PC Route Mergers In 2022 Lets Build A Network….

Yeah, because they never failed did they?

 

Yes they did, but so do all the modern rubbish built abroad.
That are supposed to be oh so much better.
Tory lies and smoke and mirrors. Trouble is the gullible tax payer believes it all.
More public money goes into the privatise railway. For running it and buying new stock from abroad.
Than BR could ever dream about seeing for the same purpose. Same with the lies about passenger numbers only increasing since privatisation. They were actually on the rise from the late 1980's onwards and were still rising in 1996.

 

Oh, please. To counter your sig line: BR could only pray that one day it might rise to the level of mediocrity.

I remember BR- as a passenger, not as an employee. My indelible impression is "shabby, dirty, clapped-out and late." EWS as soon as it acquired the bulk of Railfreight placed a mass order for Class 66s because the locos they inherited from BR were not fit for purpose: "Typical of the fleet, the Class 47s needed a major overhaul every seven years, costing £400,000; yet had an average daily availability of less than 65% with only 16 days between major failures... 300 of Railfreight's 1600 locomotives had been cannibalized for spares."

 

Solicitr, in this case, I believe you prove I K Brunel's general drift. Late BR never received the level of investment to maintain, let alone improve, operations and claims of privatisation improving matters obscures the level of more or less hidden govt subsidy to the privatised companies - not to mention the farce of allowing private leasing companies to suck up most of the capital invested. EWS only did what an efficient Govt operation (oxymoron in current political climate) would have done. Add to that the operating plans for freight distorted the market by forcing BR to compete with local road transport rather than organizing the system so that rail freight could do what it does best - mid to long distance bulk transport.

 

Say rather, in any and all climates.

 

I used to travel all over GB in a HST and there was only one problem I came across. I am not denying some of them did but they were reliable, more so than the 800/01/02, wouldn't you agree?

Perhaps my experience of BR was different but I used to use it regularly in the late 70's to 91 and I didn't find it dirty or shabby, I used to go all over GB and enjoyed it. Loved the HST, it was very noisy but that was great. As for the tube I can remember paying 20p to go from Paddington to Fulham Broadway then the EU got involved and decided it was to cheap and the fares went up to £1.60.

Imo the problems started in the late 80's where not enough investment was coming in. I remember chatting to a guard and saying 'why doesn't BR attract new customers?' and he said 'because we would have to put more trains on and the investment isn't there' I'm no Socialist but the Railways would do better under Nationalisation as the Privatisation hasn't been great imo of course.

 

Besides the cracking issue (which is likely a design flaw) I can't say I've seen too many 80x broken down or being towed into depot having burned out. I saw (and rode on) a number of HSTs with broken air con, lights, buffets out etc due to faults.

Yeah, it was different back then, but there were also a lot of people employed by government as "lets not put these people on the dole" and if they did some work with a hoover that was considered good enough. Unfortunately doesn't work like that now, especially as you would have to pay them minimum wage (which didn't exist back then).
I think you're washing over a few major issues as well, such as toilets discharging straight to the railway. I remember a few hot days in Paddington where the rail was literally stinking because of such discharge!

Again, I think you're washing over things here. There have been more trains, more passengers, more station upgrades, network upgrades etc in the last 20 years than in the 50 which preceded it. This period also coincides with the "max peak" of car production and in fact car use dropping in certain areas (such as inner London).

 

Lest we forget Labour were in power for a large chunk of time during privitisation and didn't do anything to bring any of it back into government control
Not sure on your passenger figures there. Train use went DOWN in the first part of the 90s then rose again, breaking the billion journeys mark in the early 2000s, and pre covid were at 1.5 billions

 

So you think Privatisation is a success? I think it is a mess. People have been priced out going on the Railway, it is too expensive. There was a woman on the box saying it was cheaper for her to get to Denmark than getting to Manchester, not sure if she lived in London or elsewhere in the south. And the tube? Hasn't one line stopped operating thanks to the way the Mayor is running the underground? As I said I'm not against privatisation if done properly and there is cons with both systems, needs someone with a vision I suppose.

 

A lot of modern reliability issues are software related, I know the Northern Civities had trouble with PIS and SDO for a whole because of software trouble and I recall taking a 745 home from Colchester earlier this having a complete PIS freak out, calling out stops randomly and whatnot, was certainly alarming at the end of a long shift but it carried on just fine.

When you consider older trains had next to no, if any software at all on them then of course modern trains are going to have more problems in this regard. But it has to be said that the history of British Rail is full of examples of severe design flaws, and even trains considered success stories had their troubles.

 

I'm no fan of privatisation but the early years were a demonstrable success purely from sheer investment which the railways had been starved of by the Government in the years prior.

