Jolly Good Fun ... Narrow Gauge rails in North Wales

[JohnM1945]

On a related topic...

Having finished the Guided Tour scenario (not without a little points-juggling here and there, and I drew up at the wrong platform at the first stop...) I took a look at the buses in the Blaenau station yard - and then I wondered what operators I might see there? Answer: Express Motors of Penygroes. Well worth googling - not just for their own, recently neglected, website (with stock lists) but also for recent press accounts of the Traffic Commissioners' comments. "I'm not cross, just disappointed..."

What I was originally looking for was suitable bus types. (In my day, Crosville's later Bristol LL6B/ECW single-deckers could be found there.) The Express Motors website suggests that Optare Solos were common a few years ago (do we have one for Railworks?); Express Motors now seem to have at least one Alexander Enviro400 DD - it appears in white/yellow livery showing the blinds for route 1B on some publicity material. Were I a repainter, I'd be looking thoughtfully at UKTS 26550 or 26612...

With kind regards, and unstinted praise for the skill, fortitude and generosity of the builders of this marvellous route and its wonderful stock,

John M

Exit humming: "Some day my prince will come..."

[acfreeman99]

But if you don't want to wait as long, you could ask acfreeman who did the Lancashire & North Cheshire route if its something he'd consider, as he's already said he plans to do an 80's backdate of the NWC.

Hi - just to be clear South Lancs & North Cheshire is not my route alone, Nick Nudson creates all of the track and infrastructure ( signalling etc. ) and I create the detailed scenery

Conwy Valley would be great to do but, to be honest, we plan to do a BR Blue regression of the North Wales Coast while pausing South Lancs as we are hoping that it won't take us too long, building Conwy Valley from scratch is a bigger task.

Andy

[spontin]

Hi Steve,
Firstly let me say as a 70 year old living in s/e Essex say how amazing your North Wales Route is, how you chaps can build a route and rolling stock in such detail is beyond me. It bought back very happy memories of many holidays my wife and I spent in North Wales travelling on the Ffestiniog Railway. Just to let you know to date I have found no problems with the route on my computer. Having said that could I just ask two questions, 1 Is it at all possible someone could update the Double Fairlie sounds and smoke, as it is now it seems only one half of the engine is actually doing any work. 2 Has anybody got any plans to do the Conwy Valley Line. Once again let me thank you for a fantastic route, in modern parlance "You Guys Rock" Yours Norm

Hi
Thanks for feedback.
In response to your two questions about the Double Fairlies.........
I am looking at the sounds to see if it is possible to get a "double exhaust beat" for the hard work sections which can then fade as speed increases.....May be feasible, and would reflect the way the actual loco work as there are only a few points on the line that require both engines to work at power.
Secondly, the chuff smoke effects : unfortunately, the Sim won't allow 2 synchronised main smoke stacks so I added the one Main stack and a dummy 2nd stack that outputs smoke as the loco moves.
At the moment that is the best I can do with unscripted effects but, given time, may be something to be looked at.
Hopefully there will be some tweaks as we go forward.

Hope that clarifies things.

Steve P

[acfreeman99]

For anybody who might be interested I have created a full return run scenario which is available here - http://www.wotawallysbits.co.uk/a-freeman-scenarios


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It is the final day of the 2017 operating system and Taliesin is the loco in steam. During the first return run there were some issues with the injectors so the loco has rushed up to Boston Lodge works to see if the issues can be resolved. Running repairs have been carried out, the loco has been passed to haul the final train of the day and this is where the scenario begins.

You will drive to Porthmadog to take water, and collect the train, and then drive a full return journey to Blaenau Ffestiniog before ending the day back at Boston Lodge – timings are based on the actual 13:35PM departure on November 5th, 2017.

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It is 145 minutes, so quite long - it can be saved and resumed but I think it works better when driven as a single session if you have the time to spare.

Andy

[rkk01]

Fantastic route, and one that will be known and loved to the many visitors to North Wales.

Only tried on scenario so far - the introductory drive, but got held at Minffordd.


Has anyone ever tried to create on of the ex-SAR Garrets in TS?

[acfreeman99]

But if you don't want to wait as long, you could ask acfreeman who did the Lancashire & North Cheshire route if its something he'd consider, as he's already said he plans to do an 80's backdate of the NWC.

Hi - just to be clear South Lancs & North Cheshire is not my route alone, Nick Nudson creates all of the track and infrastructure ( signalling etc. ) and I create the detailed scenery

Conwy Valley would be great to do but, to be honest, we plan to do a BR Blue regression of the North Wales Coast while pausing South Lancs as we are hoping that it won't take us too long, building Conwy Valley from scratch is a bigger task.

Andy

I don't want to take this thread off topic but if anybody is interested in building the Conwy Valley in the BR Blue period then please contact Nick or myself - we can share the Route Files for North Wales Coast - BR Blue ( so that the Route origin is in sync ) and that person(s) can create the Conwy Valley and connect it to our NWC - Br Blue Route.

