New Jt Route Cumbrian Coast: Carlisle - Whitehaven From Just Trains

I imagine Preston Crewe is caught up in the PR cogs. Christmas promos, staff hols etc. Probably not too far off....

 

Sorry just going to correct you here, B2C stuff is still being addressed, as a team, all of us are very keen to improve the experience further on B2C as much as we physically can before we release the 2nd route. Hope this helps

 

On another note though, very excited to see the cumbrian coast in game as it used to be a part of my local line growing up

 

Always nice to see a few of us Cumbrian marras! We do seem to get about - I remember being in a bar in LA back in 2005 and shouting over to the friend I was visiting, only for the lady standing next to me to say "are you from Whitehaven?"

I'm guessing the route itself is quite a bit from completion, given the announcement only had pics of the train as a skeleton (so to speak).

 

It's more than quite empty...

 

Relief from the endless stream? Oh you poor thing.
We'd go bananas whenever a 40 turned up at New Street

 

I used to make the odd trek all the way down to Birmingham for the EMUs. Saltley never disappointed for a massive variety of locos too… happy days eh

 

Wasn’t we due a patch last week or week before out of interest just a general question.

 

Someone else has mentioned it already, but as JT do seem to "refresh" a loco with their DLC, hopefully the 31 may get some treatment for this. I've seen some videos of it around that area in about the right time period.

 

A six car Class 108 at Flimby in 1986

 

Here's Flimby as it is now, earlier this year.
Nice coastal running with views over the Solway to Scotland


And a couple from Aspatria a couple of years ago

 

An AWS free route, I hope they recreate the shonkyness of the route in all its bouncy swayee glory! And decent audio.

 

Pre-AWS is a huge plus for me. The possibility for a 108 and a 25 would be amazing.

 

realy nice and can we use a pacer over the class 108 here? For the pacer it has the lorry automated manual type gearbox

 

Not sure about the mid 80s, but certainly by the 90s 142s were very common on the Cumbrian Coast, often working in multiple with the 153.

 

Fairly certain it was still solid Class 108’s in the JT era. Also, the 153’s didn’t come about until the early 90’s after 158’s displaced the 155’s from Western Provincial and they started going off to Works for conversion into 153’s.

 

I think Heatons 108's went in 1991 or maybe sometime during 1992.

 

Just started watching the Videoscene (Train Crazy) cab ride again. Even though filmed in 2011, the route was still largely jointed track, much of it still bullhead, just the odd bit of CWR here and there where renewals obviously taken place. So in 1986, should be solid jointed track pretty much as soon as you turn right at Carlisle South.

However going back to the scope of the line,this section very much in the Solway Levels so pleasant pastorals scenery but nothing spectacular. So sorry for ping, but JT Benedict can you please reconsider finishing at Whitehaven? The coastal section to Sellafield is what many of us want to see and drive,even if security concerns mean the Nuclear Terminal can’t be represented. I would be quite happy to wait a bit longer and even pay a bit extra to get the actual “Coast” section in the route.

 

Isn't there plenty of "coast" with all the cottages and such I saw on the cab rides people have posted?
And would the track differences translate into anything different sound or movement-wise?

 

Maryport to Workington is almost all coast and as for Whitehaven to Harrington I'll just leave this here

 

Yup, jointed track pretty much all the way, lovely in a 108!

I’m not sure there’d be any point in extending to Sellafield if the plant isn’t represented, it would be a weird place to end? Personally the main attraction is the steel works and docks at Workington, and there’s enough coast from Maryport to Whitehaven to keep me happy. The route south from Workington to Lancaster took FOREVER and was largely devoid of interesting traffic IIRC, so I could live without that. Just my 2p though, I appreciate a lot of folk want the full coastal route.

 

I guess I can see the point in theory of going to the power plant if you want to use nuclear flask trains, but it'll just be one run since I don't see anything else on that line? Just some caravan parks like on WSR? So you'd get what... 1 or 2 runs? And if you don't actually get to SEE the nuke plant that kinda kills all the immersion.
Whitehaven is a logical station to end at.
The bit beyond it (looking at the map, never been there) down to Lancaster looks like it'd be "scenic" and very twisty... it'd take forever but not a lot of traffic Very rural?
Whole lotta work though.
Yeah, Whitehaven makes sense. That's where most traffic would end.

 

Around jalf of the trains according to my 1987 timetable went on to Barrow.

I agree it would be double the work but it has some very interesting sections of like.

I like the fact this is a quieter rural route it shows the other side of railway operations.

 

My memory is that in the early 90s the 108s were replaced initially by 156s. There was a period of time during which you could get either a 108 or a 156, before it became entirely 156s.

It was later that 142s and 153s arrived. The 142s caused a bit of discontent because people had got used to the 156s, so a 142 felt like a big step down. A 142 from Workington/Whitehaven to Barrow or Newcastle (some of the Cumbrian coast trains were through trains to Newcastle, or even Sunderland) was a pretty uncomfortable experience.

The 153s were nice enough trains but became overcrowded very quickly. On one such occasion, though, the guard let me sit in the ‘second man’s seat’ in the rear cab, which was great!

Edit: it shouldn’t be forgotten of course, that the 155s, from which the 153s were converted, were built by Leyland in Workington - so the arrival on the coast of the 153s was a real homecoming!

