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Post by bigjacko on Jan 18, 2020 12:49:26 GMT
Never had VDL down as an educational resource (far too much fun for that), but today I did actually learn something new, that I never knew about the District. My nippers and I stayed in Putney recently for a couple of nights, when we went to see the King Tut exhibition in 'that London'. We used Putney Bridge station a lot. Never been there before till then. Playing the VDL today, coming southbound into Putney Bridge on a QD trip with it as the final destination, I was shocked and surprised to suddenly find a hefty set of buffers in the track at the end of the platform. "Yikes!", thought I. A little bit too late, as it happened, but that's another story. I thought "What's all this? Is this a mistake? Surely not - these VDL boys are far too exacting for that to be wrong. It must be that I'd simply not noticed it in real life, when we came down from Paddington." But thinking harder, I realised the train we'd come in on had definitely continued out of the platform as we were heading down the stairs. Hard to do, if there were buffers. And there were only three platforms here - one of which is out of use, one of which is southbound, and one of which is northbound. "What is going on?" thought I. Luckily, Google came to the rescue, and pointed me at this excellent little PDF from the London Underground Railway Society: All Change at Putney BridgeNow it all makes sense, and some history was discovered today. Thanks lads, for stimulating an interesting discussion in our household and sparking off some 'actual learning'. I'm always pleased when that happens as a result of my kids videogaming exploits! Tends to make it easier to excuse my own videogaming hours, to the wife, when that happens!
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Post by Jimi on Jan 18, 2020 15:12:16 GMT
There are parts of the route that we have deliberately left as they were in the 80s. You bumped into one of them. Quite literally, apparently :-) The old bay platform is indeed now a through platform, and the old WB one is now disused. I believe the reversing x-over on the bridge is also gone. You have to continue to East Putney now to reverse if needed.
You will find a similar hydraulic buffer at Ealing Broadway, also long removed IRL; and other interesting items from the past all over.
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Post by bigjacko on Jan 18, 2020 17:20:05 GMT
Just to clarify - perfectly happy that this is all set 'at a moment in time', and I wasn't implying that it needed updating. It's fine as it is - I happen to love the 1980s. It's when I had my best fun! Was just genuinely pleased to have a 'so-called game' add-on prove to be a useful educational discussion point for my nippers that made them question things in a context they'd personally experienced. I love it when that sort of thing happens and disproves the gutter-press myths that videogames are just opiate for the masses and destined to turn us all into serial killers, psychos or asocial shut-ins.
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Post by Xavier on Jan 18, 2020 23:10:06 GMT
Not strictly 80s but a lot of the features date from that time. I'd actually say the route has a date around the early 2010s, though including all the features to make use of the S stock as well, however non-original.
What you see at Putney Bridge is as it were before the withdrawal of the C and D stocks, which are obviously the main stock accompanying the route. The centre terminal platform that exists in TS and pre-S stock was used by selected C stock trains from Edgware Road terminating short. D stock was too long for the middle platform.
Eddie, Jimi, Darren and Richard started this project a little while before the S-stock was conceived.
Another notable case in point is that you'll notice going between Earl's Court, West Brompton or Kensington, is the presence of Earl's Court Exhibition Centre which for a few years now has been demolished and the land cleared where it stood. But it was present at the historical time of the route setting, so it appears.
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Post by bigjacko on Jan 19, 2020 1:12:37 GMT
Another notable case in point is that you'll notice going between Earl's Court, West Brompton or Kensington, is the presence of Earl's Court Exhibition Centre which for a few years now has been demolished and the land cleared where it stood. You are kidding me, right? Earls Court Exhibition Centre is gone? Nooooo! I think my love of the Underground first started, right there, sometime back in the mid 80s. I'd been a mainline gricer for years beforehand, and always tended to just regard the Underground as a "thing to use to get from Waterloo to Kings Cross to trainspot while avoiding treading in someone else's sick" (that always seemed to be a thing back then). But I was working on a stand at Earls Court for one of the big annual PC or ECTS shows (can't remember which, it was so long ago) and I came out to escape the crowds and went round the back of the building for a crafty ciggie. I remember randomly looking over a wall and seeing - for the first time ever - a whole LT depot, out in the open air. Lillie Bridge (though I didn't know that at the time). I was amazed, enthralled, godly lights came on and clouds parted. I recall seeing the yellow battery locos and thinking "What the hell are THOSE? You mean to tell me they have LOCOMOTIVES on the Underground?" Changed my life. I looked at the Underground in a whole new light from then on. Years later when I actually had to move to London (Golders Green, so the Northern was 'my line'), I spent far too many happy hours digging into the secrets of the Underground far and wide, and loving every minute of it. In some ways, I think I love it more than the national network. It's more intense, busier, always something to look at. Don't get me wrong - you can't beat a scenic trip across the Lake District or the West Highlands, but it's all a bit... pastoral - like going to a gallery and look at a Constable landscape painting. Nice, but a tad boring after the umpteenth time. I've grown rather tired of Brunel's Billiard Table now that I live in the West Country. Even the run up to Birmingham that I have to do several times a year is a bit meh and predictable. But the Underground? Always has that frisson of fear, that sparkle of strangeness, and when you're whizzing (but not so fast you cannot see) past a million people's back gardens, or right past their top floor flat windows, it's just so much more interesting and varied than the mainline. And it's been years since I nearly trod in someone's puke there, too, so that's good. Wow. So ECEC has gone. Well, I've learned something else today, haven't I? Not that I particularly like that news. But hey, at least I get to relive that first-discovery moment as many times as I want, thanks to your creativity and hard work, eh? Cheers lads! Many thanks!
