Newcastle to York "Modern" - now released

[Darpor]

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I will be releasing some payware based scenarios which I will make available on the day of the route release. The majority of these scenarios will feature both player and AI traffic to follow the National Rail timetable. Here is some information on a couple of them.

Tyne Lights




Description

Spring is starting to turn into summer and the nights are getting lighter. Due to crew problems earlier you are now required to take the 1S59 Plymouth to Edinburgh Cross Country service on the portion from Darlington to Newcastle. Only running a couple of minutes behind schedule, you will depart Darlington at around 21:09 and are required to call at Durham and then Newcastle. Things are winding down for the night, there will probably be more freight than passenger traffic so there shouldn't be much in the way of problems. Earlier, there were a few delays in the King Edward South Junction area which necessitated heavy traffic to be routed onto the Metrocentre approach lines and lighter traffic to be sent around the High Level Bridge but this should no longer be the case.

Briefing

You are required to take a 4-Car Crosscountry Class 220 Voyager from Darlington to Newcastle calling at Durham (21:25) and Newcastle (21:39).

A full stock requirement list will be added on/nearer to release.



Northern Dawn




Desription

Every weekday morning, Northern Rail operate the service 2A50, from Middlesbrough to Newcastle, via Darlington. The service starts at Middlesbrough at 05:45 and is scheduled to arrive in Newcastle at 06:55. Your task today is to operate the service from just outside Darlington, calling at Darlington, Durham, Chester-Le-Street and Newcastle. Being an early morning, things are just starting to pick up so there aren't any problems expected.

Briefing

You are required to take a Northern Rail Class 158 DMU from the outskirts of Darlington to Newcastle Central calling at Darlington (06:14) Durham (06:35) Chester-Le-Street (06:42) and Newcastle (06:55). As this service is generally booked for either Class 142 or Class 156 traction, there is no requirement to utilise the 90mph top speed of the unit as 75mph should be sufficient to keep to the booked timetable.



A full stock requirement list will be added on/nearer to release.

[rml345]

Those sound excellent Darren, looking forward to everything connected with your excellent route.

[250787]

Is the route going to come with any stock or will it just be a route?

[96tommy]

I am really looking forward to this

[thetrainfan]

Is the route going to come with any stock or will it just be a route?

Hi, it is just a route, however, there are a few extra assets included.

[Klaabu]

With the route now getting closer to a release, I thought I would inform you of another "feature" that will be included. Normally, a platform will consist of one marker, lets take "York 3" as an example. This means that any AI workings will stop at the platform marker but at the furthest tip of the marker meaning that if it is a short consist like a 2 car DMU, it would look out of place.

Great job on this route Darren. Looking good. My only question ... why not to leave all those sidings untouched? We all know destination markers can now be added by scenario creator. They can be part of the activity. Those markers put by route builder can easily get disruptive. Especially destination markers. As scenario creator I would prefer route without earlier placed markers. Scenario creators can place them wher'ever they want.

[rabid]

A shame that the extra stock/scenarios cannot be included with the route.
If JT are selling it I would have thought they would include some stuff to get people running "out of the box".

[rml345]

A shame that the extra stock/scenarios cannot be included with the route.
If JT are selling it I would have thought they would include some stuff to get people running "out of the box".

I suspect JT will only be able to sell it using scenerios that use built in stock or stock included in the release so it is ready to run out of the box. If Darren releases the payware stock scenarios on the day the route is released it makes very little difference to those of us that have the necessary payware stock or intend to buy it.

[Darpor]

To answer a couple of your questions.

@rabid JT are publishers of the route and have helped with getting some of the objects built for it. Any stock they create is totally separate and is not under my control. Of course, I would love to include stock with it, I need it just as much as anyone else but it is something I cannot personally do. Not sure what you meant by scenarios but all scenarios included have to use default stock although there will be reskins included with the route. JT haven't announced those yet so I cannot mention what is included but they should give the default scenarios a modern feel. Then, as announced above, I will be releasing a few separate ones on the day of release which utilise payware stock and feature real life timetables.

@Klaabu The markers which you are referring to are indeed platform markers and not sidings. Of course, these have to be placed in the route beforehand. The idea behind using multiple markers on one platform is to give more realism to scenarios. If there was only one marker, a 3 car consist would stop at the end of the platform in the same place as an 11 car consist, not realistic. Doing it this way gives a freedom to choose where you want your consist to stop in the platform and is very easily implemented, people shouldn't have problems with it. Also, you mentioned preferring less markers which is actually the opposite to what a lot of people want, most people agree that there aren't enough markers. In the route, there are many markers placed in strategic locations which, coupled with the bi-directional nature of the route enable you to route a train much easier. For instance, you can set up a player freight train to leave Newcastle, enter Tyne Yard, wait, head for Durham and be looped, wait, head to Ferryhill and loop on to the slow lines, wait, head to Darlington, wait, head to Northallerton and join the slows etc etc, but all of this can be set via the 2d map in less than a minute. People should find that scenario creation is much easier and that overall it is much more user friendly.

