North East England - Update

Last week I promised I would update you with where the North East England route is currently at with regards to release, so here we are.

I'm very pleased to report that the issues that caused the route to be delayed are now pretty much all sorted and we can now work towards a release. If all goes to plan there will be two streams in the coming 7-10 days and a first release of the route within a fortnight.

What I can say is that Middlesbrough will not now be part of this initial release and it is also likely the the full extent of the yard at York will not be included. Middlesbrough will now be added to the next release along with the addition of another of the many branches that will feature in future updates.

Despite the omission of Middlesbrough, there are still scenario opportunites that can utilise the Darlington to Eaglescliffe section of the route such as a full run of the Sunday only service between Darlington and Hartlepool and return, notably the only services that call at Tees-side Airport. This is on top of the multiple scenarios that can be created using both the East Coast Main Line between York and Darlington and the Durham Coast Line as far as Hartlepool.

The route requirements are also now final, these can be found on the North East England route page by clicking here.  People often ask if they will be missing a great deal if they don't have a certain requirement, but it's fair to say that if you don't own everything needed then it's likely you will be missing something integral to the route or the way it is intended to look.

To finish off, here are a few screenshots of the approaches to York.

York to Peterborough Modern - 2001 Era-Specific Quick Drive

Following the recent release and positive response to our era-specific quick qrive for the excellent Railways of Devon 1985 route by Vulcan Productions, we can now announce our next project in this series. Utilising the York to Peterborough Modern route from Creative Rail, this particular quick drive will feature trains from 2001. 

It was an era where the ECML was dominated by GNER but depending on how many of the requirements you have installed you will be sure to see variety. Start at York and you will see a colourful array of DMU's working local services, some still sporting several variants of their pre-privatisation liveries. 

Head towards Doncaster and you might spot a Virgin XC HST or even a Class 47 loco-hauled service, if you are lucky you might even spot one of their new 'Voyager' trains on a test run. Go further south and watch out for a wide range of different freight workings or even the occasional Hull Trains Class 170. All blueprints and fragments have been specifically created and markers placed to ensure that you will only see a particular type of train in the area of the route it would have been seen in real life.

This upcoming Quick Drive will feature in excess of 200 blueprints and fragments, with the system randomly spawning express and local passenger services, scheduled freight workings, engineering trains, light engine movements and much more. There are also a  range of more rare movements which may or may not appear in a given journey. There could be Class 90 locomotives in a variety of different liveries deputising for the Class 91 on GNER services. You may pass a Class 91 running blunt end first or even a Class 47 'Thunderbird' hauling a failed express.

More information and screenshots about this upcoming release will be shown on the blog over the coming weeks. I'm also very aware of several emails and comments coming my way with regards to the North East England route. There have been unforeseen setbacks but the route isn't too far away now. I'll try and post a more detailed update about the route in the coming days.

Railways of Devon 1985 - Era-Specific Quick Drive - New Version

It's been one of those days, we have learned things both here and at Vulcan Productions but we are finally there.

If you visit our Quick Drive page again by clicking here, the files now contain a fix for the time of day issue that would place you in darkness on mornings and nights.

What we are unsure about is whether you need to uninstall the old version or overwrite, there have been mixed results on this when testing the fix. I would recommend uninstalling to ensure you have a completely new copy of the files and i'd recommend doing it manually.

First, navigate to Steam\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Assets\DPSimulation and delete the folder named VPRoD_1985.

Then go to Steam\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content\Routes1b4b4613-f7f7-4c7f-9c0a-83aae3073788\Scenarios and delete the two folders named d69f47ec-e158-4eb9-9edb-4253036d8165 and efdf92cd-2fb7-4ad4-af73-eec99ae042b2.

Then install the newer 'v2' version of the files from the link above.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience today but we wanted to get a fix sorted and tested as quick as we possibly could.

Railways of Devon 1985 - Era-Specific Quick Drive - Crashes

Following some reports this morning at Vulcan Productions that the new Railways of Devon 1985 - Era-Specific Quick Drive was crashing for a small number of users, we have now located the issue. For some reason the patch for the 6MT Mk1 coaches would not install on certain systems due to permission issues.

We have now removed the patch and completely re-issued the coach pack. It is advisable that you first remove all folders from Steam\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Assets\RSC\6MTPack01 and leave only the .ap file in place. Then re-install the 6MT Blue Grey Mk1 coaches which can be found by clicking here. You should then be able to use the Quick Drive as we intended.

It should also be noted that due to an unforeseen quirk of how the QD was set up, certain times of day are much darker than normal. It is advised that any daytime driving is done between 10am and 5pm.

Railways of Devon 1985 - Era-Specific Quick Drive - Released

Following the announcement yesterday of the all new era-specific Quick Drive on the Vulcan Productions 'Railways of Devon 1985' route and the successful stream on Twitch last night, it has now been released.

As ever with Quick Drive, there are limitations to what can be achieved and it will be added to and refined in the future. Please make sure to have a read of the documentation provided with the download.

To download, visit the Quick Drive page by clicking here.

 

Railways of Devon 1985 - Era-Specific Quick Drive

Our first release of 2019 is set to be an all new era-specific Quick Drive on the Vulcan Productions 'Railways of Devon 1985' route.

It's basically Quick Drive as you already know it, but providing you have a selection of the requirements installed then this particular Quick Drive will only spawn rolling stock specific to the represented era, in this case 1985.

The beauty of this system is that you don't necessarily need all of the requirements, it should function in some form no matter what you own. Despite that, the more you do own should give a better experience with much more variety.

Around 160 blueprints and fragments are included, giving around 120 service variations that can be seen throughout the route. This means it should be fairly different no matter how many times you run it although there will inevitably be times where things can be duplicated. 

Due to the nature of how the randomisation works, some runs will have a low amount of traffic, some moderate and some quite heavy. 

There are express services formed of High Speed Trains in differing variations, Cross Country loco-hauled services with different forms of traction and local services that produce both loco-hauled and DMU variations. More rare spawns as you traverse the route could include freight and parcel services can also appear along with loco-hauled relief services and light engine movements. Certain variations of the loco-hauled local services also have a lower spawn rate to reflect locomotive liveries that were fewer in number.

All being well, this will be released tomorrow at both DPSimulation and Vulcan Productions and Tom from the VP team will be streaming the Quick Drive from 19:30 tonight on his Twitch channel. During the stream there will also be a giveaway for one free copy of the recently released RW Enhancer program.

 

Mindful that there is a current seasonal Steam sale on Train Simulator products that ends tomorrow, I have made the manual available on my website in case anyone wants to pick up any requirements they don't have. This can be found on the Quick Drive page by clicking here.