Paddington-Penzance Route: possible changes to track layouts

[perfnet]

I don't want to be seen as being publicly critical of the route in the main forums when I am most certainly trying not to be! I just have a thought or two about the Paddington-Penzance route and I would be grateful if people could let me know what they think.

Somewhere I read that the designer has said he wants to lock down the track layout so as to allow activities to be created on any future updates without any compatibility/versioning problems but I wonder if I can ask for this decision to be reconsidered precisely to allow for activities to be written with more ease...

For example, I recently created a steam Torbay express activity which originally started at Taunton. However, just before Exeter, the consist was breaking apart due to hitting a crossover at - I think - more than ten miles from the previous one. I know this can be fixed by increasing certain values in the wag files but given the amount of stock many people now have, some of it commercial, there are a lot of wag files to edit!

Additionally, there are other activities I have ideas for based on authentic services but the track layout will not support them. I am thinking of simply the addition of a crossovers at some stations to allow running round or reversing or perhaps some additional loops to allow overtaking traffic or some sidings at some stations to increase the potential for goods activities. Is this something that can be incorporated in future patches? It is an issue, I know, for activity writers whose work is already out there but, as other routes have been patched/extended, corresponding activities have had to be updated, too, so it is not an unprecedented issue to deal with. I am sorry to say that I am more interested in steam era activities!

Finally, I think it was written that the Tony Clarke 1947 GW atlas was used for the route but is the designer aware of the same author's more detailed series of track layout books which goes down to the level of showing individual sidings? Unfortunately, I don't think the series is complete and when I wrote to Tony Clarke he replied by saying he was not planning to publish any more for a while. However, there are a substantial number available.

If anyone wants more details as to what I am asking about I would be very happy to expand on the above. Please be assured I am not asking for major surgery!

What are the general opinions on this among people reading this?

Kind regards

Richard

[Tonysmedley]

Mixed feelings!
It is frustrating to want a crossover, for example, where there is not one for miles, but at the same time the prospect of not being able to run older actvities is also a pest.
But I don't know the answer.

[saddletank]

My view is that the crossovers should be added. If they are not then new activities over that section can never be written. Yes, old ones will need fixing but it's better to look forwards to the future use of the route than backwards to old activities on a 'broken' route (and I mean broken in it's strictest technical sense not in any disparaging way).

As to adding loops and sidings the route is huge and it's a vast amount of work to do everything. Perhaps as some of the branches are sceneried their track layouts can be reviewed so that each branchline becomes both activity ready and driving experience ready at the same time?

Obviously a long job and I'm not being critical of the team or assuming anything like this is easy.

Martin

[jbilton]

Hi
Its always personal opinion really, and generally route builders start to build a route that they would like, and does not exist.
Therefore they mostly build then to there own requirements.
I am not in a position to comment on the finer details of the GWR, but the route has always seemed one of the better ones to me.
I do know that one or two crossovers were added to a patch a while back, and Derick actually ran a thread asking for suggestions only the other week.
So he maybe open to persuasion
Cheers
Jon

[leezer3]

I vote for changing the track layout
Sometimes we have to move on, and to do this, we need to tinker with things. I would definitely be in favour of more sidings etc. that allowed better operation- At the mo, the route is only really a mainline route with not much pickup freight.

I do support the idea of moving along the line in sections, both scenerising and adding the additional track bits at the same time.

Whatever is decided, carry on with this great route.

Cheers

Chris Lees

[Iluka]

Hi All

Provided our "Expert" Bob Latimer - (our neighbour in New Zealand) can provide us with new Paths for the existing Activities if the Track Layout is modified I have no problems with the track changes.

Can you oblige Bob as I know you are busy??

Kindest Regards

Mike

[shroud]

So far the emerging consensus seems to be that there should be track changes, despite the difficulty with already written activities. I would go along with this. Recently I've been writing activities at the western end of the route and found the fairly sparse track layout rather restrictive. More crossovers, loops and sidings would enable far more varied activities to be created and enhance what is already a very considerable route. I don't underestimate the amount of work needed to update previous paths but on balance I think it would be worth it.

Mike

[saddletank]

At the mo, the route is only really a mainline route with not much pickup freight.

The thing is that pick-up freights were only ever local movements, they might venture only 10 or 20 miles at most from a yard and return. So if just one or at most two branch lines were made 'pick-up freight capable' (to whatever specification the authors consider that phrase to mean) then pick up freight working activities could be written for those locations. The main line almost never saw such trains, mainly trip freights, block freights and such like. For these the main line seems already suitable.

Martin

[ronald parkin]

Hi all, Don't agree. We buy the cd spend time installing all the patches, Download the activities,now it's suggested that Dericks great route should be messed about with.If I was Derick I would feel insulted,how many add on routes are ever complete,Take the Woodhead route V.1 and V.2 activities are not compatable,look at a route map and you can add sidings all over the place.Take the Mideast route that's being updated at the moment,you could extend it all over the place.I think that Derick has said that when he gets from V2.48 to V3.00 this will be brought on a new cd and that's it.Now Richard if you want to bring out a new Route called,say,
Great Western Branch lines,no problem,in fact great.

Regards

Ron P

[perfnet]

To be honest, it's not the branches I'm that interested in, but the main lines. On the main line in the steam era, not everything travelled the same distance. Not everything went to the same stations. Not everything travelled at the same speed. Not every train was formed in the same formation. Sometimes some services connected to other services at other stations, but a service an hour later made its connections at a different station. Then there were the through carriages that had to be shunted from one train to another. Parcels and goods that were dropped off at one station and tripped to another. These had to give way to other through services or had priority. Block freights are the norm these days. In the steam era, the exception didn't just test the rule, it was the rule.

