Installment 19 in a multipart pictorial depiction of a mid-Autumn morning stopping passenger service faux Heritage Rail Tour QuickDrive, from Crewe to Holyhead, on North Wales Coast Line, acquired during Steam's Winter 2023/24 sale. Having belonged to LNWR in pre-grouping days, I power the train with a favorite steam-era loco, Caledonia Works' LNWR "Greater Britain", No.3435 "Queen Empress" to be exact, seen in Lilac & Cream livery. Though Greater Britain looks to be a conventional 2-4-2 tendered locomotive it is, in actuality, a 2-2-2-2 three-cylinder compound loco. It pulls four LNWR coaches, the last of them an observation coach, which I failed to capture adequately. This installment sees us en route to and stopped at Llanfair. En route to Llanfair: as above: Stopped at Llanfair: Replenishing boiler water while stopped at Llanfair: Station platform detail, an image added to my Win10 Desktop Background TSC subfolder: RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds+Veggies TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Installment 7 in a multipart chronological pictorial depiction of a faux "heritage" stopping passenger run QuickDrive, from Southampton to Bournemouth, on Dovetail's South Western Main Line: Southampton - Bournemouth. Motive power is Caledonia Works' LSWR 700 class 0-6-0 tendered steam locomotive. It pulls a short rake of LSWR coaches, which, if memory serves, are from GAD's LSWR 6-wheel Carriage Pack 1, sold through CW (but don't quote me). This installment captures us en route to and stopped at Beaulieu Road. En route to Beaulieu Road: Approaching Beaulieu Road Station: Stopped at Beaulieu Road Station: as above: Platform Scenic Detail: Stopped at Beaulieu Road Station: RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds+Veggies TO BE CONTINUED . . .
An EMD F7A and F3A combination head the morning southbound "Prospector" on its run from Adams Bay to Panaska on W.A.Campbell's "Columbia Valley Pacific" route. The route, set in the far North West USA/Canada Border area (Steam/Diesel transition era), locomotive repaints and rolling stock repaints are all available in the RWA library Adams Bay Panorama Climbing away from Adams Bay (Car Barge on right) Slowing to stop at Odessa Station Climbing away from Hope after station stop
Installment 20 in a multipart chronological depiction of an Autumn morning stopping passenger QuickDrive on Golden Age Developments' freeware West of England Mainline, phase 2, which extends tracks further eastward to Yeovil Town. Our journey begins there, stopping at all stations until the drive terminates at Exeter. Our train is powered by Caledonia Works' rendering of the LSWR 415/0415 class 4-4-2T steam locomotive, commonly known as the Adams Radial Tank. It is seen in Adams Brown livery, pulling six LSWR coaches. This installment. sees us en route to and departing Pinhoe station. en route to Pinhoe: as above: cab lean-out view of the approach to Pinhoe station: Departing Pinhoe station, where I failed to capture a decent image. This view graces my Win10 Desktop Background TSC subfolder: Within Pinhoe (to the best of my recollection): RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Why would anyone run Preston to Carlisle in TSW. When They can run Preston to Glasgow and Edinburgh in TSC. With the same two loco's and many more.
Thoughts on screenies please, this is bog standard TSC. I have tried Re-shade but didn't look right with the ini i downloaded. Tried adjusting my RW Enhancer 2 myself and also used a pre-set. None of which looked realistic, doesn't help that at my age my eyes are knackered.
^ It looks generally fine to me, maybe a bit bright. Perfection is impossible, each generation of assets tends to look differently, also enhancements are designed to show some of those the best. TSC weather itself changed a lot over the years, old routes were shipped with rather gloomy looks but that also works surprisingly well with old assets, antialiasing woes and all that. Comparing your shots to actual photographers may help. Various screens have different calibration plus of course the environment matters, sitting in a dark room versus a summer beach. The most important thing in my opinion is the sky and core weather, there is an overwhelming 2D sky preference - not only does 3D have a bit too much contrast, 2D clouds are also more realistic (2D+3D would be the best) being low on the horizon, and of course AP has their own packs with many additional skies. Other than that, you can use the in-game brightness sliders. Weekly:
@triznya.andras Many thanks for the advice buddy, i will have a fiddle with the brightness settings. Looking at your excellent screenies, i can see now mine are definitely too bright. Many thanks for taking the time to reply.
