What is Railrover80?
Railrover80 is a game based on the hobby of ‘railway bashing’ in 1980, that being the pursuit of locomotives hauling passenger trains. The idea is that you don’t just have to see the locomotive (a.k.a. trainspotting), you have to travel on a train hauled or be pushed by that locomotive to count it. This is a far cry from the railways of today where locomotive hauled trains are few and far between. You can play the game either as a NED (New Engine Desparado) or as a particular loco class Mileage Man and you score points for travelling on ’new engines’ trains or accumulating mileage off locomotives. Your aim is to become known as a Top Man but you only have the eighteen Summer weeks of 1980 in which to do that.
This game is similar to Hellfire!, both being based on one originally written in the 1990s. This game uses the actual railway timetable from Summer 1980 and includes the trains that run in the area betweeen Carlisle and Newcastle in the North to Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford, Bletchley and Bedford in the South. This is the area you would have most likely been operating in on a Summer Saturady in 1980. Only loco hauled trains will score points for you in the game. You get “New Engine” points for travelling on trains with locos that are new to you, ie you have never been hauled by them and you get “Mileage" points for the miles you rack up travelling on loco hauled trains. There are three times as many non-loco hauled trains in the game, the HSTs, DMUs and EMUs and these you will need to get to those places where a required loco hauled train is working however you score no points for these. (Class 43s, the HST locomotives weren’t yet a thing in 1980). The aim of the game is to get enough points to be called a “Top Man” which you can do by getting the rarest locomotives, accumulating miles off classes that are 'well liked’ and baging bonus points for getting all the locomotives of a particular class or sub-class.
The game lasts for 18 Summer Saturdays, those being from May to September and the days in between. However you only play Saturday with the 24hr train timetable, Sunday and weekdays will have a different gameplay. The game is puts you in the place of young 'basher' who, depending on the scenario, needs a lot of 'no heat’ locos and a few ‘heated’ ones. In this version you are based in Birmingham and your midweek moves are based on what you could have got starting at 1700hrs each day. Sunday’s moves are typical to what was available to bashers that year. Whilst the moves are predetermined but the loco numbers are not and reflect what would be used for those trains. (In a future version the actual Sunday and midweek trains will be made available so the game plays like a Saturday but with the time restriction midweek). Mid-week moves are also based on "evenings only” because in the real world you would have to work for a living (or go to school) during the day! The locos allocated to trains are a realistic representation of what you would have found on those trains in 1980. I have used the RailGenArchive website to look at every train and see what actually worked them. This is factored into the game so the loco types working trains should appear in similar proportions to what happened that year. (There is also a small possibility a train might get something ‘rateable’ working it so if you don’t know what it is then, maybe, you should 'cover it'.)
To help you know where there are locos you need there are a number of stations which are designated as Gen Centres. From 0700 hrs on a Saturday morning these will start to report what is likely to be working the important trains in their area. (The most famous of these stations is Sheffield where Neil Webster would stand on the Platform Five footbridge calling out train headcodes and their allocated locomotives, whilst in Birmingham Brian Winters was doing something similar). You will then take trains across the network to pursue those you need or want haulage off. You are not restricted to historical railrover ticket boundaries, you have “validity” to go anywhere but if you catch too many overnight trains you increase the risk of falling asleep on the train and missing the station where you wanted to debark! That’s the way it was when you did the 'overnights'.
You select your starting grade and your initial locomotive requirements will be based on what an average enthusiast would require in 1980, ie quite a lot! Your performance is measured against two of the greats of the era, who I have called Tony Mustard and Paul Bowman, a Main Man and Top Man respectively. Unless you are playing at their grade you are unlikely to catch them up because they have the knack of scoring every required loco they know about, thanks either to their Tardis or helicopter (the game doesn’t make that distinction). Your rating depends on doing better than them each week, close the points gap and raise your rank so your mates no longer look on you as being “a bit of a clown” or “a buffoon”. You will have to keep going each day until you have got the last drop out of that day’s action.
