Simpasture Junction update

As I've now managed to work out a more accurate track plan for Simpasture Junction I've revisited it and updated the signalling to be a little more prototypical. Although I've still some track alignment and (quite a bit of) landscaping to do, this section is now starting to look reasonably representative.

Here's the view looking north towards Simpasture Junction Box:





The junction proper. The leftmost lines form the Simpasture (Shildon-Newport) Branch, while the two rightmost lines are the (still in use) Bishop Auckland-Darlington line:



Looking south from the junction:



A DMU from Darlington heads for Shildon and Bishop Auckland:





A freight from Newport leaves the Simpasture Branch and joins the combined down line:

Beyond Shildon

Although I've not blogged for a while, I haven't been inactive (just a bit slow now the good weather is here, LOL).

The good news is that I've pretty much completed landscaping on the central area within the triangle formed by the Bishop Auckland - Shildon North, Bishop Auckland- West Auckland and West Auckland - Shildon North lines, and as a result I've been able to take a step back and work out what to do with the south eastern section of the route.

The end result of that is that rather than terminate the route just east of Shildon station as previously I've decided to bite the bullet and extend to just beyond Simpasture Junction to roughly where Newton Aycliffe is today. That has of course resulted in a whole host of extra work (new research, baseboards, DEM, tracklaying, texturing etc.) so there hasn't really been much worth showing until recently.

Fortunately that is now starting to change (although textures and vegetation are currently rather basic on this section, so please bear with me). So, without more ado, here's some new screenshots. :)

The Bishop Auckland - Darlington (left) and Shildon - Newport (right) lines diverged east of Shildon at what is now the site of Newton Aycliffe station. The latter were of course the subject of the pioneering NER 1500V DC electrification scheme in 1915:



Although the double track line on the left is still in use today the Shildon - Newport line closed in 1964.

Here's Simpasture Junction, where the two lines joined:









The line between Simpasture and Shildon was incredibly busy in pre-nationalisation days, and still retained five running lines until the mid 1960s. Looking east, the three leftmost lines (originated in Middridge Sidings) were dedicated to up freight traffic, with the second and third lines from the left both being electrified in NER days. The fourth line carried up traffic for Darlington whilst the rightmost (also electrified in NER days) carried both down traffic from Darlington and freight from Newport.



Looking the other way, the bridge in the centre of this view marks the entrance to Middridge Sidings (the easternmost extent of the Shildon Yards, and the first to go during rationalisation):



Of course, this does mean that I'm now committed to doing Shildon Yards as well...