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.

Stroudley Coaches Progress #1

I am making good progress on the LBSCR Stroudley coaches pack, after a long break due to other commitments. In a series of posts I will highlight some of the features I have added as the coaches are developed. 

Random Roof Variation

We often associate the pre-grouping period with fresh white canvas roofs, however photographs from the time reveal this isn't the case. For this pack, I have made 4 roof colour variations which will be randomly selected depending on the livery. Earlier liveries are more likely to have freshly-outshopped white roofs, whereas later ones will be greyer. 

 1. Outshopped but used in service:

2. Lightly weathered:

3. Weathered:

4. Heavily weathered:

As you can see, the weathering applies to the oil lamp chimney pots. It will also be applied to the gas lamps when these are developed.

The colours can be set via the railvehicle number (RVN), using ;RT=[1,2,3,4]. If you want to set the whole train, you can use ;RTA=[1,2,3,4] on one coach to set the whole continuous rake. Here, [x,y,z] means you select one of the numbers in square brackets.

Oil Lamps at Night

The early versions of these coaches, particularly in the 1870s and 1880s, were illuminated by oil lamps. This required a member of staff to climb onto the carriage roof, remove the bung, and place the oil lamp in the roof aperture. This form of lighting was rather dark and dingey according to contemporary accounts, an effect which I have tried to replicate.

1. Oil lamp in use

2. No oil lamp in daytime

To reproduce the lighting effects from an oil lamp, I have developed a script which simulates the flickering of the flame. Additionally, there is a small animated flame for added realism. Here is a short video demonstration of the carriage interior at night. 

Note how dark it is! Later developments in carriage lighting, such as gas lamps, will be included on later liveries, with adjusting lighting parameters to represent the differences between these modes.

Carriage lighting is automatically applied if the start time of the scenario meets certain criteria, depending on the season. It can be forced on/off in individual coaches using the RVN flag ;LI=[0,1]. As of right now, the lights won't come on at a certain time of day (as in reality the lights had to be manually lit and placed in the carriage).

It should be noted that the lights are not shadow-casting, but will still have a very small performance hit on older machines. No more so than yard lamps, for example. 

Thank you for reading. Please remember all content here is work-in-progress.

MatrixTrains L&YR 6 Wheelers

MatrixTrains have updated their freeware Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway 6W passenger carriages. 

The update adds a Diagram 10 Brake Third, pictured below:

Screenshots courtesy of bricks on Discord.

The coaches can be downloaded from the MatrixTrains page. 

1000 Subscribers on YouTube!

 We're thrilled to have reached the milestone of 1,000 subscribers on our main YouTube channel!

We are glad that people are enjoying our videos. We have lots more in the works!

Visit our channel here. Subscribe if you want to be notified of our uploads.