Great Western Levels (1902) Revamped

Hello everyone, long time no see. I have been extraordinarily busy with my real life job, so my GAD projects have had to take a backseat over the last few months. Things are finally calming down, so I can resume my two most important projects: Great Western Levels 1902 (Revamped) and my GWR B Sets. This blog post covers the route, and there will be news on the B Sets very soon!

Great Western Levels 1902 turned out to be a very popular route both with our fans and within the team. This has led us to take some time to improve the assets and scenery, as well as some functional aspects like track layouts and signalling, to turn it into a proper GAD-quality route. The revamp is nearly ready to go into testing, so I am going to showcase some of the changes in this blog post. Please bear in mind everything is still a work in progress.

Firstly, some key bits of information:

• This is a new route, it does not overwrite the original.
• Scenarios for the original will (probably) not work on the revamp.
• No extra requirements are added, but this will overwrite old GWL 1902 assets.
• There are no plans to upgrade the 1882 route; its status has not changed.
• This route will form the basis for a 1922 version, which has no planned release date.

Rebuilt Williton

I was not particularly happy with Williton, so it has undergone a major overhaul. The turntable is larger, the yard has been expanded, signalling replaced, the canopy and platforms extended, and the near-station town scenery replaced. The alignment of the approach is expanded, and a spur of track allowing for a future Minehead extension has been laid.

New Alignment and Doniford Station

I also realised I was unhappy with the ex-1882 alignment of the railway line from the end of the cliff section to Williton station. I took the opportunity to add a new seaside town, and a much-needed tunnel to the route. As such, the line now goes back to double track after the cliff section, passes Doniford station (with bay platform for Minehead autotrains), crosses the junction for Minehead and Watchet Docks, then climbs up to Williton station through a newly expanded town area. This should be considered a ret-con, rather than a historical evolution from the 1882 version. 

Highbridge Modifications

The layout at Highbridge had a turntable as part of the run-around loop for passenger trains. While this is not unheard of on the GWR network, it is not possible to use a turntable in a standard scenario. I have thus altered the run around loop, and moved the turntable and engine shed.

New GWR Assets

A plethora of new and improved GWR stations assets have been installed along the route, including at Pawlett,

Puriton,

Woolavington,

Aschott North,

Bridgwater, including rebuilding of much of the town,

Other Improvments

It's hard to keep track of everything, but here's some other things that come to mind:

• Second crossover added to Chilton Polden to help with shunting.
• Distant signals moved to allow for proper braking distance.
• Various overbridges replaced with better, correctly scaled, assets.
• Lineside fencing moved in several placed to be more prototypical.
• Changed some areas of lineside fencing.
• Added more realistic variety of signal boxes and platform buildings.
• Replaced some cobbled roads with dirt tracks.
• Increased field density in certain sparse locations.
• Improved platform edge profile and surface textures.
• Several improvements to modelling and textures of the existing assets.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading. I hope you're excited for this upgrade. This has been a part-time passion project, which I hope to release in the coming months. After some final tweaks, testing and scenario creation will be required before release. This will have to fit around my other duties.