Andy

[Foggin88]

I would just like to say that this route is fantastic and its great to have more narrow gauge engines to play with The route is great fun to drive and ive yet to do the Welsh Highland part of the line, the only thing that doesn't appear on the route is any water towers for some reason, ive got everything apart from Western Lines Of Scotland: Port Road and Woodhead routes, I take it the water towers must be in those two addons, Sorry for asking but addon has the water towers. Once this is a brilliant route and I've been waiting for this for a long time

[xguerra]

I would just like to say that this route is fantastic and its great to have more narrow gauge engines to play with The route is great fun to drive and ive yet to do the Welsh Highland part of the line, the only thing that doesn't appear on the route is any water towers for some reason, ive got everything apart from Western Lines Of Scotland: Port Road and Woodhead routes, I take it the water towers must be in those two addons, Sorry for asking but addon has the water towers. Once this is a brilliant route and I've been waiting for this for a long time

Yes they are.

Though, if you've downloaded my scenery upgrade patch you should find a number of the WHR towers and Port tower swapped out for custom made ones.

[Foggin88]

I would just like to say that this route is fantastic and its great to have more narrow gauge engines to play with The route is great fun to drive and ive yet to do the Welsh Highland part of the line, the only thing that doesn't appear on the route is any water towers for some reason, ive got everything apart from Western Lines Of Scotland: Port Road and Woodhead routes, I take it the water towers must be in those two addons, Sorry for asking but addon has the water towers. Once this is a brilliant route and I've been waiting for this for a long time

Yes they are.

Though, if you've downloaded my scenery upgrade patch you should find a number of the WHR towers and Port tower swapped out for custom made ones.

Thanks for getting back to me, I thought they might have been must wasn't sure so I thought I would ask incase I had missed something when installing the route, Thanks for the help much appreciated

[acfreeman99]

I have created another long scenario for North Wales Narrow Gauge...this time for the Welsh Highland Railway - drive a Taliesin hauled train along the entire length of the Welsh Highland from Porthmadog to Caernarfon, around 140 minutes in length, available at http://www.wotawallysbits.co.uk/a-freeman-scenarios.

I might do the return if anybody is interested.......anybody fancy The Snowdonian double headed double fairlie special from Caernarfon to Blaenau Ffestiniog at 280 minutes? They really do run that once per year............

Andy

[mrmosky]

I need a bit of help. As someone else found. the narrow gauge tracks are not showing up. I have just bought and installed Corris, which is used for the tracks. This runs fine, so it seems to be installed Ok.
Any tips anyone?

Geoff

[spontin]

I need a bit of help. As someone else found. the narrow gauge tracks are not showing up. I have just bought and installed Corris, which is used for the tracks. This runs fine, so it seems to be installed Ok.
Any tips anyone?

Geoff

You may need to edit the NWNGR route and go into the filter box (blue box with orange mark) and then find the Corris developer and make make sure that it is ticked to show on the route.
Some others have found that the AP packs need to be unpacked using RWtools but this should not be necessary.
Hope this helps but someone else may have a better answer.
Neither of these should be necessary but strange things happen these days

Steve

[thephantomphish]

Hi everyone,

More fantastic feedback all humbly received and appreciated, once again it makes all the effort feel worthwhile!

I've already started work on the updated Guided Tour run, working on a Down version to complement the current broken up one. And there is the WHR to look at too, although that will be less intense/detailed (and probably in two parts) simply due to the length of the route. I hope to release a "Welcome to Wales" scenario pack once they are complete.

It is strange that the 158 AI stock has caused problems, I thought I'd used the S&C one as that is what it shows up as in the build menu... but for the most part they just beetle about in the background and don't interact with the player train so can be swapped for anything else if you so choose. There is one scenario where you might interact with it but I won't say which that is for anyone who wants to drive them all and find out!

The only other problems which seem to have arisen regard missing assets, which shouldn't be the case if all DLC is installed, but as Steve P says - strange things happen these days! As different people seem to be missing different bits it's hard to pinpoint a 'fix' but please do post any issues on here so that the collective mind can help resolve any problems!

And I am delighted to see a couple of scenarios already available, I know all to well what a pig they are to create for this line, so when I have time free you can be sure I'll be taking the Tal for another spin!

Out of curiosity, how does the route hold up in TS2018? I haven't installed that yet although really do want to for the North Wales Coastal route. In a perfect world we'd have the NWNGR, North Wales Coastal, and Trawsfynedd branch all starting from the same grid co-ordinates so we could merge the routes, but sadly they were all independently developed so such a project is probably nigh-on impossible. At least the long tunnel at Blaenau provides an appriopriate route-break between the NWNGR and any future Conwy Valley extension of the NWC...

Thanks again, everyone, and do please keep the feedback, good or bad, coming!! (Especially as it has been so good so far!)


ThePhantomPhish

[mrmosky]

Thanks for the suggestion Steve.
I did as you advised and then in the editor I could see the tracks at Portmadoc and at the workshop across the causeway. In the game, though, there were no tracks visible. I have set the graphics on the lowest setting, in case it is a memory problem. I ran the scenario, and just before Minfford, the tracks appeared. Then further on they disappeared again, and then at another point in the route, they were visible again.

I am wondering whether the problem occured beacause the Corris route was not installed before the North Wales route. I may try deleting and reinstalling.

From what I have seen so far, though, this is an amazing route. So realistic.

Geoff

[spontin]

Hi Geoff
That does sound like a graphics/memory issue. Maybe your graphic settings are too low???
A bit weird but reinstalling the NWNGR route maybe the answer.
Steve P