Stepford County Railway Opening Project #0 (Introducing a more urban rail service)
Note that this article is being written for a small but tight internet community that I’m part of, so if there is no context, you might as well think for a second, and decide to read something else.
Good morning, oh and it is 2:05 A.M. current time as I’m writing this (yay 205 series reference). Anyways, I can’t keep thinking about what to write for this much time, so I’ll start by spitting out some initial information leading up to the project details.
Yes, everyone here knows that the Stepford County Railway is trying to be all nice and smooth, but it ends up having those edges and points somewhere along the way, but I’ve gotten so used to this game already..
I mean sure, I’ll admit that my senses are working now and I’m starting to get tired of all this repetitive driving (drivers IRL experience this) and filling that slider to set whatever speed I need, and it’s always either a 45, 50, 65, 75, 90 or 100mph speed limit (drivers IRL don’t experience this), but again, I’ve gotten so used to this game, that I really can’t complain.
Okay, but it is seriously getting too repetitive, so I’ll need to try work on something new and unheard of.. ROBLOX is about imagination anyways (if you are creative enough to come up with something.. and this is Medium, a place where creative people thrive)... and I came up with this...
Now this might be obvious but there are these ticket-gates scattered at some stations throughout the game, but they’re merely for decorative purposes: they do not function at all (tickets aren’t even a thing either, but for now, we can pretend that they exist), but from there I can make something. I mean, I like starting with nothing and working my way up to something...
So I did try do that, and started off with an idea that I could establish some closed network that passengers with a non-existant contactless card system could ride freely throughout (living only 20 or so KM from the nearest major hub in Tokyo, you probably have to go at least 50KM from where I live to find an unmanned station gate; the Stepford Main Line (SV ~ LBTS) is only around 40KM long when I lasted checked, completely different environments but I figured Stepford should have its own card-network system anyways)
I won’t be commenting much about the mapping process, because frankly it’s just spawning at a station and walking around looking for a hole in the network, and if I did, I’d go back to the menu and progress. There are a few stations that I think are worthy of some attention, however..
- Stepford Central
Apparently, there is actually a lift that extends from the "Approach Road Main lobby" (outside the ticket-gates) and ends into a connecting corridor between Platforms 1 ~ 10 and Platforms 11 ~ 15 (inside the ticket-gates). It is up to the player to decide whether SC should be omitted from the Urban Network or not (remember that lifts in SCR are also there for decorative purposes and cannot be interacted with; they don’t even look like actual elevators if I’m being honest). Personally, I can’t imagine the most important station off a list of “commuter use” stations when the reasons can also be bent, so I let SC on my list anyways.
- Hampton Hargate
This one is a bit upsetting, because for some unknown reason, HH had their ticket-gates removed (even my original favourite exit in the game, sad). This is really the only station that I know that has over time, lost its security by removing the ticket-gates (I’m checking HH while writing this and they’ve also lost the apartments that used to stand nearby the station, like seriously..)
- Airport Terminal Two
Alright for something a bit more odd, Airport Terminal Two (also one of my favourite stations) actually doesn’t even have any other connection to the outside world (characteristics of a Hikyō Station, except this is underneath what is supposed to be an Airport Terminal, plus it’s the largest of all the Terminal Stations). Obviously, if there are no exits, there are no ticket-gates... 𝐁𝐮𝐭, the way I see it: normally, passengers can enter stations freely due to lack of gates anyways, so it is up to the imaginary conductor / salesperson on every train to check passengers’ tickets to ensure that they are legitimately paying for their fare...
So if there would be a salesperson to issue tickets onboard every train, then they can also reject our "contactless card passengers" from riding ticket-only trains, instead of those passengers being banned from using the station altogether. There’s also the added advantage to prevent additional skipping for some AirLink routes that will skip Airport Central (otherwise they would just despawn), plus connections between those routes..
From all that searching, I ended up making this (poorly done) TfS rail map which shows every station and that it either has ticket-gates, or doesn’t...
As shown, basically every Connect branch-line has either one or none, when it comes to secured stations. If we’re considering to terminate only at stations that the destination indicator is listing (for the sake of accuracy for passenger), then it seems like some stations are impossible to access without running an initial "off-urban network” schedule (the most notable being WaterLine stations: every terminus excluding Benton isn’t secure with ticket-gates, so a WaterLine route that serves urban-passengers is impossible to operate). The main reason why I need to be able to complete routes, even if I already have very limited options anyways, is so that I can also operate designated trains running urban-only schedules, without needing to despawn and respawn at another depot.
Currently, the list of full routes that can serve ticket-gate only stations are..
- R003 (Connect / SC ~ LSR) The only Connect route here, it must skip Angel Pass, Hampton Hargate, and Rocket Parade Stations.
- R052 (AirLink / SC ~ Terminal 1 & 2 turn) Must skip Airport Central Station.
- R057 (AirLink / LSR ~ Terminal 3) Must also skip Airport Central Station.
- R075 (Express / SC ~ Benton Non-stop)
- R076 (Express / SC ~ LSR via Benton)
- R078 (Express / SC ~ LBTS via Benton faster route) Must skip Westwyvern Station
- R079 (Express / SC ~ Benton)
- R081 (Express / SC ~ LBTS “Super Fast”)
Now that that’s done, I just wanted to test a route to see if this would work, and since I’m obsessed with commuter trains, I just went with Connect.
Now normally I should select a train that is built for high-capacity commuter services to operate such routes (such as the Class 707), but being RailDeliveryGroup, I did my testing on a Class 321 (and I figure why not run a Chopper sound in the background too).
The inaugural route operated out of Whitefield Lido depot, skipped WL itself, so that it could stop at High Street, and continue up to SC, from there it proceeded on a round-trip on R003 (named this service an “Urban Semi-Express” due to the type and amount of skips)...
and that is really all I need to say about this little project of mine.. I’m a bit new to Medium, but I’m somewhat confident in expressing my ideas through writing... either way, if something in this pile of words didn’t make any sense, then please excuse me for that. Before I forget, thank you for bothering to read this article about one of my SCR projects (calling off at 4:14 A.M.; time goes by faster than I can type)...