First North Western (Gold Star) Livery for DTG’s New Pacer
2nd May 2020Recently, DTG have released a BR Class 142 for Train Simulator 20xx. The new addon features a very high quality model with amazing textures and detail, however comes with poor quality sounds and only BR Era Liveries.
Back in 2012, Armstrong Powerhouse collaborated with Waggonz to create a Class 142 pacer for Train Simulator 2013. This featured authentic sounds and high quality visuals. However, 8 years later, the addon’s quality does not compare with DTG’s high quality new pacer of today; due to advancements in texture resolution, game feature improvements and 3D modelling capacity.
This series of addons will bring modern a modern liveries and authentic details to DTG’s BR Era Pacer, whilst utilising Armstrong Powerhouse’s sounds from their old pacer. Armstrong Powerhouse’s sounds are far superior to DTG’s, however DTG have now provided us with an amazing framework for a better pacer going forward. High quality repaints with new details and features can now be released for this addon, whilst ensuring the the immersion factor within the Simulator is at its highest potential for this iconic workhorse of a train.
Enjoy 4K Repaints and authentic sounds with this Northern Rail unbranded pack for DTG’s Class 142 Pacer.
In the lead up to the privatisation of British Rail, the North Western section of Regional Railways was established. For a brief period from 1989, this section was operated under the short-lived Network NorthWest brand name, before becoming North West Regional Railways. The franchise was awarded by the Director of Passenger Rail Franchising to Great Western Holdings, with operations commencing on 2 March 1997 under the North West Trains brand. On 27 October 1997, a new livery of dark blue with a gold star was unveiled. In March 1998, First bought out the other shareholders in Great Western Holdings. The business was rebranded from North Western Trains to First North Western in November 1998 with First’s corporate blue, pink and white livery adopted on only some classes of train.
First North West was a short-lived venture and few examples remained of the First North West brand until late 2006. First North West was eventually taken over by Northern Rail and Northern, while two local lines were taken into the Manchester Metrolink light rail system. Northern Rail kept all their inherited pacers in their gold star livery, however with a white Northern logo in place of the First North Western Logo.
A selection First North Western’s pacers were cascaded to First Great Western, and existed for many years with their gold star livery, however with pink doors rather than dark blue. These were again, later transferred to Northern. In the first two years of the franchise, Northern had removed the branding from all of its inherited units and replaced it on some units with monochrome “Northern” logos. These were either black or white, depending on the base livery colour of the unit they were being applied to. This process continued into 2006.Northern rail slowly started to repaint their Gold star pacers (Along with inherited Merseyrail)and to their corporate purple, blue and white swooping livery.
The gold star livery was carried by:
Class 142 – 142001, 003-5, 007, 009, 011-014, 023, 027-040, 060-064, 067, 068, 070 (33 units)
Installation Guidelines:
a) Acquire the prerequisites:
– Armstrong Powerhouse Class 142 Pacer (For Sounds)
– DTG Class 142 Pacer
b) After installing the prerequisites successfully; locate the ‘FNW-DTG142’ download and move its content into your RailWorks Directory (Usually located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\Common\RailWorks\). Overwrite any files if asked.
c) Navigate to your RailWorks folder (Where you’ve just imported these files to) and run ‘Install FirstNorthWestern DTGPacer(V1.0).bat’
d) When it is completed, close the application.
e) Run ‘Verify.bat’ (Located within the same directory). This tool verifies your installation. A Green Screen will indicate a successful install, whereas a Red screen indicates and unsuccessful install. It will provide you with steps as to how manual installation can be achieved.
f) Launch TS2020 And Look for the ‘First North Western’ Conists under ‘Class 142 Pacer’ (Not ‘Class 142’! This is AP’s old pacer) in quick drive! I recommend using this pack on the following routes:
– DTG Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly
– Northern Lines Electric by Vulcan Productions
– West Coast Mainline Midlands and Northwest (aka – ‘Missing Link’) by SpeedyPete202
– WCML Over Shap
Enjoy!