Steam fans: Pick your favourite loco.

As some of you might have read in another forum here, I've been working on a fictional TRS 2006 route for some time, which I've tentatively called Project: Halsiburg. I'm going to post screenshots in the screenshots forum at some stage.

After about 10 months of work it will be ready for an experimental alpha release in a couple of months and I now have some idea where the project is going.

I have recently decided to add a transport museum (Halsiburg Transport Museum) to my layout, just outside the main city in the route (Halsiburg). I have also decided that it will connect via it's own preservation line, to both the route main line, some otherwise unused track and some freight backlines.

Thusly, despite the route being very modern and posh, I will have the scope to add a steam engine and some old carriages, to run as "special" over a course of up to 80km. I have finally decided to use the stock BR Mark 1 coaches and a stock steam engine. My signals are primarily on the left hand side of their tracks, the locos with a right hand view from the cab - all the North American locos and the Fowler 4F - have been ruled out as they would require and obscene amount of resignalling.

The "special" steam engine is therefore down to four candidates, and I'd to hear from steam fans as to which you would prefer to take on a long activity/drive.

LNER A4 Mallard
LNER A3 Flying Scotsman
Gresley A3 BR Green
SNCF 231K Noire

You would require re-signalling for those locos. Just a good driver and fireman

That said, I'll go with LNER A3 Flying Scotsman, although you would be better off selecting Paul's higher quality version from the DLS

I would suggest the VR R class or VR J class from the DLS (both built by the North British Loco company for the Victorian Railways in Australia, and atleast one of each would have done a test run in the UK, plus R class #704 was displayed at the Festival of Britain...). Or even the VR N class locos, since they were also Nth British built locos All are left hand drive too Problem? Waaaaay out of british loading gauge if memory serves me right...
Zec

My choice would be to do with the type of trains you intend to run over your layout.
The A4,A3s,A2s, and A1s 4-6-2 (Gresley and Peppercorn designs). Were locomotives designed primarily for X-press main line passenger/mail use.

My choice would have been a locomotive for mixed traffic use, i.e. The V2 2-6-2. Gresly design, or the the 'Stanier Black 5' 4-6-0 ex L.M.S.

Though there are a host of other designs which would include the 2-10-0 and 2-8-0 types which were designed specifically to haul heavy mineral traffic. Though I'm not sure if these other models are ready made for trainz 2006 use?

Well, the route is not location specific - as a matter of fact it's bits of everything thrown in to make something different.

Perhaps I should have been more clear about precisely what I want the steam engine to do.

Halsiburg will be set in modern times - hence steam engines will not be anyone's mode of transportation - that will be left to the route mainline, a quad track electrified line that will be at least 60km long when finished, I have a couple of AI diesel trains running coal from the mines to 2 power stations, electric trams and a metro system, and regional express services will most likely be either TGVs or a trainset lead by Re460s, with commuter services led by a slower EMU trainset.

The steam engine will be a deliberate anachronism - a railway museum with it's own preservation line and connection to the mainline will run the steam engine and some old coaches as a special train. The special will start about 30 kilometers away halfway across the map at the terminus of the mainline, diverge from the mainline, run around various off-mainline tracks before taking it's passengers to the museum yard. The engine will most likely be pulling a small number of Mark 1 coaches.

That's why the steam engine must have a left hand cab view - I'm not willing to resignal the main line.

The route the special will take (at minimum) involves, 30 km of mainline running, a 12 km roundtrip (6km each way, including a manul turnaround on abandoned line and 8km of running on the museum's line. If I bring freight trackage in that area into the equation, that could add up to 20km to the schedule.

So I guess "mixed use" is a good term for it - a relatively light load, no real need for speed as the mainline express tracks are carefully segregated, and a lot of off-mainline running. Probably wouldn't need an A4 Mallard for that

Yup .......... most certainly need Mallard for that! I watched her on many occasions just coasting along which gave ample time to admire the sweeping curve of the skirt behind which were those seemingly huge (when you are a little lad standing in a ditch and looking up!) driving wheels. A very graceful loco. Whereas there were many locos of various regions that I loved to watch, Gresley's A4's not only looked impressive at high speed, but were also so graceful at the lower speeds.

My vote is Mallard!



Colin.

I forgot ............ being a history maker, surely Mallard is the perfect loco to be run on Specials from a railway museum!

I'd suggest ones that haven't been preserved, such as the LNER's Claud Hamilton engine. At least that's the direction I'm going with my similar project.

Ok, 1 vote for each of the LNER engines, so far I've uploaded a big screenshots thread of the route in question: about 35 screenshots in total detailing the mainline (the museum isn't in yet) here:
http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=39080

The special is planned to start at the Eastern end of the map (in Trepaul station) and I intend to build the museum as a branch from the Airport freight access line - that means leaving the main line before the Airport parking area station. Between those points there's about 30-40km of mainline running, (basically the first 3 posts detail the areas the steam engine will run).

Edit:
@SpringTransit - I'm under some limits as to which locos I can use - is the engine you're using available on DLS and confirmed working with TRS 2006?

Regarding to Zec's comment I do have a soft spot on VR steamers. I may be a NSW boy but I have a liking to the "Super R" which one is not to far down the road from me at HVRT. But I love my C35 Class 4-6-0. It's smokebox has always influend me and the valences. I always have liked the C38 Class and I think we need a better NSWGR C35 for trainz. Billegulla's R and J are great loco's to run but they need more livery's and numbers. eg R766 Brunswick green with black smokebox, red trim and red smoke deflectors. Regards Michael. (I was SMR18 on Railpage Forums, Help me make a comeback!)

LNER A4 Mallard!

In my opinion, the LNER A4 Mallard. It and the NSWGR 3801 are my favourite steam locomotives.

Ronayne said:

In my opinion, the LNER A4 Mallard. It and the NSWGR 3801 are my favourite steam locomotives.

Click to expand...

Are there any high-quality models of the Mallard for Trainz? The only one I found was quite low in quality, and I suspect that it might have been causing crashes (the computer I mean, not train-wrecks!) because when I removed it, the problems seemed to go away. Having said that, I am very grateful to whoever made the model, I couldn't make anything anywhere near as good.
BTW I used to watch the Mallard pounding towards Kings Cross Station every night after school - an awesome locomotive!
Mick Berg.

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