Penned in the Crummy

Review—NEFB 050-01, 01a, 01b, 01c and 01d by L&B Development (Mike Legg & Scott Bacon)

For those crusty old NERR Engineers who’ve plied the dusty tracks of the Full Bucket Line many times, here’s a highly enjoyable “Day-in-the-Life” kind of series that you’re sure to enjoy.  For those Newbies who have yet to be exposed to the joys of Bjorn Arlt’s wonderful desert route, you’re in for a bit of a rare treat.

The Full Bucket Line 2 (FBL) is a fictitious desert route, loosely modeled on the US South-West, and it’s long been a favourite among MSTS engineers of any stripe.  For NERR Hoggers, it’s particularly enjoyable since a good number of our own talented activity writers have contributed to the considerable store of activities that make the most of this quaint little route.  This very nice five-part series, by Mike Legg and Scott Bacon, add to that wealth of talent and in the Full-Bucket tradition, they’ve crafted a well-thought-out story line that’s sure to pique and maintain your interest.

Driving your reliable old SD40-2, you’re moving a variety of freight over the entire breadth of the FBL, starting at 0800 and grinding through until after 2100. For the uninitiated, the FBL route is loosely shaped like a capital T, laid-over on its left side. Lake Hurst, a rail hub, is at the western junction of the two bars, with Fort Fairfax at the bottom of the T, to the east.

The first activity begins at Olympia, at the southern end of the crossbar, where you take some I-beams up to Lake Hurst and exchange them for some volatile-liquid tankers.  This fuel must be delivered up to the Full Bucket Proving Ground, where security is super-tight and somewhat time-consuming, as you’ll soon see.

In the second act, empty tankers from the Proving Ground then need to be hauled down through Lake Hurst and out to Newton Oil.  A series of nice little pick-ups and set-outs takes you through Yonder and St. Josef before detouring out to the Simonville yard, where you break for coffee.

The third act takes you on two nice little excursions – one fairly easy one into Lena’s Mine, and a demanding little detour run all the way out to Old Thomas Mine.  With the heavy load of coal you eventually acquire, you’re fortunate that it’s only a short jaunt into Fort Fairfax, for another well-deserved coffee break.

The fourth act is a marathon return run from Fort Fairfax, pulling empty coal all the way back to Lake Hurst, with a couple of pick-ups at St. Josef and Black Pump Mining on the way. By the time you creep into Lake Hurst Yard, it’s past sundown, and you’re getting a bit weary.

And now, for the final act, you’re hauling some heavy cement destined for Mount Oliver at the northern end of the T’s cross-bar.  Oh, yeah, and you have a pick-up at Hope’s End, just to make things even more interesting.  By the time you’ve hooked-up everything at Hope’s End, you have 48 full cement hoppers to get moving!  It’ll take a good hand on the throttle and no sparing the sand to get this lot underway and up to your final destination.

This series, NEFB 050 01, is an enjoyable run for any of our Engineers, and Newbies will especially benefit.  The authors have solidly programmed-in a plenitude of reverse arrows and pop-ups to guide you along the way, so you can’t easily get lost or out of sequence.  But perhaps the series’ major claim to fame would be that it’s a complete tour de force: you get to see nearly every siding, spur and branch line on one of the sweetest little routes anywhere in the MSTS world!

-Casey