Undrivable Locomotives

[stuart666]

Yup the Hawksworth County, is my particular GWR\WR steam loco of choice, Stuart.
Vastly under rated and overlooked.

Be very useful on South Devon Banks as well. Often got used over there, where speed was no real advantage and sheer grunt power was. Often seem to have been photographed on Sapperton bank, so clearly ive a use for one as well.

transadelaide as you may know there are 2 other projects underway too. There is a Saint Class locomotive (well, a Lady to be strictly accurate) and there also a 4700 class locomotive, of which only 9 ever got built, and used on express freight and passenger turns in the summer. There has also been some discussion on building an earlier county as well, a 38xx class 4-4-0. Truly they are turning it into Swindon East works.
http://www.gwcountyproject.org.uk/

Id certainly like to see more DLC tie in with such projects. The only question in my mind is how much the community wants more GW DLC. We GWR fans been having it quite good lately. Certainly like to see a P2, though I think they are still weighing the pros and cons of that whilst they evaluate the repairs to Tornado. I think they want to make sure thats making money again before they commit themselves. There is another streamlined version being proposed by someone else if I remember rightly?

[Kariban]

Someone ought to make some newbuild coaching stock that just happens to look like period ones... surely can't be hard given all that steel panelled grouping stock.

[stuart666]

It may be possible using BR Mk1s as a basis. Certainly if you replaced the wood frames for metal ones, you could perhaps build something like Hawksworths. Certainly LMS carriages, on which they were based. Might be a stretch building Gresley style teaks though.

Ive a feeling it may not be that simple though. There are some absurd rulings when it comes to whats safe and what is not. I gather Didcot were initially denied the option of using metal spokes on the new build (largely rebuild actually) Saint wheels, because metal spokes were inherently unsafe. They had to make a big case taking time and money from the project to demonstrate that spoked wheels had actually been used on the railway for over 150 years and had demonstrated few problems. Extend that to coaching stock and you can see why nobody has tried. I think the most anyone has achieved has been to convert a GUV as a water tender, and even that is a temporary fit.

On the positive side, Minehead seem to be persevering with a heritage carriage project, dedicated to creating workable rakes of heritage vehicle for use there. Judging by the relaxation on BRmk1 buffer stock lately, perhaps one day they might be allowed to go main line.
http://www.wssrt.co.uk/briefing1c.htm
Be nice to use the sleeping car one last time on the Night Riviera dont you think?

[RW2011]

Stuart, are you saying there is a 3800 and a 4700 add on in the pipeline for RW2 ?
Churchward County would be brilliant, as for the 4700. It was my favourite freeware steam loco in MSTS.

[stuart666]

Stuart, are you saying there is a 3800 and a 4700 add on in the pipeline for RW2 ?
Churchward County would be brilliant, as for the 4700. It was my favourite freeware steam loco in MSTS.

No Im pretty sure there isnt (not that I would know because I dont work for them). But there are 1-1 scale ones being planned at Didcot, which is some compensation.

But certainly I would very much like to see the latter considered at some point.

[RW2011]

Stuart, are you saying there is a 3800 and a 4700 add on in the pipeline for RW2 ?
Churchward County would be brilliant, as for the 4700. It was my favourite freeware steam loco in MSTS.

No Im pretty sure there isnt (not that I would know because I dont work for them). But there are 1-1 scale ones being planned at Didcot, which is some compensation.

But certainly I would very much like to see the latter considered at some point.

Just re-read your post Stuart, misread it and got over excited at the prospect of them being in RW2.
I have no interest in preservation sorry.

[rivimey]

Id certainly pay good money for a County. Unfortunately its probably one of those GWR locomotives that DLC producers will always overlook. A shame really, considering the progress going into the new build at Didcot.

I'd like to see the Star as well - ages ago I got a book called "The GWR Stars, Castles and Kings" by O.S. Nock, pub David and Charles, which charted the history of the GWR mainline locos; a really good book which very much showed how early the pattern was set - the Stars in particular were way ahead of their time.

Note that while the GWR couldn't really use anything more powerful than the Kings due to the network they had, the pattern continued with ex-GWR staff into the LMS classes and, finally, into the BR Standards.

Ruth

[Acorncomputer]

RailWorks is one of those programs that can be whatever you want it to be.

My interests are with route building and a bit of modelling but I do very little driving or scenario creation. My interests in the program development are therefore primarily related to these aspects of its operation.

For some, driving locos in an authentic way is everything whereas for others, the enjoyment is just mucking around shunting in a yard or perhaps creating and operating their own railway company provides enormous pleasure.

It is impossible to create a route, scenery, scenario or rolling stock that will please everyone so we have to use some discretion when looking at the acquisition of content, whether payware or freeware, and decide in advance if it is something that we are going to like.

I think we are enormously fortunate to have so many people creating such a diverse range of add-ons for RailWorks and this range gets bigger every day.

