Community Rail Network

Community Rail Network
Survival 5
Labrador's Spawn Station, built by Skelleton123.
Project
Type	Transport Network
World(s)	Survival 5
Leader(s)	N1cM4tth3w63  XPModder  H_Di_Chemici
Contributors	Minda905  jameslongstrider Many more...

Community Rail Network is a transport project on the Survival 5 world of the Dogcraft Server. The group operates on Labrador and Corgi and is managed by  N1cM4tth3w63,  H_Di_Chemici and  XPModder.

Founding

Survival 5 differed from any previous worlds on the Dogcraft Server as it features 4 playable worlds that would run alongside each other, compared to Survival 4 where there was 2 and the 3 previous Survivals where there was just a singular world. Historically the Survival Railway Network would manage rail transport throughout the survival worlds. However when it was announced that four worlds would be present on Survival 5, the SRN Team decided it would not be feasible to operate on all 4 worlds, as it would be much harder to keep the high standard of builds the network was known for, as well as stretch the management team very thin, delegating other stations and lines, which could lead to burnout.

Nevertheless, the SRN Team agreed to build 2 more central stations in the two newer spawn areas, which would become Labrador and Corgi. This allowed for and easy expansion outward from Spawn should the SRN have decided later down the line to operate on the two other worlds, or allow for players who were keen on setting up lines by themselves an easy starting point to connect to.

Survival 5 launched in mid-March 2022, and rail development quickly started on Shepherd and Akita. As April began, the server HeadMods noted that transport on Labrador and Corgi was largely non-existent. During this period homes and warps had not yet been established making player built transport networks critical in helping players get beyond the Spawn area quickly. It was for this reason that the HeadMods contacted N1cM4tth3w63 and asked him if he would be interested in managing a rail group that would focus on building on Labrador and Corgi. N1cM4tth3w63 had previous experience working on rail projects, having built several stations for the SRN on Survival 4, including Seaside Station, Toadstool Station and Petal Ranch Station. N1cM4tth3w63 accepted the offer, and created a discord server for the project on the 7th of April 2022. When the question of a name came up,  Montenator half-jokingly suggested the name of 'The Other Railway Network', ORN for short (or TORN to some), which would stick for the next few months. The project would officially open to the public on the 12th April 2022.

In August talk of having a more formal name were had in the discord server. Ultimate the most popular name suggestions alongside the current 'Other Rail Network' name, were presented in the announcements channel of the Discord, and a vote took place as to what the name of the network would be. Overwhelming the name 'Community Rail Network', or CRN for short, would win, and the group would henceforth be known as the Community Rail Network.

In April 2023, the NTN managers and SRN line managers revolted, and began a rapid ping operation to grant  XPModder permissions in the CRN discord. 7 people reached a whopping amount of 240 pings to N1cM4tth3163 in 1 minute. N1cM4tth3163 then heard the discord pings screaming from his computer downstairs, and came down in a hurry. XPModder was then granted permissions in the CRN discord.

About The Network

The CRN is less structured than the SRN and generally lets players expand out the lines whenever convenient, instead of having dedicated Line Managers that are responsible for overseeing the lines. There is currently no standard design for main lines however CRN Stations have the same facility list as SRN Stations so there is continuity between all 4 worlds. Currently the CRN plans to establish 8 stations in each cardinal direction, with the plan of letting lines expand out naturally to peoples bases and projects thereafter. It is worth noting that the project is still in its infancy, and later down the line more standardised practices may be established and a larger management team as more players get involved with expanding the network.

History

Establishing The Network

Progress would be slow but steady for the CRN. With the NTN Crew on Corgi stating their intentions to build the first North Station on Corgi at the site of the NTN HQ. These plans would eventually go ahead and  Minda905 would build a design for the station in Creative and later transfer it over to survival. This station was built with many terminals, with the hope of eventually creating a 'Coastal Line' that stretched around the perimeter of Corgi's spawn sea.  MrManatee13 would aim to connect up to one of these terminals and build a line out to his base Sakura. The Marsh Mechanics group would also start working on a station of their own, with the plan of connecting it up to the NTN HQ's Station.

During this time N1cM4tth3w63 would pick out a location for the first south station on Corgi and advertise it up for building on the CRN's Discord.  Txp_ would offer to build this station, and designed a quaint igloo station that was later built in Survival.

Labrador would not see any major development until  XPModder would take on the task of building the first stretch of North Line. Initially building a jungle themed station in the north with a connecting RHN shelter. XPModder would work with the RHN Project Leader on Labrador,  _Shako to build a road out from spawn to reach the station. XPModder would later organize the groups first ever build session, to construct a large viaduct from Spawn over to the northern continent. Despite Corgi's headstart the first ever line opening to be held by the group would take place on Labrador. With Labrador North Station opening on the 25th of August 2022. Elsewhere on Labrador,  Tankkiler123 would scout out locations for Labrador South (and the future location of CRN's HQ), as well has Labrador East, which he would start building alongside  Colliecolie.

The First Stations Open

Minda905 would start to focus her attention onto developing the Corgi West Line. A predesigned station was build by Minda905 at her base. This station was called Meadow Hills Station, and would serve as the second station on the Corgi West Line. It was also around this time that Minda905's base would become one of the solo base winners of the Base Building Competition. As a result,  renthedog, came online to tour Minda905's base as well as the other base building winners. Since renthedog really enjoys the rail transport systems on the server, it was decided that a temporary rail would be built from Corgi Spawn to Meadow Hills Station, in time for renthedog's tour. This line was built in creative with the help of the HeadMods, and as a result was subsequently torn down after the tour. Minda905 would continue to work on the West Line however, building a design for the first West Line Station in creative with help from  TigerNL and later transferring it to Survival. The station, named Berghütte, would become the first station to open on Corgi. Berghütte Station opened on the 15th of October 2022, and the opening was accompanied by a small banner hunt when everyone had arrived at the station. 5 banners were well hidden around the station and its grounds, spelling out the word 'Igloo' where the commemorative banner prizes were located.

