Show off your realistic AI railway images!

[Sun Chariot]

Does this image finally prove that the world did end in the 1990s and that we are actually living in a post-apocalyptic state? I assume that is the comet that finished us all in the image?

The world ended on August 11th 1968 (15 Guinea Special), or 2nd January 1982 (last operational day of the Deltics).

The Chicxulub crater, on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, is the scientifically-accepted cause of global effects which wiped out the dinosaurs.
Perhaps the AI meteor will do similar to modern 'dinosaurs'.
Maybe the Spectrum, C-5 and Sun supplement were already facing extinction.
Or maybe AI is the meteor...

 

[Topological]

The world ended on August 11th 1968 (15 Guinea Special), or 2nd January 1982 (last operational day of the Deltics).

The Chicxulub crater, on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, is the scientifically-accepted cause of global effects which wiped out the dinosaurs.
Perhaps the AI meteor will do similar to those more modern dinosaurs.
Maybe the Spectrum, C-5 and Sun supplement were already facing extinction.
Or maybe AI is the meteor...

That is too deep for my mind. Very parallel universe...

 

[Iskra]

Legend
I've been enjoying your videos and trip reports too.

Thanks!

On the expectation that it is not abandoned lines becoming forests:

View attachment 199177

The vegetation there reminds me of a hike along the old Port Road last summer!

 

[Ashley Hill]

Just enough time for an afternoon walk before work.


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"Dont worry Holly, Daddy is at work he`ll never know!"

 

[Sun Chariot]

Absolutely brilliant images @Ashley Hill
Looks like England's Finest on the tunnel wall.

That is too deep for my mind. Very parallel universe...

They cleared, levelled and relaid that overgrown embankment pretty sharpish. I bet Preston to Longridge work won't be that quick.

 

[Topological]

Absolutely brilliant images @Ashley Hill
Looks like England's Finest on the tunnel wall.



They cleared, levelled and relaid that overgrown embankment pretty sharpish. I bet Preston to Longridge work won't be that quick.

Took a while for the fencing contractor to get to work though:



All being well testing of the line should begin in 2030 and they are expecting the first services in 2038.

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After a momentum-led drive to power, Your Party conclude that the next HS line should link Accrington and Bacup. The contractors get to work swiftly replacing the track:



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However, before the trains can run the fencing contractors are needed. This time they come at once:



HS66 is battery powered, so no wires (in case anyone was wondering)

 

[Sun Chariot]

You can take the train - if only everything in life was as reliable as... his wooden pull-along train.

 

[Iskra]

So, the next theme is ‘…What if?’

Brunel’s atmospheric railway, still a roaring success in 2026 due to being wave-proof.


The Woodhead Route express service, linking Manchester and Sheffield in just 30 minutes.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Thanks @Iskra What if is an inspired idea.

All - please ensure this theme's images are "convincing and almost believeable". Such as:
- train is correct, looks realistic but it has a "what if" livery,
- railway infrastructure is "what if" - e.g. electrify a route, or a closed route still open, or steam / BR continued.
AI images which look a bit (or a lot) too "fantasy" - put them in the Not Entirely Realistic thread, please.

Both AI threads were discussed at the Forum's recent AGM.
So - please help and keep the intent of this thread: "realistic, convincing and almost believeable". Many thanks.


Meet Thy Model-Maker - my last "pre-theme' image. This gent perhaps wonders if his O gauge layout will ever get built.
With that heat coming off the exposed soldering-iron grip, he might have less time than he thinks.

 

[D6130]

Thanks @Iskra What if is an inspired idea.

All - please ensure this theme's images are "convincing and almost believeable". Such as:
- train is correct, looks realistic but it has a "what if" livery,
- railway infrastructure is "what if" - e.g. electrify a route, or a closed route still open, or steam / BR continued.
AI images a bit (or a lot) too "fantasy" looking go in the Not Entirely Realistic thread, please.

Both AI threads were discussed at the Forum's recent AGM.
So - please help and keep the intent of this thread: "realistic, convincing and almost believeable". Many thanks.


