Tewkesbury Heritage Railway

We have just released our first route of 2026: Tewkesbury Heritage Railway. This short preserved line is a re-imagination of history, running from Tewkesbury to Ashchurch. See the route page for more info!

Stroudley Coaches Progress #2

After a long break over Christmas... I'm back! Today showcasing the different liveries the carriages will come in. Then, I will talk about the fancy scripting I've done on the doors. With that, the D37 First is almost done, paving the way for other diagrams after some initial testing. Hopefully things will be smooth sailing from here, working on the coaches when I get the chance between work and other GAD duties.

Liveries

The plan is to represent the coaches in 6 liveries (or 'conditions'), corresponding roughly to decades of operation. For simplicity all coach diagrams are represented in all liveries, and some other details are left out for the sake of development time.

1. 1870s condition: Varnished mahogany with oil lighting, unflitched solebar, continuous lower footboard. This version is unbraked.

2. 1880s condition: Varnished mahogany with brakes, flitched solebar, conventional stepboard.

3. 1890s condition: Painted mahogany with gas lighting.

4. 1900s condition: Umber and white livery.

5. 1910s condition: Umber livery.

6. 1920s condition: Maunsell green with Southern decals and detailing.

Roof Variation

As I expounded upon last time, the roofs are randomly given different levels of weathering. The chance of getting a cleaner versus dirtier roof is dependent on the livery – earlier and short-lived liveries are assumed to have a higher chance of clean white canvas.

Additionally, for scenario creators' ease, you can set the roofs of the whole train by appending '*' to the railvehicle flag, for example ;RT=1* will give white roofs to the whole train.

Door Features

Overview

This pack introduces a number of special door behaviours which were not present in my last coach pack (the LSWR block sets):

• Door opening and closing is randomly timed to give variety
• Doors open a random amount, changing each time they open
• Droplights will be open by a random amount, depending on season, weather, and time
• More/fewer doors will open depending on the train type (see later)
• Droplights will only drop for early liveries without internal door clasps
• Doors can be set open upon scenario start/without a driver icon using ;DL=1 or ;DR=1 (for left and right, respectively)
• Individual door opening and closing has sounds

Doors Open in Scenario Editor/On Scenario Start

This is going to be useful for scenario creators, as they can have the doors be forced open without setting up any passenger instructions. Unfortunately, AI passengers won't get on and off, but I think it will be a helpful feature nonetheless. The amount of doors open depends on the train type (see later), and it is possible to get an idea of this in the scenario editor (although not the exact doors, due to randomisation of the random seed). It is necessary to specify ;DR=1 or ;DL=1 for each carriage, as otherwise a train could end up with doors opening on both sides along a consist! For gulley platforms, you can have both open. Finally, if you use this on a drivable train, simply hitting 'T' will cause the doors to close after a delay, but note this only works on valid platforms. It will require playing around.

Train Type Functionality

The train type controls how many doors open at stations. It can be set via the railvehicle number using ;TT=x where is from 1 to 5, and 0 is default. Alternatively, if you leave it blank (or default), the train type will be estimated from the consist type (e.g. 'express passenger', 'stopping passenger' etc). The aim for this feature is to have low priority trains simulate fewer passengers, and busy trains have lots of doors opening at every station. Please note: this won't affect the in-game platform characters.

The train types are as follows:

• 0 = default
• 1 = packed train, nearly all doors open
• 2 = busy train, many doors open
• 3 = quiet train, few doors open
• 4 = sparse train, hardly any doors open
• 5 = empty train, no doors open

Video of Doors

This video demonstrates a ;TT=2 door cycle on invisible platforms.

Please forgive the garbage compression quality! Hopefully this is clear – more videos coming soon.

Thanks for reading.

GAD Somerset & Dorset - Phase 2 under development!

We are very pleased to announce that the GAD team is now working on an extension to our Somerset & Dorset route that will expand the route coverage southwards from Templecombe all the way to Bournemouth West. This extension will be a payware addition to the Phase 1 release. The total route mileage will therefore be around 72 miles, and allow players to experience driving the full course of the SDJR mainline!

The Phase 2 project is still in the initial stages of work, and even though some scenery work has been completed, there is still a fair amount of asset development that needs to be done. Therefore, it is likely that this extension will not release until Q2 of 2026. More details to follow!

While major updates and additional details on the extension will be posted on our Facebook and Blogger sites, more regular progress updates and information can be viewed on our Discord page.

Triple Release of Scenario Packs

Today I am working through the backlog of releases now that S&D is out. I'm pleased to share three scenario packs created by our external collaborators Sean and Stephen.

1. KWVR 50th Anniversary Gala Days 2–4

This pack of 15 scenarios covers part of the 50th Anniversary Gala at the KWVR in 2018. It has quite a few requirements but this is to cover operations as realistically as possible. Click here.

2. Fifteen Guinea Special 50th Anniversary Railtour

This pack contains 6 scenarios covering three railtours run to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fifteen Guinea Special in 2018. The locos are 45699, 45960, and 60009. Click here.

3. The Red Dragon Railtour (2017)

This pack contains 3 scenarios covering the 11th March 2017 'The Red Dragon' railtour. Click here.

