Hi Dennis,
I appreciated your comments to the Richwell subsidiary problem. Hopefully it will work properly before long. However, my main comment here is with your day and night routes for Clarendon. From experience of the real situation you have caught the night mood extremely well and it brings back memories of driving in such conditions with twinkling stars and points of light here and there to catch your eye. Finding stations too is made harder and you have to use your route knowledge more fully.
I once had a passenger come up and ask if he could have a cab ride, which I granted and as we sailed away from Marylebone station a thick fog rolled in and my route knowledge started working big time and as we rolled into the inky darkness he went very quiet. When we came out of St John's Wood tunnel I put the light on and he was crunched up in a frightened position, in the secondman seat and when I asked him what the problem was he said 'How do you know where you are"? "Route knowledge" I replied. He was very frightened most of the way to High Wycombe and everytime I put the brake on he would nervously ask 'Whats that for, I don't see anything". Thankfully by the end of the trip he did start to enjoy the experience and was disppointed to leave the cab. He had been traveling the route for over 40 years too and from work and had never seen it from the cab. As he was retiring in a few weeks he took a chance to ask for a cab ride. Hopefully it stayed in his memory. Just as well it wasn't an HST!
In those days the DMU's at Marylebone weren't fitted with AWS never mind TPWS and were mainly semaphore signals, with the usual 'black' paraffin in the reservours. Thick fog is an all year round ocurrance in that area.
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Is it possible to make the cab lights a shade brighter in your night route? They really wouldn't be that dull, especially with a new unit such as the 170's etc. I realise this may not be possible with the restrictions within BVE but I think if the blacks were a shade darker and the lights a shade brighter it would be more realistic. Your eyes really get used to the darkness and there is still a fair bit of detail around.
I also wonder about that 'fixed' distant signal as you approach the mainline. It is just about acceptable in the day route but for a passenger route I am not sure if this is acceptable and a working semaphore or MAS signal would be better as this would be tied in with the stop signal and controlled by the mainline signal box or Panel. Afterall, you are running straight onto a fast mainline. Likewise, especially with the passenger route, this would be signalled in both directions and the route would have a far more expensive signalling system than for a single line freight route. I don't recall seeing any backs of signals! Or perhaps it is just too dark!! An interesting affect is that with MAS you get a yellow, green or red glow in the immediate surroundings, which may be a good idea for a future update, if BVE allows it.
On your day route I feel that you should have a ground signal or a stop board ahead of the train showing at the start. A ground signal gives the driver a number of commands which they will take into account with the type of route it is. The main one is, that you drive forward at caution and are prepared to stop short of any obstruction (Another train perhaps, or wagons) an/or be prepared for the main signal to be 'on'. Most ground signals are known as 'permissive' which means that other movements can be taking place up ahead, you could even move up to the rear of the train preceeding you. This then leads you up to what should be the start of the 'Branch' proper, where you should receive another signal, be it a semapore starter or an MAS with a single yellow to take you up to the main junction signal.
By the way, I have a Cl66 on your route. You don't see many, if any, Cl37's on Power Station coal trains these days, as the remaining ones probably don't have slow speed control and/or require double-heading, except maybe in Scotland and I note that the BVE v4 Cl37 is indeed a Scottish one, so that may well be acceptable. Mostly today it would be a Cl66, with the ocassional Cl60 (Its a pity there isn't a v4 Cl60, that would be nice). The 60's are far superior to the 66's but suffer from the 60 mph maximum speed, but they will pull anything a 66 can, and better. Few EWS drivers care for the 66's, but sadly they are stuck with them, probably for the rest of their careers. However, the v4 66 is an excellent effort and very realistic.
I understand what you mean about a power station run-round train being quite boring for a BVE driver, but it was seldom boring in real life as there is so much going on around you too keep your attention, as my photographs show and, you got to know the place in all seasons and weather conditions. During a break we could go into the Power station mess room and have a chat with the lads or go below the coal hoppers and watch the coal being conveyed to the main heap. Why, we even got to know the Rabbits by their first names!!! All missing from BVE, I'm afraid. But it would certainly be interesting to see such a route working. Perhaps you could have a train start off for a while then be able to jump to the end of the run and take the train up to the main outlet signal where you would have relief! The Bo'ness branch allows you to jump to the front of the cab for a return journey, perhaps that coud work for jumping to the end of unloading as mentioned!
Well, that's my little grumble in regards your day and night routes, but other than that you have done a nice job in producing them. If there is anything I can help with in regard to signalling for future updates please feel free to ask.
Thanks again for the Clarendon route, it has a great Midland feel about it.
Bill EWS.