Thanks for your interest in the NewForest Route or the "Watersnake" V3. The route depicts the Bournemouth line in Hampshire and Dorset, under British Railways Southern Region in the 1950s. V4 is in progress and extends the Route to Woking and Salisbury
Follow these instructions to benefit from using Git.
A complete trainset is included for testing the timetable.
DO NOT SHARE THIS as copyright remains with the model authors.
The route folders "Watersnake" and "Global" may be shared.
NewForestRouteV3 is a work in progress. Updates are maintained on GitHub. Email me for details at rickloader@hotmail.com
The working title "Watersnake" is an alternative name for the Southampton & Dorchester Railway - "Castleman`s Corkscrew". (Both alternatives were unkind jibes at the indirect path of the Southampton & Dorchester.)
The route climbs from Basingstoke, to a Summit at Lichfield Tunnel. Descending through Winchester, the GWR Didcot, Newbury & Southampton joins us. At Eastleigh are marshalling yards, the LSWR locomotive works and yet more branches to Portsmouth and Salisbury.
Southampton has extensive docks with an alternative route to Salisbury via Romsey. At Totton, another branch leads to Fawley refinery. We now enter the New Forest and a hub at Brockenhurst.
Here it splits 3 ways. Central is the 1885 main line to Bournemouth. Swinging away NW is the "Old Road", the original route to Ringwood and West Moors. And to the south is the Lymington Branch.
Reaching Bournemouth, many London Waterloo trains terminated and originated at the West station. Bournemouth West is also the terminus for the Somerset and Dorset line.
Continuing to Poole, we rejoin the Old Road, and the 1847 line to Dorchester. At Wareham the Swanage branch diverges. Dorchester was originally laid out as a terminus, but a spur curves away to join the Great Western line to Weymouth, the final destination of many London trains.
In addition to the main line, several subsidiary routes are partly represented. E.g. the Great Western Didcot, Newbury and Southampton, the Somerset and Dorset to Templecombe and the Salisbury line as far as Romsey.
Southampton Docks has reduced trackwork. The existing track shapes are not adequate, and the 1000 points needed for accuracy would overload the tile.
The period is set around 1958 but would be valid from the late '30s when Brockenhurst was remodelled, to 1964 when the old Ringwood line closed, and possibly electrification in '67.
This version has scenery between Basingstoke and Weymouth. Elsewhere scenery is minimal but it is included so that trains may run over the complete network. In V4 I hope to complete the rest of the scenery.
The route focus is on the timetable mode in Open Rails. The aim is to simulate the complete network of services.
Locomotives follow a complete "Duty". Leaving the loco shed, they pick up stock, run the service, dispose of stock, and finally retire to shed .
Trains follow the official 1954- 57 Engine Working Notices and the 1958 Carriage Working Notices. Experts will detect some anomalies, but I have made the best of my limited sources. Docks goods traffic is mostly absent – no info.
Trains are designated : time/origin/type/duty/lococlass so that a train named "1330wloopass71BMN" means the 13:30 Waterloo passenger Bournemouth loco duty (71B) no 381 Merchant Navy class loco.
The timetable depicts a mid-week summer day around 1954-1960.
- From the OR menu choose a timetable. Usually the last timetable in the list is the current version, but older ones are included for testing. Select a "PLAYER" timetable
- Choose a train. LE means “ LightEngine” and is usually a good choice.
- Don't choose ECS, EGS EVS. These are empty stock and can`t be driven.
- General advice. Drive forward towards the siding exit or signals shown in F4 track monitor. If in the dark, bring up the dispatch viewer CTRL+9. If still uncertain, find the train in the included spreadsheet – there may be clues.
- Trains with “Obs” are observer trains for testing or just watching trains. They are not intended to be driven.
| Code | Loco Shed |
|---|---|
| 70A | Nine Elms (London) |
| 70B | Feltham |
| 70C | Guildford |
| 70D | Basingstoke |
| 70F | Fratton |
| 71A | Eastleigh |
| 71B | Bournemouth |
| 71G or BA | Bath |
| 71H | Templecombe |
| Brk | Branksome |
| 71I | Southampton Docks |
| 72B | Salisbury |
| 72C | Yeovil |
A big subject, but here is a short summary. Services over the route can be split into 2 Eras:
- 1930-1964. SR and LSWR stock on the mainline. Push-pull trains with M7 tanks on the "old road" and Lymington branch. During this period Pregrouping and SR stock gradually gave way to BR Standard and Bulleid stock.
