South Wales Routes

[consolepcgaming]

Are there any routes for South Wales, to or from Cardiff Central?

[pavig]

not much I'm afraid, though I think maybe JustTrains might have something

http://cvk.pethu.se/routemaps.html (This map is not comprehensive but covers most DTG routes)

[simonmd]

No, several times people have come on here and asked, yet Wales seems to be ignored.

[consolepcgaming]

it seems so , come on developers build a welsh route, you have routes in England and Scotland but not Wales!

[Greenback]

they could have a velcro gloves to wales as a scenario :)

[simonmd]

I've suggested in the past that a 'pre-Beeching' era line or lines in S Wales would be great, all the valleys had very interesting branches and of course, they all link up with the mainline from Swansea towards Bristol. Would be great to have colliery trains mixing it up with GWR mainline stock.

[The Dinas Thunderbolt]

A South Wales main line route set perhaps late 70's to early 90's. How great would it be to drive those Port Talbot to Llanwern iron ore trains particularly up Stormy bank. Late 70's there were triple headed class 37's, through the 80's double headed class 56's and then the baton was handed over to a single class 60. Neither a blue livery class 56 or class 60 are currently available through steam though the latter can be obtained from Just Trains. Wondering whether to suggest as a feature through Engine Driver route proposals??

[consolepcgaming]

We need to have Cardiff central, Newport, Bristol Parkway, Swindon, Reading and London Paddington Route. That's a heavily used route here in Wales. Also there is a great network of local valley lines too. I think a lot of people are looking for some welsh routes, i do hope they can create one very soon as we've been waiting a while now :-)

[simonmd]

There was a guy on trainsim.net who made a fantastic looking version of the Afan Valley line centered around Cymmer which ran down to Port Talbot. Unfortunately, he hasn't finished it and hasn't released it. I used to live in the area myself and know it would be a great route, with tons of interesting bridges, viaducts and tunnels, some of which survive to this day.

[The Dinas Thunderbolt]

Hi Simonmd, yeah I saw some pics of that some time ago, looked really good, shame it's never come to fruition. I know the area you mention so would be great to see it 'come back to life', so too speak. A few months ago I mentioned the South West Wales route that can be downloaded from www.oakwood-shed.co.uk; caused a stir due to 'free' availability but the unavoidable cost to purchase DLC content to have it work to it's optimum! Nevertheless it was just nice to see some Welsh content with Margam, Swansea, Trostre, et all included. Pity DTG can't pick up routes like this, reward the hard work invested to date, and then drive it through to a finished product.

[consolepcgaming]

how do you suggest this officially to DT?

[simonmd]

You could try posting something on Engine Driver but honestly, i'm yet to see any evidence of any community suggestions being taken on seriously.

[Budge4]

There is nobody at DTG that can spell the station names :)

Seriously though i would love to see some Welsh Routes.

[consolepcgaming]

would be good to see those routes seeing as they have Scottish and English Routes but no Welsh ones!

[Danny]

I don't think that DTG are ignoring the suggestions, i just think that there are only a finite amount of route builders, budget, etc that the couldn't do all of the suggestions anyway. Also routes take time to build, its not like they can churn out 100 mile routes in a day like some people think they can!

(apparently people think I can with my routes on workshop! )

Personally I'd love to see a south wales route - such as the Valley Lines but that's just my personaly opinion :)

[allancrowley]

There IS a South Wales valley route here: The Maerdy Branch. It's only a short (but VERY challenging due to the grades) route but includes a Class 55XX, a shunter and a Class 101 DMU. It runs from Porth, just North of Pontypridd to the Maerdy Colliery.