Wcml Preston To Crewe Discussion

Judging by the way people talk about it, I don't think Diesel Legends of the Great Western was very successful and I'd be surprised if we got another commercial DLC in the same "old trains on a modern route" style. I think the only reason it sold at all was because we had a very limited number of routes at the time and people wanted something to extend GWE's lifespan, but the immersion offered by Diesel Legends is pretty inexistent for anyone who knows the route:

- The eastern end is electrified
- Paddington Goods Yard is missing
- Bishop's Bridge at Paddington is the 2006 bridge
- The iconic Ranelagh Bridge depot at Paddington is missing
- Crossrail portals under construction
- Missing stations such as Westbourne Park
- Old Oak Common features the prominent 1992 North Pole depot
- Heathrow Junction exists
- Reading is in its 2014 configuration with its modern canopies and huge modern footbridge
- All of the signage
- Modern clutter
- Etc

 

Yes, perhaps so, but on previous JT routes a 101 could always be used in place of a 142. It’ll be a real shame if the same can’t be done on Preston-Crewe - the 101 is so much more interesting to drive.

 

That would be superb. There used to be a mod (soon after Cross City came out) enabling replacement of the 323 with a 3-car 101. It was great, and I spent hours playing it. I don’t think it exists any more (or if it does, I don’t know whether it would still work with TSW6).

When 323s were first introduced they were extremely unreliable and BR ran a collection of elderly EMUs and DMUs in their place, including 101s (although most were 116s, I think). That era would be great to re-create, explaining the presence of the OLE, but with much older stock.

 

You’re right, I don’t think DTG will back-date a route again. I wonder whether someone else might, though.

GWE was an odd choice because the route had changed so much in the time between the two eras they were depicting (in all the ways you describe). Someone did an incredible mod which back-dated it, even removing the OLE. The only thing they couldn’t do anything with was Reading station, which had completely changed. I think updating the mod every time a new version of TSW came out became too much though, and it no longer works.

Some of the other routes would require much less work to back-date though. They wouldn’t be perfect of course, but just changing details like signage, station furniture etc can make an amazing difference to the ‘feel’ of the route, even if some bigger features like goods yards are missing.

 

I feel Riviera is one that could potentially work with a DLoGW style timetable. When I was working on a 73 TT the only real bottleneck occurred at Newton Abbot (which obviously had a lot more track work), and even then it was only affecting trains that started/ended their day at NTA sidings (too few sidings which meant not all the of EXD-WLOO 33s could fit). Having them run to Goodrington/Paignton Carriage Sidings, although not as accurate, resolved that and prevented any reduction in services present. Laira works really well for shunting coaches, and so does Plymouth and Exeter. Change up the modern equipment (i.e. LED signals) to their classic counterparts and it would be fine IMO.

 

Well, it wasn't so much a backdating of the route as just plonking 1970s services into a 2015 route. For better immersion it would have needed at least some sort of visual modification with some landmarks being added and others removed, but even then some of the stations are completely different, such as Reading with the bay platforms now off to the south side, whereas they were centrally-located before the remodelling. There's been a very good job done on TrainSimCommunity with the 2019 Preston-Carlisle timetable, which involved not only services from a different era to the route but also massive updating of the clutter (white Network Rail vans replacing the yellow BR ones, etc), digital PIS systems instead of the old yellow "tellies", and even the relocating of Morecambe station. Well worth a try.

I know which mod you mean for Paddington, I too quite liked it as it removed all of the OHLE gantries beyond Heathrow and I preferred the route that way. Unfortunately it does indeed cause a crash now and I suspect the person who created it would pretty much have to start over following the remaster, which is presumably quite a lot of work...

 

It was only a random thought as a means of making a Class 304 pack more viable. Of course the other stamping ground was Trent Valley local services, though back in the day they weren’t that frequent, only every two hours or so. They very occasionally strayed south of Rugby on a Birmingham to Euston stopper vice a 310, presumably the driver being conducted for traction knowledge.

 

Please don't tell me you've given up on getting Mk3 sleepers, Vern

 

Not at all! In fact Mark 3 sleepers, along with the Class 304 and Second Class Mark 2D’s with *original* interior should be next on JT’s list.

 

I saw the 2019 Preston-Carlisle and it does indeed look as if they did a great job. Forward-dating of routes to the modern(ish) era doesn’t really interest me though. I just don’t find the traction as interesting as earlier eras. If someone were to back-date some of the modern routes (Exeter-Plymouth would be number 1 on my list) that would be much more my thing.

 

I posted my previous post before seeing yours, but it seems we’re of the same mind on this. 10+ coach loco-hauled trains tackling the South Devon banks would be superb.

 

Was an oopsie on the manual, the 101 from Preston - Carlisle layers in for a good few services both AI and playable.

 

Hi could you say if the military and nuclear dlcs layer into this route. Thanks

 

As my oldest friend would say "RTFM!" As in read the ....erm... flipping... manual!

If you did, go to pages 128-129 for all the layers.

Military is not included, nuclear is.

 

Thanks mate my stupid phone would not let me download the manual.

 

Finally the release is so close! Next week the preview stream hype hype hype

 

Closely followed by a 25 and Some Speedlink vans!!

