Welcome to Durham, my first DD in a while.. over a year.

Durham is a quaint, pleasant nation, renowned for it's soft, rolling mountains and the Durham River Basin, where the Maypearl and Greenstone Rivers meet. This is where the majority of the population is located.

Forecasted Population: 8,803
Current Population: 1,005

The Greenstone and Maypearl (reporting mark G&P) Railroad provides most of the nation's inter-regional access.
The Durham Basin Development Authority (DBDA) for now, will manage development and inter-regional transportation, until the newly founded cities grow in size.

And now, on to the first update.


Quynneth is the first area to be settled. The town Quynneth was named after this part of the Durham River Basin. Not far from here, the Maypearl and Greenstone meet. That area is where Greenstone is located, coming in the next update.

Q&P Railroad is hard at work, building a double track line between Quynneth and Greenstone. Quynneth is the central agricultural district of The Basin, while Greenstone provides most industrial services. Maypearl is a community currently being planned. It is to be located in the Maypearl Valley to the south.


While the western terminus of the G&P railroad is actually in Quynneth, trains must use the single track to access it. The double track ends abruptly on the far west end of town. It goes directly on the north end of town. This is to make future expansion easier.\


Here we see the double track line, that cuts across the north end of town. Although there is nowhere for the railroad to go past this, the single track access was put in place as part of future plans that the Q&P, as well as the DBDA currently have.


Aerial view of Quynneth. It's overall location and design make for easy expansion. The road you see to the north will also connect Quynneth to Greenstone. This road is being built by the DBDA.

Anyway, that concludes this update. In the next update, Greenstone and the plans for Maypearl, as well as the G&P Railroad will be revealed.

Love the rails!

Great start, good to see you back DDing!

Great start, the railroad looks nice

Good to see an old single track line once in a while

Forecasted Population: 19,920
Current Population: 9,455 (652 more than forecasted)

Greenstone is one of the four cities currently founded in this region. It is where the uneventful terminus of the Greenstone River is located, and the point at which it merges with the Maypearl River.

The town itself is actually east of the rivers, but the road going out of the city passes over the river and into the mountain foothills.

Currently, G&P is halfway done with a double track rail line from Quynneth to Greenstone, and another crew is working on a single track line from Maypearl to Greenstone, this will be shown in the next update. Maypearl is located southwest of Greenstone, along the Maypearl River. It currently isn't prospering and growing, and simply is a frontier town. The railroad however, brings hope to the worried citizens.


This power plant services Quynneth as well as Greenstone. It is located in Greenstone itself.

Citizens of Greenstone either drive into the industrial district, or out of town into Quynneth to work

G&P has already started construction on it's double track line into Maypearl. The single track line provides access to the industrial district

Greenstone's only neighborhood is boring most days.

That concludes this update. In the next, Maypearl will be revealed, as well as the Frontier beyond civilization.

Love the Coal Plant Picture

Nice small city, I love the rail.

Love the work you are doing Cheese

The last picture of Quynneth kind of reminded me of one of the pictures SC4 shows when it is installing. That bated anticipation waiting for when I can play the game...

This is a nice start so far. I love your small towns.

I think this is an awesome DD/CJ, I love the rail pics can't wait to see more

Thanks everyone!
The pictures in this update were accidentally removed


Rail construction between Greenstone and Maypearl has been rather slow.. due in part to the very thick vegetation and the temperatures being much colder than usual for mid-Autumn.. between 0 and 10° C.

There are 3 legs of construction.. leg 1 has been completed after 15 days and 20 miles covered.



Maypearl has become the center in the region for logging.. laws in the small nation have prohibited clear-cutting without regeneration.. basically forest thinning. Deforesting operations are being carried out by Maypearl Regional Contractors, a privately run company. The finished rail will allow the company to move their lumber.



An example of forest thinning in patches. The cleared areas will be reforested


Maypearl Regional Contractors provides basic accommodations for workers next to the logging fields.

The town of Maypearl itself is located at the point where the Maypearl River widens. It is a struggling pioneer town, but the railroad and logging industry brings hope to the people there.

Lots of Nice Trees

Nice =3

I love how well the water mod and terrain mod go together.

I like the forest comparison pictures.
Good job, cheese.
I'm going to start following Durham over here on SimMania now.
I like what you're doing in this DD.

