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!

Starting to roll GUV

I've finally found the time to get back to the bogies for the GUV model that will be making its first outing as a Motorail variant in the Night Capitals expansion for Railworks Train Simulator 2012.

At the present time the bogies are about 75% complete with a few other large components to add along with some of the fine detail. once that is complete it should be just the bufferbeam detail to add and some other fine detailing.

Mystery Parts of a New Model

Here's a bit of a guessing game.

We've always hinted that there would be more to the 'Night Capitals' stock pack than the Newton Chambers Car Carrier and the GUV but we've never said what.

I started work on one of the other items today, can you guess what it is yet ...?

NVX Car Carrier - The Final Bits

With the VDA vans out of bounds while the testers put the scenarios through their paces and the Sea Urchin shapes out for test too there's been time to put some finishing touches to the Newton Chambers Car Carrier that will feature in our Night Capitals addon for Railworks.

The master shape has now gained all the final fitments to allow the creation of the NVV version (Vacuum braked with through steam pipe) and the NVX version (as the NVV, plus air brakes and through ETH).

Next up is the NXV to keep these company ...

Car Carrier in game

With both the VDA vans and the CAR brake van off with the testers and out of bounds, the last couple of sessions have been devoted to making some more progress with the Newton Chambers Car Carrier which is now into RailWorks and being taken for a first spin.

Making a start GUV

Just a quick update to show the start of progress on the GUV shape that will become the NXV/NXX version to accompany the Newton Chambers car carrier as a part of the Motorail Maxi Pack.

Really early days with a generic bodyshape on top of the solebar and buffer beam assembly, with couplings roughly placed and wheels marking their place. The buffers are the final version complete with hoop (which can just be glimpsed) to support the drop down portion of the end doors.

Car Carrier - First Glimpse

As mentioned earlier on Facebook we've been taking a break from texturing the bogie tank wagon and have been working on the shape for the car carrier that we're creating for RailWorks as a part of Project East Coast. Below is a render of the progress so far, it's very much a work in progress and as such there are some errors that need to be addressed.

It's one of those deceptive models as you delve into it, that big slab sided body takes relatively little time to create and then you hit those heavy fabricated bogies and the plethora of hinges and stays on the end doors! So far we're happy and hope you appreciate the chance of an early glimpse.

We've noticed on one of the forums a mention of the open Motorail wagons created from redundant coach under-frames. Sorry folks but the amount of supporting stock going into the Motorail pack it really would be model too far with all those cars. We did consider it in the planning stage but as they didn't feature in the regular EMCL Anglo Scottish workings decided to avoid them for the time being. That said we never completely write anything off and they may appear in due course as a patch to the Motorail pack.