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I always said that when OTTD got a decent PBS patch working I would give it a try... well here it is.

Usual sort of stuff, just on a 512*128 map. I wonder how long it'll be before I get annoyed by the lack of signal restrictions, enhanced tunnels and custom bridgeheads?

Even if I could figure out how to compile things and as such add this new PBS patch to my game, I'm not sure I'd ever get used to the huge areas of un-signalled track, I think I'd get rather too confused.

I see you remembered to use Deutsche town names this time, well done

The previous game was to get used to PBS in OTTD. What follows now is basically one of my full blown mental networks on an OTTD large map. 512x128 (hell any bigger and I'd get lost). Hope you enjoy it and any requests should be posted.

1. Bottropp Spiral on the company's first line allowed trains to call at a well located station at Bottropp and climb the steep side of the valley to Erfurt without too much of a struggle 2. Plauen was awkwardly located for a through station but the company wanted the city to be part of a through intercity service without trains having to enter a terminus station and reverse. The result was this rather precarious location that would cause many issues later on. 3. Moenchengladbach is where the headquarters of the company are and where most of the growth is centred around. Here the modest station provides for all the services with spare capacity too. For now, at least.

4. Unsuprisingly, Moenchengladbach quickly needed more capacity as the city grew and the destinations that could be reached increased. Here is the rebuild. 5. This shot shows the awkwardness of Moenchengladbach's location, it lies on 2 very narrow headlands, a real headache for growth of a city and associated transport networks. 6. One solution was to build a new station in the north of the city to cater for traffic out to the northern shoreline communities. Trains from here will only ever be locals with the majority of traffic departing from the Hauptbahnhof to the south.

7. The new line sticks to the coast road before climbing it's way up a mountainside to Reutlingen. 8. An engineering headache at the other end of the map. A bloody costly one at that. 9. The peculiar set up at Saarbruecken where the electrified private line to the north and the state owned line to the south hug the valley sides. When the electrified line was bought out by the state, a rationalisation scheme went ahead...

10. The two lines before rationalisation began. 11. Stage one was to link the two lines. Here the last train is seen leaving the southern station at Dresden. In future all trains will terminate at the North station. 12. The south station at Dresden was quickly demolished to make way for development. Beyond the junction to the north of Dresden the two lines still operate seperately.

13. The line to the southern was electrified in phase 2 of the project and the northern line was ripped up. 14. Saarbruecken had never been a junction before but now was, a busy one at that as the number of trains had not decreased. 15. Land reclamation gets underway at Moenchenglenbach in prepartion for a new harbour to be built.

16. 2 years later and the harbour is a hive of activity. Local residents weren't best pleased however with the large amount of traffic now negotiating the city centre. 17. So an autobahn was built to avoid the city centre. Although not yet complete the first stage was complete, it required the closure of the local line to Dessau in order to accomodate it. 18. The problems at Plauen were becoming ridiculous so the company built a new terminus station nearer the city centre to help allieviate some of the probems. The line heading out to the north is the old line to Moenchengladbach while the line to the East is the more recent, more direct line.

19. The new direct line quickly became the main route and with a surge in traffic in the 50s and 60s and with the introduction of newer faster trains, the line was quadrupled. Here is Paderborn with a V200, a BR110 and two goods trains. 20. Well, nearly all of it was quadrupled 21. Recklinghausen was rebuilt as part of a reshuffle of services. Previously trains had run from Moenchengladbach through here, bottropp and on to Plauen. However in order to make timetabling easier the route was split. The previous 2 platform through station was rebuilt into this configuration with a through line maintained for freight and stock movements.

22. The situation at Plauen got to such a point that some serious work needed doing. As a result a new bridge was built and a 3rd platform added. It would have to do as there was physically no room for more without realigning the whole raiway onto a different route. 23. A BR103 enters Moenchengladbach on it's inaugural journey. 24. Hagen Marshalling Yard. The direct line to Plauen runs through the centre of the yard while the old line runs out at the top of the screen to Recklinghausen. Hagen yard is a transfer point for grain and livestock onto lorries to be taken to the food processing plant near the harbour (via the autobahn) and for goods from the harbour (brought in by train) to be transferred to the various cities across the map by train.

