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Passengerpigeon Overland Ltd. - serving Pollingstan since 1920

Started by passengerpigeon, July 14, 2017, 01:53:52 PM

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passengerpigeon

Dear community,
As 83 years have now passed in my main gameworld, I thought I would commemorate the occasion by putting together a compilation of screenshots of my network through the ages as well as the save file as of 2003. Here is the save file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-4LmfK__2a1cmlscV9QSTVONW8/view?usp=sharing
You can do what you want with the file as long as you don't claim it as your own work or upload it anywhere else. If you play my save and change it by adding, modifying or even cutting back on infrastructure or services, you are encouraged to upload your version to this thread.



Here is the city of Pollingstead in 1920 and 2000. Pollingstead is the terminus of all but one intercity railway line and home to the headquarters of Passengerpigeon Overland. It was chosen for this role as it was the largest city on the map before the expansions (the map was originally 512x512, now it is over 1,500 tiles wide and tall).


...and here is Walwick, in 1920 and today. During the construction of the Pollingstead-Heppcross line, the first railway on the map, the company almost ran out of money and could only afford to build the section between Pollingstead and Walwick. When the line opened, passengers had to get out at Walwick and onto a bus for the second half of the journey.

The network in 1920

The freight network today

The passenger network today

The entire railway network today

The South Sea Line carries one of its last steam-hauled services as electrification works near completion in 1959.

The single-track Great Lake Viaduct carries one of its last trains as the eastbound span of the replacement bridge is prepared for electrification. Shortly after this photo was taken, the venerable old viaduct was demolished to make way for the westbound span of the new bridge. This saddened many railway enthusiasts, as the construction of the viaduct in the mid-1920s marked a major turning point in the history of Passengerpigeon Overland, transforming it from a provincial transit group into a formidable long-distance railway company. When the decision was made to open the Two Bridges Line in its first incarnation, connecting Pollingstead to Renham via the major city of Oakden, the cost of constructing this viaduct was, in relation to the company's finances at the time, so significant that they initially could not afford to build it. Some executives suggested extending the line further north along the coast and bridging the lake using tram tracks built on the existing wooden road bridge, but this solution was ultimately rejected because it would incur unnecessary speed penalties once the company did have the cash to build the originally planned viaduct. Thus, the Two Bridges Line actually started out as two disjointed railways: one from Pollingstead to Walstead, and another from Brentchester to Renham, paralleled by a circuitous bus route that linked the two sections of track and continued on westwards to Pollingwick. The bridge was soon constructed using the income generated from these two lines, and the connection of the Two Bridges Line (which still anachronistically retains that name) was the catalyst for the "expansion fever" that has gripped the company ever since.

The first high-speed trains on the national railway network pass each other as the experimental track section is declared a success, and the air-line railway system is primed for expansion. These high-speed trains are the latest incarnations of the Century Limited Express, Barn Swallow Limited Express and Peregrine Limited Express services, which began in the 1940s and 50s and formerly ran along the South Sea Line, Two Bridges Line and Pollingoak Line, respectively, skipping minor stations with express passing loops. When inaugurated, the Limited Expresses were a huge success, but as time went on, profits took a plunge as the lines became congested - just before the new air-line railways were opened, the Limited Expresses were sprinting from red signal to red signal behind sluggish local trains, getting there barely any faster than them but costing more to run due to their higher theoretical speed. By 1988, the Peregrine and Century Limited Expresses had been curtailed to only a few trains each and the Barn Swallow Limited Express had been suspended completely, but now, with the Expresses running on their own lines, each service has at least 7 trains, some of which are now 8 tiles long.

The Heppchester-Renwell Interurban was the first true interurban tramway built in Pollingstan. Inaugurated in 1966, it initially had to be run with Abro TP-5200 diesel railcars, as no electric trams could exceed 54kph in those days.

The single-track street-running section of the Two Bridges Main Line is one of several oddities to be found on the national railway network. Passengerpigeon built this section to spite the Baringville town council and cause havoc for the city's car traffic after they declined to let him demolish one small church, whose services are now constantly interrupted by high speed trains thundering past the front door.

A brand new BR614 whizzes past the ancient RvG Stoll Bus it was built to replace. The construction of the line between Appingby and Brentville, depicted in this screenshot, enabled the retirement of the last rural bus route on the entire map. Now, every single town has a railway, metro or interurban tram connection, completing Passengerpigeon's Rail Master Plan in time for the new millenium. Before its closure, the bus line was a true anachronism, having seen no changes since its inauguration in 1928. Just like back then, a lone RvG Stoll Bus slowly rattled along the cobblestone road, shuttling back and forth between the two towns. Before the massive branch line expansion campaign of the early 1970s, many people living in small villages had to take buses like these in order to reach the nearest railway line. Therefore, a ride on the the Appingby-Brentville Regional brought back beautiful memories of a simpler time (for elderly bus enthusiasts) or traumatic flashbacks of cramming yourself into a bus shelter with hundreds of other people in order to buy a ticket on a hot, slow, outdated bus that took four bone-rattling days to reach your destination (for everyone else).

A blast from the past: This train on the Pothole Prairie North line is the last passenger service on the network to be hauled by a small steam locomotive, and the last one to use SingCo Passenger Carriages. All classes of steam locomotive except the BR01 were retired en masse during the 1970s and replaced with DMUs, but this one managed to escape the axe as, unlike the others, it was still returning a modest profit, and continues to do so as we speak (in 2003).

Before 2001, Passengerpigeon Overland never carried a gram of freight. It was only in that year, with the passenger network running like clockwork between every town on the map and few new vehicles coming in, that the company opened its first cargo line. Creative solutions, like this three-level crossing, were needed to keep the new lines separate from the well-established passenger network.