With specific reference to the 56xx, I had not got around to buying this but did obtain it for a ridiculously small amount in this weekend's Steam sale. I followed the driving tutorial included and drove away first time without blowing anything up. I appreciate that some people would find it a bit complex and 'realistic' and would prefer a simpler version to drive so perhaps there is some scope for publishing a more basic version (as far as driving is concerned) to allow more people the pleasure of driving it. This would not compromise the effort to make it authentic as that would still be available to those who prefer it.

[metrobus]

Whatever happened to the Intermediate controls in Railworks, I remember we used to have them, but they seem to have disappeared. It would be interesting to see them return for they were neither ridiculously easy as the simple controls nor as difficult as the expert and so would help newer people transition from Simple to Expert controls
Regards.
Edward

[mikesimpson]

Mike, I'm a bit confused - in the first part of your quote above you've said "Neither do I want to hear stupid pings every minute as I drive along admiring the scenery", but then in the second part said "outside views like 2 and 4, you can't use these because you can't hear the pings and everything screams to a halt".

Are you wanting no pings/alarms on the external views, or wanting to be able to hear them so as you can acknowledge them and the train can continue on it's journey rather than coming to the sudden stop?

Thanks,

Simon
Just Trains
http://www.justtrains.net

Hi Simon,

I did not mean to be confusing here. What I really wanted to point out was that whenever you drive a UK loco, you have to respond to all the pings. This is bad enough when you are in the cab, but often impossible if you are elsewhere. It may be realistic to have to respond to these while you are an engine driver and situated on the footplate, but it is not realistic to expect the passenger in view 5 to respond to them? On top of which it is really annoying to anyone else in the room while you are playing with RW, the background rumble of a train is no problem, but a sudden ping every minute or so is.

I was not getting at any of the loco builder's efforts with this, my original post just gave the Class 86 and 56xx as recent examples I purchased and expected to be able to drive 'out of the box' without having to read through the manuals. Rather I was just stating how I use RailWorks - It just seems to be getting too complicated for me to manage a lot of locos, and I suspect this will be the case with a lot of the younger users (or those like me in their second childhood), who will quickly give up altogether.

Mike

[Acorncomputer]

Whatever happened to the Intermediate controls in Railworks, I remember we used to have them, but they seem to have disappeared. It would be interesting to see them return for they were neither ridiculously easy as the simple controls nor as difficult as the expert and so would help newer people transition from Simple to Expert controls
Regards.
Edward

The intermediate controls were fine. Perhaps they were removed in connection with career mode or possible multi-player development, we may never know.

[alexnick]

I don't wish to weigh in on the debate about the nature of RW addons.

But on the GWR topic - for whoever wanted to see a Star. There's one in the National Collection, which I've seen in the NRM York before (and I believe it visits other museums too). I doubt if they would build a replica with an original example already preserved. We've been spoiled recently for GW replicas and restorations anyway (a third King, a railmotor, the Grange project, the Saint project...etc.).

AN

[stephenholmes]

I was not getting at any of the loco builder's efforts with this, my original post just gave the Class 86 and 56xx as recent examples I purchased and expected to be able to drive 'out of the box' without having to read through the manuals. Rather I was just stating how I use RailWorks - It just seems to be getting too complicated for me to manage a lot of locos, and I suspect this will be the case with a lot of the younger users (or those like me in their second childhood), who will quickly give up altogether.

Mike

Good morning everyone
Just picking up on Mikes comment
I don't think it is anyones interest to drive some RW users away from the world of Railway Simulation
There should be a compromise solution that way everyone is happy......for most of the time anyway
Kind regards Stephen

[bigvern]

By "pings" I'm assuming Mike is referring to AWS? Maybe what's needed is a means of isolating all the safety systems for those who don't wish to use them, as you can in OpenBVE. However again I have to disagree with Mike's overall sentiment, the absence of working safety systems was one of the biggest drawbacks in MSTS and to me is part and parcel of simulating a *working* railway environment. Railworks is already mocked in some quarters as being a "scenery simulator" due largely to the poor AI, but at least it does attempt to implement the safety features.

Bear in mind on the real network all the safety systems must be operational at all times the traction unit is in service. If any one of them becomes defective, these days the train pretty much terminates where it is, dumps the passengers and travels the shortest distance necessary to a location where it can be taken out of traffic to await repairs. One of the reasons why I like Zusi is the highly accurate implementation of the German safety systems, which can really catch you out if you're not paying attention.

[gypbrc]

I think one is underestimating the intelligence of the youth if one makes statements such as

It just seems to be getting too complicated for me to manage a lot of locos, and I suspect this will be the case with a lot of the younger users (or those like me in their second childhood), who will quickly give up altogether.

Simulation is an odd genre of computer 'game'; as the players are usually perfectly happy in an hour-long session where they make perhaps 100 keystrokes. Compare this to any RPG or racing game or in fact virtually every other game for XBox or PS3, etcetera; where the equivalent of 100 keystrokes every minute can be made and you'll see that having to press 'Q' or the spacebar every minute or so is really not too difficult at all. The youth are people who competently operate the internet, or an iPhone or a MacBook or set up Sky+ to record 50 different programmes in the next ten days. Working out how to operate a simply simulated version of a Class 86 should not be much of a challenge at all, especially once the manual has been read and the driving tutorial watched (where relevant).