Strategy
It is not a good idea to chase after every locomotive you need. It is a good idea to go after those high scoring NB (no heat) locos that may not be working the next day but you will find that some of those will have worked the previous day. For example, Sunday’s Birmingham - Aberystwyth train was usually one of the three pairs that had worked on Saturday. The Skegness 20s would probably be unchanged as too would be the Lickey Bankers. So I recommend you hope to get the few remaining heated locos you need on the midweek moves unless it is convenient to take them on a Saturday or maybe because the loco is the last of that ‘category’ you need. (Categories group locos into class type and shed). Get all of that category and you get bonus points for that each week but don’t expect to get all locos in a rare class because it would be several more years before even the Top Men achieved that).
There are a couple of shunter moves available in the game, one in the day at Sheffield the other overnight at Doncaster. These locos do not change very often but are easy to get. The Lickey Bankers only work 1S19, the Bristol - Glasgow sleeper train. To get them you have to get on this train at Cheltenham or leave it to the midweek moves because one of those evening moves includes going for the Bankers. (On average they will be changed fortnightly).
Your overnight move needs to put you in a place where you can get the local gen. My preference was Sheffield in 1980 and I would get there off a Midland or East Coast set of trains. The Midland move is simply down to Worcester and then head for Sheffield getting there just before the gen arrives. The downside is that you won’t be scoring anything until the gen arrives. So you could do the East Coast, start at Grantham and get to Doncaster for the 08 shunt, down to Retford, then Lincoln for the unit back to Sheffield. This drops you into the middle of gen being announced so you have 20 or so minutes of checking everyone’s notes and working out what you need and how to get it whilst trains head depart north and south that might have been useful to you had you known what you know a little sooner. The third alternative is a west coast overnight. The original 1980 timetable had no overnight trains calling at Preston! The first published 1980 Timetable Supplement corrected that and you see those here. Only trains that you can get on are included in the game so the sleeper only tains aren’t there. I would do something similar to what I did in 1979 that being up to Crewe for the train to Chester and a very dubious connection straight back to Crewe and then on down to Birmingham. (In real life I never missed that connection as it usually ran late however my memory says there was once a desperate leap at Chester). You can always do a latter year Preston bash and catch a train back to Birmingham for the gen there or if you make the Lancaster at Birmingham you have the option to take that back to Warrington. The North Wales coast gen will be made available to you at that station.
The other complication that overnight moves introduce is falling asleep on the train. The chance of falling asleep increases the more moves you do overnight. You’ll be asleep for ten to twenty minutes but when the train arrives at a station you may wake up and have the chance to bail. (I will be looking at this throughout the game testing period. The intention is that at least one, but not many, of the 18 Summer Saturdays may be compromised from your overnight moves).
Where to start the day depends on what scenario you are playing. I’ve tested “New Engines” but not the others. It is difficult to argue against Sheffield in that scenario because there are several ‘guaranteed’ winners to be had there most Saturday morning (and a ‘gronk' shunter move if you need it). Then head down to Derby for the afternoon returning 20s and 25s perhaps finishing in Birmingham where you can go for the last pair of 25s returning from Aberystwyth. In real life i had done North Wales most Saturdays so needed less 40s but there will always be days where you will wish you had been there to get a massive winner.
There are four "Mileage Man” scenarios. These give ten times the mileage points off your chosen class and double New Engine points so you’ll probably be flagging a few big locos of other classes to concentrate on what you prefer. I’m not sure how the points scored in these scenarios will matchup against the New Engines ratings as they are untested and I’m not sure how interesting they will be. I know there were people who did 40s and Peaks in 1980 but I’ve also added 47s and 25s. You can get mileage off 45s and 47s without really trying and over 18 weeks probably get a 1,000 miles off one loco or two but that’s what you do in 1987 onwards when there is nothing else left to do. (Whoops, showing my prejudice there, my apologies to fans of passenger train locos).