What about historical routes?

[USRailFan]

Well, Woodhead will be set in the 50s apparently. Not strictly a steam route, of course, but...

[malkymackay]

For the last few nights after I've put Railworks to bed I've been looking over a route I'd love to see built depicting the fifties and sixties up until its closure in 1969.
Was a double track main line in the Northern part of the UK, any ideas what it might be? ( might even be not a million miles from Mike's route?

Chris.

Has to be The Waverley. The northern section is due to be relaid as a single track with passing loops. Says a lot, that the bus used to replace the trains is no quicker now than a steam train back in the 50's

[chrisiveson]

The Waverley route?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYHdD7I1kno

click to enlarge

[malkymackay]

Excellent stuff. The climbs to Falahill & Whiterope should be a nice challenge.

[Shadders]

Hello,

I'd love to see something a little older chosen from our long British railway heritage. Though I fully appreciate that the further back you go, the harder it is to find sources of information.

Although I'm not much of a steam fan, there are two or three periods that I would love to see:

Early 1940's WWII or 1914 WWI era's would be brilliant, though possibly a little melancholy. The only thing I could think of against it would be if someone thought it in some way disrespectful to those that gave their lives. Personally, I'd see it more of a homage and the railways played important roles in both eras. The idea of driving a troop train down to Portsmouth or Dorset is would be a powerful experience I feel. It certainly gave me pause for thought before I wrote that last sentence, especially at this time of remembrance.

I'd also love to see something a little further back, the 1880's. One of the things I loved about Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes was the occasional rail journey. I found the settings very evocative and now wonder what the rail network would have been like to dive during that period.

On the subject of available assets, I believe that the biggest hurdle would be people to populate the platforms, as far as I know, there are absolutely none available at this time.

Best regards,

Shad.

[partyspiritz]

The Bacup Branch

IT'S 62 years ago that passenger trains were withdrawn on the line from Rochdale to Bacup, via the Whitworth Valley.
When it was built in the 19th century, the line was the highest on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's network.

The Rochdale-Facit section of the Bacup branch opened for goods in October 1870 and to passengers a month later.
The extension to Bacup followed in November 1881.
At the time it was a considerable engineering feat as the line had unrelenting gradients, unsympathetic subsoil, high annual rainfall, bad winters, the difficult crossing of Healey Dell and two short tunnels.

It closed to passengers on 16 June 1947, ostensibly as a 'temporary measure' because of a shortage of coal, but no more passengers trains ran again.
Official and permanent closure of the Rochdale to Bacup branch began in December, 1949.
Up to 1952 only light engines ran between Bacup shed and Rochdale but then the line was closed betwen Facit and Bacup, leaving a service of two goods trains a day from Rochdale to Facit yard and one or two trains a day to Shawclough and Healey.
The line remained open to goods until the mid 1960s - at least as far as Facit - but by the end of 1967 the line no longer exists.

This route is now in its closing stages it has is own locos & stock



Regards





John

[SquidvT]

Good point guys, the effort, research and obvious love put into some of the freeware routes surpasses that of commecial routes.

Watching the livestream for the TPR tonight just reminded me of the dedication to detail. A labour of love.

That said, i still think payware is important, if for no other reason that it manages to hit the mainstream more.

I am sure there are few amongst us that would say no to a pre 70s route, but its seems the the majority of devs seem to opt for the modern stuff. I appreciate there is more modern rolling stock and assests but its a bit of a catch 22 in that respect.

Heres hoping one day for a 100mile plus route dedicated to the age of steam in the UK.

[chrisiveson]

Longtown, "The Waverley Line"

click to enlarge

[FoggyMorning]

Good point guys, the effort, research and obvious love put into some of the freeware routes surpasses that of commecial routes.

Watching the livestream for the TPR tonight just reminded me of the dedication to detail. A labour of love.

That said, i still think payware is important, if for no other reason that it manages to hit the mainstream more.

I am sure there are few amongst us that would say no to a pre 70s route, but its seems the the majority of devs seem to opt for the modern stuff. I appreciate there is more modern rolling stock and assests but its a bit of a catch 22 in that respect.

Heres hoping one day for a 100mile plus route dedicated to the age of steam in the UK.

The main issue, in my opinion, with a really long stretch of steam era mainline is the sheer complexity of the trackwork. I don't think it's a terminal bar to such a route (indeed, Stuarts Western Rails featuring Bristol, Swindon, Gloucester and Didcot and John's Settle & Carlsisle routes prove otherwise) but I can see it being a distinct cause of doubt for commercial developers from a project management point of view

[SquidvT]

now that looks the ticket.

Video response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmciuKsBOi0

[transadelaide]

I would suggest that the main reason for having a higher proportion of modern routes is the ease of research. With the demand for painstaking levels of accuracy we see on these forums, it hardly makes you wonder why route builders in the payware sector tend towards ones they can actually research in person rather than be subject to differing memories of what a certain route was like at a certain time in the past.

It would be quite in order to consider a BR route based in the early 70's as vintage or historical!

