Recently, I've been getting to grips with Neil Cunningham's tile cloner (thanks cunningn#3154 it worked like a dream) and have managed to merge two commerical UK routes. Over the last week I have laid approx 34 miles of track to connect them. The bits in the red boxes are mine. I've been longing to drive this route for years, as I was born and bred in the area. First one to name the route wins absolutely nothing but our collective admiration. Go... Route Map by thethirdrail posted Feb 20, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Ah, schoolboy error. Thanks! I have updated the image's privacy settings, so should be visible now. I logged out to check, and I can see it.
I mean it looks like Crewe at the bottom Left, and then upto Manchester combined with Woodhead? (I mean I think crewe being unique gave me that idea and at least following the track on google maps gives me that impression (probably not Woodhead - but at least the Crewe to Manchester bit - edit, and Hope Valley? )
Spot on! I guess Crewe is a bit of a giveaway as its track layout is quite distinctive. It's North Wales Coastal (well, not all of it) merged with Hope Valley to create Crewe to Manchester via Wilmslow, and the Styal Line from Wilmslow to Slade Lane Junction including the Manchester Airport spur.
Oh nice this looks promising, could we be able to drive from Manchester Piccadilly to Euston now with this merge? (I know not all in one drive but you know what I mean ) How easy is it to merge one route to another. Been looking for the software for this, or even guide on how to merge two routes Together. The guys from ATS who have merged routes in the past, they are not sharing their skills on how they do it.
Yes absolutely! Would be a bit of a scenario writing odyssey - WCML South, Trent Valley, Missing Link, and my route - but def do-able. As for route merging ; the software is very esoteric, and you have to know how to navigate your way around the train sim editor map, but it's actually brilliant. I had to read through the instructions more than a couple of times, but then it clicked. Neil is a bit critical of his own software, but it works, and as long as you plug the right numbers in, it works REALLY well. The only error I encountered was due to importing too big a map, so I just imported half at a time. There are a couple of caveats. I had an issue with importing OHLE lofts. When I imported Hope Valley into North Wales, all the overhead wires disappeared from the Manchester area. The gantries, transformers etc were all still intact, just no wires! So I tried importing North Wales (well the Crewe area) into the Hope Valley and it worked perfectly. Not sure why that occurred - it wouldn't have been a dealbreaker, but I definitely didn't fancy putting 6 miles of cabling back into the route, so I'm glad it worked the other way round The other thing is that Crewe station and its environs ended up shifted a few 10s of meters from where it should have been which made matching that area of the route with Google Maps interesting to say the least! But I guess that's just a byproduct of merging two different routes when you're relying on only on the precision of train sim tiles! Have a go at it - if you need any tips just ask
Oh nice!! So it is possible to merge routes in TSC. Where did you get the merge software and guide from?
Yep, and contrary to popular belief, they don't have to have the same route origin. In theory, I believe you could merge any two routes that take your fancy. The thread with the link to the app is actually on this forum, here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/how-to-merge-routes-in-tsc.74286/
No doubt that was said thanks to me saying it (back then i only said that because there was no tool to do it, i always knew it was possible (just a lot of work without an automated tool which you've linked too) - but even then, something that should be noted even merging routes that have different points of origin will be offset from the actual location by a fair big distance, and the more you go down the route the more "out" it would be. (so one end of the route can miles out from the google overlay)
Thank you very much for the link, I have got alot of reading to go through on the forum. Many thanks for your time and sharing your knowledge of route merging in TSC!
This is great stuff. I am a big fan of Cunninghams Merging tool as well. Its been very useful to me too.
