King's Cross to Manchester HST

The Modern England Railway Company have franchised Virgin Trains to run fast services on the route with Pendolino trainsets. Other franchisees are Australian: New South Wales CityRail has supplied suburban electric S-Sets for local services, and Victorian Railways and V/Line are running some local freight and passenger services with B-class and S-class diesel-electric locos. N.S.W. Countrylink have some Endeavour and Explorer diesel railcar sets on standby in case of electricity supply problems.

You are rostered on your usual morning duty to drive the high-speed Pendolino morning service from King's Cross to Manchester.

There is the normal morning traffic to cope with, as well as an earlier Pendolino service ahead of you. There will be some yellows, even a red or two, to test your patience. You can have words with the new traffic controller over a cuppa in the staff room when you reach Manchester because he seems to have scheduled some extra services without giving you adequate warning of the changes.

Remember the signal aspects don't restrict your speed but your passengers will be happier with a steady speed rather than a big rush of speed then a wait at a red.

For information on U.K. signalling, see, U.K. route signalling example.

This activity and Manchester to King's Cross HST both have the same rolling stock requirements.

This activity can be downloaded from the web•TrainSim downloads page.

Rolling stock

• Modern England Route V3 full install, modeng3f.zip, from either UKTrainsim.com or Train-sim.com.
• Pendolino V1.1 trainset: virginCL39011.exe, from UKTrainsim.com (note a capital L has been used in the filename for easier identification - it should be lower-case if you intend to search at UK Trainsim for this file).
• Australian rolling stock as follows:
• From www.train-sim.com:
• S302 loco by Christine Sweetnam: sclass25.zip
• NSW CityRail S-Set suburban electric trainset: ssetce12.zip
• NSW Countrylink Endeavour trainset: auendvr.zip
• NSW Countrylink Explorer trainset: explorer.zip
• V/Line VHGY wheat wagons: vhgy.zip
• From www.railpage.org.au/steam4me/trainsim/:
• Ten flat wagons with containers: AunswNQOX_Setup.exe
• NSW class 81 locos: Aunsw81_Setup.exe
• V/Line BS carriages: AU_vicBS_setup.exe
• From www.railpage.org.au/vr/msts/:
• VR B-class locos B60 and B74: Au_b_loco.exe
• VR B-class locos B72 and B83: Au_b_modern.exe
• VR B-class cab: Au_b_cab.exe
• VR GY wagon: Au_gy3626.exe
• VR J cement hopper: Au_j.exe
• VR VLX louvre van: Au_vlx.exe