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Post by Eddie on Jan 19, 2020 14:31:06 GMT
Nice story Jacko. Wayback in the early 2000's I remember being stuck for hours on the Talgarth Road trying to get some irate punter out to Heathrow in my 1982 Austin FX4 taxi. The traffic was so bad everyone had switched their engines off including me. I got out of the cab to stretch my legs, looked over the parapet down onto Lillie Bridge Depot full of mysterious goings on. One of the workers down there saw me and waved.
When we, as a team, finally got around to building Lillie Bridge in Railworks I made sure the view from Talgarth Road was accurate. Getting it all into the space required was a nightmare too, but in the end a scale drawing was laid over our layout and confirmed it was accurate to an inch. Our route now, is the only place on Earth where you can see the ECEC from an S-Stock train, or drive a C and D-Stock train.
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Post by bigjacko on Jan 19, 2020 14:53:38 GMT
Nice story Jacko. Wayback in the early 2000's I remember being stuck for hours on the Talgarth Road trying to get some irate punter out to Heathrow in my 1982 Austin FX4 taxi. The traffic was so bad everyone had switched their engines off including me. I got out of the cab to stretch my legs, looked over the parapet down onto Lillie Bridge Depot full of mysterious goings on. One of the workers down there saw me and waved. When we, as a team, finally got around to building Lillie Bridge in Railworks I made sure the view from Talgarth Road was accurate. Getting it all into the space required was a nightmare too, but in the end a scale drawing was laid over our layout and confirmed it was accurate to an inch. Our route now, is the only place on Earth where you can see the ECEC from an S-Stock train, or drive a C and D-Stock train. And by golly you and the team have done such a bang-up job. It's really impressive. Really, really impressive. I don't think I have enjoyed a route on TS20xx so much for a very long time - not even the routes that cover my own home area. At the moment, while recovering from a busted rib, thanks to the flu over Christmas, I am spending inordinate amounts of time here enjoying your handiwork, and driving the District. I'm having fun, the kids are learning things about their November trip to London, and the missus can't complain! LOL. What could be better, eh? Despite the fact that I post a lot about faults and things that I find, it's only intended in the spirit of trying to help, and I wanted to make it absolutely clear I think the VDL is a stormer, a triumph, a real work of art. And you gave it to the world all for free. I think that is frankly amazing, in this day and age where everything else seems to be about entitlement and money. And I really do hope this is the start of a new phase in TS20xx's history, one where the LU will start to be more represented - I've waited for this for so long, and you have done it so well. I know it's supposedly all downhill for TS now that TSW is out - but as we all know, with no editor, and not even a way to make your own scenarios, TSW is a tad limited in terms of personal interaction and it looks like staying that way due to the way the Unreal Engine's editor works ( basically, if they give away UE4 edit powers on TSW, they've given away the family silver, and the whole lot is laid wide open, and bang goes their DLC market). But TS20xx still continues, thank goodness - precisely because creative people like you and the VDL team can labour away for hours ( read: weeks, months and years - I know how frustratingly hard TS's route and scenario editors are to work with, believe me) and come up with a masterpiece such as the Virtual District Line, and then give it away for nothing more than a smile and a wave. Thank you!
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Post by Eddie on Jan 19, 2020 15:23:08 GMT
Well, we did it mostly for our love of LU and giving it away was , in the hope that other content creators would build more LU routes with our Assets and now JT's Assets too. Win Win for everyone. Really glad you're enjoying it as much as we do too. More to come, the fat lady hasn't sung yet.....................
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