Jt Upgrading And Extending Southwestern Expressways

As title says, replacing original Southwestern Expressways route with new track, scenery and extension to Reading, meaning a full run from Paddington to Penzance via Westbury (Reading to Exeter with this route).

https://www.justtrains.net/in-development/south-western-expressways-reading

Hopefully the same can be applied to some of JT's other routes- Chiltern Main Line and Western Mainlines are begging for an upgrade, especially with the trackwork and heavy use of kuju-like assets.

 

It would be excellent if JT could master an automated method of upgrading their routes, rather than a time consuming manual upgrade.

 

That might be possible, if simply switching out old assets for new ones (assuming their placement co-ordinates on the route stays the same). I'm not too sure as I've never dived that deeply into route building before. JT did upgrade the track on the Midland Mainline which vastly improved the look and feel of the route. If they did something similar to their older routes they'd be much more appealing.

 

Looking forward to this. I haven't go SW Expressways yet and really want the Reading - Westbury route. BHBP has this but you need Southwest Expressways for this to run anyway.

 

I haven’t played on SW expressways very much since I bought it so am looking forward to this extension and it is certainly on my wish list.

 

I presume they won't put the OHLE up though

 

There's a lot more work gone into it than just swapping out assets, a lot of new foliage work has been done from scratch as well. In theory you might be able to just swap the CommonLibrary trees for the Vulcan Productions ones, but most older JT routes use 3D foliage well into the distance which has a considerable performance impact. Manual route upgrades are really the only way to get decent looking final products.

Correct, the route is set prior to 2010 and so will have the old Reading station rather than the model from Western Mainlines.

 

So if you are driving from London to Exeter and Beyond via the Berks & Hants you will have to change scenarios in Reading instead of it being a thru drive?
Arrive in a modern station and depart from an older one
I wonder why JT are not using the modern station from the Western Mainlines?

 

Finally, we get time travel mechanics simulated in TS.

 

I think the original developers are different. Just Trains are only marketing the route and providing some assets. Whereas Western Mainlines includes extensions, Southwestern Expressways is a separate route, done in a separate era. Might also explain why JT never merged the two.