Chris and Brian, A big thank you and well done for the release of this Route,living in the Highlands and having travelled over the Route many times what a fantastic job you have done.
I've run the Maldon-Moss Vale with a freight consist, it sure is a hard slog uphill from Picton to the Aylmerton tunnel, I'll do a return trip with the morning"Southern Highlands Express" Goulburn-Sydney leaving at Moss Vale. All the stations look great especially Mittagong{I'm being biased}. The Route like all Aussie Routes is a pleasure to run on.
Regards,
Robert.

I'm a bit confused about the recent public release of 'New South Wales Southern Highlands Route' as announced my 'Mrdriver'.

In advance of downloading, is it the same route that Chris Anderson (Moderator) was working on, as communicated in the Screenshots section under 'Picton' ("as will everything on the main line between Maldon and Moss Vale")?
Or an overlap or... ?

Keeping in mind that 'ShortNorth' / Brian is authoring his 'Short West + Short South' route which extends just beyond Moss Vale, what are the end-pooints of 'Southern Highlands'?

Mike.

Gee so am I!!

It's pretty simple really. I built the Highlands route, but after getting about 80% complete "ran out of steam" and Brian offered to finish it, saying that it was too good of a route to just sit on my computer alone. He finished it, sent it back to me for final approval, and then I sent it to Russell and the rest of team-ALCO for testing. When it was ready to go (no changes needed, Brian's work is THAT good), it was packaged by Russell and released on this site.

Any questions?

Just to add a bit more to Chris's comment above:

My upgraded 'Blue Mountains - Steam Era V2' route had already expanded from Granville south to Liverpool and on to Campbelltown. Once I got permission from Chris, I have now MERGED his 'Southern Highlands' route onto mine, and I have now laid the track (only track on base terrain - at this stage) between the end of Chris's line at Maldon to the end of my previous expansion at Campbelltown.

With the extra track added, I decided to rename the route as the 'Short West + Short South' as it now contains the full line from Sydney Central to Wallerawang (the Short West) and the full line from Sydney Central to Moss vale (the Short South - strictly speaking the Short South ended at Goulburn, but at this stage the MSTS version ends at Moss Vale).

Also remember that the 'Short West + Short South' route is the combination of the work of (4) four authors - Mike Simpson for the Penrith to Lithgow section, Peter Newell for the Sydney Central to Flemington section, and of course, Chris for the Maldon to Moss vale section - all the interconnecting track to link these three routes up together is by me.

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm anticipating late October / early November release.

Regards, Brian

Brian,
Will activities written for Chris's Southern Highlands also run on your Short West-Short South route?

I can't see any reason that they would not work - the track in the 'Southern Highlands' is identical to that same section in my new route.

However, when the 'Short West + Short South 'is eventually released, you will find the 'Southern Highlands' activities will start and end far from the full route's potential, so may have to be revised to include the extra running distances.

Regards, Brian

Both of you should be extremely proud of your efforts, the 'feel' of the route has been captured so well. My congratulations, particularly to the genius responsible for Maldon Cement Works!

As a NSWGR-based user of MSTS and not anything else, I, along with many others are so lucky to be able to share in this. Top job.

That would be Chris!!!!

Well done Chris! I nearly dropped the laptop when I saw that model coming around through Maldon.

It's available on TrainSim.com... can't remember off the top of my head who made it, but yeah, used that and photos from Google Earth.

Glad you liked it