- 1964-1967. Ivatt2 and Standard4 tanks on the Branches. Rebuilt Bulleid Pacific and Standard 4-6-0 on the mainline. Standard 4 2-6-0 on the humbler duties. Class 33 Cromptons appear, and a few Brush Type 4 class 47 on the prestigious or inter-regional trains. Hampshire (class 205) DEMU occasionally on local services, particularly on Sundays. This was Britain's last steam-worked passenger mainline.
- The famous Bournemouth Belle.
- The Royal Wessex loaded to 13 coaches with a stop at Brockenhurst.
- The Pines Express (diverted from the S&D after 1962) Used maroon stock.
- Channel Islands Boat Express. I believe used the old road?
- Not named but the York (I think) train brought a GW Hall over the route There was a midday fast fitted-goods non-stop westwards over the old road. Fast goods were usually in the hands of S15 4-6-0, some times Q1 0-6-0.
- Pickup goods 700 , Q 0-6-0 and T9.
On Summer Saturdays 9-coach through trains ran from Waterloo to Lymington. Usually changing to a 0-6-0 at Brockenhurst. Generally nothing bigger than a 2-6-0 ran through to Lymington.
The Old road to Ringwood was much used as a diversionary route to Weymouth and Poole. Originally restricted to smaller locos, the bridges were upgraded to take the heaviest shortly before closure.
Goods traffic was mostly mixed pickup goods, i.e. vacuum-fitted head with unbraked wagons behind. No long coal trains. Some fast fitted night goods ran to Dorchester and Poole, remarshalling at Brockenhurst. There were few bulk goods trains. Bulk cement to Poole and, of course, the Fawley oil traffic passed over the eastern section of the Route.
The Eling Tramway carried lots of traffic, mainly tar, timber and fertiliser. Redbridge Works could almost be a mini-route. A shunter was resident C14 0-4-0 or sometimes a B4. Later USA 0-6-0 handled all PW materials, sleepers, rails track panels and supplies for the foundry.
Because 2 down platforms follow each other, timetables will show 2 stops at Bournemouth. Route your path through the scissors x-over to avoid the second platform (or through lines avoiding the first platform then x-over into the 2nd). Diamond crossings have extra track nodes added, so AI trains should obey signals.
Ground signals have “callon restricted” function for timetable mode. A yellow light will be shown when a train has callon.
The track plan should be accurate, except at the following locations:
- Southampton Docks - a minimal, representation
- Redbridge PWay works - reduced and loosely based on reality
- Bournemouth Goods - reduced a little
- Eling Tramway - reduced
Gradients are a compromise with the DEMEX generated terrain relief and the skewed orientation of MSTS.
- Timetable stuck trains. At present some trains that previously worked well become inactive and do not move to their next location or pickup/transfer. I hope this can be resolved eventually. For now contact me for the latest timetable version or try a different timetable.
- Open Rails errors. The OR log will show many errors. Some are the results of track data base problems from the MSTS editor. For now the route should run OK.
- Signals were made for MSTS and some are not OR compatible. In particular the indicator signals.
Copyright rests with the authors of the following models (see route ref file). My thanks to the Authors for providing them.