Personally, I don't always want to just stick an engine in forward and watch the scenery go by. I want to be able to interact with the other traffic. I have only written three activities so far but they all involve assembling or disassembling of trains. I find the sameness of the modern railway dull. That is my own opinion.

I posed my question to Derick via PM initially to be honest and it was he who urged me to put the question to the forum publicly. I did not ask why. Perhaps, he wanted to see what the response would be from a wider audience. I don't know, I didn't ask but followed his suggestion. We have certainly received a number of different responses!

The popularity of a route is perhaps measured by how many activities get written for it. Well, I agree with you, Ron, this _is_ a popular route, so popular that we are all strongly minded about it. If I cannot get the crossovers that would make certain of my activity ideas possible, it will not stop me creating other activities. Please do not see this as criticism of the route. I want to write activities for it. I think it is a great route. It certainly appears to be the only one GW route of this magnitude that is available and actively being developed and I want to support that.

[ianmacmillan]

In steam days almost every signal box had a trailing crossover.

These were mainly used for single line working at the smaller boxes.

Pick up goods would frequently use them. It was common to leave a train at the last yard, run LBV to clear a congested yard, and then return for the train.

[saddletank]

Parcels and goods that were dropped off at one station and tripped to another. These had to give way to other through services or had priority. Block freights are the norm these days. In the steam era, the exception didn't just test the rule, it was the rule.

I'm going to disagree quite categorically with all of what you said there about freight working. On the GWR pretty much all freight wagons went from source (customer/producer) either loaded or empty to a main yard. At the main yard wagons would be sorted into local workings from that yard or into medium distance workings to lesser yards (trip workings). At these lesser yards the locals would run out and back. If you saw a goods train on the GWR in the 30s/40s actually dropping off or collecting wagons at a wayside station you could be sure this was a local pick up(*). It made no economic sense to work the railway any other way. The rest of the freight would rumble through from places like Acton to Swindon or Gloucester to Swansea in plain straight runs. If you want to do a pick up freight this route only needs one or two small regions updating to achieve the activity potential that the original poster requested.

On a route of this size you simply cannot expect 100% accurate trackwork - MSTS' brain would explode. And what is the use of accurate trackwork if you don't have accurate scenery. This route is a huge work in progress and many locations are representative of their real counterparts because MSTS just can't cope with (for example) an accurate layout of Old Oak Common or Swindon.

Certainly adding in crossovers at under 10 miles apart is one job to fix the broken couplers (and I think it's a welcome one), but adding in much more track is going to take literally months and during that time every activity written will be out of date by the next release.

Yes, we must accept activities will be outdated each time the route is worked on - or we accept a simplified track layout and enjoy what the authors have done. Or we wait 10 years for the whole thing to be fully accurate.

On one point we agree. Freights standing in passing loops while passenger or fast freights over take them. That would be a nice feature to be able to represent.

(*) I'm excluding special workings here - some such as horse boxes used to collect race horses or prize bulls from wayside stations might then go direct to source/destination but even these might also be tripped to a minor or major yard by a local pick up. Yes there will always be exceptions but all 'usual' freight was worked this way, but do we want to model a run like this all the time. This is a trick modellers do too much, making the unusual usual. It wasn't like that.

Martin

[perfnet]

perfnet wrote:
Parcels and goods that were dropped off at one station and tripped to another. These had to give way to other through services or had priority. Block freights are the norm these days. In the steam era, the exception didn't just test the rule, it was the rule.

Saddletank wrote:
I'm going to disagree quite categorically with all of what you said there about freight working.

Sorry, should have put in the bit about yard working, poor choice of wordage there.

[johncarr]

Perfnet - You have pms

Regards John Carr

[dwjoy]

Thank you to all who have taken time to contribute to this discussion. Let me answer a few specific points:
perfnet :- I believe John Carr will be asking for details on your derailment experience since we have no other reports of it.
- I never used the Clarke atlas - I used RA Cooke which must be similar I presume.

leezer3:- "At the mo, the route is only really a mainline route "
Yes - Paddington to Penzance IS the mainline, however, some sections, notably in Cornwall, have extensive sidings and I personally know several users who are happily shunting clay from named sidings in the Burngullow vicinity to Par Harbour or the port of Fowey, returning empties, etc and mixing in some mainline running. However, I understand that not all users want to move clay around and I do take the point that there are probably hundreds of little sidings that are not in the model. Whether MSTS could accomodate all of them without crashing is another issue. I have already noticed that the Activity Editor has a problem sometimes in drawing all the points, signals, platforms, etc.

Now the big issue - track changes. I did promise that as of 2.4, there would be no more track changes so activity writers could be assured that any activity they uploaded would continue to run on any post 2.4 release.This was in response to many posts like this one from Lad491:


"When i received my copy of PP2 it was my intention to set about writing some activities for it. However because the trackwork is still under development, there is little point in doing so yet as subsequent patches destroy the activities. SO im holding fire at the moment. As soon as I hear that the trackwork is complete and not likely to change I'll have a go at writing some new activities."

There are, of course, several reasons to go ahead with track changes and they are all rather self evident. However, I am still concerned with the majority of users (hundreds of them) who rely on public activities or who write their own but never upload them. To implement track changes would mean that their activities would not work after a patch until they were fixed by the authors(assuming they are still interested) and re-uploaded. This depressing prospect would be repeated for each patch so in effect, the route would be unstable for many months. I am not prepared to do that after giving my assurance that the track would be stable. So... no track changes for Version 2. However...... with an eye to the future and the coming Kuju Train Simulator, IF MSTS routes are portable (or mostly so) to the new rail simulator, then John Carr and I would be prepared to develop Version 3 of GWR which would have extensive track changes plus whatever other enhancements that the new system might permit.

Derick