Atomic Systems

Colchester Town to the down yard at Colchester.

A mixed Class 309 {refurbed and non refurbed}makes their steady way back to Colchester yard ex-Liverpool St

The 10mph limit over the Eastgates crossing on Harwich road is a far cry from the usual 100+ mph on the main line!


Yarmouth-Liverpool St Adex sits in Platform 3, the empty newspapers in 6


A Class 313 in Platform 5 for Walton, an "Essex Express" livery 309 in 4 while a 350 shunts a wagon load of used brake blocks from the shed to the Up sidings for collection on the next speedlink to Donny, and a Class 312 sits in platform 1. The front 4 coaches are for Clacton, the rear portion for Ipswich.


The Class 313's ran on the Clacton/Walton lines until 1989, one having an unexpectedly hard collision with the buffer stops at Walton.


Class 321s start to enter the area. Plastic is remopved from the seats and drivers familiarise themselves with the new cab layouts. The disk brakes and lighter bodies, therefore less braking power will always cause wheel flats that were never a problem on the old 302-309 stocks.


The class 312 was never loved, until it was the oldest unit left. Then a certain fondness manifested itself. Which film starring Michael Caine shows him jumping out of the wrong side in Platfrom 2 at Colchester? You can see the old wooden panelling!


The black window surround and hopper windows can be seen on the London & South East sector liveried 309. The livery appeared in 1985.


Can't really show the yard at this time without the requisite dumped class 15 or two!


Class 101 (one of 2 units for the Sudbury branch, on loan from Norwich) a class 47 ready for some work at night, and the Colchester class 08 sits dormant, as the 309 snakes its way into the yard.

Nice Shots.

Have you tweaked some of them. OK by me if you have it's just that although the routes brighter than LSE it still sems a bit gloomy to me?

Nowhere near as bad as Cascades Crossing was where midday sunshine looked like it was captured in an eclipse

Anyway a minor point as IMHO this is a great route with great stock. It would be nice to see soem Steam era activities for it.

Geoff

Yes. A little tweaking


The route is VERY different from the steam era. The architecture, lineside structures, curves, OHLE, civil engineering, depots, termini, speed restrictions, signage, etc. have all changed since the 1950s.

Bare in mind that electric trains (class 306) have been running out of Liverpool St since 1949.

very nice. how do you get the class 309 in the top shot?

Superb Shots there!

Zackybong1 wrote:Yes. A little tweaking


The route is VERY different from the steam era. The architecture, lineside structures, curves, OHLE, civil engineering, depots, termini, speed restrictions, signage, etc. have all changed since the 1950s.

Bare in mind that electric trains (class 306) have been running out of Liverpool St since 1949.

I'm sure signalling has changed but as you point out the 306's started in 1949 (albeit as 1500v DC - later converted to the AC standard) and then electrification was only for short sections of the total route as portrayed here initially but the actual infrastructure as portrayed wasn't THAT different in the early 60s when steam was still running. What's needed is a good model of the 306 and some of the Eastern Region o/h electric stock slam door stock. One always has to suspend some disbelief with Train Sims as development of any route is almost constant whereas MSTS routes are frozen in a fixed time slot.

I tried running some steam stuff using the AI traffic from activities (Using Train Store) and found that the performance was pretty good and timetables achievable. Next step is to sub the steam consist for some of the slower electric stock and see if that'll work.

Luckily BA's excellent LNER packs provide much of the required loco's and stock that would have been found in my youth in Ilford and there's plenty of freeware stock as well. The major problem would be with creating bin 1.6 type activities wher you might want to progress to another journey. Lack of "run round" provisions for loco's would scupper that. Agreed that the big freight yards aren't there too but I reckon you could still have some fun with boat trains, commuter services and seaside specials.

We'd also need a good N7 and some quintart sets.

It wouldn't do for the rivet counters of course....but then nothing does

Geoff

I suppose I was really talking about Colchester, which is completely unrecognisable from the steam era, apart from the covered building on plat 4. What about the long slow curve here, the engine shed at the other end of the platform 1-2, the different buildings, the goods shed.

Colchester town (St. Bots) had 2 platforms, a ramp and a goods yard, not to mention Paxmans Diesel siding for the Britannia Works. There was no under pass in stream days. The Class 31s were the first trains to run under it.

All the (including the terminus) between Liverpool St and Colchester with the exception of Witham and Shenfield have been extensively remodelled and rebuilt since steam days and the main and electric lines have been swapped utilising the Ilford flyover.

I agree that you have to suspend a certain amount of disbelief, but you would have to be on hard drugs to imagine that route as it was in steam days IMHO.

galvanize wrote:very nice. how do you get the class 309 in the top shot?

A special for Making Tracks beta testers.