How about something small for a change? The Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway would be a treat. And not very long, so it could be packed with a bit more detail.
Great Route Suggestion, have only been to the RH&DR once, but hope to go back again, which of the fleet would you have and what are your favourites ? and what era would you have the route in?
Set it about ten years ago, have the steam and the diesel in and you could do a gala, a standard seaside trip and a tighter "school run schedule" for when it operates like the school bus for the local kids If you wanted to go all out you could recreate the time when it had carriages with anti aircraft guns on in WWII and have scenarios where you need to get quickly to certain places on the route to meet incoming radar pickups https://historichappenings.wordpress.com/2016/03/12/toy-trains-at-war/
Well a number of the locomotives are all virtually the same. Frankly the whole fleet could be modeled with only a handfull of models if Dovetail really wanted to go all out on a package like this. All of these engines are of the same basic A3 Pacific type locomotive (I think, I'm only an American and only slightly grasp British locomotive classifications - someone please correct me if I'm wrong): No. 1 - Green Goddess No. 2 - Northern Chief No. 3 - Southern Maid No. 7 - Typhoon No. 8 Hurricane 5 and 6, Hercules and Samson respectively, are the 4-8-2 mountain-types. 9 "Winston Churchill" and 10 "Dr. Syn" are the same Canadian Pacific-inspired pacific-type locomotives. Diesels 12 "J.B. Snell" and 14 "Captain Howey" are the same body type. The only really "unique" engines are the 0-4-0 "The Bug" and the German-built No. 11 "Black Prince" However if the engines featured need to be limited for whatever reason, I'd at least want to see Samson, Southern Maid and Captain Howey. Oh, and Gladys the bar car. She must be featured or fans may revolt.
As DTG are based in Kent, I suggest the entire staff have a day trip to the RH&D, do a recce and make the route. Way back it was a birthday treat for my kids, (and me) to visit the RH&D and to wander around the historic town of Hythe. The cellar of a church there has hundreds of skulls that had been removed from a cemetery which also fascinated the kids.
That's the spirit Cat It is a route I'd like to see in TS too. I've never been there but it looks really neat from what I've seen.
I have to say, this is such an interesting idea! The thought of having a tiny railway network to operation is quite appealing to me, and I imagine it would inspire some other third party creators to do some interesting things with the included assets!