Thanks for that. I now feel completely old...

This is where adopting some terminology from the motoring world could be useful, because out of all the different aspects of life where history is concerned the motoring world does it best. A comprehensive classification system has been developed over time for the purpose of running historic motorsport events.

Cars older than 1948 are Vintage cars, 1948 being chosen in recognition of the fact that it was around this time that the motoring industry started to see the first real signs of progress after WWII, also being the date that the most significant sports car manufacturers in the world, Porsche and Ferrari, commenced operations. Applying this to rail, in Britain you could further separate it into Vintage for 1923-48 and Pre-Vintage for pre-grouping.

Cars from 1949 to 1980 are Classic cars, 1980 being the end point thanks to the big shift in design from the 70s to the 80s. Thus a 70s BR route would be a Classic route.

Cars from 1981 to 1995 are Late Classic cars, 1995 being the end point mainly because Late Classic categories of historical motorsport are an innovation of the last few years thanks to cars without modern electronics not being able to compete with Modern cars. This would be equivalent to the latter period of BR with the sectors and the trend towards more modern DMUs.

Cars from 1996 onwards are Modern cars, distinctive by the influence of modern technology. In British railway terms, this era would be marked by a unique semi-privatisation, an influx of new European-influenced passenger trains with higher levels of technology, connection to Europe and the first high speed line, a dramatic increase in the number of passengers using the network, a shift away from some of the less helpful aspects of BR culture and hopefully increased electrification.

[bigvern]

Good definitions there Ady!

I agree re complexity, a good example was the Swindon to Highworth route done for MSTS. 95% of it was a single track branch becoming increasingly rural as it got away from Swindon. However the Swindon area itself modelled historically, as opposed to the simplified Up/Down layout and junction today, must have taken many hundreds of hours for the trackwork alone, with the various sections of the Works, yards, industrial sidings etc. There is then a trade off then for the route builder as they get bogged down in all that detail wondering how many scenarios or users will even visit the more obscure locations.

Even the SMJ which I'm still thinking about maybe doing next year, while the line itself was very simple in terms of infrastructure it crossed or connected with quite a few main lines including the GC at Woodford Halse and there would really be no alternative but to try and put in the massively complex Yards and Shed at Woodford for completion's sake.

[transadelaide]

When you look at old track plans and so on, you can't help wondering what the track layouts back then would have been like if they had been planned properly as part of a national network (and not as capitalist rivals) and planned using the wealth of historical knowledge we have about operational practices now. It would probably be a little less interesting with fewer unique oddities, but I reckon that enough improvements could have been made that a decent number of lines would not have needed to be closed because of operational inconveniences making them less profitable.

The same could be said about the legion of different BR diesel locos. You would probably have many more loco-hauled services these days if there were a smaller number of classes, but all with large enough orders that they could be perfected and the improvements retro-fitted to the earlier batches.

Isn't hindsight wonderful!

[msey0002]

To be fair, Belgium have had a huge array of locomotives since the 60s, and most are still in use today.

[stuart666]

When you look at old track plans and so on, you can't help wondering what the track layouts back then would have been like if they had been planned properly as part of a national network (and not as capitalist rivals) and planned using the wealth of historical knowledge we have about operational practices now. It would probably be a little less interesting with fewer unique oddities, but I reckon that enough improvements could have been made that a decent number of lines would not have needed to be closed because of operational inconveniences making them less profitable.

The same could be said about the legion of different BR diesel locos. You would probably have many more loco-hauled services these days if there were a smaller number of classes, but all with large enough orders that they could be perfected and the improvements retro-fitted to the earlier batches.

Isn't hindsight wonderful!

Im not sure it was ever really practical in the UK. Admittedly historians and socialologists have ploted out theoretical routes that did just this, but as Christian Wolmar has pointed out, it was against the nature of capitalism in the UK NOT to have an absurd degree of competition, which the Politicians of the day took upon themselves to encourage. Had that competition not existed, Britain may have just decided to continue with Canals. Other nations were different in their industrialization, simply because they could look at the mistakes Britain had made and not repeat them (Exceptionally narrow canals is a one example). Predictably they also 'planned' Railways in a way we have only just started to do with HS1 and HS2. Certainly in the case of France and Imperial Germany, they had a military imperative to do so. Having no continental rivals, we never really had that military necessity, other than going to Plymouth and Portsmouth in short order.

Its true that the mulititude of Railway companies DID indeed result in overcompetition and result absorb a lot of profitability that may have been better employed in developing services and investment. Indeed Adrian Vaughn wrote to the Minister in charge of privatizing BR suggesting that all they were doing was recreating a system that didnt work. Predictably he was ignored. Some lessons in Britain we seem incapable of learning.

As for historical routes, im all for it. But I would suggest anyone planning on doing so pick their periods VERY carefully. I picked the 1930s for Western Rails for a good reason. All the sidings put in during the war for DDay and remained for decades afterwards (still there at Gloucester!) would have ensured I would never finish it. As it was, things were touch and go.