[rml345]

I see an Angel in your second screenshot Darren.Is that an addition to the modern version of the route? I dont recall seeing it in the original.

[Darpor]

Yes mate, that is one of the many modern additions. So far, there have also been screenshots of the Millenium Bridge and Sage Centre at Newcastle.

[Klaabu]

The markers which you are referring to are indeed platform markers and not sidings. Of course, these have to be placed in the route beforehand. The idea behind using multiple markers on one platform is to give more realism to scenarios. If there was only one marker, a 3 car consist would stop at the end of the platform in the same place as an 11 car consist, not realistic. Doing it this ...

Sorry Darren but I doubt You didn't understand my point. As much as we know in RailWorks destination, siding and platform markers ALL can be part of the scenario. So no any need for adding those markers to the route file. Such way the route environment can be more clear and every scenario maker can decide himself/herself where to place markers. Because of that pre set markers (which belong to the route file) are useless (You never use them all together in one scenario) and excessive but program has still to read them into memory and hold there without any need (those ones we don't need in scenario). The meaning of those scenario dependant markers (why were they developed at all) is to keep route environment and computer memory clear and empty of excessive stuff. Another story if You're planning this renewed route to be compatible with Rail Simulator. And here I can clearly see how backward compatibility issues can sometimes add a lot of additional workload to the route builder. Especially if program lead developers haven't had clear vision of how to build up the entire system (core program) keeping longer perspective in mind. We can expect lots of such compatibilty problems in the future.

[Wikkus]

The markers which you are referring to are indeed platform markers and not sidings.

<snip>
Sorry Darren but I doubt You didn't understand my point. As much as we know in RailWorks destination, siding and platform markers ALL can be part of the scenario. So no any need for adding those markers to the route file. Such way the route environment can be more clear and every scenario maker can decide himself/herself where to place markers. <snip>

Okay, I think I understand what Klaabu is getting at, here (and my Estonian is nowhere near as good as his English ):

I believe he's saying that where there are dozens of sidings, e.g. Tyne Yard, why have destination markers coded into the route when one can simply put a scenario marker there instead? Logically, I see where he's coming from; why put in loads of siding markers for sidings that are hardly ever used or may only have static consists on them if the only purpose they effectively serve is to consume disk-space and RAM?

The only negative I could immediately foresee would be in such large yards (Tyne Yard is a tiddler compared to Barstow in the Cajon Pass route or Washington on the "CSX Mainline" route), it'd be potentially difficult to keep track (no pun intended) of which siding you were using in a scenario.

Rik.

[Darpor]

Hi there,

If there are no markers added to the route, you then alienate 99% of the users, most of which who do not frequent forums like this, as they may not be sure on how to input the markers themselves. You have to realise that I cannot please everyone, I wish I could! The vast majority of people on this forum have always said that they felt some of the default routes were lacking in markers and wanted it addressed.

As for the compatibility issues, there will be no problems. The route has always been built in Rail Simulator and then installed into Railworks for testing from which there are no problems. The reason for this is because the route was originally started before Railworks was ever announced meaning that we dont have to worry about trying to make something for Railworks compatible with RS which would possibly cause more issues. The product should come as a dual install so you select which program you want it installed to.


Edit (Just saw your post Rik)

You will be lucky if there are more than a dozen sidings named at Tyne Yard now so that shouldn't cause too much of a problem compared with what was there in the default route. The destination markers that are placed are intended to be in strategic locations to enable users to quickly set a scenario. I believe that this will attract more users to try their hand at it, something which I believe needs to be encouraged. How many threads do we see that complain that there aren't enough scenarios being produced. Hopefully this is the first step in trying to address this.

[Klaabu]

Okay, I think I understand what Klaabu is getting at, here (and my Estonian is nowhere near as good as his English)

Thank You Rik. Hehe, I'm just trying to do my best.
Route environment overloading with lots of useless markers is one point of my comment but another one is maybe more important - if there are destination markers already placed by route developer You can't overlap them by Your own markers. And You can't delete route markers to replace them with scenario markers. In shunting scenarios this will lead to lots of troubles. I've had some bad experiences personally.

The only negative I could immediately foresee would be in such large yards (Tyne Yard is a tiddler compared to Barstow in the Cajon Pass route or Washington on the "CSX Mainline" route), it'd be potentially difficult to keep track (no pun intended) of which siding you were using in a scenario.

But I can't see problems here. Even vice versa ... because of the most operations are usually performed on 2D map there'll be much better overview which sidings are already busy (tasks attached to them) and which ones are not. And You can always find right destination markers faster ... less confusion.
Another question are those destination markers effective enough to organise traffic. I personally still prefer system used in Trainz - 1) track markers (loco is always stopping in front of it no matter how long train do You have, gives more freedom), 2) junctions states can be preprogrammed (if You have passed the junction it will function like trigger activating some other tasks, 3) waiting points for trains 4) checking different train or driver or whatever conditions and reacting accordingly (open scripting environment), 5) every kind of triggers that can affect traffic.