what time of Decade do anyone whant to see the line in LTSR days LNER days Early BR Early 70s Late 1980s Modern day
I would buy this route if it were developed. NSE or modern era would suit me fine personally and there is interest in it when you search online discussions, but not to everyone's taste obviously.
I would buy in a heartbeat. My favourite era would be early nineties as there was a large variety of stock (302/305/308/310/312) and I worked on the line back then. But I'd be happy with any post-electrification era.
The LTSR lines would certainly be welcomed by me as I have many memories of this line. The most interesting period would be around 1960, as either side of this time, their were a lot of changes so you could fairly authentically have steam [which disappeared comparatively early around these parts], early diesels and EMU's in green plus even some appropriate London Transport stock thrown in! Around about 1958 track remodelling allowed London Transport and British Rail trains to run on separate tracks between Bromley [Now renamed Bromley by Bow] and Upminster. Around this time local passenger traffic on the BR lines was principally in the hands of Stanier 3 cylinder 2-6-4T's and BR standard 4 2-6-4T's whilst on the London Transport lines it was a rich mixture of mainly R stock and CO/CP and Q stock [Plenty to keep developers busy!] The main lines from Fenchurch Street to Shoeburyness were electrified in/by 1962, at which time the AM2 [class 302] 4 coach EMU's number range 221-312 became the norm on passenger workings [201-220 being regarded as GE stock] - These operated as up to 12 coach trains on the direct line [Via Upminster] and up to 8 coach trains via the Tilbury loop [due to shorter platform lengths]. Local freight traffic was still prolific, at least west of Thameshaven , and included numerous freight terminals on the route into Fenchurch Street. The early Mirlees engined disc code display Brush 2's [Class 31] in the number range D5500-D5519 were commonplace on the local freights, as were the British Thompson-Houston 1's [Class 15] number range D8200-D8243 although other Stratford based diesels sometimes appeared too, as well as longer distance freights working into the area mainly using the Tilbury line. Finally, in a personal plea to any developer reading this, please don't get stingy with functioning water columns - Steam locos are thirsty beasts and I'm fed up with running out of water on certain steam train scenarios! - Thank you.