But since those early years that success has not been sustained, the micromanagement that some so vehemently warn about in regards to nationalisation has arguably been worse under privatisation than it ever was under BR (see for example the DfT and those seats). Then there is of course Railtrack, considered to be the greatest failure of privatisation.

There have been both advantages and disadvantages, personally though I don't necessarily think it was the right choice but it's all changing over the next few years so I guess we'll wait and see GBR will prove the right compromise or not.

 

IMHO, the problem with privatisation is that it only went halfway, with TOCs vying for short-term operating contracts over a state owned rail network.

Far better to have recreated the Big Four as outright private companies, with the MfT serving only as a regulatory agency.

 

I didn't say it was a success or failure, I would say that I don't think that BR in any form could have done better for the most part without the taxpayer (all of them, not just the ones using the trains) footing a lot of the bill, probably more than we do now. UK Government isn't exactly known for inward investment in anything other than MPs (and their families) pockets anyway

OK, so let's look at that statement. If you're going from London to Denmark there are 23 separate airlines flying up to 552 flights per week (According to skyscanner) and from four different London airports.
If I want to get a ticket 4 weeks in advance I can pay £11 return from airport to airport. Haven't looked up the price of train fares but probably about £20 from central London to the airport in the UK and probably €10 euros in Denmark depending on which airport you go to and where in Denmark you want to end up

To get from London to Manchester there are two operators running the same line from Euston to Manchester and a return is about £70 (same dates 14-15 May 2022)
So maybe the reason that flying to Denmark is cheaper than trains around the UK is simple market competition. There is almost NO competition in the UK market unless you happen to be going from one franchise's boundary to another shared boundary (Thinking Exeter to London or similar). Other than that there's one line, one railway and it doesn't really matter whether you go LNWR or Avanti it's basically the same thing.
You also have to remember that the UK Government have botched rail pricing since the 70s hence ending up with a vast number of rail prices for essentially the same journey depending on which stations you change at, hence "split tickets"

No London Underground line has stopped operating apart from maybe the Waterloo and City which was due to COVID. Until COVID LU and LO were actually in profit I believe.
The Northern Line is part closed around Bank which is getting a major upgrade (they're literally moving one of the lines and rejigging the passenger tunnels), but other than that it's all open

 

If BR would of been properly funded I don't see why it could not have done well.

Sorry but I am not going to accept any justification for getting to Denmark cheaper than Manchester, it just shouldn't be like this. There used to be a myth that they wanted to get passengers out their cars and onto trains, It was a 'myth' as they would have to put on more stock and so cutting into profits. That is one of the reasons they put fares up, to manage passenger flow.

You seem to miss out the strikes and funding,

https://www.itv.com/news/london/202...s-close-as-strike-sparks-fresh-commuter-chaos

 

By "properly funded" you mean "extracting even more money from the taxpaying public" - including those who never ride trains and get no benefit from the subsidy.

 

Then you seem to miss out part of the issue of government funded bodies. Say what you like about private enterprise but they do tend to run on "best value" whereas if it's government run a> suppliers add on ten percent and b> passengers expect heads to roll when things go wrong. I remember quite a few "transport secretaries" being blamed for railway failures back in the day because for some reason a guy in a suit in Whitehall has powers over what track workers do...

Agreed, air companies shouldn't be able to charge as little as they do for what is a most polluting means of transport, but I guess you meant that rail companies should charge less. They would if there was competition. There isn't on most routes

Personnel deciding to strike isn't the same as a line being closed. One is a load of people with a grievance refusing to work, the other is a body deciding to suspend service. Had you said "I though a line had been affected by strikes" I would have agreed, but those strikes have little to do with railway funding generally and everything to do with pandemic levels of funding for TfL. If you read the article you linked it even quotes the RMT as saying it's not about issues on the table now but the way the government are funding TfL in the pandemic (before the pandemic TfL was self sustaining and had little government subsidy)

 

I don't have kids of school age, nor do I drive at night but I accept that my taxes will pay for school dinners and street lighting with out an issue. Nor do I use public libraries or a whole host of services which my taxes fund. What I do have an issue with is my taxes subsidising MPs alcohol in Westminster, but that's a different story.

 

This is not a place to talk about that issue. We have off-topic chat for this purpose. I can see a DRA DCZ merger happening if both were set in the Deutsche Reichsbahn DDR Era. with DR BR132 243 250 DR V100 mixed traffic locomotives. DLC 18 201 65.10 52.80 steam locomotives DR BR211 242 DLC.

 

Lol sorry didn't realise you'd been made a forum moderator.

 

Anyone who drives or uses busses in the UK benefits from rail subsidy. One type of transport doesn't exist in a vacuum. All those people on trains I don't use aren't using the roads which I am

 

I do love the way every tom, harry and his dog, try to personally police the forums.