Meet Thy Model-Maker - my last "pre-theme' image: this gent perhaps wonders if his O gauge layout will ever get built.
With that heat coming off the exposed soldering-iron grip, he might have less time than he thinks.

I can see the pasty....but where's Wonder Woman? Driving the 150 perhaps?

 

[Sun Chariot]

I can see the pasty....but where's Wonder Woman? Driving the 150 perhaps?

Lordy, I can't escape the clutches of Ms Carter!

 

[D6130]

Lordy, I can't escape the clutches of Ms Carter!

Aye....you started something viral there! Maybe you should stop including the pasties at this point!

 

[chrisjo]

this gent perhaps wonders if his O gauge layout will ever get built.

He needs to spend a lot less time tending to his perfect lawn.

 

[Topological]

He needs to spend a lot less time tending to his perfect lawn.

Well tended grass next to the railway line is definitely a thing. A different line, but the same effect here:

 

[Ashley Hill]

What if Tavistok re-opened? Dave finally gets to highlight the Southern line in his Baker atlas. "Now which way to the Queens Head?" asks Harriet.

 

[Topological]

Dave finally gets to highlight the Southern line in his Baker atlas. "Now which way to the Queens Head?" asks Harriet.
View attachment 199270

Someone needs to have words with whoever installed that footbridge. The lift goes up to the bridge, but the stairs just take people up to the side of the lift shaft. Going to be a few missed trains when people are heading to platform 1 at Tavistock. Probably for the best that Dave and Harriet will not need to navigate that issue after being in the Queens Head.

Similar strong lobbying has seen a diversion route formed of the Cumbrian Coast line. Here a Pendolino snakes its way past the new Sellafield H reactor.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Wartime traffic - What if Napier's marine engine was adopted for rail use in the early 1940s?
The troop train is arriving behind a curious new machine. By comparison, Thompson's B1 of 1941, with pre-1946 number 8301, awaits the signal before heading away light engine. A work-stained A4 4499 arrives simultaneously, for the North.

Dared to be different - What if diesel hydraulic motive power was explored prior to Nationalisation. Here, the Birkenhead-bound service runs wrong-line - led by Western Chariot and Western Wonder.

 

[Topological]

For this mornings composition, I need two images. The first provides a more expected what if? Which is what if people recognised the importance of Topology 40 years before the seminal paper appeared in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society?


If Oliva Dean can have Olivia Deansgate, then I can have a lake district halt. The GWR poster is simply a foretelling of my being based in Swansea.

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Things get a little more What If? when the decision is made to replace all railways with roads. The roads are laid directly over the tracks providing quick access to the countryside and a ready network of inter-city motorways. Park and ride services on hump yards prove popular, and the large engine sheds become ready made out of town supermarkets. With car ownership still the preserve of a few, the new network initially flourishes.



Passengers at Topological Halt are now awaiting the bus on a convenient level boarding platform.

 

[MarkyT]

Wartime traffic - What if Napier's marine engine was adopted for rail use in the early 1940s?

I like it!

Dared to be different - What if diesel hydraulic motive power was explored prior to Nationalisation. Here, the Birkenhead-bound service runs wrong-line.

If post 1945, as an express passenger loco in newly reintroduced green, it would likely have carried the G - crest - W form of company insignia, rather than the G W R shown here, which was applied to lesser classes. That distinction had also applied through the wartime black years from 1942, when the 'shirtbutton' logo was replaced. On the Western, I suggest the windscreen surround should be brass!

 

[Sun Chariot]

If post 1945, as an express passenger loco in newly reintroduced green, it would likely have carried the G - crest - W form of company insignia, rather than the G W R shown here, which was applied to lesser classes. That distinction had also applied through the wartime black years from 1942, when the 'shirtbutton' logo was replaced. On the Western, I suggest the windscreen surround should be brass!

I wanted Google to find reference data for Churchward and Collett carriages - sadly, it did not.
The AI image notional "what if" date is fairly soon after 1927, meaning Collett's King class did not get built - and these new fangled diesels wore the G W R legend as shown.
Some Gemini renderings had green window surrounds: none brass, though!