All items in the following classes:
| Item | Author |
|---|---|
| "greenery", some terrtex | greenery@seznam.cz, http://sweb.cz/greenery |
| Banks & cuttings | David Gibbons |
| HW scenery and buildings, Horses | Paul Gausden |
| trees & vegetation. Bedford coach | Ian Jenkins |
| green shed SR platelayer huts | |
| Container type BD, Mini, Jaguar, Fiat | Ian Morgan |
| signals | John Yelland |
| Simon Barnes | |
| Vegetation Items prefixed "MS" | Michael Sinclair |
| Vegetation prefixed "MM" | Manuel Marder |
| Vegetation prefixed RMays | Ron Mays |
| 1&3 arch bridge | Paul Mathews |
| backdrop suburban | Terry Thornton |
| signs various SR/LSWR, ContainerBDPhonebox | Ian Morgan |
| bzzmvtemplebar | Barry Munro |
| Etches shuntercabin, MRxing gates. | |
| signal gantries prefixed SR_ and CL | Simon Barnes |
| Telepoles texture | Jim Gough |
| Xmas tree, pylon | John Hedges |
| Pullman camping cars | Peter Harvey |
| Vegetation bushes Prefix RF, cows, | Reg Furniss |
| narrow gauge textures | |
| Banner repeater signals | Tony Formoso |
| Vehicles | |
| Landrover Scarab | Mike Wilson |
| Bedford Mini | Ian Morgan |
| Morris | John Dibben |
| Austin | Jeff Layfield |
| Ford Pop, Consul, Trojan vans, Foden | Martin Phillips |
| Vehicles Prefixed Doc. Trolleybus | Martin Phillips |
| Bedford vans | Tony Adams |
| Bristol Bus | Fred Carter |
| Morris Minor vans A40 | Trevor Burt |
| Sounds | Michael Sinclair |
| mineral02 | Ian Macmillan |
| WA rail pile | Zoe Topper |
| New Roads | Bruce Bridges, Martyn T. Griffin, Steven Masters, Jeff Rice |
| Large Greenhouse | Frank Carver |
| Speed posts | John Kendrick |
| sewage works | Charles Malcolm |
| 6 coasters in "boats" | Darwin Smith |
| Travelling crane | Frank Sandwell |
| Refinery | William W. Bieszczak, Russel Beer |
| Vegetation | RU Alexey Grebnev Vitaly Alyonkin |
| cloud textures | Claus Visby Overgaard, Scott |
One or more textures bundled with this project have been created with images from Textures.com. These images may not be redistributed by default. Please visit www.textures.com for more information."
Many other models are my own. My own models may be freely used and distributed, but I would appreciate a mention in a "readme" If there is ANY doubt as to the author of a model please contact me. Apologies to anyone I have missed.
Special thanks to:
Chris Jakeman - Open Rails and GitHub support
Darwin Smith OR - eng files and carriages
David Forrest - File organisation
Martin Phillips - vehicles
Richard Stevenson and John Fox - signal Info
David Gibbons - texturing and prototype help.
Tim Booth - UKFS track
Andrew Moody - prototype info
John Yelland, Simon Barnes - custom signals and signal kits
Rob Roeterdink – timetable mode author
The Open Rails team
Goku – TSRE route editor
New Forest Route was originally created on a P4 3GHz 1Gb RAM Nvidia 7800 graphics card. Now I7 16gb memory 64bit W10 with Nvidia GTX1050
- V1 Initial Release Feb 07
- V1.1 Mar 07 Track database rebuild. Linked signals reinstalled.
- V1.2 Feb 09 Scenery extended to Pokesdown. additional signals in response to feedback.
- V2 Nov 09 Track improved at Bournemouth and Southampton Docks. Scenery extended to Bournemouth and Westmoors. Additional custom signals added.
- V2.1 Dec 09 Christchurch signal relocated. Newroads files eliminated.
- V3 Jul 19. Route extended to Basingstoke, Weymouth and Templecombe.Route optimised for OR timetable mode. Now OR only.
- V4 Nov 23 Route extended to Bath Woking and Salisbury
In 1958 my mother took a teaching job at Brockenhurst. As a toddler I took the 08:10 train from Christchurch. It was only an M7 tank engine, but that engendered a life long love of trains .
I hoped to recreate the Bournemouth line in MSTS, but it was only the advent of Open Rails timetable mode that enabled the possibility.
It is true the line had little spectacular scenery, but the locos had huge variety in age and type. The train services were complex, and I hope you will find them fascinating. For example, follow the early morning newspaper and fish trains. The Southern tried hard to serve its passengers with cross platform connections, or through carriages, even if this resulted in extra operating trouble. The Southern invested heavily elsewhere, and as a result some under-invested locations such as Bournemouth Loco must have been difficult for staff. Try it at 06:00!
New Forest Route shows the system at its height. In the 1960s the traditional railway was swept away. Local goods yards were closed. Steam abolished 1967. In 1964 the Old Road closed, followed by closure of Bournemouth West and Southampton Terminus. The Somerset & Dorset succumbed in 1966. On the positive side, electrification to Weymouth provides a fast frequent service, and is heavily patronised. The Swanage Branch survives in preservation.
It is hoped that New Forest Route will give some insight into the 1950s railway scene.
rickloader@hotmail.com UKTS ID Elvas Tower rickloader
Best wishes Rick
Richard Loader July 19