Marsdonshire Railways Class 801 EMU approaches Llandothry on the evening of 24th July 2025 as the train bounds for Cairnlochross:
Installment 13 in a multiset chronological depiction of a cloudy Autumn morning passenger run QD between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester Picadilly (via Warrington Central). The train consists of Caledonia Works' LNWR Webb Coal Tank No. 1054, in preservation livery, pulling AP MK1 coaches. Most mages are manipulated via Paint.NET (freeware image editor), Wondershare Filmora (payware video creator/editor), or both. This installment sees us en route to and stopped at Glazebrook. En route to Glazebrook: Approaching Glazebrook station: Stopped at Glazebrook: as above: Glazebrook station platform detail: RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds+Veggies TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Installment 13 in a chronological pictorial depiction of a stopping passenger service faux heritage rail-tour QuickDrive on AP's Wherry Lines - Norwich to Greater Yarmouth & Lowestoft, a somewhat recent purchase when these images were captured during mid-late April 2024. To it is added AP's route enhancement pack. This is the most consistently visually appealing, primarily rural route in my possession. So pleasing that I drove and captured images of four passenger runs in rapid succession. This series showcases the first of those runs, from Norwich to Lowestoft. Motive power is Caledonia Works' "Single-Wheeler" GER P43 4-2-2 tendered steam loco, another recent acquisition when this run was driven, seen in its super-heated coal-burning variant. The train is, admittedly, not ideally suited for stopping passenger duty; the P43 primarily an express locomotive, the consist overlong for the route's often small station/halt platforms. (Coach count is reduced for the remaining three runs.) This installment finds us stopped at Haddiscoe and en route to Somerleyton, which we arrive at in the next installment. Stopped at Haddiscoe: Departing Haddiscoe: En route to Somerleyton, with lots of grass: as above: RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds+RouteEnhancementPack TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Northern 156444 had just departed Shildon while working the 14:27 Bishop Auckland to Saltburn on 2nd August 2025:
Installment 22 in a seemingly endless, chronological depiction of a mid-autumn morning stopping passenger service faux Heritage Railtour QD, from London to Peterborough, on ECML London - Peterborough route. Motive power is Caledonia Works' GER T69 4-6-0 tendered steam loco, seen in LNER B12 Lined Black Livery. It hauls what QD terms the 1936 Queen of Scotland Coach Set. As such, I selected Queen of Scots for the loco's headboard. We travel the "slow" track, allowing stops at all stations along the way. Having departed Huntingdon, this short installment finds us en route to Peterborough, our terminus, which we arrive at several installments later. En route to terminus: as above: as above: RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds+Veggies TO BE CONTINUED . . .
Amtrak Empire Service with dual P32AC-DM's bound for NY-Penn Station and Metro North M7A bound for Croton Harmon just south of Scarborough Station on the Hudson line and a Metro North express at Croton Harmon about to depart
You can take screenshots by pressing a quick sequence of 2-8-Pause. 8 lets you fly around with cursor keys and position everything as you like. You can also zoom with the mouse to refine the field of view.
Installment 5 is a multipart collection of images captured during a QuickDrive driven in late June of 2024, chronologically depicting a faux British stopping passenger service from Carlisle P3 to Castle Kennedy on a snowy winter day. Our train consists of two Caledonian coaches pulled by Caledonia Works' 2023 remake of its CR123 4-2-2 single-wheeler steam locomotive with tender. To my great surprise, the use of winter cloudy snow transformed the route's visually dated landscape into a thing of beauty. The result is possibly my largest screenshot series and a personal favorite. This installment is devoted to Ruthwell. As the sky continues to lighten, we approach Ruthwell station: Stopped at Ruthwell: as above: as above: Due to camera position, the image below might capture our train's departure from Ruthwell. Or not. This drive occurred over a year ago. As such, I no longer recall exact details for some images. (We are most definitely still at Ruthwell.): RWE2 (gimped), AP S&W2+Clouds TO BE CONTINUED . . .
One of the reasons I am a big fan of TSC rather than that other beast is that I can tinker around in it. I have been driving a number of scenarios in the {STWS} Im Koeblitzer Bergland v.3 reloaded modified route which is an amended version of the Payware route from Aerosoft. Long an admired route the {STWS} version fulfills certain aspects I felt were missing from the original although to be fair the original had "indicators" for others to follow. If you know the route you'll know what I'm on about if you don't you switch off now. I felt that it was a great shame there was no freight traffic on the Hosvenn branch other than occasional coal and oil for the preservation society. Hosvenn lies in a heavily wooded hilly area so the storms that devastated forests and hillsides in Southern Germany/Austria around 2000 were made to strike Koeblitzer Bergland's South Western area around 1995 causing (as did that around 2000) many hundreds of trees to fall blocking roads, streams and causing landslides, creating a heavy traffic from the area of lumber to the sawmills - see I get there in the end. The traffic in Austria was so great that they hired in log cars from Sweden - I saw the SJ markings. In the route there is to the South of Hosvenn the remnants of an abandoned line heading into the hills. In my scenario(s) DB has relaid a few hundred metres creating a temporary LadePunkt. Oh, I also altered the track layout at St Rudolf's Wood to make it more user friendly. From there to the pics (at last I hear you cry). IKB3 is (I believe) based on the Eiffel area and the loco used there was the BR215 NOT the BR218 which were very common in Bavaria but not in the Eiffel. There not being a BR215 in the game I renumbered some VR BR218s (I know the grilles are wrong and the sound is not quite there but it's better than nowt.)
Northern Class 158 DMU with the Drumness to Nessland Fort service pulls out of Chimley West on a hot Sunday afternoon of 17th August 2025:
