Nice looking route there ben, Did you have a nice touring around.
Yes thanks
The line is formed like this:
Depot + Yard + Station > Junction > Short (ish) 2-track branch line > Station + Junction 2 > Portal.
Junction 2 diverges off as a single track (and fairly overgrown) freight line to a power station, which ends at the power station where there's a run-round loop/headshunt.
It's about 25-30 boards in size. It's got a lot of detail in the bits that are nearest to the track, but then less and less detail as the boards move away from the track. The unique thing about the route is that you can treat it as a modern day preserved railway (like the Great Central, for example) which has a "mainline" connection (like the Nene Valley Railway, Swanage Railway etc), you can treat it as a modern day passenger/freight branch line with retro signalling (there are routes remaining in the UK which still use semaphore signals, or a mixture of semaphores and colour lights) or finally you can treat it as a 50's, 60's, 70's or 80's route by removing a couple of the more modern items (there's not many). In fact, the route probably represents the transition between old and new signalling very well.
The power station branch is entirely colour light signals, but the rest is semaphores. Personally, I treat the route as a 2-track freight only branchline, and treat the depot as a mini preserved railway / heritage centre. One station acts as a closed one, whilst the other is part of what I call the "heritage centre". There's also a siding round the back of the "heritage centre" which is part of a small scrap yard.
The route features:
*Modern and retro signalling
*Modern speedboards throughout (remove/replace as necessary, if you wish to use the route outside of it's intended era)
*A railway heritage centre (retro station, loco/rolling stock repair depot, sidings, car park)
*Nice amount of track to explore, with lots of pointwork
*Power station with it's own branch line, diverging off the main network
*Portal with minimal amount of "clutter" around it, to allow for easy merging with other routes. Portal also acts as tunnel leading to the "national network".
*Large amount of detail nearest to the track
*Three signalboxes to support signalling system (two open, one closed)
*Realistic track, trees, scenery, vegetation etc
I may add a bit more to it, but essentially the route is finished. An extension to it could be built in the future though. Am hoping to release it on Friday, subject to the usual disclaimers. Will try and post some more screenies later or tomorrow, anyway
