Great Britain in OpenTTD. All of it.

[Uraby210]

Hello! This is my first time ever posting on here, but I thought your community might be interested in what I've been doing with OpenTTD.

Basically, I've built the railways of Great Britain. All of them.

I'll post some screenshots, please let me know what you think.

[Pilot]

I want to be really picky with these screenshots and correct all the minor inaccuracies you've made, however, I sense the complete realism isn't exactly what you're going for here. This does however, look very good, though it seems to be rather lacking in trains.

One or two things I will say though with some mistakes you've made that do bug me are:
- The Carlisle Line from Newcastle leaves the ECML at King Edward Bridge South Jn, with Norwood Jn being where a single line from Tyne Yard joins the Carlisle line.
- The Harrogate Line from York leaves the ECML at Skelton Jn, with Skelton Bridge Jn being where the slows swap sides.

[Uraby210]

I want to be really picky with these screenshots and correct all the minor inaccuracies you've made, however, I sense the complete realism isn't exactly what you're going for here.

No, you're right, I have fudged the geography a little bit here and there. I'm focussing on the network itself more. I've included every line and every passenger station, and tried my hardest to include as many named junctions, tunnels, level crossings and goods yards as possible.

This does however, look very good, though it seems to be rather lacking in trains.

The trains aren't running yet, I'm still working out the national timetable.

One or two things I will say though with some mistakes you've made that do bug me are:
- The Carlisle Line from Newcastle leaves the ECML at King Edward Bridge South Jn, with Norwood Jn being where a single line from Tyne Yard joins the Carlisle line.

Thank you, that's exactly the kind of helpful feedback I was hoping to get from this community. The Forth Banks line has been a particular source of confusion for me.

- The Harrogate Line from York leaves the ECML at Skelton Jn, with Skelton Bridge Jn being where the slows swap sides.

So what's the junction leading to the museum called then?

Have a few more screenshots, since I'm here.

[Pilot]

One or two things I will say though with some mistakes you've made that do bug me are:
- The Carlisle Line from Newcastle leaves the ECML at King Edward Bridge South Jn, with Norwood Jn being where a single line from Tyne Yard joins the Carlisle line.

Thank you, that's exactly the kind of helpful feedback I was hoping to get from this community. The Forth Banks line has been a particular source of confusion for me.

Which one exactly is the Forth Banks line? It's not a name I recognise, but it's possible I call it something different in my line of work.

- The Harrogate Line from York leaves the ECML at Skelton Jn, with Skelton Bridge Jn being where the slows swap sides.

So what's the junction leading to the museum called then?

The Line into the Museum come out the back of the yard. The Slow (freight) line around the back of York Station leaves the ECML at Holgate Jn on the south end, and rejoins again at Skelton Jn (as you have it in your screenshot), off this slow line, there are 2 further junctions, that lead you into the Yard, creatively named York Yard North and York Yard South (exciting, I know ) It's from the Yard that the NRM is accessible.

A bit of feedback with regards to the latest batch of Screenshots:
Manchester Area - I'm shocked to see 6 tracks between Piccadilly and Castlefield Jn (which is double track IRL). Also, the two tracks that come out of Victoria and head towards Ordsall Lane Jn should also have wires, as that's electrified IRL. I'm not sure as to where "Cornbrook Junction" is, I assume you've used this as a placeholder name for the future Junction of the Ordsall Chord? Also, Mosley Street tram stop no longer exists.
Scottish area - This isn't my area at work, however, I've just had a look at my track diagrams, and the junction and tunnel names all seem to be pretty accurate in these areas.

[Uraby210]

Yeah...perhaps I should have added a caveat that some parts of my network design may be slightly aspirational in nature. If you look carefully at the top of the York screenshot you may notice the edge of a station at Haxby.

Which one exactly is the Forth Banks line? It's not a name I recognise, but it's possible I call it something different in my line of work.

forthbanks.png (40.47 KiB) Viewed 920 times

Do you know if anyone has ever tried to replicate Britain's railway in this level of detail before? I've had a look around this site and seen a few savegames that prioritised geographical accuracy over railways, but nothing quite the same as what I've got here.

[Pilot]

Which one exactly is the Forth Banks line? It's not a name I recognise, but it's possible I call it something different in my line of work.

forthbanks.png

Okay, so that's freight branch that's not even a mile long. Leaves from Newcastle West Jn, appears to be a couple of sidings down there, but I'm not sure whether it's in use or not.

Do you know if anyone has ever tried to replicate Britain's railway in this level of detail before? I've had a look around this site and seen a few savegames that prioritised geographical accuracy over railways, but nothing quite the same as what I've got here.

I've seen a few people doing it, I myself was going to attempt it at some point with all the different TOCs, FOCs, etc, but haven't found the time.

