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Announcing the North London Line: Our 4th project

Launching BVE Western Region’s first ever mainline route

Have you been playing along with Guess the Route? Did you guess correctly? Whether you did or not, the wait is now over. I can finally reveal what the “4th project” is. We are proud to introduce our first ever mainline route: announcing the North London Line for BVE!

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What is included in this release?

While it is only a beta at this stage, there is plenty to enjoy:

  • The North London Line as it would’ve been in 2004 – 2006 at the height of the Silverlink Metro era
  • Features the full journey from Richmond – Stratford (Low Level)
  • An early prototype of our Class 313 EMU with authentic sounds and a highly detailed cab
  • Faithfully recreated dual voltage functionality that accurately replicates the real train
  • Fully operative AWS/TPWS and Tripcock systems as well detailed mainline signalling

As this is only a beta, there will be sections of this route which are not as polished as we normally produce. However, this route is very much an on-going project and we will be adding more features in the future. Additionally some objects and textures will also be re-visited to bring them up to our usual standard.

Introducing the Class 313 EMU

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As you may have guessed by our clues, the Class 313 was built by British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) at the Holgate Road Carriage Works between 1976 – 1977. Class 313s are currently the oldest EMUs in regular service at 44 years old. They are affectionately known as “milk floats” due to the distinctive humming sound they make.

Lovingly recreated in BVE, the sound is as authentic as we could manage. The controls are almost exact to the original and the safety systems it uses behave just like a real class 313. In fact, we’d go so far as to say its almost like driving the real thing! The model is an early prototype but will soon boast all the features you have come to expect from BVE Western Region. It is scheduled for a massive overhaul soon which will vastly improve the model.

More information about the route

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The North London Line is the longest route we have released to date, with a drive time of over an hour! This route is fully immersive and very interactive. There is no sitting at stations on this route, it’s a more intensive drive than anything we have released so far.

Boasting an accurate timetable taken from actual timings produced by Network Rail. Our timetable allows you to drive a mid-morning ‘shift’ which keeps the driver on their toes. Although there is no shunting into sidings or bringing a train into service, this route has become very addictive to our testers.

As with all our routes, we have picked an era which speaks to us. This particular route is set in 2004 – 2006 and being nearly 16 years on gives a healthy dose of nostalgia. Our testers have frequently commented on how it “takes them back” or is a “trip down memory lane”. The same attention to detail is found in this route as with our others, including accurate posters and signalling of the era.

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What’s next for this project?

As I have said before this is very much an ongoing project and I’m sure we’ll soon be announcing more for the North London Line. Here is just a small sample of things we have planned for the future:

  • Extending the line towards its terminus at North Woolwich
  • Rebuilding the 313 exterior model to an even higher standard
  • Rebuilding the track work at Richmond and bringing the other platforms into service
  • Bringing the crossover at Stratford into use to recreate the full procedure for terminating trains here
  • Return journeys!
  • A choice of times (including various times of day)
  • AI Trains
  • Adding the West London Line

Yes, you did just read right. The West London Line and return journeys are an integral part of this project.

As usual, watch the news section of the website for the release of this and any other routes. All I will say at this point is that testing is going very well and the release will be very soon. If you can’t wait until then, you could always play our Central, Jubilee or Waterloo & City Lines which are currently operating a good service.