Stepford Express

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Overview

Stepford Express, or Express for short, is one of the four operators in Stepford County Railway. It links Stepford City with many major urban areas, namely Benton, Leighton and a terminus at Llyn-by-the-Sea.

Stepford Express is classified as high-speed rail, due to the fact that it skips the majority of stations along its line that are operated by Stepford Connect. It uses rolling stock that are specially designed for high-speed lines, with speeds up to a maximum of 125 miles per hour.

A full journey from Stepford Central to Llyn-by-the-Sea which takes about 20 minutes. The line is coloured  dark magenta  on network maps.

History

2018

First traces of Express could be seen as far back as January 7th, where a new express line was built. The works included new Platforms 5 & 6 at Benton, passing tracks through Coxly and Bodin, and Platforms 1 & 2 at the Pre-V1.1 Stepford East abandoned, later removed to make way for the passing line. The platforms were shifted. Stepford Connect was rerouted via Angel Pass due to the cancellation of the Metro project and the old line that bypassed Angel Pass was allocated for Express. Works also happened east of Benton, where a linking line from Benton to the fast lines near Hampton Hargate was built.

On December 22nd, 2018, BanTech mentioned that Express will NOT be coming in V1.1 as they prioritized AirLink and not Express, hinting that Express would be coming in future updates.

2019

On May 11th, 2019, BanTech unveiled the roadmap. Under Q3 of 2019, it mentioned the Express line, which got people hyped because they would be getting Express over the summer.

Express wasn't mentioned again until the 22nd of September when BanTech announced that the Connect Extension and Express Line were delayed.

On the 29th of September, Mattyx2013 showed off Faymere and commented "This station will be served by Connect but is a cool place to watch Express trains pass at speed!". On the 5th of October, Charlie showed Northshore and commented "Fancy a wander on the beach? Connect and Express can help you out with that! Introducing Northshore". This confirmed to the public that Express was skipping Faymere yet stopping at Northshore.

On the 18th of October, Mattyx2013 showed Llyn-by-the-Sea and a Class 43 for Express which got the public hyped up again and confirmed Express was stopping at Llyn. Finally, on the 25th of November, BanTech showed a picture of the Class 43 at Stepford Central.

On the 17th of December, 2019, V1.4 came out with Express, 4 new routes, and 2 new trains: Class 43 and Class 801.

2020

On Feburary 22, Faymere Green TMD depot was added and Westwyvern upgraded having Express signs instead of Connect, making it the first station having Express signage. On March 18, Stepford Central received its second upgrade of the year making it look very modern. On March 26, an unconfirmed train was revealed but the community quickly identified it as a Bombardier Voyager Train and it was believed to be in use on Stepford Express. On March 28, a photo of three Bombardier Voyager Trains at Stepford Central was revealed. It is confirmed that two of them is Class 221 and one of them is a Class 220 on Twitter. Both of these trains were released on April 15th, when 1 new route was also added.

Rolling Stock

Current Fleet

Class Number	Image	Top Speed (mph)	Price (Points)	Carriages	Manufacturer	Train Family	Date Put Into Service	Routes Operated On
Class 43		125	3000 2250	4	British Rail Engineering Limited	InterCity 125	17th December 2019	R075 R076 R077 R078 R079
Class 220			2250 1688	4	Bombardier Transportation	Voyager	15th April 2020
Class 221			Purchased with Class 220	5		Super Voyager
Class 801			2250 1688	5	Hitachi	A-Train AT300 (Azuma)	17th December 2019

Former

• None at the moment

Future

• None at the moment

Depots

Current

• Stepford Depot
• Leighton Depot
• Faymere Green TMD (Northbound)
• Faymere Green TMD (Southbound)
• Northshore Depot

Former

• None at the moment.

Future

• None at the moment.

 Stations

Current

• Stepford Central
• St Helens Bridge
• Benton
• Leighton Stepford Road
• Leighton City
• Edgemead
• Westwyvern
• Northshore
• Llyn-by-the-Sea

Former

• None at the moment.

Future

• None at the moment.

Trivia

• Matty's sneak peek of Starryloch showed a fragment of a purple-coloured train, which aroused speculation that it could be an Express train. It was later revealed to be the Class 43 alongside the long-waited Llyn-by-the-Sea sneak peek.
• A significant portion of the tracks have been or are already in use. Before Angel Pass was given a service, Connect trains used the express middle tracks between Coxly and Benton. Platforms 1-3 at Stepford Town (Stepford Central) and Platforms 1-2 at St Helens Bridge were formerly used by Connect. Also, AirLink trains used the Express tracks between just west of Hampton Hargate to Leighton Stepford Road since the Five Million Update.
• The Class 43 holds the record for the longest train in SCR along with the Double AirLink Class 185.
• The Class 801 is exactly the same as the Class 802 running on AirLink, with the exception of class numbers, liveries, operators, maximum speeds and lengths.
• This is the 2nd operator to feature "bullet trains" as the first was AirLink.
• The routes with least station skipping is R079 which doesn't skip any stations.
• Stepford Express serves the least amount of stations of any operator on the network, at 9 stations.
• Stepford Connect stops at every one of the 9 stations that Stepford Express stops at. 4 of those 9 have Connect and Express share Platforms (Leighton Stepford Road, Leighton City, Edgemead, and Llyn-by-the-Sea). Stepford Express services is a part of Stepford Connect, the other operator is WaterLine.
• The headquarters of this operator cannot be found, and many people speculate that if ever a headquarters is opened, it would be located somewhere between Edgemead and Llyn-by-the-Sea.
• A Class 91 was actually supposed to run on the line, evident in a showcase of future SCR trains made by PDV, OverheadWires, but due to his resignation in 2019, the units were never completed and were never put into service. It's unknown if this train will be put into service.
• This is the only operator in SCR where all trains share the same maximum speed.
• This is the second operator to feature First Class sections in trains, the first operator is AirLink.
• This is the only operator that all trains were Next Generation from the start.
• The colour of this route was going to be orange, but instead it's dark magenta. The orange route is AirLink.
• There are platforms for Express at Millcastle Racecourse and Millcastle, however no services call there. This could be changed in a future update.
• The current map as of V1.5.0 is outdated, as it doesn't contain R079 (Stepford Central - Benton via St Helens Bridge).
• The only WaterLine and Express interchange is Benton.
• This is the only operator in SCR to have no trains with double doorways.
• This is also the only operator to have no trains with 3 coaches or less.
• There are only S car stop markers at stations on this operator, no stations have specific coach markers.
• This operator used to pass at least one station on every route on an in-use platform, but when V1.4.6 was released, R079 doesn't skip any stations on in-use platforms, so now only AirLink has this trait.
• As of Version 1.5, This is currently is the only operator in SCR to have a logo that is not renewed.
• This is the only operator without a train with functioning cab doors.

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