Wishes, wishes, wishes

[steamnut44]

There is a route, Perth to Aberdeen (Highland Railway) but you cannot run from Edinburgh to Perth. If the Scottish Central had have been finished, maybe it would have included a link with Perth. I doubt very much that Kerr Mackintosh will take up the task of finishing the Scottish Central, but if not, it would be nice if he gave permission, for someone else to carry on with it. At least we do have the track all the way to Dundee, with both Forth & Tay Bridges in place, but north of Rosyth it is devoid of scenery.
I have done quite a bit to work to my own copy of this route, by adding quite a bit of scenery, more stations etc, but it is far from perfect when considering the amout of terraforming that needs to be done. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do this properly, without making a hash of it.

I know Kerr is involved with the Scottish Capitals, but this route only runs from Edinburgh to Glassgow. Whether he will come back to finish the Scotish Central is another question. Even if he did it as a Payware Route, I'm sure everyone would support this option. The Scotish Central was meant to run from Berwick on Tweed to Dundee, with branches off to Glasgow, which would have been a fantastic route. Although the trackage is in place both north and south of Edinburgh, it is devoid of terraforming and scenery for 70% of the whole route. Edinburgh Waverley Station is superb and I think we will see the same station being used for the Scottish Capitals Route.

Geoff

[jonpd]

More LU routes. The Central would be nice. To be realistic you would have to back-date it to before ATO. Another reason to back-date is an excuse to include the scenic Epping - Ongar section.

What else is there that would be interesting - I think someone mentioned the Metropolitan. We have the Northern and Picadilly and the District is coming along nicely

The original East London Line (pre-Overground) would perhaps be a shorter route that someone could cut their teeth on.

[ashgray]

We also have the Victoria Line - assuming it's still available...

Ash

[NiallGray]

Adapting the thread a little, here's a wish, in that I wish more people would have a go at the creative side of MSTS as now that the sim's got a little extra lease of life we could really do with more people creating content.

I have never looked back since writing my first activity (after reading the excellent tutorials on here) and then doing testing and even re-skins of both rolling stock and scenery items. And from there, my first foray into the joys (sarcasm) of route editor!

I saw there was too many people "asking" and not enough people "doing" in the world of MSTS, so the only way I was going to be able to see what I wanted was to get involved.

It's never too late to start and if we want MSTS to continue and grow we need more people to cross over to the creative side and have a go.

The software's there, the tutorials are there, so what are you waiting for? Start simple (ie an activity) and before you know it you'll have the creative bug.

[steamnut44]

I agree with what you say Niall, and I have spent many hours within the route editor, by enhancing routes for my own personal use, like adding more scenery items and populating stations.

But when it comes to actual route building, I have really tried, belive me, but I just can't get it all together somehow. You can either grasp the art of route building or you can't. I can do activities, add scenery, but cannot use 3D tools for building objects, again I have dabbled with this for hours, but it is beyond me.

Okay I suppose I have done my bit in the past of enhancing the Blackpool Tram Route, but this was just a matter of deleting, moving, or adding objects to create a different outlook. If it had meant changing the base landscape, extending extra trackage or putting in more signalling, I could not have done it.

I did try to put in a turning loop at Fleetwood, and add some inland track, from the Gynne along Dickson Road to Talbot Square, but I had to take out all the interactives and then put them all back after I had laid the extra tracks. But unfortunately, everything went haywire and I decided that this part of enhancing a route is not my cup of tea.

Vern did warn me that with the route being a bit unstable, I would have problems. Well he was certainly right. I had enough problems adding all the Illuminations, due to the object count per tile, but after about six to eight months of persevering, I eventually got it finished.

Like I have stated earilier in this thread, I would love to be able to have a go at finishing the Scottish Central Route. (with Kerr's permission of course) as all the tracks are in place, but I cannot grasp the art off terraforming and adding land textures. I have made the scenery less barron by adding many objects to the route, but this is for my own personal enjoyment. It still needs that expert touch to make it look as good as what Kerr did with the finished part.

Geoff

[dee4141]

I agree with all you say, Niall. Although I'm beginning to wonder if we've now almost reached a "saturation point" point with MSTS in that there is so much available that very few people feel the need to create more. It's possible that many of those that created in the past have stopped for that reason. Also there needs to be some evidence that a creators work has been worthwhile - otherwise what's the point? For instance a route maker would like to see activities being made for their route, an activity writer likes feedback that their activity was enjoyable, a model maker likes to see their models appearing in activities or being re-skinned. If you spend weeks, months or years in producing something and their is little or no response, then you hesitate to start producing again.

[steve1023]

I would echo calls for an updated LSE from Making tracks to bring it up to the standard of later routes, however my bias would be Brighton to Victoria & incl. the East Grinstead & Uckfield lines during sectorisation.

For freeware I hope that DC will consider extending Dorset Coast further, After V6 extend to Exeter and also in the other direction to Brighton.