[Uraby210]

The main hang-up that I have (and I imagine might put a lot of people off) is that there aren't enough company slots in the game for all the TOCs. I've got around that by making a few companies share. This is how I've laid it out:

Company 1 (Mauve): First Great Western
Company 2 (Red): South West Trains
Company 3 (Pale Green): Thameslink (including Southern)
Company 4 (Dark Blue): Southeastern
Company 5 (Pink): First TransPennine Express
Company 6 (Light Blue): Arriva Trains Wales
Company 7 (Blue): British Airways (comprises Heathrow Connect, Stansted Flyer and Gatwick Express)
Company 8 (Grey): Crosscountry (includes Grand Central)
Company 9 (White): East Midlands Trains (includes Nottingham Express Transit)
Company 10 (Purple): Abellio Northern (includes Merseyrail, Virgin East Coast, Tyne & Wear Metro, Sheffield Supertram and Manchester Metrolink)
Company 11 (Dark Green): Abellio Scotrail (includes Caledonian Sleeper, Glasgow Metro and Edinburgh Trams)
Company 12 (Orange): London Transport
Company 13 (Green): London Midland (includes Virgin West Coast and Midland Metro)
Company 14 (Brown): Chiltern Rail
Company 15 (Cream): National Express (comprises Greater Anglia, C2C and National Express coaches)

I've been working on this for a few years now, and I realise some franchises have changed colour and/or changed hands, but there's not much point in majorly rejigging the line-up unless somebody releases a version of OpenTTD with more company slots. I don't know much about programming, but I know enough to understand that that would be a MAJOR undertaking. So this is the best compromise.

[Kevo00]

This is pretty awesome work, regardless of how accurate it is! Intense levels of commitment required here.

Forth Banks was basically the original route of the Newcastle-Carlisle line until BR closed the Scotswood Railway Bridge across the Tyne in 1982. It was cut back and as far as I'm aware what's left is usually used for stock stabling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_Valley_line

[EXTspotter]

If you want to be incredibly nit-picky; the Guildford - Effingham Junction line should be electrified, the Guildford to Redhill line shouldn't be between Shalford Junction and Reigate and your Brighton picture is missing the Cliftonville Curve (Preston Park to Hove) and all the lines should be electrified. Other than that it looks really cool!

[Pilot]

your Brighton picture is missing the Cliftonville Curve (Preston Park to Hove) and all the lines should be electrified. Other than that it looks really cool!

My guess is that the Cliftonville Curve is also Lovers Walk in this case, as you could effectively run a train through it. Of course, it should be just south of Preston Park Station, but looks like Space is a bit prohibitive.

[Uraby210]

If you want to be incredibly nit-picky; [...] the Guildford to Redhill line shouldn't be between Shalford Junction and Reigate

Well...where should it be, then?

[EXTspotter]

Missed a word; shouldn't be electrified between shalford junction and Reigate.

There aren't a massive number of unelectrified lines in that area; the only ones I can think of in the 3rd rail sea are Hurst Green Junction (near Oxted) to Uckfield, from the eastern end of Ore station to near Ashford International and two sections of the North Downs line; from Wokingham after the Reading to Waterloo line splits off to Ash where the Aldershot to Guildford line joins and from Shalford Junction to West of Reigate station.

[Uraby210]

Missed a word; shouldn't be electrified between shalford junction and Reigate.

There aren't a massive number of unelectrified lines in that area; the only ones I can think of in the 3rd rail sea are Hurst Green Junction (near Oxted) to Uckfield, from the eastern end of Ore station to near Ashford International and two sections of the North Downs line; from Wokingham after the Reading to Waterloo line splits off to Ash where the Aldershot to Guildford line joins and from Shalford Junction to West of Reigate station.

I've been treating electrification as basically cosmetic. And by that, I mean that I've been using whichever train-type looks like it fits best on each route (based on my own half-remembered train journeys as a child, Video 125 driver's-eye-view films and a lot of wild guesswork) and only electrifying lines that need it.

I figured I might as well do that, since I can't have third-rail electric anyway, only overhead, there was no point in trying to get that aspect of the network precisely right.

Have a few more screenshots, since I'm here.

You may notice that I've also done local buses in certain areas.

[hazell.thomas1]

Please could you post a save file of the game?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Uraby210]

Please could you post a save file of the game?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Sorry, I don't want to do that while it's still a work-in-progress.

Sent from my PC using fingers and a keyboard and some internet magic

[Pilot]

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

Sent from my PC using fingers and a keyboard and some internet magic

Now, now, don't be rude. That "Sent using Tapatalk" thing is the same as when you send an email from an iPhone, and get "Sent from my iPhone", I always feel it's rather unprofessional when that's on work emails though

I figured I might as well do that, since I can't have third-rail electric anyway, only overhead, there was no point in trying to get that aspect of the network precisely right.

Search for UKRS Finescale tracks (maybe just "Finescale Tracks") - These were made by Pikkabird to go with his UKRS2 project, and include third rail tracks. Alternatively, I believe NuTracks also has third rail.

[NekoMaster]

Yes, NuTracks has third rail and combined third rail and overhead electrified lines, but you have to manually enable metro/third rail because the detection for 3rd rail enabled train sets doesnt seem to work anymore.