Need Advice: Making a British-themed route

Hi all,

since I like to make fictitious routes for personal use, I was wondering if some of you could give some advice. I am making a fictitious route with a 1930s-1960s British theme, but I am having some difficulty in making look like a convincing British railway. I am trying to make it where both SnC rolling stock and, the soon to be released PLL rolling stock will not look out of place. Any suggestions?

What kind of line is it? Branch line, Main line?

I would choose the region of the uk in which I wanted the route to be set, and choose appropriate buildings - for example in industrial West Yorkshire, there might be a lot of mills and factories and stone buildings, but in Cornwall you'll have more of a fishing-village feel.

Be sure to use British signalling - I don't really understand signalling to be perfectly honest so I can't offer any more help than that but it's another thing that sets it apart. Also, any trackside items such as cars should be UK ones.

Alot of the UK's railroad conventions were created to deal with their "rolling hills" Landscape. I've looked at this before and modelling it can be a Right @#$%$. Their rails tend to snake between these low*ish* hills, which is why you get that stereotypically British Feel with the Arched Stonework bridges and pocket stations wedged between a hill and a Rail line.

After that, Alexl102 already addressed the next thing I'd point out, which is you need to decide what kind of an area you're going for. Terraced housing almost never looks out of place on a British route, but if you're closer to water that will affect whether you're gonna be hunting down Warehouse & Shipyard Assets, or for further away village farm assets..... For the previous, LOTS of Brick construction, and for the latter, LOTS of Rock/stone construction.

Also, they do their commercial areas far differently then the U.S. Particularly in the time period you're going for, lots more small Terraced shops all strung up a Lane or two in the heart of the village/town. This makes modelling shops so much easier then the U.S. where we have to find a way to drop a 1^2 mile parking lot around every flippin Store....

British signals both confuse and infuriate me, so I won't attempt those anymore then Alexl102 did. At heart I think they're similar to American signals, but they drive on the wrong side of the road too so who knows....

After that, the equipment you use while running it will make a huge impact. Look at Philskene's industrial lines (Hes very eclectic equipment wise), and alot of his industry areas could be anywhere, until he drops an Evening Star Class down and it becomes British, or an SD70Ace, then American, or a GT-26 for South America..... But this kind of "Branding" only works well in well done ubiquitous areas that could be anywhere in the world, namely industrial areas.

Last thing I'd suggest, don't post questions like this in General, rather put them under one of the Route related forums, stuff in general tends to go unanswered unless its something that can disturb someone else....

Falcus

Sorry about that! I had a feeling I made a mistake after posting this here. Maybe the mods can move it to the appropriate section. Just a harmless mistake, right? Also, thanks for the advice on what to do to make a better looking British-themed route.

Hi gp792.

Thanks for wanting to have a go at a 50's/60's British railway themed route. To get a good feel for what makes a route British, try and download any of the lovely Angelah's routes, or download pflindley's GCR route (parts show my home town!) that should give you some ideas!

As for British assets to use, use stuff from Angelah, Jayholland (a must if you do a southern region area!), Domsarto, Skipper1945 (for GWR areas like Cornwall), Johnwhelan, Kemplen, Masontaylor (Scottish area), Andi08, Nexusdj, and I'm sure that I have missed some very good people from this list.

As for Locos and rolling stock, Again a lot of the above people have branched out and made superb items that in a lot of cases beat pay ware items from other country's! :hehe:

I hope that helps for now, and if you like any help with the project, just let me know!

Regards.
CaptEngland.

P.S. for maps, go here http://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/ and look at the maps on the side to pick. It's the best resource that I have found for old British maps (Not just Scottish, have a play with the options on the left hand side). If you want HD old maps for free, chose the OS six inch option 1842-1952, click in the red square on the zoom able map, and chose from the right hand side your map which can be zoomed in.

Even though this route is a personal project for fun, I may share screenshots if everything turns out good. It will use SnC, and PLL (When released) assets extensively throughout the route itself.