Oh wow! great rural town

I really love those trees

REPLIES
111222333444: Thanks man
yunxiang: They're part of the same mod.. . I use Missouri breaks btw.
TC: Thanks greg, I've discontinued it on CSGf anyhow..
mayorm: Thanks matt, I love them myself


The mayor of Greenstone recently ordered a part of the loop rail separating the industrial and residential sector of the city removed due to more pressing obligations and growth. Rail traffic would use the North Loop. Soon after the removal of the South Loop, a man named Roger Milton discovered gold at a small puddle of water halfway up a mountain. A prospecting town is planned for that exact spot and mountain mining. The daunting task of a railroad up through these mountains was undertaken. The rail itself, let alone the construction, was rather dangerous with many steep cliffs and valleys..




Top: Rail climbing up the mountain which gold was discovered upon..
Bottom: Rail Junction in Greenstone

Back at home, the mayor of Greenstone faced rapid development. The central portion of the city was rezoned as medium-density, while the rest of the city redeveloped naturally as middle or even high class homes and families began moving in from neighboring nations into Durham..


Residents coined this road network the "9 Way Roundabout". It was constructed this way to make a 3 way intersection in this middle class neighborhood safer and to reduce congestion at the nearby level crossing if there was a train present..


The central portion of the city was rezoned as medium density residential.


Growth in Greenstone

Meanwhile, Quynneth was facing the same form of growth. The mayor decided to zone commercial in vast amounts as well as zone what was coined as "flood neighborhoods", which were zoned and built quickly without regard to aesthetics in order to accomodate for the rapidly increasing population..


Example of a flood neighborhood growth.

Quynneth became the center for medium and high class business and residents, which canceled out the unappealing, quickly zoned neighborhoods. Rail traffic became an increasing problem. The DBDA and G&P railroad made plans to build a rail bridge across the city's busiest road, to ease congestion.

The completion of the rail line between Quynneth and Greenstone (called the QNGS Line) opened up many opportunities for expansion. Many people used this rail line, easing up the congestion on Highway 36 between Quynneth and Greenstone, and balancing rail and road traffic.


Just to let you know, the number in the corner of the screen need not be there. It was the fraps framerate counter and I forgot to turn it off when I used prtscr. The picture isn't ruined by it, in fact you can hardly notice it. So can we forget about the little yellow number in the corner? OK? OK.

Nice cities. The residential neighborhood split by the rail looks odd. But the 3 roundabouts look great and very attractive.
Hope to see more updates in future.

very nice the town looks good and I really love that single track rail

REPLIES
TC: Which is why the rail was shut down. you'll see..
mayorm: yes, that is an excellent mod.

More people came streaming into Durham. A large portion of the new citizens were middle to high class, and therefore moved into Quynneth. Its population soon exceeded Greenstone's by nearly 1,250. The regional population was 12,700 at this time.

As the road and rail got more and more congested, road and rail upgrades became necessary. Part of the rail junction was removed, which allowed access from the west single track rail to the main double track rail connecting Greenstone and Quynneth. This and the removal of one station slightly reduced rail congestion but increased road traffic. The DBDA planned for a road upgrade.

The DBDA and and labourers from both cities worked to terraform the Greenstone river to allow for boat and ferry traffic. It wasn't cheap but it was one step closer to allowing boats to plow the rivers.


Planning for a basic elevated concrete bridge had taken nearly 2 months and about 3 more months of construction. This bridge would provide proper access to the shores south of the Maypearl River. Farmers had begun to spread across the river after the bridge construction.


The basin closest to the rivers became notorious for orange exports.. exporting nearly 560,000 tons each year

The town looks good. The two bridges look good close to each other like that. I've always liked the raised road bridge and that rail bridge looks great.

Great update Can't wait to see how the upgrades turn out

nice, like the use of NWM

REPLIES
tc: the raised road bridge isn't my favorite but I had to use it for the sake of the bridge being high enough
mayorm: thanks man
111222333444 thanks again

All the towns in Durham have been growing at a very fast rate. The year is now 2000 and a census was held of all the cities in Durham.
Quynneth: 9,283
Greenstone: 8,230
River Loop:: 4,467
Maypearl: 2,194
Reading: 307
Total: 24,484
River Loop and Reading will be revealed in future entries. Today we will look at Quynneth.


Two trains pass eachother crossing the Greenstone River


Another train crosses the busy Malvern Road level crossing


Quynneth as a whole. Population is spreading into the farms which once made up the biggest part of the city

That's all for this update, bye... must dash...

I like how Quynneth looks in the overview shot. Thanks for the update.

I'm glad to see everything growing

Keep it up!