Great Western Main Line: The Extension

[jivebunny]

I wonder how long it'll be before someone makes a super-modern version of the route with the new Reading station and the Crossrail infrastructure between Maidenhead and Paddington? I've posted this in the screenshots area but thought people here might be interested too - direct copy and paste I'm afraid:

Keith has very kindly allowed me to modify his excellent GWML update and so I've spent the day laying and re-laying track (hello SBHH!) at Paddington and Reading to improve the accuracy of the core route and slightly increase the AI possibilities, then I'll move onto other areas. Didcot Railway Centre has had its connection to the main line restored but I forgot to take a screenshot!

The intention is to eventually send this to Keith so he can issue an update to the GWML update I'm simply adding markers and making minor changes to the track layout so in theory scenarios shouldn't be affected (I'll do a fair bit of testing beforehand...)

JB

First off, construction of Reading's lesser-known station: Reading West, seen here with the bridge over Oxford Road.


Platforms 4a and 4b at Reading have been fitted with 3rd rail and lengthened to accommodate 8-car 450s, to reflect reality.






Minor changes to the sheds at Southall.


Paddington, where Bishop's Bridge has been moved closer to the station to give it the crammed-in look...


...and where we now have Platform 13 alongside the Hammersmith & City / Circle Line station (the roof and platform furniture are currently on leave...)
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[USRailFan]

Pretty dang impressive. Where'd you get the tube train?

[keithmross]

Great stuff JB.
Cheers,
K

[Kariban]

Pretty dang impressive. Where'd you get the tube train?

Repainted IoW stock, it's in the RS section.

Well done! that's some handy improvements ( are you going to add the old parcels platform at Padd back too? ). I'm convinced Reading - and even Padd - platforms are a bit longer than the game ones, but I guess there's no point pulling the entire stations up.

There's a few kinky bits of track that could do with some correction out in the open, while you're at it ( and almost the entire route has floating track - if you turn the shadows up to HQ it's really distracting ).

[michaeldono]

I reckon RSC could change the current route to the early 2000's and have 'GWML Modern'. Of cousre swaping the right things.

Very enjoyable route.

[USRailFan]

The default route is already the early 2000s.. (well, 2005, but I doubt things had changed _that_ much over a couple of years...)

[jivebunny]

Pretty dang impressive. Where'd you get the tube train?

Repainted IoW stock, it's in the RS section.

Well done! that's some handy improvements ( are you going to add the old parcels platform at Padd back too? ). I'm convinced Reading - and even Padd - platforms are a bit longer than the game ones, but I guess there's no point pulling the entire stations up.

There's a few kinky bits of track that could do with some correction out in the open, while you're at it ( and almost the entire route has floating track - if you turn the shadows up to HQ it's really distracting ).

Thanks all the credit needs to go to Keith though as the changes I'm making really are minor when you take what he's done to the route into account! I merely take good screenshots I'm gradually re-creating an old project I'd started on the original Ox-Padd so yes, the parcels platform is going to make a comeback. As to the platform lengths, I'm fairly sure you're right - I'm going to see what I can do at Reading, but lengthening the platforms at Padd would mean taking up a lot of the original trackwork, which increases the chances of scenarios ending up broken

I reckon RSC could change the current route to the early 2000's and have 'GWML Modern'. Of cousre swaping the right things.

In general terms, both the original route and Keith's update cover the period from the early-mid 90s (electrification and Heathrow Express construction started in 1993 IIRC...) to roughly the start of 2010 when the Crossrail works began near Paddington. The only thing that really stands out to me as outdated is Bishop's Bridge over Paddington, which was dismantled and replaced with a new structure in 2006. Unless I'm missing something? (which I could be, haven't lived round those parts in a while!)

JB

[jivebunny]

A quick P.S - Kariban (and others, for that matter), if you have any specific places you can think of that need de-kinking then post them here and I'll try to get through them. As I go along I'm looking at points and crossings to see if they need rebuilding and also zapping the occasional stray set of buffers that seem to have wandered in during the update

JB

[SquidvT]

Thanks to Keith and JB for the work they have put into this. I dont have NEC, but im tempted to get it!

Now someone needs to do the reverse and transform the route back to the 50s

[jivebunny]

When I first started making these changes on the original Ox-Padd route my intention was to revert the route to the 70s / 80s, I'd de-electrified Paddington and had even re-instated the BR part of Westbourne Park station, but I think I stalled when it came to demolishing Eurostar's North Pole depot and realising how much work it would take to rebuild Old Oak Common as it used to be .

Maybe once this is finished I'll take a look at trying to make a convincing 1950-1990 version of the route for fans of proper trains with carriages and locomotives

JB

(I was silly enough to offer to get the girlfriend's work clothes out of the wash and out to dry before she goes to work today... hence the 5:25 post )

[Kariban]

A quick P.S - Kariban (and others, for that matter), if you have any specific places you can think of that need de-kinking then post them here and I'll try to get through them. As I go along I'm looking at points and crossings to see if they need rebuilding and also zapping the occasional stray set of buffers that seem to have wandered in during the update

JB

Heh, if you're doing all the track you might as well see if you can put SE in the faster bits... I will go and collect a bunch of the more violent curves, there's at least one crossover that's way too sharp for it's speed limit also.

Rebuilding Padd might break a bunch of scenarios, but on the other hand it is sort-of a new route - and rebuilding existing scenarios is not a particularily long job, tbh. Keith, I'm reasonably sure Paddington's approaches got entirely rebuilt in about 1970 and the concourse got extended sometime or other ( 80s? ) if that matters ( and you'd also need the goods station ). Could probably get hold of some GWR colour lights if you're really considering it though.

[jivebunny]

I'll have a look at retro-fitting SE but from what others have said about attempting this I'm not going to make any promises

RW has just this minute decided to throw a SBHH as I was saving the route and has consequently zapped my Tracks.bin - WHY would an unstable program not automatically make a backup of the current version of the file before overwriting it?

Time to restart the trackwork, that's one day of my weekend of route editing written off...

JB

[Kariban]

Well...

* If it's not done with easements, forget it.
* If it is, don't bother with SE where there's points or on the slower parts. Otherwise it should be fine. You'd need to turn it on in the track rules if it isn't there already, and track roughness - I posted how to replace track rules for an entire route in the route building forum recently.

I've been checking track by the simple method of driving it at 300kmh and seeing where I'm about to derail - which as you can imagine is a bit slow given I have to start again occasionally :p so far I've got Twyford station's fast lines which I'm sure you can find yourself, and these three locations:


Click the image to zoom in


Click the image to zoom in


Click the image to zoom in

[jivebunny]

Haha that's a novel way to check track geometry, I wonder why Network Rail haven't thought of it. Thanks for those, I'll take a look at them when I go past, although today I shall be mainly replacing the trackwork I've lost at Paddington, both ends of Reading and at Didcot Thankfully the scenery, loft and road data survived and as a lot of the trackwork was around new platforms I should be able to get most of it back with some reverse-offset trickery.

Time to start using the auto-backup feature I think...

Cheers for the SE pointers, I haven't yet tried upgrading an existing route so we'll see how it goes.....

JB

[thetrainfan]

Very nice work JB.

Kariban, how do you get your flyout menu things to be almost transparent?
Is there a mod somewhere?



Sean