 

l expect the release to be June 16th.

 

Don't forget until the mid 80's the Exeter area was still semaphore signalled, with a particularly well known set at Newton Abbot.

If we are going to have a 1970's/1980's DLC then personally I want a suitable route for it. Driving a Western out of modern day Paddington is immersion breaking and not a subistitute for a proper period route.

 

Good news, thank you.

 

No it will not.... The stream this week will be hosted by JT... DTG host a stream 1 week later so it will take a bit longer

 

To be honest having the wrong signals and more modern signage wouldn't affect me that much. Look on TSClassic, there are plenty of BR/NSE scenarios for routes set in the modern day.

The only route I've genuinely avoided playing backdated scenarios on is the GWML as seeing a Valenta HST/Western run under wires or pull up at a modern Reading is jarring.

 

VEA, VDA, VIX/JX? I'd even go for earlier ABN stuff. An air converted Palvan would be cool along with a vac one. X codes are dualies anyway so can be used for either, PFA or PFB would be handy along with maybe some GUVs for those Motorail services that are mentioned in the manual.

Definitely need something from the small Sulzer family, I mean Crewe was well known for its 25s in the 80s.

Hopefully the JT live stream will drop a release date - even a provisional one

 

JT already do a VGA and Cargowaggons for TSC so perhaps they would be more likely although a VEA is basically an air brake version of the van wagon that came with SOS.

 

Each to their own but the semaphore signals were a big feature in that area, there were some interesting surviving gantries.

Also Newton Abbott yard was still in existence at the time and the track layout has changed a lot.

I want to see more BR content but not compromised by being on a route which has changed a lot since those days.

 

Redditch was half hourly by the early 1990s, but a couple DMU diagrams still survived til about 1994.

 

Yeah, units were anything from 115s to 127s (seem to recall seeing an image of a set formed of 115, 116 and 127 coaches at Redditch)

 

Years ago, there was a rather nice mod that replaced signage and removed the gantries on GWML (couldn't do much about Reading station), so you could run the diesel services in a more appropriate environment. I assume it no longer works with the latest version of TSW.

 

Really looking forward to this route and I hope it had a good release (hopefully as it's JT it should be solid) but the complexity to the timetable does worry me somewhat here with previous releases.

 

Did you mean to post in Trent Valley one as no Stafford in this route?

 

Whoops yes, getting old!

 

So I did make a post yesterday but for some reason it posted into the Trent Valley discussion, very odd.

There will be a preview stream on Thursday at 7pm UTC
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/week-beginning-8th-june-2026.98246/#post-1123462

As for the talk of retro packs on modern routes, I do think they can work but in the case of the Diesel Legends pack on the Paddington route it was a howler of a route to select, it was far too modern for even the most enthusiastic to suspend their disbelief. One could, for example do a 80s/90s or early 2000s pack for Brum-Crewe or Trent Valley and largely get away with it as it hadn't changed "too much" compared to Paddington. Likewise you could do the same with MAC with the only real spanner in the works being Manchester Airport, where the station has gone from 2 platforms to 4 plus trams (I know there's also Ardwick depot but that's not the same in terms of immersion breaking).

 

Cornwall would be great for some "Retro" scenarios as until the recent resignalling scheme it's changed very little since the 70s, but the only available route there currently isn't really up to scratch to be honest.

 

Got to be soon then, take my money now etc....

 

Looking forward to the stream.
I wonder if 'Johnny Vegas' will be doing it again...

 

If future steam locos are actually fixed then a steam era version of DLotGW for WCMLoS with bare minimum route tweaks like catenary removal, poster swaps and road vehicle swaps would be of interest.

 

If it follows suite from the Trent Valley stream that could be release next Tuesday, i.e. a week today. So typical DTG, nothing for weeks then we get two (in all likelihood) £33 routes a week apart! Not that I'm complaining about P2C, if anything gets bumped it will be Trent Valley.

 

Thankfully AAS didn't include any railtours with this route so there isn't even a little temptation. It's like how they wanted B2C to be after the fact but from the beginning!

 

JT stream Thursday, DTG stream next week. We also know there are patches scheduled for the 16th, 23rd and 30th. Can't see them doing a new release on the same day as big patches. Thinking this will be either Thursday 18th or Thursday 25th.

 

ardwick depot thats 20 years old this year, where's that gone.

 

If the DTG stream is next week my money is on the week after!

Awaiting a coming soon article with a real deep dive into the timetable at the moment! Do we have an idea on run time for the route like how long the 86 services will be etc?

 

For something fast 45-55 minutes with intermediate stops isn't outlandish

 

a pendo from preston non stop through crewe is 40mins on todays times so one would think 45-50mins plus for a run give or take, freight stuff is any ones guess depending on how JT have done it in the TT

 

in the journey mod, they used apparrently the reduced timetable?

 

wrong thread, but i assume you’re talking about trent valley in which case yes

 

Ah damn sorry ahah!
But why they did that xD

 

Thursday 18th June for £29.99.

 

God damn that’s another day one purchase for me.

 

Standard Pricing for a route like this is seriously good value, considering the rolling stock you get for it.






This route is looking insanely good

 

Kudos to JT. I half expected them to charge us £32.99.