Steve

[thenudehamster]

To some extent I agree with steamnut about 'doing it yourself'; I still have the beginnings of the Grantham-Nottingham-Newark triangle on my (semi-defunct) PC back in the States, and I may eventually be able to recover it and continue the development. However, I have my limitations, and model making is one of them; much though I'd love to, I simply do not have the skills or the talent to do so, and therefore I have to rely on other people's models. Then there is this other minor problem in my life; it's called 'work'... and it does tend to take up an awful lot of potential train-simming time. Longer serving members will note that I have been away from the forums and the sims for some time - and that four-letter word is responsible for a lot of that.
So far most of my time since finding time to reinstall MSTS has been in reworking .eng files for realistic performance (how come a four-coupled Tram has the boiler and cylinder dimensions of an A3?) and correct Westinghouse braking on GE trains.

However, if we're pushing the wish-list, again my preference would be obvious. Steam era Great Eastern, pre-grouping, from Liverpool Street to everywhere... More GE locos and rolling stock... Royal Blue everywhere. Come to think of it, LTSR includes a lot of that already - and in the early days the GER ran most of the trains out of Fenchurch Street as well...

So why did I choose to make my first effort at a route in the East Midlands? Because I lived in Nottingham for twenty-odd years, because the Nottingham area had trains from almost everywhere, (Midland, Great Northern, Great Central , occasional Great Eastern, GN&LNWR joint to name but a few) because the coalfields and industry made for interesting possibilities operationally, and there were a lot of changes which could have been rolled back in a steam era model, including reinstating the GCR. I was also intrigued by the idea of putting Victoria Station back in place of the shopping mall, and putting the railway back under my former home... (shades of the Pacific Great Eastern up in Oregon and Washington - look it up in the history books - there was even a song about it.)

[terrycunliffe]

If I wasn't otherwise engaged I'd be seriously looking at Cardiff-Abergavenny-Shrewsbury-Wrexham

[sundaypm]

including reinstating the GCR. I was also intrigued by the idea of putting Victoria Station back in place of the shopping mall

This is what I have done. GCR steam era working south from Nottingham Victoria. Victoria, Weekday Cross area and many of the small island stations are complete, Loughborough almost finished, Rugby in progress and struggling with Leicester. Stage 2 will take the route to Woodford. The smaller stations have been made easier as the buildings use a standard design, usually just arranged differently. I may upload these in case anyone else is inspired by the GCR, BR or preserved.
I am more of a model builder than track layer and I am clueless with signalling, so if this ever becomes a serious route it will probably need relaying. At least by that stage I will have all the required scenery items to put into it.

Derek.

[stephenjrhodes]

I would a Cross contry route Plymouth, torbay to Crewe or York set in the mid60`s or mid 70`s .

[cardean]

[quote="ianmacmillan"]Motherwell - Perth.

How about The northern end Ian.

Stanley to Kinnaber and The Granite City.

If I can get to Perth and go through Moncrief I'll be a happy bunny.



Stanley



Couper Angus

The train will be finished someday and I hope available to all.

John.

[Lad491]

Although I'm beginning to wonder if we've now almost reached a "saturation point" point with MSTS in that there is so much available that very few people feel the need to create more. It's possible that many of those that created in the past have stopped for that reason..

To a degree i think Dee is right. Certainly with regard to activities, in the early 2003 - 2005 period so many new routes came out which captured my imagination that I wanted to write activities for them all. Now I find im lacking inspiration.

Just occasionally a new route will come along which fires me up again (forgiven the pun), Evesham was the last to do that, and occasionally an old route will surface again and make me want to write something new, viz Thames Mersey recently. But otherwise I dont really feel any inclination to spend months stuck to a computer writing activities any more.

That coupled with the fact that there are many more very good activity writers about now than there were in 2003 makes the need a lot less pressing. Everytime a new route does come out there is always a string of people doing activities for them, so I dont need to bother. I like to add to a route with my activities, not merely replicate something someone else has already done.

So yes, I think I reached saturation point a year or so ago. I still mess around with ideas but most dont come to anything any longer. Im waiting to be inspired again

[steamnut44]

including reinstating the GCR. I was also intrigued by the idea of putting Victoria Station back in place of the shopping mall

This is what I have done. GCR steam era working south from Nottingham Victoria. Victoria, Weekday Cross area and many of the small island stations are complete, Loughborough almost finished, Rugby in progress and struggling with Leicester. Stage 2 will take the route to Woodford. The smaller stations have been made easier as the buildings use a standard design, usually just arranged differently. I may upload these in case anyone else is inspired by the GCR, BR or preserved.
I am more of a model builder than track layer and I am clueless with signalling, so if this ever becomes a serious route it will probably need relaying. At least by that stage I will have all the required scenery items to put into it.

Derek.

Derek,
Why don't you get in touch with dikidee, he is doing the MML (Steam Era) working from St Pancras northwards. You say you are not really a track builder or know much about signalling, but with your modelling skills, maybe you could both work together and produce this route. Just a suggestion, Dick may want to carry on on his own but there is no harm in having a chat about it. You know the old saying, many hands make light work.
Here is Dick's thread

http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 40&t=74253

Geoff