West Cornwall RetroIntroduction This suggestion is inspired by the Diesel Legends of the Great Western expansion to bring a new timetable and experience for the West Cornwall Local route based around the late 1970s and early 1980s, bringing some new locos and liveries to the game with good opportunities to layer on to other routes as well. Rolling Stock BR Class 253 HST HSTs seen in their original livery at Penzance station in 1982.This would be a great opportunity to bring the HST in its iconic original livery in to the game to run long distance services along the route. Although the HST wouldn't be able to reach its maximum speed, it would still be interesting to drive, and good for possible layers on future routes. BR Class 120 A Class 120 DMU at Birmingham New StreetFor the local services on the Cornish Main Line, and the St Ives branch, a new first-generation DMU could be brought to TSW - the Class 120, a 3-car DMU primarily based on British Rail's Western Region Layers West Cornwall Using just two other DLC a full and diverse timetable could be developed. From Blackpool Branches would come the Class 47 and Class 08 for loco-hauled long distance sevices. Likewise from Diesel Legends of the Great Western the Class 52 could be used for loco-hauled services, albeit very sparingly as AI as these were withdrawn in the late 70s. The Class 101 from the Diesel Legends pack could also substitute in on the Class 120 services. Blackpool Branches The Class 120 could also be used to substitute in on the Blackpool Branches route in the same way as the Class 101 to add greater variety.
From pictures on Flickr they seem to have operated on Manchester - Blackpool services, and occasionally Ormskirk too, in the mid-80s. https://www.flickr.com/photos/martynhilbert/31801245291/ - Class 120 at Kirkham in 1984. https://www.flickr.com/photos/martynhilbert/49070876337/ - at Rufford in 1985 https://www.flickr.com/photos/63923883@N03/37314312644/ - two at Blackpool North in 1984
The main problem with the west Cornwall local is where it runs to. Putting in extra stock is a good idea and would make the route more interesting, but at present it runs to St Austell and that is no good. What is required is an expansion of the line at least to Plymouth, taking in the iconic Tamar Bridge. In my day of working that line all trains, except the St Ives branch went, at least, to Plymouth North Road. That could open the door to extending to Exeter St Davids, taking in the majestic run along the sea wall at Dawlish. Now that would be awesome on a stormy day. There are then the branches that could be brought into play. Plymouth to Gunnislake, Newton Abbot to Paignton, Exeter to Exmouth and even Exeter to Barnstaple, utilising southern region metals. Now all that would challenge the developers.
Hence my suggestion for a 1960 Atlantic Coast and Truro Newquay lines which would cover the area when it was much more extensive.
Adding the Falmouth branch would have made more sense than extending the main line. It would have matched up to the West Cornwall Local theme better and provided another service pattern for the Sprinter, along with a more complete network of lines. If the route were ever extended to Plymouth, then I don't think that would include all or at least many of the branches. Having the route set in BR Blue days would also have made more sense as the Class 08, 31, 47, 52, 101 etc. could all have realistically layered on. Including a Valenta HST or even a Class 50 would be great but ideally you would need a longer stretch of the main line to get good use out of them.
It repeatedly surprises me that branch lines are often left out of routes. Key examples are GWE passenger and freight branches, BML/ECW Wivelsfield branch as well as the Falmouth branch on WCL. Not including them is puzzling as the only conceivable way to get them is as self contained routes later on, but due to them often being short low traffic branches, this is unlikely. To me, this is a lack of foresight by the development team.
West Cornwall is retro enough. I'd quite like a more modern GWR era version with 80x's, 158's HST's and voyagers.
Possibly because Rivet were unable to obtain permission to use GWR branding, they opted for Regional Railways instead. The main selling point of the route was having a Sprinter family in-game for the first time, hence why they probably didn't backdate it before that era.
Excellent idea here regarding the class 120 it can have a green paint to run on the Derwent Valley Line.
I've acquired the west Cornwall route recently as it was at a reduced price. I've only had a brief run with the 37 and freight, I was disappointed to see that the load is very light with five wagons. I suppose the TVL is the one for heavy freight. I wanted more of those hoppers to haul. I remember seeing double-headed 31s on ballast trains in the 90s, and Dogfish wagons. The scenery is quite nice, and like the 1in60 bank along the branch when I drove Leander.
i think that a expansion of this route to Plymouth will be really cool for this route too and the rolling stock possible and date of the route in 87 Class 47 IC,BR bleu class 253 IC 125,IC class 120 Coaches MK3 coaches Buffet,Second and first class + MK1,Mk2 coaches in IC livery + blue and another thing on this route class 101 class 40 class 45 class 37 class 09 class 08 and another possible thibg for this route class 50
Just did some quick research and back in 1987 class 142 pacers (skippers as they called them there) were operating in devon and Cornwall at the time so they could also layer on from BPO. With them actually being found operating on the st ives branch before being replaced by br class 150s while in their chocolate and cream livery,
