Spennymoor line update

I'm still landscaping along the fringes of the Spennymoor line, but making pretty good progress now (just Binchester Colliery, Coundongate Village and Auckland Park to do on this section).

Here's an updated set showing the section between Coundon and Byers Green:














The section south from Coundon is now quite well advanced, as these show:





Finally, this is where the Bishop Auckland - Spennymoor line (left) meets the Bishop Auckland - Shildon line (right):



Although the Spennymoor line was actually single tracked from Bishop Auckland East Junction, I've found that a loop here helps to keep the AI happy (if I find a way around this later, it will obviously be removed).

Taking the 9F for a walk in the park...

An early morning run from Burnhouse Junction to Canney Hill on the (work in progress) Spennymoor - Bishop Auckland line:



Rounding the curve at Burnhouse Junction






Passing through Byers Green







Accomodation bridges in Bishops Park








Coundon Station




Approaching Canney Hill

As you can hopefully see, this line is now coming along rather nicely. :)

Frogging

If Trainz has one very noticeable defect, it's that it is far harder than it should be to include accurate trackwork in a route. Although by and large Trainz makes developing trackwork very easy (trackwork is normally laid using splines and Surveyor automatically creates junctions when track splines meet), it does not include support for animated junctions "out of the box".

Here's an example of basic spline based points:



Although solutions exist, they are version dependent, require scripting and are often quite fiddly to set up. For example, andi06's excellent "Junction Kit" requires that "invisible track" be used to wire up each junction. If that isn't offputting enough, the scripts it uses are (apparently) broken in TRS2009 (the latest version of Trainz). The bottom line is that this really needs to be built into the game engine itself.

Hence it shouldn't be a surprise that quite early on I decided to pass on the junction kit, and just "get used" to the default behaviour. Annoying, but not fatal by any means.

However, this week I discovered a really simple way of making things look just a little more prototypical, albeit without animated junctions themselves. Here's the end result:



The only change here is the use of a pair of additional objects by Frank_Dean for each point, implemented as track objects (so they slide along the rails and take the same height as the track itself). The objects I've used here in this particular crossover are:

• Turnoutfrog-2gray-left-SG


• Turnoutfrog-2gray-right-SG


• Turnoutfrog-3brown-left-SG


• Turnoutfrog-3brown-right-SG

Finally, here's the same view as the first screenshot, with the modified trackwork.



Not a huge change, but a noticeable one.

Spennymoor to Byers Green

The Spennymoor - Bishop Auckland line closed to passengers in 1952 (although occasional miners/football specials ran until 1963), and freight in 1966. Unlike the Bishop Auckland-Durham line it was mostly single track and I imagine had a very traditional branch line flavour. Unfortunately information on this line is quite hard to come by so I've had to make some educated guesses.

This set of screenshots shows the northern end of the line (Spennymoor - Byers Green); once I've made a bit more progress on the scenery on the southern end I'll show some shots on that bit too. I've used the BR Blue era in these shots as a "might have been" but I'm sure it would look just as good with an ex-NER G5 and a short rake of push-pull coaches... ;)



A ballast train traverses the double track section west of Spennymoor (where the portal terminating this part of the line is located) bound for Bishop Auckland.



Approaching Burnhouse Junction, where the NER Todhills branch (which served the original Byers Green station) used to diverge. The line to Bishop Auckland curves to the left.



Approaching the "new" Byers Green station.



Entering the avoiding line at Byers Green. From what I can tell from old maps this section was actually single track throughout, but I've added the avoiding line for operational flexibility.







Waiting for the road at Byers Green. From here to Coundon is again single track.

...and finally, someything a bit arty:



Next up: The line south to Coundon.

BR Blue around Hunwick and Rough Lea

As promised on the Auran forums I've now done a little tuning on the trackwork (and some tweaks to the scenery while I was in there) on the area around Hunwick and Rough Lea, so here's another update.

