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

[chrisonline]

Looking good!

[thephantomphish]

Great to see progress on the DLG! It really is looking fine!
News from the real world is that the Earl of Merioneth is to become the first preservation-era built loco to be retired from service, being replaced by a new-build of James Spooner... so there is yet another reskin for contemplation!!

News from this virtual world is somewhat lacking; I've taken a break from route building as Rhyd Ddu marks a suitable 'top of the hill' end point for now, and I'd realistically haev to do allt he rest down to Caernarfon if I carry on (roughly 12 more miles!).
I had a bit of a go at creating a scenic asset - namely, a little whistle board - with no results other than a lot of frustration with those dark arts involved in that whole process!
I'm also still struggling to find a way to release the route so that everyone can get it to work, the narrow gauge assets from the new Corris route from Skyhook will help massively but obviously that isn't out yet.

There seems to be an NG revival of sorts on the horizon with the Corris and also Clear Creek on the way too - I'll do my best to make sure this line surfaces properly soon to join them.

Cheers,

ThePhantomPhish

[ussvoyager]

I mix any stock that works, I found a loco and coach to go up the 1 in 9 Snowdon Mountain railway.. this is the video of the last section.

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getting up was easy.. getting down was another matter but possible

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check the settings... max brake and max forward go to backwards...

[thephantomphish]

Wow, I had no idea the Snowdon Mountain Railway was available too, I'll have to have a play with it sometime!

With some time to myself over the next few days I might play about extending the scenery towards Waunfawr, although I'm not promising anything yet! It wouldn't add much operational interest unless I go all the way to Caernarfon but it will be some steps in that direction.

Meanwhile I've had some good news behind the scenes, so discussions are underway regarding release. It looks like it might still be a while off but things are progressing...

More as and when, thanks for the continued interest!!

ThePhantomPhish

[ussvoyager]

Wow, I had no idea the Snowdon Mountain Railway was available too, I'll have to have a play with it sometime!

ThePhantomPhish

The Snowdon mountain Railway is on the same route as The Llanberis Lake Railway.. which figures as they are only half a mile apart..

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[thephantomphish]

Hi everyone,

It has been a while since the last update but things have progressed behind the scenes. There have been developments regarding how to release the route but the details are still being sorted out and there is a lot to do to get it up to a good enough standard to go public... Recent progress includes:

I have been looking at the earlier stages of the route and discovered a few things that are now below the standards I have recently worked to, so there will need to be a bit of rebuilding... at least two sites have mis-alignments from the real world and dubious gradient profiles, so a re-build will hopefully sort both those issues out. The town of Penrhyndeudraeth also really shows how basic my skills were when I started, so that needs more tidying and detailing.

There is also a strong possibility of custom assets being created which will hopefully (if all comes to fruition) reduce the amount of DLC dependency in order to get the route to run as intended, which will hopefully be a good thing for anyone lacking certain assets, maybe even finally removing the need for the Phorum Peninsula stuff!

Finally, the scenery has crept North (painfully slowly) on the extension, and there is about another three miles of driveable railway above Rhyd Ddu... but at the moment it peters out around Plas-y-Nant which is (operationally) a useless final destination. I'd need to get to Waunfawr for it to become a useful bit of railway again - although the lakeside views of Llyn Cwellyn are starting to look quite 'Snowdonian' (no screenshots yet though as it isn't totally distant-scenerised).

So, loads more to do, and hopefully a lot of developments will occur reasonably soon, as always I will update as and when I can! With Clear Creek now released, and the Corris route on the horizon, the time seems right to do the rest of the necessary work required to try to get the Ffestiniog Railway into Train Simulator!


ThePhantomPhish

[smarty2]

Glad things are progressing better than some routes which turned out to be vapourware, I for one look forward to having a chuff or two when finished!

[thephantomphish]

Hi everyone, me again...

Just by way of a quick update, my recent focus has been on my early work around Minffordd. Having built a lot more railway since I started nearly two years ago, I cast a critical eye over the first couple of miles and could see that what I thought was fine then actually looks terrible to me now!

