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About this BVE Route
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Developed on:
Athlon XP 2400+
ASUS A7V8X Gold
1.0GB PC2100 RAM
GeForce 6600GT 128MB
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Planned compatibility with
openBVE v1.0, BVE v2.6 and v4.2
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Status: In development (v1.0)
This is a 33 mile/53 kilometre extension of the original WJ-MKC route,
bringing the total route length closer to approximately
65 miles/105 kilometers. Watford Junction to Rugby version 1 (WJ-Rv1) will
be one of the longer real-life UK mainline routes available for BVE, and it will
include a range of details familiar to users of the
Birmingham Cross-City South route.
- Route length: approx. 65 miles (105km)
via Weedon
- Line speeds: 25 to 125 mph (fast lines),
25 to 90mph (slow lines)
- Stations: Watford Junction, Kings Langley,
Apsley, Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted, Tring, Cheddington, Leighton Buzzard, Bletchley,
Milton Keynes Central, Wolverton, Rugby
- Journey time: Approx. 45 minutes at
110mph timings (Weedon route)
- Era: 2001-2005 (other eras may follow
as add-ons, including the Electric Blue and 1980's routes)
- Traction: Class 90 25kV AC Electric
(possibly others), 321 25kV AC EMU (possibly others)
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About Watford Junction to Rugby
v1 (incorporating WJ-MKC v2)
The route between Watford Junction and Rugby via Weedon features all the familiar
WJ-MKC landmarks and more; the new Milton Keynes to Rugby section via Weedon features
some familiar railway landmarks, such as Wolverton,
the Great Ouse viaduct,
Castlethorpe, the complex Hanslope Junction,
Stowe Hill tunnel,
Weedon, Watford Gap (where the M1 motorway
runs parallel to the railway for a short time), and the famous and distinctive Rugby radio transmitter masts towering above the
countryside.
This route also features a couple of the UK's most
historic railway landmarks and examples of pioneering railway engineering,
for example the unique Roade Cutting, a deep
cutting with high brick retaining walls, where the Northampton (slow line) and Weedon
(fast line) routes diverge on two levels, with the slow lines on the lower level
running inside a metal 'cage' to re-inforce the retaining walls before finally diverging.
The route also features the famous Kilsby Tunnel,
at 1 mile 656 yards long it's the longest tunnel on
the West Coast Main Line, and when built in the 1800's it was the longest
railway tunnel in the world, and features two large ventilation shafts.
Rugby itself is a complex railway junction, with flyovers at both ends of
the station, evidence of where disused lines diverged, and it's where the Trent
Valley and Birmingham lines diverge. Rugby is the location of the infamous Great Cetnral Railway girder bridge which couldn't
be removed after the GCR was closed, so this section of bridge has remained above
the WCML ever since. Rugby has it's own yard, and in the case of the pre-2002 routes
the station boasts an impressive overall roof structure.
One of the crowning glories of Watford Junction to Rugby, and especially the new
Milton Keynes to Rugby section, will be the new scenery
developed for the route. While you would normally be travelling between 75 and 125
mph on this line, the route is highly scenic, featuring the most realistic depiction
of typical UK agricultural and hilly countryside seen in any of my BVE routes to
date, which provides an immersive experience and a
real feeling of driving along a real railway.
The Watford Junction to Milton Keynes section of the line hasn't been ignored, major
improvements have been made to this section of the line. Watford Junction's track layout has been re-modelled to make it far
more accurate. Several stations have been physically moved as they were located
up to several hundred meters from their prototypical locations in the original WJ-MKC
v1 (!). Catenary has been upgraded to a level
beyond the High Detail XP catenary featured in
Cross-City south v1.3. Stations have been improved with more detail and more
accurate platform lengths; plus Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Cheddington, Bletchley and
Milton Keynes have been remodelled to include missing track details. Scenery has
been enhanced, signalling equipment has been upgraded, and curve radii have been
altered to make the route far more realistic. And more!
