I think this route would be an excellent route to bring to tsw2 even if it is a bit long. It provides a good feeling of the UK railways before the beeching axe. The broad network of railway lines connected some of the north east’s largest town and cities with collieries across the Pennines, with the first line opening in 1825 that connected the collieries near Shildon with Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington. At this time, the line was a mere 25 miles in length, but by 1860 it had grown considerably with extensions and branches to virtually every corner of Weardale and Teesdale, covering more than 100 miles. The original line is probably most famous as being the world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives when they were first introduced in 1833. The area was linked with a prestigious and long list of railway heritage, with several railway-related works and engineering facilities to be found throughout the network. Darlington Railway Works, responsible for the building of many steam and diesel locomotives, was built in 1863 and survived until the Beeching Axe in 1966. Shildon Railway Works, known locally as ‘The Wagon Works’ as it built many of British Rail’s freight revenue vehicles, is also a famous landmark in the area, closing only recently in 1984 and now home to ‘Locomotion’, the National Railway Museum’s second site. Much of this extensive railway network and many of those famous landmarks suffered at the hands of Dr Beeching, whose sweeping changes to the British rail network in the 1960s closed many of the branch lines to passenger traffic. As collieries closed and freight traffic reduced, by 1980 there was virtually nothing left of the famous routes as they were once known. Towns such as Crook, Tow Law, Barnard Castle, Piercebridge and Bishop Auckland – once bustling railway towns – lost their stations and trackbed lifted, and today visitors to the area would never believe they once had such a rich railway heritage. The Weardale and & Teesdale Network would faithfully recreate the main lines and branch lines around the area as they were between 1950 and 1960, just before the Beeching closures, recreating almost all of the 100 miles of rail lines between Durham City, Darlington, Middleton-in-Teesdale and Wearhead. The trains The 101 We all know the 101 so I won't bore you with the details The 37 Most people will also know about this one. The 08 See above The 25 Based upon the design of the class 24 but with a more powerful engine this would mainly operate freight but can occasionally do passenger runs Possible dlc This would be a good possibility for a steam loco when they arrive. I can't remember which one mainly operated on this line Overall I think this would be great but perhaps a little long at around 200 miles. It would offer diverse service patterns including Barnard Castle to Bishop Auckland Bishop Auckland to Darlington Bishop Auckland to Wearhead Darlington to Durham Darlington to Middleton Durham to Barnard Castle Shildon to Darlington This would utilise the already built Darlington station
I Imagine some of the DLC From the TS20xx Weardale and Teesdale Network can be DLC For this, you know Blue Class 24 that could have a Green Livery along side blue, Green Class 105 with Headcode Box, BR Blue Diesels Pack with the 03,Blue 25/3,31/0,Blue 37, Blue 105 without Headcode Box and a BR Blue Timetable, thats some good DLC Potential, but 200 Miles is a bit too long IMO.
Nice suggestion! They have done the network in ts, so much of the information is already present. Would be an instant buy. Even to start spirit of steam this is perfect because: - not just an a to b route, its a huge network - interessting layers possible from goods, passenger and shunting, especially with its collieries - steam and diesel ! The more i think im convinced dgt is using this route to introduce spirit of steam as era based route Second route is probably the dresden chemnitz with a steam loco as heritage railway. There is a big museum on the route. Well could be all wrong, but with developing the entire steam core a route which exist in ts would make sense, so the team can focus on building it, instead of searching all the information first.
It was, well still is, one of the best routes in TS. It was very much the personal brainchild of Derek Siddle so if he is still about at DTG would be an authority on the subject and in pole position to lead the team building the DLC.
Great suggestion, whilst it may not be the era of route which I am interested the most, the TS version is nonetheless an excellent route. I just hope they would record some new sounds for the 25.
A correction. The S&DR was built with locomotives in mind and operated them from day one, along the main line east of Shildon at least, on the coal trains hence its claim, undisputed until fairly recently, to being the world's first modern railway. At opening the westernmost few miles of the main line was operated by the Etherley and Brusselton rope worked inclines which brought much of the freight (and later some passenger trains) to Shildon where locomotives could take over before the tunnel opened in the 1840s making the inclines unnecessary. Branches to Butterknowle (the Haggerleases line), Croft and Yarm were initially horse worked and the first passenger "trains" were horse drawn coaches run under licence by private operators- Darlington was the largest town on the route by an order of magnitude at its opening and even so had only a few thousand inhabitants so those coaches were quite enough to satisfy demand at the time but this may explain a current trend to dismiss the line as just another wagonway. I've watched several documentaries supposedly about the early history of railways which haven't even mentioned the S&DR instead citing the Liverpool and Manchester Railway apparantly just because it ran between two cities. Makes me wonder what's changed since I was in school and indeed the 150 years or so before that. Admittendly I live in County Durham and am a member of the Friends of Darlington Railway Centre and Museum (which is in the S&DR built North Road Station in Darlington) so I could be accused of bias but I'm actually from the West Midlands, GWR territory, and on my mother's side my family's roots are in Liverpool.