 

[Ashley Hill]

What if steam hadn`t ended in 1968? Dave and his family pick up the family essentials for the week.


Take 2

 

[Sun Chariot]

What if steam hadn`t ended in 1968? Dave and his family pick up the family essentials for the week.

Cars and supermarket of my yoof! I remember Key Markets supermarket, too.
That loco blue is close to the 1948-1949 experimental shade - lighter than British Railways' Express Passenger Blue. In my linked post of a few weeks back, I tried a few 1948 liveries.

Show off your realistic AI railway images!

Pulp fiction - even this Tuscany tourist is drawn into the novel's questionable plot. Yes, I wrote this composition with my grey cells remembering my August 1988 trip to and from Kyle of Lochalsh. My motive power was 37417, no 26-hauled passenger trains were out of Inverness then. AI weather...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Topological]

It all went wrong when Gateway became Somerfield.



You have inspired an image of a tilting Black 5 on the updgraded Cumbrian Coast route. The assumption here is that no one invented a better way to drive trains, but that the rest of the technology for a Pendolino advanced at the usual rate. Expetimentation with electrification also continued.

 

[Ashley Hill]

Dared to be different - What if diesel hydraulic motive power was explored prior to Nationalisation. Here, the Birkenhead-bound service runs wrong-line - led by Western Chariot and Western Wonder.

Double stamps! Great picture, must be single line working this morning with the pilotman stood in the cab.

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That loco blue is close to the 1948-1949 experimental shade -

I was just happy to get a blue 9F rather than something that looked like it came out of a toybox
I have just MOT checked the car registrations that AI produced. The PLY belonged to a 1980 brown Ford Cortina. The GDF plate to a brown 1983 Vauxhall Nova. I wonder where they are now?

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I posted this over on the other thread yesterday, but feel it is wasted over there so have transferred it to here.

What if Monorail had caught on? Dave & Harriet contemplate the future of rail.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Notwork - What if Ernest Marples' 1959-1964 tenure as Gov't Minister of Transport, had been even more pro-road and had resulted in far more railway route closures?
Here, an imagined map shows British Rail Principal Routes in the early 1980s. Might tie in with post 948's second image...

This "What if" map is created from Science Museum's free-to-download copy of Britiish Rail Principal Services map of June 1982.

 

[Iskra]

Wartime traffic - What if Napier's marine engine was adopted for rail use in the early 1940s?
The troop train is arriving behind a curious new machine. By comparison, Thompson's B1 of 1941, with pre-1946 number 8301, awaits the signal before heading away light engine. A work-stained A4 4499 arrives simultaneously, for the North.

Dared to be different - What if diesel hydraulic motive power was explored prior to Nationalisation. Here, the Birkenhead-bound service runs wrong-line - led by Western Chariot and Western Wonder.

That Deltic looks interesting in Wartime Black!

 

[MarkyT]

Notwork - What if Ernest Marples' 1959-1964 tenure as Gov't Minister of Transport, had been even more pro-road and had resulted in far more railway route closures?
Here, an imagined map shows British Rail Principal Routes in the early 1980s. Might tie in with post 948's second image...

This "What if" map is created from Science Museum's free-to-download copy of Britiish Rail Principal Services map of June 1982.

That's pruned even more than some of the Serpell options I believe! Makes the Republic of Ireland network appear dense by contrast.

 

[Sun Chariot]

That's pruned even more than some of the Serpell options I believe! Makes the Republic of Ireland network appear dense by contrast.

My input written description deliberately specified only those routes and those truncations; to over-emphasise the fictional "what if" nature of this theme.

That Deltic looks interesting in Wartime Black!

I wonder if it ever ventured as far as Fort George.

 

[Iskra]

Apparently so!



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If only they’d remained in service long enough to haul the Nighstar service from Manchester to Amsterdam.



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What if Iskra got his own TOC off the ground…

 

[Topological]

I would advise Iskra to instruct drivers to lower the cab top pantograph