So - I have been re-working the bottom end of the line quite a bit over the last few weeks, including a total rebuild of the track between Minffordd & Penrhyn which was aligned incorrectly, had an entire farm and level crossing missing, and awful gradients. That is all now sorted (it is still a steep climb but much better graded than before!) and I have started looking at the distant scenery around Minffordd for anyone that likes driving from a helicopter. Temptation was to do the whole of the peninsula in that area but that would be overkill... no-one would ever need to see Portmeirion in Train Simulator unless someone created a milk-float style mini moke route but that is way beyond the aim of this project!

I realise it is pretty much a year since I went public when the route was 'nearly finished' but hopefully the finally finished product will be far better for the work I am doing now.

More news as and when... but definitely not vapourware, this one, it will be done and released eventually!!


ThePhantomPhish

[smarty2]

What, not even a giant white balloon chasing passengers?! (for those that do not know what the heck I am going on about!)

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[karma99]

What, not even a giant white balloon chasing passengers?! (for those that do not know what the heck I am going on about!)

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Love it!

[mattsylvanian]

I just revived my long-dormant account to express my gratitude for your recreating these lovely routes, and my excitement at the possibility of soon running them. Excellent, excellent work bringing these railways to life, they are very much welcome!

[thephantomphish]

Hi everyone,

Following on from the recent BBC Full Steam Ahead documentary, which featured the Ffestiniog a lot in the first episode (and is well worth a watch for anyone interested in how the railways shaped industry - it should still be on iPlayer), it seems appropriate to provide another update on route progress.

Basically I have been detailing the areas that everyone will see but almost no-one will ever look at!
I have spent a lot of time over the last few weeks enhancing the distant scenery to eradicate several areas of barren snooker table surfaces. Most distant fields now have walls/fences and vegetation, as the original build showed where I'd just put a few trees down rather than modelling the look of the landscape properly. I'm very happy with the effect overall although there are still a few areas left to attend to. The town of Penrhyndeudraeth now looks far more real as well, the town being unique on the route in that the railway is high above it so it can all be seen, and some areas were far built too fictionally when checked with Google maps and streetview.

I have now got to the stage where almost every field is properly boundaried and almost every building is represented in the whole valley, with a few bits still left to do. One area that I want to add is the Manod end of Blaenau Ffestiniog, my original cutoff point having been the standard gauge viaduct but the area beyond looks empty so should really be done to match the level of detail of the rest of the route. Most of this effort will go un-noticed but has produced a far better overall 'world'.

Operations-wise not much has changed but I've smoothed out some gradient transitions, so whilst they are still semi-fictional the route should be more driveable as a result. Taking the DLG for a test run showed a few areas where the clearance was too narrow even by FfR standards - these have now (I think) all been corrected.
The next steps once the scenic enhancements have been completed will be to finally run it all through RWTools and swap out duplicate assets (I still haven't started on that yet!) and, if possible, reduce the number of route dependencies, although I suspect that each route has something which is needed for 'best effect'.

Release will still be a while off yet because when this does become available, it simply has to be good enough to do justice to the prototype!

Finally, to reward those patient enough to keep reading this thread, some more screenshots of the valley...

Minffordd area:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =730876644

Just above Penrhyn:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =730877255

Tan-y-Bwlch area:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =730877748

The valley below Dduallt:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =730878350

And finally, a bit of fun, a light engine test run with the DLG seen here near Rhiw Goch:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =730879791

It's getting there... slowly, but surely...

Thanks for the continued interest!


ThePhantomPhish

[xguerra]

Thanks for the update Steve! It looks better and better each time! (Jealous that Steve - other Steve - gave you a sneak preview of DLG).

Well it looks like the Corris Railway release is almost imminent so soon you'll be able to swap out a good number of those old Kuju and PP assets for some better ones.

[shawster]

Hello Steve,

Fantastic work. It'll certainly be interesting to see new assets in "Skyhook Game's" soon to be released 'Corris' railway route. They may come in handy!

Best wishes, S.

[thephantomphish]

The Corris route is now available... That's some time lost on distraction!! And I've a week in the Isle of Man from tomorrow too, both may slow progress down for a little bit!!

*** heads off to test the Corris locos when he should be packing for a holiday*** (and will be looking closely at assets and suchlike on the way)


ThePhantomPhish