 

This thread went from talking about route mergers to a debate on the privatization of British Rail along with comparisons of rail tickets to air fares. Just another day on the forums

I do find the debate interesting since I don't live in the U.K even if it's off topic.

 

I think as usual the "main thrust" of the post was done in the first two or three pages. The rest turns into a ramble

 

Obviously though the UK government and several regional authorities do still fund the railways, to the tune of billions a year. It's just that now, any income from ticket sales goes to boost share prices of German or other international consortiums, and what was once a world class design team has been gutted so you have to buy from Canadian groups or so on.

 

Isn't this true of most successful (formerly) British companies? I can't think of one major industry in the UK which isn't owned by some conglomerate from somewhere else. Be it food, finance, engineering, manufacturing or anything to do with transport almost all of it is owned elsewhere

 

You should take those Rose tinted specs off for a minute and realise they are very few passengers on the Railways today that would think they are getting value for money.

Well there is competition, the car, and people overwhelmingly choose that first. But I guess you meant another Railway. Since going private it seems they are running the least amount of trains for the maximum amount of profit and under Nationalisation there is a danger of being under funded. As I said before it will take someone with a 'vision' to get things right. Is the French railways state owned? In no way am I saying we should have that same system just curious.

And if you had read the article it said lines had been closed which was the point in the first place.


But going back to mergers, surely DTG can see going forward this would be a money spinner for them if they could do it right.

 

Having worked in both private and public sectors, I can testify that the amount of revenue which in private businesses becomes "profit" (and much of that is re-invested, not paid to shareholders) - is considerably less than the proportion public agencies simply lose through waste, inefficiency and sheer bloodyminded jobsworthery. In fact, many agencies fight against operating efficiency, because the only way to convince legislators they need more funding is to blow all of their present funding.

 

That would be the people who brought us the Pacer?

 

I have said before I am not against privatisation where it is done properly alas I would say as to the British network it isn't. It is a hash between private and state owned which imo does not benefit the people that use it. Time will tell if things will be different as some changes are coming in I think, let's hope so.

 

Sorry, i don´t read the entire Thread so far, but in my opinion we will never see a "Merged Route Functionality" in Train Sim World 2.

For me there are many technical Questions to produce a "Merge Network"...

- What happens (Ingame) if i owned only one Route/Part of Merged Route?

- How overload it can be, when you Merged i.e East Coastway and London Communter to over 2.000 Services (think more Services will be added to represent the Line via Plumpton) that your Machine/PC have to load...

- Did you pay again for two or more Routes only for the fact that they got merged together? I will do not...

 

You would have 2 routes for example London Brighton and East Coast way. Completely playable as standalone DLC routes. BUT as a bonus if you own both then they get merged together (with the missing link) to create additional game play.

What's not to like about that and why would you refuse to buy both standalone routes?

 

Sadly you might be right. I am no coder but think merged routes would have to be coded into DLC to make this an option. Like if they were going to make SOS have merged routes down the road they would have to put some sort of code into SOS to make that possible.

Do I think merged routes are possible? YES, Do I think the player base wants merged routes? Hell YEAH Do I think DTG will do this? NOT in the slightest.

 

Eh, the Pacer is an easy dunk and as someone who had to take many local journeys in Wales and the North West of England I'd be the last to defend the passenger experience, but in terms of meeting an engineering brief they're almost a work of genius. What they are is a symbol of that managed decline of BR, gutting it until nobody wanted to defend its existence, but it's rough to blame their designers for the end product given the limitations they were working under. The units arguably saved a bunch of branch lines and local routes that might have been seen as too costly to run otherwise, a bit more money and we might have had Sprinters earlier but it is what it is.

Of course, with slightly more optimism you could also say "that would be the people who brought us tilting technology, improved upon (by better-funded research teams in other countries) and now exported around the world." Alan Wickens should get the respect he deserves

Anyway, we should probably make an OT thread if we want to continue this!

 

Still no acknowledgment of a large player discussed thread by Dtg......

 

Don't think I've once mentioned passenger perceptions of value, and to be honest most people wouldn't know "value" if it kicked them repeatedly, hence shopping at Amazon then complaining the high street's closing down

From the SNCF "who we are" section of the website : "SNCF is wholly owned by the French State, which may not sell its shares in the company."

I read the article, it said due to strike action lines had closed, not "Lines are closed due to lack of funding or government control" which seemed to be your point.