 

Ploughing on through the Train Crazy cab ride, Carlisle to Workington takes just over forty minutes non stop, maybe a bit longer for a freight running as Class 7 (45 MPH). And yes there is the coastal section from Maryport to Whitehaven but the really nice scenery starts south of there. Traffic levels should not be a determining factor either, otherwise we are will never see the likes of the Kyle or West Highland line in TSW. And as I said earlier, this is a bit like JT announcing the Kyle Line but all we got was Inverness to Garve.

 

It would indeed. UK practice since the early 20th century for jointed track to be laid in 60ft (18.288m) panels (before then around 40-45ft panels), which gives a distinctive 'clickety clack' sound. Even today with mostly continuous welded rail many plain line track panels are delivered in 60ft lengths then welded up on site as it's easier to deliver this way for short length renewals.

In terms of ride quality though, jointed track can be very rough indeed. A joint is effectively a 'weak point' and the cause of many maintenance and ride quality issues. The Ormskirk branch is a good in game example of this!

 

I recall it was a particular quirk of the Cumbrian coast due to the 150s being prohibited as not clear for the restrictive loading gauge.

 

The 101's are fine for services coming across the Pennines but not services emanating from the Manchester or Liverpool area.

 

Yeah, I travelled on this very line just a few months back so looking forward to riding on it again!

 

I'm not sure if anyone will know the amount of freight traffic on the Whitehaven/Barrow section from that time. I think I said I remember around that time, I'd be sat with my granddad watching Parton United and seeing the coal trains snaking round the cliffs, which got him a little nostalgic - he'd spent most of his working life down Harrington Colliery (despite the name, located at Lowca) and liked to wave his walking stick in the direction of the slag heap and say, with a wink, "most o'that is thanks to me".

Point being - not sure if the chemical tankers that I remember seeing on the other side of Bransty tunnel would travel South or North. I know the aforementioned coal was heading to Sellafield, and I assume there was other traffic heading that way too.

 

This route sounds really promising, especially regarding scenery (i used to have to spend time around Cumbria and often made the effort to park up in Flimby and cross the foot crossing at the station over to the beach, stood in north-west England looking over at Scotland with nobody else on the entire beach was bliss)

as someone who doesn't have any real interest in the traction here (nothing at all against it, purely personal preference), i would really like to see the class 108 being able to be substituted for the class 142, but other than that this definitely has me interested.

in regards to route length, if Carlisle was going to be the starting point then Whitehaven was always going to be the most likely end point given, i definitely would have loved to see it reach Sellafield but again just my personal wishes, JT have a way of creating really immersive routes and this has a huge amount of potential, looking forward to seeing how this develops!

 

I just did it this evening in fact, up here on a family visit. I was surprised at the amount of jointed sections there still are between Carlisle and Workington. Back in the day though it was bouncy all the way

 

There was the daily 6pm TPO that started from Workington bay platform and headed South. I used to see a 40s heading that way, can’t remember what they were hauling though.

Most of the freight I saw at Workington was for/from the steel works - raw materials from Redcar, rails heading out for distribution. I’d always assumed they were distributed South too, but I can’t honestly remember. There was traffic to and from the docks and nearby paper mill, and coal as far as Maryport to the washing plant there.

The only other Southbound traffic was nuclear flasks. They’d occasionally park up empties in the middle roads at Workington, much to everyone’s alarm…

 

Wondering if that will mean some added layers and stock from Preston-Crewe in the form of the coal trains/other freight? Although I myself am not sure what was conventional, I would imagine JT have a few tricks up their sleeve for this one.

Would do anything for an update/refresh to the 31 though. I mean don't get me wrong it's my favourite in game diesel by a mile but it needs a little love!

 

My dad's first job, on leaving school in 1969, was at the paper mill that was on the site of what is now Dunmail Park.

Do feel like playing this route will provide a real Proustian Rush of very early memories!

 

Absolutely - the audio is way too understated - when we got a couple of 31s hauling rails back East you could hear them right up the hill by the Hall…

 

Totally will for me, that’s guaranteed. Are you talking about Thames Board Mills? My dad worked there too… it’s still going - think it’s called Iggersund or something like that. I had a tour round the new machine one evening cos my dad was on the installation team. B@#£&*s laid him off after it was finished, mind

 

You're likely right - I'd have to ask him when I see him next week. I could be getting mixed up between the job he had and his mother working in a nearby textile mill that is long gone.

Given the total lack of representation my homeland gets in mainstream media (OK, TSW is hardly Hollywood, but it's still out there in the mainstream), it's pretty cool to think I'll see a version of my hometown and my mam's home village (Parton) to go alongside my paternal family hometown (Penrith).

 

The other thing I remember about 31s, which JT would do a good job of re-creating, was the sheer amount of smoke they used to put out, particularly on start-up. I remember standing on the platform at Workington and being shrouded in a huge cloud of grey smoke as they fired a 31 up in the bay.

 

I really like the 31 in TSW, the model has a lot of character, especially in the cab and the texturing is very good. The sounds don't need too much work in my opinion, it's pretty good, just needs to be a touch louder at full throttle.

Would love to see improved sounds for the peak though, as it's not very good. The actual horn sound is quite good but there's too much delay when you press either horn key, and depending on how you set the throttle it's very quiet overall indeed. I was on a light loco move the other day and it was almost silent!

 

The Class 40 also needs a buff. It is very good but doesn’t quite reach that almost frantic EE roar at full throttle.

 

Agreed, it also needs work on the physics model. It’s very over-powered at the upper end of the speed range.