its not very quick!
Seb

You beat the real service by 10 minutes ,or so, but did you stay at Templecombe for 15 minutes, doing the turn around
Happy new year
clive

I didn't go via Templecombe - it was a high summer extra so I definitely didn't beat the timetable lol!

TBH I've never had a lot of luck installing activity packs so I tend to create my own, but when I've installed a new route I create a quick 'release' activity with one of my own consists, no traffic or anything, just to have a play and get going.

Thanks again for a smashing route. (BTW I got to Bournemouth West in 2hr20m )

Seb

[1crick14a]

* S&DJR 7F 2-8-0
o 88 - West Somerset Railway
o 53809 - Midland Railway Butterley, but on loan to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway

* GWR 2251 Class
o 3205 - South Devon Railway Trust

* LSWR Class T9
o 30120 - Bodmin and Wenford Railway

* SR West Country and Battle of Britain classes
o 34028 Eddystone - Swanage Railway
o 34039 Boscastle - Great Central Railway
o 34046 Braunton - West Somerset Railway
o 34051 Winston Churchill - National Railway Museum
o 34053 Sir Keith Park - Swanage Railway
o 34067 Tangmere - West Coast Railway Company
o 34105 Swanage - Watercress Line

* LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2T
o 41241 - Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

* LMS Fowler Class 4F
o 44422 - Churnet Valley Railway, but on loan to the Nene Valley Railway

* LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0
o 44806 - Llangollen Railway
o 45305 - Great Central Railway
o 45407 - East Lancashire Railway

* BR Standard Class 4 2-6-0
o 76017- Watercress Line

* BR Standard Class 4 4-6-0
o 75027 - Bluebell Railway
o 75078 - Keighley & Worth Valley Railway
o 75079 - Watercress Line

* BR Standard Class 5
o 73050 - Nene Valley Railway
o 73082 Camelot - Bluebell Railway

* BR Standard Class 9F
o 92203 Black Prince - Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway
o 92212 - Watercress Line
o 92214 - Midland Railway Butterley
o 92220 Evening Star- National Railway Museum
o 92245 - Barry Island Railway

Lot of the old runners over the line still about

[peterdore]

I used an 8F with 5 coaches from Bath to Bmouth, still arrived 36 mins late, didnt go into templecoombe upper. not sure how I would get out again, so used lower station.
Those Meteor jets are awesome!
Parkstone bank is a real heavy climb, overall I love this route the detail is fantastic Well done clive
I am going to make my own AI traffic from stock I have, if and when the CD comes out hopefully all the stock will be on that

Right now for a trip from Templecoombe to Highbridge

Pete

[michaelhendle]

I know this is fictional but to day the driver of the 15,08 Pines after finding out there was no Pilot loco promptly failed Crewkwerne as well, saying there's know way could it haul the Pines without a banker,the only other loco on shed was a BR Sulzer 1865,so he said he would take that as being a Bournemouth Driver he was passed out to drive them.

After backing down on the the train it had a on time departure from Bath made Midford with plenty of time and kept to the line limit with know problems,with a early arrival at Evercreech Junc,which pleased the passengers as normaly the train was late,even the crew said it was the first time in years the were able to enjoy seeing the Somerset and Dorset country with out having to worry about keeping the train going.

After a short wait at Evercreech Junc the Pines Departed on time and after a steady run to Bournemouth West arrival wwas a few mins early.
The driver then told the Bournemouth Shed Forman what he could do with $^*# Spam Can.To day the S&D didn't live up to it's nickname of Slow & Dirty.
Just don't take this seriously.

Michael