I'm not saying private or public is better, but that there needs to be a balanced arguement where the best of both are utilised for the provision of a service to the public. Government have failed spectacularly at that in the UK for just about ever, and private is mainly about keeping shareholders happy. If there CAN be a best of both then great, but for me neither has worked particularly well to this point
But as an example of mixing both, Channel 4 (a TV channel in the UK) has been publically owned for the last forty years but run privately. It's produced some of the best TV shows and most innovative ways of presenting just about everything. If that could be used as a possible example of public / private coop then great.
Unfortunately the conservatives are looking to sell it off, but that does seem to be their way

 

This thread though has seriously gone off topic. Im sure dtg though have seen it and will probably think about doing something about it in the future. That is if they even want too.

 

Sign me up at least.

 

Although I do see it as possible, I don't see it as being a free, no-extra-charge feature realizable by anyone who has bought the two routes, e.g. Vic-Brighton and ECW. DTG would have to do a substantial amount of additional work: not just the Wivelsfield connector, but also a complete new combined timetable for the merged routes. That would have to be covered financially- although I could see the price for the "link DLC" being fairly modest, say 3 pounds/5 dollars.

 

Fair comment and if it's below £5.00 to me that's a bargain for the additional game play it would bring to both routes

 

They just might add a bit of code to all routes to make it compatible if you want a merged route or not or it maybe separate as you say but £5 like redrev said is a bargain.

I wonder if people would prefer 'merged routes' or 'Rush Hour(extra passengers'. Ideally of course we would have both but just for arguments sake you could have one or the other? For me, as DTG are still getting to grips with Rush Hour I would take the merged routes every time. With most of my routes not receiving the Rush Hour treatment anyway it would not be missed.

 

I think mergers on old routes is a waste of resource, it’s done, will creat more bugs and there’s no marketing opportunity as such.

New complete route comprising of 2-3 fully independent /modular snap together sections sharing a uniform timetable however there would be money

 

I know I am biased here but I think if the GWE was extended to Bristol (preferably Cardiff) I think there would be a market for that. It did well in TS1 I believe.

 

The issue with a 2nd GWE route to be merged with the original is that London Reading is old and no where near at current standards, so what do you do? Creat the new route to match the standard of GWE? Have a horrible and obvious join when the standard changes between the routes. Wouldn't be so bad west bound as the standard would rise, but I'd imagine eastbound could be horrible. Or do you need to revamp GWE and bring it to modern standards and if that's the case how do you pay for the development time?

 

I can’t see that being commercial. It needs to be new content, it’d be like having a Vauxhall corsa interior in a Ferrari shell powered by a lawnmower engine painted in 12 colours. Yeah it could likely be forced together but would look like toss and all anyone would chunter is “performance, fps, should have done, save games” etc

 

The opportunity is around stations that serve different routes, Brighton is a great example but there could easily be others. These could be built out as "Hubs" - the hub is the missing link described above, and you would be able to move between different routes while in the station as you move between and takeover services from different routes. The key thing is that when you are in the station tile (the shared tile between routes) you can see active services from both routes simultaneously. This should be feasible as the timetables, if they are accurate and from the same time period, should match up.

To add more to the hub they could build out the concorses a bit so you can see more of the station and move all around it without invisible walls like St Pancreas.

I think Victoria on BML is a good step forward as there are trains from there that would theoretically leave through a portal and later appear on the SEHS, that is even another opportunity to merge two routes with the missing link added between the two.

What is frustrating is we see games like Train Life and the Truck driving games ETS etc doing this, they release DLC and you just enlarge the game world and move across what is now an open border into a new region.

 

DTG JD , apologies to tag. This post has rumbled since January. On the basis of the community being listened to is there anything beyond the “if it’s not on the roadmap” that could be conveyed.

Appreciate SOS and fixes are priority but it would be good to have a segment or article about some of the questions in this thread at some stage.

• Are DTG aware?
• What dialect may have been had?
• Is it on the discussion table or cutting floor?
• What do DTG think of the ideas in here, are they feasible?
• What challenges may it present.
• Is modular routes plausible?

I’m sure the threads been seen but 5mins on a stream or some dev input would really be welcomed here as to what the team may be able to share thought wise.

 

Brighton /
Eastbourne /
London
Commuter
Highspeed Rail

"Capital to Coast at Maximum Gas!"

 

Doesn't this basically kill the whole argumement of merging routes? GWE is a few years old, but in a few years so will BML be, so then we're saying that you can't join routes together after a certain period? How long? What's the criteria

Thinking logically if each DLC is between 40 and 50 miles long, and routes are hardly ever made consecutively (ie they won't do Lonbon to Reading then Reading to Bristol straight after) it would take over a decade to do a long route such as the WCML or Berlin to Munich, so those routes could never be merged in game

 

I think he meant that gwe had a much different level was a route made using different techniques than a route like BML. If you made an merger from reading to bristol, then you would notice the difference in quality because dtg have changed the way they make dlc's so it wouldn't be worth the effort