Thanks again to Stephen and Sean for creating these packs. At GAD we rarely cover railtours and preservation ourselves, so we are grateful for their contributions for our fans of those things.

S&D Requirements are on sale!

Woodhead Route is 60% off: now £3.99

Weardale & Teesdale Route is 60% off: now £7.19

Riviera Line in the Fifties is 60% off: now £5.99

There are also sales ongoing on Caledonia Works and Precision Locomotive Developments to pick up locos to drive on quick drives/future scenarios.

Somerset & Dorset – Trailer

We are pleased to share an excellent trailer for our newly-released Somerset & Dorset route made by TheTrainMaster15. It showcases the route using 3rd party stock (available separately).

If you make videos on the route, feel free to tag our channel @GoldenAgeDevelopments. We kindly ask that you link the route page in your description.

GAD Somerset & Dorset Released!

We are happy to publish our long-awaited Somerset and Dorset route for Train Simulator Classic! 

You can purchase from our store here.

Somerset & Dorset – Included 7F

Only 5 days left until the release of our S&D route! At this stage we thought it would be useful to provide some more details on some of the included rolling stock. While a number of locomotives and stock have been provided (which are enhanced versions of those included within the payware DLC), the flagship locomotive is undoubtedly the version of the Caledonia Works SDJR 7F that is being shipped with our route.

We are incredibly grateful to Kris from Caledonia Works for providing the engine, which has been furnished with an appropriate Whitaker tablet exchange apparatus, so players can simulate the token exchanges throughout the route. Additionally, the engine has had a weathered texture applied to it, to reflect the run-down condition they would have been found in during the late 1950s.

The engine is Quick Drive-ready, and will be available for players to use with a wide slection of coach and wagon rakes.

Somerset & Dorset – Release Date and Price

The development team at GAD is proud to announce the release date and price for our upcoming Somerset and Dorset railway route! Train Simulator Classic players will soon be able to enjoy the spectacular scenery of the west country on our version of the iconic route from Bath Green Park to Templecombe on Monday the 17th of November, 2025! The route will release as a payware product through our new GAD Store page, which will be unveiled at the same time as the route.

The route will be available for £24.99, and will include a wide array of features, such as hundreds of custom assets, a version of the CW S&DJR 7F advanced locomotive, retextured and enhanced rolling stock, a wide selection of Standard, FreeRoam and Quickdrive scenarios, and bespoke signal models and scripting.

We are very excited to release our first payware route, and would like to acknowledge and thank every one of our fans for the continuous support and encouragement throughout not only this project, but all our past and current endeavours. We would not be able to do what we do without you!

More information on the website page.

Sidmouth Branch Announcement

Hello world! My name is Leonard and I've been a member of the GAD team for about 4 years. You may already know me from my scenario packs on the GAD website and recently, I have recently decided to try my hand at route-building.

My first project is not a standalone route, but is a new extension for GAD's West of England Mainline. The Sidmouth Railway: an 8.3 mile line, with stations at Ottery St Mary, Tipton St Johns, and Sidmouth. The line branched off the mainline at Sidmouth Junction (now Feniton), principal trains stopped here to connect with trains to Sidmouth and Exmouth, often with Through Coaches.

From there the line drops down into the Otter Valley at a ruling grade of 1 in 53, it then runs beside the river for roughly 5 miles, eventually crossing the river just North of Tipton. Through the water meadows of the Otter Valley, the track is relatively straight and level, as the railway passes many farms and cottages: the apple orchards are abundant here.

Between Ottery and the Junction, there were two gated road crossings at Gosford and Cadhay both

of which were 24hrs manned, and had their own signals worked by groundframe.

Just under 3 miles from the junction is the first crossing point at Ottery St. Mary. There was significant market traffic from this station which warranted its own daily goods train

After reaching Tipton St Johns, the branch for Budleigh and Exmouth splits off, and our line climbs out of the Otter Valley to Bowd Summit, with a challenging ruling grade of 1 in 45. This station, along with Hawill Junction further west , were the busiest single-line junctions on the SR, with most Sidmouth trains making a connection with Tipton-Exmouth trains and vice versa.

Climbing up to Bowd summit, the line passes through Harpford wood, the most desolate part of the line.

Conifer trees abound, and the risk of lineside fires from engines charging the bank is apparent.

At Bowd farm bridge, we reach the summit. The climb eases off and we descend at 1 in 54 into the valley of the River Sid. The road overbridge at Bowd still stands, as do most of the engineering structures on the line.

The station at Sidmouth stopped just outside the town itself, about a mile from the seafront. There was a bus service to Sidmouth Town centre and onward to the sea, as there still is today.

With steep hills and a 50mph speed limit, we hope that this route will provide a challenging and speedy drive, especially with those 12 coach Saturday extras! The majority of the scenery has been built, but the fine details, such as signalling, telegraph poles, and custom assets have yet to be added. Therefore all screenshots are work in progress, and we look forward to sharing developments with you as they occur.

I look forward to sharing more progress with you soon. Please note my computer settings are lower, but the route graphics look similar to the rest of the route.