North East England - Last Night's Stream

A big thanks to all who turned out for the stream last night with Tom on Twitch, it was a very successful night and everyone who watched seemed to really enjoy it. Thanks to Tom for making time available to show the route.

Shortly after the stream, a video was also uploaded to Train Sim TV showing a portion of the route between Darlington and Seaton Carew, well worth a look!

North East England - Welcome to York

Welcome to York, the southern end (for now) of the North East England route. It's been a frantic few days getting this finished in anticipation of the next stream tomorrow night. Given the scenario featured in the stream will finish at York, it was pretty imperative to get the final major gap filled!

The stream will be on the Twitch channel of Tom from Vulcan Productions and will start at 7pm tomorrow night. Tom's channel can be found by clicking here.

North East England - York to Darlington Video

A video from Alan Thomson is now on Youtube showing the area streamed last Sunday, from York to Darlington and it can be seen above.

The route is still on course for a release next Friday (1st February) and Thomas from Vulcan Productions will be doing a further stream this coming Monday.

The route page is already available on my website should you wish to view the requirements needed. You can visit by clicking here.

 

North East England - Stream and Release

The first release of the route is now rapidly approaching and a stream is confirmed for next Monday (28th January) with Tom of Vulcan Productions where he will drive a Grand Central service from Hartlepool to York. If all goes well the route release will follow later that week. 

In the meantime, here are a few further screenshots.

 

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.