For this one I've bent history a little and gone BR Blue (in reality the Durham-Bishop Auckland line closed in 1968) but it's certainly a very interesting "might have been".



The same location as the last shot in the previous set, but showing off a rake of the TC3 team's excellent Mk1s which just happened to be passing by...



The realigned trackwork at Hunwick looking north (I'm still not sure about that crossover, though) with shunting discs now in place. The line to the right is the one in the foreground of the first picture.

There's also now an InvisiCAB floating in front of the signal box for those "screenshot moments".



Looking south this time, a Gateshead based class 46 heads north with an ore train. I always did like the look of this style of headcode on these locos.

From memory the 46's were a little maligned in the North East around 1980 because as so many of them were based at Gateshead they appeared very regularly in the area. I did like them, though.



A very unusual visitor: the unique Tinsley based 47901 sits in one of the sidings at Hunwick with an MGR train.



A class 20 "Whistling Wardrobe" leads a short train of HTV hoppers towards Rough Lea Colliery as a Metro-Cammell DMU heads south with a local service. I saw one of these locos at the Swanage diesel gala in May; it brought back some great memories. :)

Incidentally there's an InvisiCAB in front of this signal box (Rough Lea Junction), too.



58001 heads north past the brickworks and colliery.




A couple more views of Perchpole's 46 north of Rough Lea. It's such a great looking model that it really does deserve a closer look! :)

A bit of prehistory: The NER Todhills and Newfield branch

As promised, here are a few pictures of the long closed Clarence Railway/NER Todhills branch:



Burnhouse Junction, where the newer Spennymoor-Bishop Auckland line (left) diverged away from the Todhills branch (right) to Newfield and Willington. The trackbed here is now part of the Auckland Way.



The branch was notable for its extreme inclines - the worst of which was a 1 in 16 (!!) from just outside Todhills station down to the River Wear. The section between Burnhouse Junction and Todhills (shown here) had far less extreme gradients.




Todhills station closed in 1867, but the engine shed remained open until 1922, and goods traffic continued into the 1930s. The station buildings themselves were still intact in the early 1950s at least.



A spur leading to the colliery and brickworks at Newfield diverged from the branch before it reached the Wear. By 1900 the inclines and colliery were gone and the track from the brickworks to the incline - shown here - had been cut back to a spur at the bottom of the hill.



Newfield brickworks. There's an industry enabled coal drop-off and goods pick-up amongst the sidings.



If you walk along the line from the brickworks this is where you'll end up after crossing the river.



The Newfield branch rejoins the Bishop Auckland-Durham line at Hunwick. Incidentally, the blue 31 is a hint as to the era I'll be showing in the next set of screenshots. ;)

Hunwick/Rough Lea Update

It's been a little while since I posted anything (been planting trees and cultivating the shrubbery...) but telegraph poles aside I'm getting to the end of the landscaping at the north end of the Durham line now.

Here's a few from that area:


An English Electric type 4 heads south past Rough Lea Colliery.



A Black 5 heads south past the farmer's crossing between Rough Lea and Hunwick. The line to Rough Lea Brickworks can just be seen on the left near the signals.



Looking the other way from the crossing in the picture above. Hunwick goods yard is just visible in the distance.



An English Electric Type 3 on a Carlisle-Eastgate cement waits for the road at Hunwick while a DMU heads north with a Durham service.



Looking the other way from the signal box, a Deltic passes through with a diverted ECML express (a reasonably regular Sunday occurance on the line until it finally closed to freight in 1968) while a Brush Type 2 waits in the sidings.



Another Eastgate bound cement, this time seen south of Hunwick.



Beware of the flowers!

The line on the left of the picture is the branch from Hunwick goods yard to Newfield brickworks, which originally went on to link with the NER Todhills branch (notable for its 1-in-16 rope worked incline from the banks of the river Weir to the summit at Toddhills itself).

Next up: Burnhouse Junction and the Toddhills branch. :)