Good afternoon all, thought id sieze the oppotunity to be the very first post in one of these categories

My Question to you all relates around the imfamous "Jazz" services. I am currently virtually recreating Liverpool St and the london suburban services Circa 1950s in the popular simulator game "Train Simulator 2021". If there is sufficient intrest i would happily start another thread detailing the build of this virtual network of lines, but for a taster, here is a Work in progress look at Liverpool Street, Suitably Grubby and dark (as i was told it was imfamous for this characteristc in the 50's) Albeit devoid of the Overhead line equipment. That is coming later.

Ooh it feels nice to have inbuilt image embedding

Anyhow, my aim right now is to gather as much Infomation as possible to enable my recreation to be as true to life as can be. I know we have a few Ex. stratford chaps in the group so first hand info would be amazing. I Have a few gaps in my knolege, so im going to dump down all my current questions. If anyone has awnsers to these I am eager to hear.

I know you had the shenfield electrics that operated out of the east shed of liverpool street, and there was steam hauled services going to Enfield, Palace gates, Chingford and Epping (Did they go direct to ongar or was that purely the shuttle services job?.. Was there any other destinations Liv St served? In 1955, what lines were electrified and were there any in the process of electrification? I know the Shenfield line was energized with 1500v DC, did these wires extend over the express lines to Norwich? Which lines in this period had semaphore signals and which had Colour light? I know the old central line Hainault loop originally looped to Ilford instead of back to Leytonstone, did services on this line carry through back to Liv st or go the other way towards Shenfeild? (As ive seen on old maps it was a triangle junction). Did any suburban Jazz services run up the WAML? and did any go south of stratford? Ive read online that quite a few J15s were allocated to stratford shed at this time. As i belived them to handle more rural work, this suprised me somewhat. What duties did they carry out? Last but not least, is there any info about what trains used what platform at liv street? I know 9/10 was mainline, and the platforms under the eastern trainshed served the shenfield electric lines, so did Jazz run out of platforms 1-8?

Apoligies for the question dump, but being a post millenium lad, I dont have any first hand experience with this era of rail travel!

I look forward to learning more.
Regards,
Brad.
Also as an aside, im sure there will be some documents somewhere on the GERS shop. if anyone has any reading reccomendations from thereill be happy to hear them.

I would support a stream on virtual modeling. I am currently writing up a history of Witham station (other posts to come soon), but it is an ambition to construct a virtual history of Witham station over various stages of history.

I shall set one up then. I have two Concurrent projects virtually that concern the Great Eastern, one that "backdates" A currently commercially available recreation of the GEML, Set in about 2012, I am converting it to 1950s condition. I'm starting at Ipswich, recreating the vast Dockyards and slowly working south, with Witham eventually on the cards to be backdated. The other project is the one you see here, recreating the Jazz suburban lines. I look forward to seeing your virtual recreation of Witham.

I will be starting completely from scratch, when you get to Witham, anything to get me started would help.

Will keep you updated if I receive any info on Witham, although it may be a while as Like i said I'm starting at Ipswich and working down towards London.

Regards,
Brad.

That's fine, it will be some time before I will have time to start on this.

There is a lot at Ilford Depot and Seven Kings which shows what the original Hainault loop looked like. There is space behind the down electric platform and at the Country end towards Goodmayes by the down electric line which shows that there was additional track at one time. I have an Ordnance survey map published shortly before the line closed and there is a seperate station recorded. One of the buildings in Ilford Depot that looks like it was constructed in the 1960's can be seen as built on an old platform. The layout of Ilford depot appears to follow the old junction and heads off in the direction where the old Plessey factory was.

Jazz steam services ran to Enfield Town and Chingford. Palace Gates was served from North Woolwich, not Liv St. Steam also on outer suburban destinations such as Hertford East and Bishop's Stortford and of course onwards to Cambridge on the main line. No services from Liv St to Epping or Fairlop loop - these were taken over by LT Central Line in 1947/8 and BR was contracted to provide a shuttle between Epping and Ongar only (but freight was different). Electrification extended to Southend in 1956, but in 55 only Shenfield would have been open. No wires over main line platforms. Enfield and Chingford generally used platforms 1-3 and outer suburban and Cambridge the rest on the West side. J15s were good all rounders and would be used on lots of freight duties. I used to see them on Lea Valley pickups until close to the end. Hope that helps.