Transport Tycoon Forums

Hi!

I’ve not played TT in any form for months, maybe years. Real life comes along and sweeps away those halcyon days of staying up until silly o’clock perfecting your networks, playing until the birds are singing and the mere gloominess of dawn cuts through the black of night. Now I snatch an hour of free time to do things like housework, or shopping...

But having recently acquainted myself with the astounding work of one andythenorth, I was tempted into having a go again. FIRS and the new Iron Horse alpha look very delicious indeed, and - despite being a man of the old school and venturing little further than the dependability of PikkaBird’s sets - I felt I had to come and chance my hand once more. So I dusted down my now ten year old laptop, sorted myself out a fresh JGR PP install and all the latest mod cons, and off I went (totally ignoring the fact Andy himself said stick to 1950 ...)

So far I’m much enjoying the bunker first tank engine running and variable wagon liveries and carriage appearances. To the action...

1. Barnsley Bridge
The Barnsley and Worsbrough Railway, founded in 1860, began life transporting coal and iron ore to the mills of Barnsley Woods. Once established the company began to seek additional methods of income, buoyed by the success of the mineral deliveries. Taking on the stagecoaches, the company lay metals on a bridge over its own tracks in a bid to connect Barnsley with the local population centre Folkestone. Initially separate, the commencement of a dairy supply from Barnsleydale Creameries to Folkestone necessitated the construction of St Andrews Chord.

In this busy shot, we see 4-4-2T Lark No 102 with a combined passenger and parcels train passing the waiting 0-6-0 Gwynt No 7 with empty dairy vans. The Gwynt is waiting for classmate No 9 to clear the junction of its coal train for the furnaces.

2. Forest Junction
From the humble beginnings of a west-east plain line, Forest Junction has grown into a flat four way affair, connecting the mainline, which turns north here, with branches to Barnsleydale Creamery and Carrington Colliery. We catch up with No 7 again as it turns south on to the Creamery branch. Classmate No 5 clears the junction with a mill bound coal train, whilst No 3 draws to a stop at the North Main signal box awaiting its own entry on to the branch with vans loaded with milk churns.

The dairy vans to Folkestone were initially booked to use a Lark tank, but the long train left the engine struggling and causing delay, and the Gwynt reigned supreme once more.

3. Worsbrough industries
North of the market town of Worsbrough, the line runs out, decanting trains to the cattle market, dairy farm and a scrap yard. In addition, the yard at the market has narrow gauge lines which use small 0-6-2T Cheese Bugs to bring in cattle from the farm. Even at this point in history, a steam tramway or even steam powered road vehicle might be the more obvious option, but the popularity of the market and the ensuing train loads meant a narrow gauge line was more appropriate. The line crosses the “big” Railway by way of a wooden trestle bridge, before descending into the yard at Worsbrough Vale.

In this shot, 0-6-2T Sally is doing just that, whilst a loaded milk train powers south. Behind it, yet another Gwynt (No 8 ) draws a weekly scrap metal train for repurposing at Barnsley.

Welcome back to the madness!

Is this a HAPPY NEW YEAR! resolution?

Dave wrote:Real life comes along and sweeps away those halcyon days of staying up until silly o’clock perfecting your networks, playing until the birds are singing and the mere gloominess of dawn cuts through the black of night. Now I snatch an hour of free time to do things like housework, or shopping...

I know the feeling...

Great shots of a 19th-century nature, though! Signal box placement seems to be a Dave speciality.

wallyweb wrote:Is this a HAPPY NEW YEAR! resolution?

I couldn’t possibly comment

Meanwhile... Grown a bit!!! (1872)

It's nice to see new screenshots from you from time to time. Excellent work .

Dave wrote:

wallyweb wrote:Is this a HAPPY NEW YEAR! resolution?

I couldn’t possibly comment

Meanwhile... Grown a bit!!! (1872)

It looks like the North Sea was drained. At least there's no more Channel Tunnel at Folkestone.

Maps looking pretty lit right now, I must say.

Wooo welcome back bro

We go again... New Iron Horse. New Map.

And this one offered a great string of towns along a peninsula, which meant I extended very quickly beyond my usual freight railway... And the Freckleton and Witham Rly was born. I started in 1925. These shots are from 1931.

At Freckleton, the future is already in hand - the station currently only operates trains to the west, but this will be rectified in the coming years. When done so, the line to Freckleton's British Steel site will also be extended to form freight lines around the station. No trains in that pic though!
At the north end of the line, the railway serves the city of Wimborne, which sits high on Wimborne Head. Taunton is relatively close by, and also has the benefit of being much more suitable for a harbour. Here we see trawlers coming in from the fishing grounds, ready to offload their catches. On the quay, one of the railway's Express Fish trains awaits loading - these trains run fast to Freckleton providing the company's headquarter town with fresh fish from the coast.

Beautiful harbour branch. And is that the tail-light of a brake van disappearing into Freckleton BSC Reception Yard?

It was indeed Kev.

I'm really enjoying this game; although I'm not expanding at any great rate, it's keeping me busy... as you'll see by the end of this post...