25. Dessau is a huge urban sprawl and the city's station is poorly located at the end of long tunnels and has sharp turns on it's approach. In an on going bid to make the railway a desirable alternative to the car the company strived to make journey times between Moenchengladbach and Plauen faster still. The solution? Build a 3rd route between the 2 cities. A new station would be built between Dessau and Heidelberg and run in an almost straight line to Plauen. (the location of the new station will be that wooded area, top left of the picture). 26. In the intervening years, more land reclamation took place in Moenchengladbach. 27. Finally after 6 years of wrangling with the authorities of Dessau and Heidelberg, the new line opens. From now on, the northern line via Bottropp and Recklinghausen will be known as the North or 'old' line. The 4 track mainline through the old station at Dessau will be called the Paderborn or 'freight' line and the latest line between the two will be known as the Heidelberg or 'fast' line.

28. With the opening of the Heidelberg line the amount of traffic on the Paderborn line dropped (the remaining traffic was were a handful of locals (from Moenchengladbach to Dessau, Paderborn and Plauen) and freight. All the expresses were routed via the new line. As all the traffic was now running at a similar speed it was deemed uneconomic to maintain the 4 tracks so the line was rationalised to 2 tracks. The tracks not in use have already been stripped of catenary and the tracks themselves will soon be lifted. 29. The tracks were lifted and at this point the old trackbed was converted to autobahn (the bridges had to be replaced but the tunnels were retained. 30. And Dessau station was returned to double track layout with the old platforms rebuilt as a bus/tram interchange. (note the stub of un-electrified track in the top right of the picture). It is what remains of the original Moenchengladbach to Dessau line which closed in the 40s to enable the construction of the Paderborn line.

31.The junction of the Heidelberg and Paderborn lines just outside Plauen was quite simply a poor job originally. The timetabling department had not thought about the trackwork when devising a service causing a large number of conflicts on the junction what with trains from the Heidelberg line wanting to access the terminus and freight from the Paderborn line wanting to access the through station. 32. A flyover was built to help with the situation (the abutments of which were already under construction in the previous shot. An addition line was added into the terminus station too. And FINALLY, the map.
33. Request whatever you want.

Very nice stuff Gavin! Will definitely take a leaf out of this book.

Good god man, have you been outside recently? Up to your normal chaotic standards though How have you found OTTD and its features?

Badger wrote:Good god man, have you been outside recently?

Nope.

How have you found OTTD and its features?

I'm getting used to it. Missing custom bridgeheads and enhanced tunnels but this implementation of PBS is very nice and makes for some nice compact station designs. Finally getting used to the hotkeys too because they are a bit different to TTDP. Ie, "X" is transparency, not "T". And blooming autorail. That is bugging me... Anyway. All is good! Will have to go back to TTDP to try out Canset 3.0 though. Looks very good

Ameecher wrote:.... Missing custom bridgeheads .....

Yeah, I noticed a rather horrific 90 degree turn in pic 6, Moenchengladbach north station

Badger wrote:

Ameecher wrote:.... Missing custom bridgeheads .....

Yeah, I noticed a rather horrific 90 degree turn in pic 6, Moenchengladbach north station

Yeah, I later moved the station down a row so that it was gone. I figured that as it was an approach to a station the speed would be low anyway so that it was acceptable

That's another nice feature of OTTD, the gradual stopping at station, it's nice to see a train approach the stop at a sensible pace, not at 125 and then it stopping in about 6ft of space.

Yeah that is nice, also that it stops in the middle of the platform, not right at the end, very nice that.

jvassie wrote:Yeah that is nice, also that it stops in the middle of the platform, not right at the end, very nice that.

It does? Must be using a different version to me then...