Hi I saw someone mention Puffing Billy on the Koln-Aachen stream this morning I would certainly second this railway, it was once constructed for another simulator as a line without rolling stock so there is DEM data available for the line. The line is 18 miles (25km) and runs through the Dandenong Ranges from Belgrave to Gembrook. It is 2'6" and has a variety of trains with steam (2-6-0 home grown Victorian Railways build similar to Baldwin Prairie) and a 2-6-0+0-6-2 Garrat G42 and a South African Railways NG16 Garrat. Mostly passenger services but there are occasional mixed trains and plenty of works trains for ballast, wood gathering and lineside clearing. if you did decide to go down this path I work as a volunteer on the railway in Way and Works and on the diesel footplate so am very familiar with the track and buildings. I can provide video and photos of anywhere on the line and have photographs of all the rolling stock already. I can do both normal and 360 photography. You can watch my 11 minute view of the line from Belgrave to Gembrook I can also get you in touch with the right marketing people at Puffing Billy for licensing. Paul
Awesome to hear you're involved with the railway. I mentioned in another Puffing Billy proposal thread that with all the reference material for the route that if DTG were to produce the route they probably wouldn't need to send someone of their own to Australia and instead use what is already available and work with someone local remotely to fill in the gaps that remain. Sorry I don't know how I managed to miss adding this to the Australian proposals list I made but I've rectified that now. The list can be found here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/australian-proposal-suggestion-master-list.41526/
Thanks jamesbaby286 it would still be nice to have them visit - it would be cool to give them the railway tour and help them make contacts.
One can hope . I suspect it might be a little niche for DTG but it might be possible one of the third parties could take it on. Holding it back would be a distinct lack of services. You could make an artificially busy time table but with a single line with limited passing opportunities the game play for it might be a little lacking.
I imagine it could be done like the West Somerset Railway route where it is set during a time of increased activity over the standard daily operation of the line. In WSR's case it is set during it's diesel gala event. For example: I found this special weekend timetable (in pink) which includes an additional round trip over the usual one. This also doesn't show the evening Dinner Special train which departs Belgrave at 7:30pm and arrives back at 10:30pm which carries pre-booked passengers. Nor does it show the footplate experience train that has several runs between Emerald, Lakeside and Cockatoo throughout the day when booked. The total number of line runs (including the ones not on the timetable here) comes to 16 using a minimum of 5 locomotives. There are services that both do, and do not pass other services at Menzies Creek, and/or Lakeside meaning there is variation amongst them. It also means that there is more capacity for additional services if needed. If you were to stand underneath the famous trestle bridge you'd see a train cross every hour between 10am and 7pm. The service number will of course be larger having to bring the trains into service at the start of the day, run arounds at stations, water refills, usage of the turntable at Emerald, consist construction (in the case of the Dinner Special and potentially the other dining experience trains like the Luncheon and Devonshire trains), and putting the trains away for the night. https://web.archive.org/web/2017070...eb639d266271/pb_timetable_apr17_oct17_web.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/2017070...lly.com.au/en/events-and-dining/sc-after-dark https://web.archive.org/web/2017070...events-and-dining/drive-steam-train/schedule/ I can't find a timetable for services during the Great Train Race special event but I believe there are even more services on that day. There are also other special event days that might add more services, such as Day Out With Thomas days, Climax locomotive outings, etc. Additionally, there are also freight carriage runs for maintenance purposes, and diesels used on total fire ban days (days that usage of fire is banned because of high temperatures amplifying bushfire risk). Gameplay opportunities don't seem lacking at all. Also apologies Paul for my indirect language and going over stuff I assume you know. Just making sure the info is digestible for those that aren't familiar.
Oh there is a much better time table than that one jamesbaby286 - however, even on our absolute busiest day there are only 13 movements across the entire railway. The busiest time table is green which used to run from Boxing Day through to the end of the second week of January. Covid killed that. Our busiest day now is six movements (three trains) and two of them are the same train. It's going to be a long time before things recover enough to be that busy. These days we're lucky its open. There are days where we run no trains at all currently - either lack of volunteers or lack of bookings. This is the busiest time table we currently run and its usually only weekends and public holidays and school holidays Most non revenue trains are diesel hauled. That adds one or two services on a Thursday between Belgrave and Menzies Creek for undergear inspection. There are also wood collection, wood chipping, clearance and weed spray trains. Thomas days would require licensing Thomas and would require building locomotives that are only used for that service. Puffing Billy is 2'6" - everything on the railway is bespoke or re-gauged e.g. the diesels are ex TASRail 3'6" (1067mm) and ex QR 3'6" re-gauged to our 2'6". There is no public time table for Great Train Race but here is the train graph for that day from last time it happened (2018). So yes it makes for a fairly busy day but it replaces everything else so doesn't up the service count. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see PBR in the game, but with a service count of 3 and all single line running even with an imaginary time table you can't have a service more often than every 24 minutes or so if they're all going in the same direction, if you are crossing a train then the wait is double that. Note the next GTR is NOT running this graph. Details are still being worked out but its expected to be very different.
Incredible info thank you! Taking a timetable from the past, from a pre-covid era seems the smartest thing to do. 13 line runs seems fine. When you also add all the operational movements the number of playable services would be solid. Now I know that it's unlikely that on the busiest day that the footplate experience train would run as well, but there's 4 more line runs there if that was included. As long as it's all based on real services that occur on the line there is very little reason to not go all out. I plotted out the pink days 12 services (and added the footplate train for an additional 4), on a post-it note just to get my head around things. Just my own quick rationalisation of the services, I don't actually know which services linked to what for that weekend. Alternatively you could have 2 separate timetables included, one with standard operation and another set during something like the Great Train Race, or a fire ban diesel day so you'd have the different patterns and a greater number of line runs with the route.
Yes you could do those things. The other possibility is the original time table from Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook. It left early in the morning and came home the next day .
The diesels are an important part of the railway today Sharaf I know people love the steam engines, but in reality without the diesels the railway would not be able to manage everything it does today. Even one of the steam engines is actually diesel fired so technically ....
