North Staffs Minerals: Meaford Power Station

Please note: The mineral wagons in the pictures are not our product and merely used by the route builder as an illustration.

North Staffs Minerals: Wedgwood Factory

North Staffs Minerals: Hem Heath Colliery

A couple of pictures of the south end head shunt at Hem Heath Colliery.

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

NSM: Trentham MGR

Some more work in progress shots of North Staffs Minerals, our route for RailWorks Train Simulator 2012 have arrived in the inbox from the route builder this week.

This time we get to see a class 47 hauled MGR departing Trentham Colliery and heading past the Wedgewood ceramics factory.

NSM: Colliery Line

Not content with yesterdays offering another sreenshot has appeared. This time of one of the many colliery lines in the route as it crosses a local road on the flat.

The rolling stock doesn't form part of the route and has been used to give a feeling for the area and its operations.

AOT-01: 6M79 1610 Tyneside CFD to Toton Speedlink

My inbox has also been filling up with up with screenshots from the testing of our first Ages of the Train scenario addon pack from RailWorks 3 Train Simulator 2012.

Here we see the player train from the second of the scenarios under development for the first pack at Ouston Junction with class 25/3 25308 and Class 31/1 31315 making full use of their blue star multiple working equipment as the ER do their best to return the Sulzer back to the LMR.


A double headed Class 37 hauled iron ore train is glimpsed crossing the bridge behind on its way to Consett.

North Staffs Elevation

Sorry it's been a little quiet on the blog front just lately, lots of file editing doesn't really make for a blog post with eye candy!

However, I do have a WIP screenshot for North Staffs Minerals showing the newly re-laid mainline complete with a class 86 leaning into the super elevated curves, sorry that there's not much else going on in the picture.

In quite a bold move our route builder took a look at the new features in RailWorks 3 and decided he wanted to restart the track laying to ensure the route was to Train Simulator 2012 standards.

What has been created so far is definitely impressive and I'm confident that we made the correct choice on this one.

Painted Urchin

The majority of time since the release of the VDA vans has been spent (other than taking a bit of a break) getting the ZCA Sea Urchin completed and ready for master shapes to be given the once over by the testers.

The model shown is just about ready for a final check before the different versions are created, all that's needed is the magic to make that tail lamp flash!

Speaking of tail lamps, this is now the fourth different model we've created and all by chance for this one. An offhand comment from one of the team following the preview of the original lamp modelled set in motion a fortunate series of events. 

The original comment was along the lines of "I hope we're going to include the BR flashing tail lamp" and received a reply of "That's what I've done". "Oh no", comes the reply, "They were bigger". Not a popular comment to make after the difficulty of finding enough references for (what's turned out to be) a mark 3 lamp!

By total chance in less than 24 hours an email arrived from the same team member that he'd got pictures and measurements of a BR lamp and everything that was needed to create the lamp in the screenshot. Now all that's needed is simulate the weight of the thing as he remarked "It was just as heavy as I remember them!"

Now, should we track down a mark 2 lamp just to complete the set ...?

Brake Van Variety

The dia. 1/507 brake vans included in the VDA vans stock pack for Railworks were completed today and sent off to the testers.

This monster post shows all four variations to be included: bauxite and yellow clean; bauxite and yellow weathered; Railfreight red and grey clean and Railfreight red and grey weathered.

Each of these variants comes with 3 tail lamps (unfitted trains), 1 tail lamp (fully fitted trains) and without any lamps plus smoking and non smoking versions of the above.

Cool Van

The last of the lot 3890 VDA vans for RailWorks have been completed.

In this case it's the unique white painted van 200987 so painted for Rowntrees' chocolate traffic instead of just having a white roof like other vans in this traffic.

Slightly Worn

To finish off this little series of screen shots and almost complete the feel of what our VDA pack for RailWorks will contain, here's a flame red and grey van after it's seen a little bit of use.

There's still one more livery to show once we get the lot 3890 vans sorted and each of the variants of the other two lots to complete. The heavy work is done now though so they shouldn't be too much trouble ...

Red, Grey and a bit of Grime

Another lot 3855 version of the VDA van - this time a little later in life with some fairly recently applied Flame Red and grey paint.

You dirty old van!

After a slightly used example yesterday lets get downright filthy!

A once maroon VDA to lot 3855 - I might let you see the Flame Red and grey ones later ...

One slightly used van.

A busy day has been spent giving those pristine VDAs we've come to know a bit of a dirt.

This is the 'clean' version - well as clean as you're likely to see in the case of a VDA, unless you're sat by the doors of the paintshop at Ashford in 1976.

Time to get really dirty tomorrow.

Northern Lights?

A quick walk out at dusk last night found this standard dia 1/507 20T brake van with a full set of lamps for an unfittted train on the rear of a local trip working.

Taking a Railfreight Brake

Ok, the plan was to get Railfreight flame red and grey livery on the dia. 1/507 brake van for RailWorks and then get the models out to the testers.

What actually happened was the livery was applied and in the final stages of tweaking when an idea popped into my head - 'It might be a good idea to add side lamps for working trains without continuous brake'. The results can be seen above!

At the present time the side lamps have holding textures in place so the flat appearance and red lens will disappear in future along with the test coupling. The next modelling session should see the lamps baked and given proper textures and the coupling sorted too so these can go off to the testers while final versions of the VDAs are compiled.

Basically Bauxite Brake

Ok with a bit of yellow too!

The base textured dia 1/507 brake van with through air and vacuum pipes (TOPS code CAR) in bauxite livery with yellow patches is ready for a trip to the testers before a bit of dirtying up.

One thing that has become apparent while applying these textures is that no two examples were quite the same. What we see here is an aggregate version that captures the spirit of the vans.

First Coats of paint for the Brake Van

After a couple of entertaining sessions tweaking mapping and realising that no two prototypes are painted the same this freshly painted dia. 1/507 brake van was spotted slipping past Darlington.

The texture is still a layout version at the moment with generally flat colours and some needing a bit more tweaking, but it's always nice to see the model coming to life.

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.