North Staffs Minerals: Grange Sidings

North Staffs Minerals: Cockshute Yard

A nice little selection of screenshots from North Staffs Minerals, our 1970s freight orientated route for RailWorks 3 Train Simulator 2012 have floated over from the route builder.

Target 9 Departs Cockshute Yard, Stoke-on-Trent. 

A view from the tow path as Target 9 Departs Cockshute Yard, Stoke-on-Trent behind two Sulzers.

You can only assume this picture was taken from a narrow boat on the canal of 102t bogie tanks in Cockshute Yard, Stoke-on-Trent

Gas Lit TSR Warning Board

As we spend most of our RailWorks time in the 1970s and 1980s it seemed only right that we had a set of TSR signage that was appropriate to the era.

The pre-battery signs were gas lit using propane and by the early 1970s were flood lit rather than using internal lamps in the board itself. Reference photographs of the boards have been hard to come across and there seem to have been a wide selection of designs.

The board shown here has fittings for dual speeds if required and the gas bottle box is currently solid with the mesh to be added during the texturing phase.

The Night Capitals: Final Master GUV shape.

After much looking at pictures, continual adding of bits and a pretty manic time in non modelling life it's great to have a couple of final shape renders of the GUV for our Night Capitals stock addon for RailWorks 3 Train Simulator 2012 to show off.

The plan has always been to create a generic shape that can be exported to create most variations that the GUV has gone through in its life time. The top picture shows a shape in as delivered condition with step boards, vacuum brakes and through steam pipe. The step boards found themselves removed fairly early on as they were frequently damaged during the transhipment of BRUTE trollies.

The second picture is of possibly the most complicated (and possibly not true to life) variant with dual brakes, through electric wiring and steam pipe along with a gangway buffing plate. The buffing plate was  a modification applied to Motorail vans to help stop shocks under braking between the clasp braked GUV and disc braked Mk3 sleepers. The buffing plate fitted vans were not recognised by TOPS when still in the standard number range so which vans in Motorail traffic were fitted is a matter for conjecture.

Now these are out of the way it's time to put some serious effort into the mark 1 sleepers!

North Staffs Minerals: Glebe Street Junction

A quick snapshot in time of Glebe Street Junction to the south of Stoke-on-Trent station in our addon route for RailWorks Train Simulator 2012.

North Staffs Minerals: Cockshute Stabling Sidings

A quick night time shot sent over by the route builder of North Staffs Minerals addon route for RailWorks Train Simulator 2012 featuring some typical Staffordshire traction waiting their next duty.

North Staffs Minerals: Eturia Yard

Sorry it's been a bit quiet for a while. Family business and health issues seem to have been laying people low in turn for the past couple of months.

Anyway, what has been nice is receiving screenshots like these of Etruria Yard from the builder of North Staffs Minerals our 1970s route addon for RailWorks Train Simulator 2012 depicting the lines of the former North Staffordshire Railway around Stoke-on-Trent.