16 years after inception, the Freckleton and Witham had become the Midland Railway. Retaining Freckleton as a base (despite its less than optimal potential for growth), the company expanded via the construction of a "Cross Country" line between Bristol and Cambridge, and an extension of the main line to Scarborough - a highly significant city.

The towns along the main line had developed significantly in that time. The Midland's prosperity had reached a peak to assist the Wimbourne-Taunton joint council with a land reclamation programme, which promised to greatly increase population around the railway's two stations in the area. In this 1941 photo, the development of this reclaimed land was now in full swing.
The ambitions of the Midland had switched from exploring eastward expansion via Redcar and Cambridge to a westward approach, largely to take advantage of industry in the west country. This had the advantage of reaching the progressive town of Bristol in 1934, at which point a 3 line station became a temporary western terminus, reached via the market town of Orrell.
At a similar time, the main line expanded. First, north east to reach the ancient city of Cambridge per the Midland's original expansion plan, and then to the south to connect with the city of Scarborough, via Workington. Freckleton itself had changed hugely in this time, now becoming the convergence point of 4 railway lines, with an additional freight requirement. In this shot, the venerable 2-6-0 Braf Nos. 171 and 172 cross paths on their regular runs from Redcar pit, whilst a 4-6-0 Upcountry No. 228 steams north out of Freckleton station. 2-8-2 Pegasus No 1001 sneaks into shot with a Pullman service from Wimbourne, whilst a pair of 0-8-0 Haars sit in the brand new departure sidings loading steel coils for a long run down to the west country (of more later).
This modern shot of Scarborough shows the extent of the city, as 4-6-0 Upcountry No. 224 arrives with a Marine Line service from Bristol. An intensive bus service has been launched by the company to bring passengers to the newly expanded and rather grand station.
The aforementioned Marine Line was constructed in the late 1930s to connect Bristol and Scarborough directly. A largely coastal line, a number of significant civil engineering works were involved as it progressed across the estuaries to Bristol, via Middlesbrough. By this time, Bristol's standing had expanded in both the railway and national sense. The city had now become a hub for a number of lines across the west country to Ripon (a single line shuttle), Quemerford (in the extreme west) and Ickornshaw (hugging West Bay). These lines are largely serviced by experimental DMUs, although occasional through Scarborough services appear with steam, as diesel trains aren't yet permitted east of Bristol.

In the Quemerford shot, 107102 (3-car) and 107001 (2-car) arrive on a morning service from Bristol over the Quemer Viaduct.
Perhaps more importantly, the Bristol shot is full of action. 107105/107003 arrive at Weston Park on a pickup-only assignment on the way to Quemeford, whilst 107103/107004 loads in platfom 3 ahead of a trip to Ickornshaw, which will take it over Weston Park and call at Bradley Cross before heading up to the coast. Meanwhile a 2-6-2T Merrylegs, fresh from a run from Quemeford, loads ahead of a trip down the Marine Line, but will be checked by a Cross Country express to Cambridge in platform 4. The recently completed Freckleton Freight line, which runs past the Iron Ore Mine at Workington, can also be seen sneaking behind the trainsheds at Bristol Up Shed.
Perhaps the catalyst in drawing the attentions of the Midland west was the newly signed agreement with Anderson Fabrications which produce steel goods at their metalworks. This lucrative traffic tipped the balance for the Midland in seeing Bristol, rather than Cambridge, as the next logical step in expansion.
And the by now obligatory Visio route map:

Delicious!

You can build bridges over stations now? What is this witchcraft!?

Ameecher wrote:You can build bridges over stations now? What is this witchcraft!?

Yep I didn’t believe it either but whaddyaknow... lots of clipping issues mind.

Dave wrote:

Ameecher wrote:You can build bridges over stations now? What is this witchcraft!?

Yep I didn’t believe it either but whaddyaknow... lots of clipping issues mind.

Surely a feature of the JGR patch pack, I suspect? I don't think I can do it in my vanilla games.

Yes thought I’d made it clear I was using that

There is a reworked version of Industrial Stations Renewal which supports the new bridge-over-stations feature. No other stations sets support it yet, so there will be clipping issues.

I mean the general appearance is fine, it’s just when trains use it.

To be honest I don’t really care as it makes such a difference.

Ameecher wrote:You can build bridges over stations now? What is this witchcraft!?

It all began with a sorcerer named Cirdan casting spells in a cauldron called New Map Features. An Angel named JGR saw that it was good and packed it into his patch pack, bells and whistles and all with some extra to boot. A station, should it so choose, can have its author submit it to a bridgeability spell. A cad named wallyweb chose to mess with this a bit and, with mart3p's kind permission, did bend ISR into submission. Unfortunately that cad named wallyweb is not conversant in Bananaspeak and pending the arrival of one who is so inclined, that tricky ISR is available here or here.

Note that one Michael Blunck knows of the spells of which we speak, and has enabled his cauldron called m4nfo but as far as we are aware he has not yet cast the spell upon newstations. One should contact him for a status report.