Welcome to Manchester South!
It's a Summer weekday in 2003 and a unique time in the Northwest's railway history.

Manchester South SCC was fresh and new in 2003, opening in the March of this year, so this should be easier..........BUT the system used (an Italian system called 'Ansaldo'was notorisosly unreliable and failures were plentiful, as such I have defaulted the failures to 'low' to make this feel that little more realistic, and to make up for the lack of trains to/from stoke!

If you'd rather play without them just click F3 and slide the sliders left (or right if you fancy a challenge!) :)

This TT was also peculiar as due to the electrifcation of the Crewe - Kidsgrove Line, the route between Cheadle Hulme & Colwich/Norton Bridge was SHUT for large scale engineering works, making this EASILY managable as only the 'Main' lines are in use. As Such, reminders should be placed on signals MS386 & 391, with signals 4388 & 4125 set into 'Auto' a couple of engineering trains run each day (different combo's on different days) but bar that, no trains are booked via the route.

General Notes
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Attached to the Forum Post to this TT will be a 'Mock' of the old layout to show what it ACTUALLY looked like in 2003 to show you how much of an improvement this layout was!

Beware of headcodes, as like in Wigan they use the same set of about 5/6 headcodes for each route, (I got up to -6 on a few of them!) so if delays are on then they may enter incorrectly!

The Headcodes then:
1Axx are the Manchester - London services (including those usually booked via Stoke)
1Gxx are the Manchester - B'ham services, hauled by 2+5 HST Sets
1Hxx are all express services headed into Manchester, VT, VXC & WB all use the 1H headcode
1Mxx tend to be long-distance VXC services (Along with 1O, 1V & 1S), though are also used on the Down by WB services from west wales.
1Vxx are for WB services to Cardiff and beyond, though XC use them for western services too
2Axx are for Crewe/Wilmslow to/from Manchester via the Airport
2H xx & 2Kxx are for all local services Heading to/From Cheadle Hulme, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge or Crewe
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Operator-wise, we have:
Virgin trains (VT) who were still mostly using loco hauled stock with classes 86, 87 & 90 + Mk2/3 stock, with a few HSTs, though the Class 390 'Pendilinos' are starting to be introduced on London - Preston relief and 'runs as required' services, the class 86s giving way to the 390s by May 2004.

Virgin Cross Country (VXC) has now almost switched solely to Class 220 & 221 'Voyagers' though some 2+5 HSTs do appear on Manchester To Birmingham Services to help increase capacity.

The more local operators are:
Wales and Borders (WB) operated almost solely within Wales though did have a few services between Liverpool and London as well as covering the Manchester to South Wales destinations via Shrewsbury. They used 158s for the long-distance services.

First North Western (NW) operates over most of the northwest and in Crewe operates all local services around Manchester, in the hands of 323s, 150s and 142s.

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Freight was in the hands of 3 Core Operators
Freightliner (FL) was the primary operator, handling bulk containers, and general freight with Class 47s, 57s, 66s, 86s & 90s

Direct Rail Services was only a small company in 2003 whose main freight flow was handling Nuclear Waste Traffic and the occasional container train using Class 20s, 37s or 47s

Finally is EWS, which mostly handled the postal sectors in 2003 with long-distance mail trains, though these would cease operation in September of this year along with all rail-bourne mail services, they do handle other forms of freight such as coal, scrap, and 'Enterprise' workings (these are basicially mixed freights, running with very varied loads). They also have the biggest fleet of Locomotives in the forms of Class 37s, 47s, 60s, 66s, 67s, 86s, 90s, 92s & Class 325 'Postal' Units.

Enjoy