Many more route variations will be inlcuded in this version, including the time of day variations (dawn, day, sunset and night),
plus weather effects such as snow, rain and
fog. The route will represent the 2001-2005 era initially, and later on, other periods
such as the 1980's and the mid-late 1960's 'Electric Blue' era will be released
as add-ons.
Finally - with the Watford Junction to Rugby,
you will finally be able to drive 310s and 321s along the slow lines!
All line curvature on the slow lines has been either added or remodelled at places
where fast and slow lines diverge, such as Watford Tunnel, northchurch Tunnel, Linslade
Tunnel, and all stations en-route. This is in fact a difficult task,
and is only really made an attractive possibility because of Oskari Saarekas 's
BRR program,
which is being used to help create the slow line versions. |
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Watford Junction to Rugby -
Specific Features and Details
The feature list for Watford Junction to Rugby is as follows (some features have
been ommited until I'm sure they will work). This feature list is a comparison between
WJ-MKC v1 and the new route:
- New photorealistic track objects and textures,
with realistic 3D rails (BS60, BS113A and CEN60) and British outline sleepers.
- Adjusted curve radii to aid realism at higher
speeds. The cant has also been adjusted on many curves to increase realism.
- Smooth curves throughout
- Highly detailed custom built pointwork with
point motors, stretcher bars, point detector boxes, fishplates, cast manganese or
BS113A crossings, etc.
- Accuracy of Watford Junction - Milton Keynes section
significantly improved, Milton Keynes to Rugby achieves a high level of accuracy,
comparable Cross-City south v1.3.
- Slow line track layout corrected or new sections
added (e.g. at Watford, northchurch and Linslade tunnels).
- Ability to drive along the slow lines to be included
- Multiple eras - 1965, 1985, 1998, 2001-2005.
Disused branches, sidings, pointwork and where possible certain buildings are re-instated
in early era routes. The Electric Blue era!
- Upgraded signalling equipment, objects and
other miscellaneous lineside items.
- Working AWS and TPWS (in BVE 4).
- New flange sounds.
- Photorealistic sky and countryside backdrops.
- Enhanced neutral sections.
- New signs, and other lineside equipment.
- Improved scenery between Watford Junction
and Milton Keynes, with new textures and more photorealistic elements. Trees cast
shadows on ground. All new scenery between Milton Keynes and Rugby, giving the most
realistic depiction of UK agricultural/hilly countryside in any of my routes to
date. Trees cast shadows on ground.
- Upgraded stations and more realistic platform
lengths, plus other detail corrections.
- Extensive re-modelling/expansion at Tring,
Cheddington and Bletchley.
- Roade Cutting and lead-in to Rugby south Junction
- accurate gradient profiles modelled on fast and slow lines.
- Several new bridge objects en-route.
- My 'alpha bridge shadow' techique applied
across all bridges.
- Gradual shading effect in tunnels, similar
to the technique used by Luigi
Cartello in his wonderful routes.
- New Winter textures, with much better looking snow
lying on the track. Winter tree textures supplied by Simon Gathercole.
- New Mk1 or UK1 catenary systems depending
on era. Unprecedented level of catenary detail for BVE, exceeds detail achieved
in Cross-City south v1.3. Includes a wide variety of 3D effect registration arms,
true zig-zagging of wires throughout the route, on all 4 tracks (slow line routes
only, fast line routes have high detail wiring on 2 fast lines only), "point to
point" wiring, truly accurate overlaps of multiple configurations, booster transformer
gantries and associated equipment, two types of anchor span, mast ID plates, concrete
bases, fully realistic return conductor system, and other details not seen before
in BVE.
- Previously missing and incorrect bridges
have been added or corrected.
- Full conversion to CSV format, complete
with proper BVE signalling, making use of .Pretrain commands.
- Updated passing trains sounds, with some
new samples added.
- Wide variety of time of day variations (Dawn, Dusk,
Day, Night), and seasonal variations (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter).
- Variety of weather conditions, including fog, snow
and rain.
- Several timetables, new passing train objects,
and more!
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