Progress would also continue elsewhere on Corgi. Minda905 would design a viaduct to be built for the Corgi South Line, which was later built in Survival with the help of several others. The first branch line on Corgi also began construction with various parties working together. The line, named the Mechantasy Line, started at Corgi North Station at the NTN HQ, before heading east towards  AllikatUK's ocean base Qo'nos. The line then continued eastwards towards  Xulili's fantasy base Dromadagr, before a final stretch of line took the player to the main Marsh Mechanics base area at Sea Ruins Station. The branch line officially opened on the 12th of November 2022, with the opening being hosted by AllikatUK and two members of the Marsh Mechanics group, those being  CanadianSteampk and  DwinMouse.

Progress on Labrador also continued, mainly being spearheaded by XPModder. XPModder would carry the line from spawn southwards to reach the site of the first south station on Labrador. He would also design and build the line from Spawn to Wild West Station, the first station of the Labrador West Line which was previously built by N1cM4tth3w63. Player  jameslongstrider would then take over construction of the next portion of the Labrador West Line, extending the line from Wild West Station to the site of the second West Line Station.

Into the new year

Right at the start of january the CRN would see a request coming in from a new player  H_Di_Chemici wanting to build a station that would later connect to his own base in the southern corgi region. With this not beeing close to any constructed stations Minda905 asked H_Di_Chemici if he would be fine with constructing it on the Corgi East line instead. This station ended up becoming Templar and the start of one of the most active builders with the CRN. This new activity inspired  Moondogg100 into building the line that connected up spawn with the station at the NTN HQ and starting a station on the Coastline, a line going around the spawn ocean and connecting as many stations as possible. AllikatUK would end up connecting Qo'nos to Templar as well. Templar station ended up beeing openend together with the 2 lines and the NTN HQ on march 4th with a high attendence.

jameslongstrider ended up finishing Bifurcation station on the Labrador West line and promptly started on West 3. XPModder was working on Olton Hall (North 2), a station that resembles a medival castle hall. This would end up being opened on the 18th of march.  Acadra a new player ended up asking if they could connect the southern platform at Templar to go to their base in the South-East. This lenghtly line ended up beeing split into 2 with a stop at Threebridge built by  Xambaka. H_Di_Chemici whom was involved in the planning of this branchline ended up starting on a second east station, Puppy Park Station. A modern station built near the eventual game area: Puppy Park. Both Puppy Park Station and Threebridge Union Station ended up beeing openend together in a mega opening session on the 22nd of April. This would all together be openend with 3 RHN shelters and a road and line connecting the 2 major areas.

New managment

With XPModder now having full acces in the CRN discord since April 20th, many changes were made. Channels like: line-building, station-building and branch-lines were all swiftly retired due to their nonexistint use. The about the CRN-channel was created explaining what the CRN was and it has some usefull information like: who built what station and how do you built the cart dispenser redstone. A total of 3 new roles were created scraping some of the older redundant ones: Discord Admin, Senior Member and Contributor. Due to the CRN not having official leadership everyone could apply to become a Discord Admin. Only H_Di_Chemici did this because he felt that many more changes could be made in both the discord and the way the group operates. The senior members were reserved for people who had done some major work in the past, they are allowed to sent mesages in the announcement channel preveting situations that all people who are allowed to sent there are absent.

Various other changes went through. An open task channel was created were senior members and discord admins could sent in request for help in a certain area or ask for materials, this was done after the example in the SRN discord. Every month both XPModder and H_Di_Chemici would sent out a monthly map, showing the progress on Labrador and Corgi respectivly. This was done to show people what stuff was planned and if certain line ideas and possible connections existed.

The Coast and Ringline

With this new possibilty to work on stations more easily and distribute them around the playerbase 2 big projects were started. The Corgi Coastline, a line that aims to connect various bases and builds around the spawn-ocean, this line was originally propesed by  Trainermoon in the begining stages of the CRN but not worked on. The Labrador Ringline, a line that would make stations outside of the mainlines on the 4 regional quadrants, each quadrant would have 3 stations and connects up to the main network at the second station in a line. XPModder and H_Di_Chemici operating each out of one of the 2 worlds took the leadership of such a project on them, planning out station locations and lines throughout the worlds.

On labrador the first start was seen in the Nortwestern Quadrant with Pyramid station. A station built by XPModder with the help from Tankkiler123 was the first constructed station out of the bunch. Both Far Fields station and Forum station followed in the following months, however the opening was not as quickly after the construction. Waiting almost 2 months after all of them being done, the stations were finally openend together in a penta-opening: opening all 3 ringline stations, Bifurcation and Watermill station (North 3), that was finished 2 weeks before the opening by XPModder.

On Corgi some other stuff needed to be finished first before work could be started on the Coastline. Due to the Coastline mostly connecting to the first station on the mainlines they needed to be finished first. Polar station, started by TXP_ was taken over by H_Di_Chemici after almost a year of zero progress. With the station beeing finished in a week the idea arose to also immeadiatly start on the Soutwest quadrant of the Coastline. This line going through a glacier biome had only one potential base to stop, the one from  I_AM_AURUM. The station called Aurum station was built in a short amount of time and connected to both Polar station and Berghütte station on the South-and Westline respectivly. Due to some communication between H_Di_Chemici and Minda905 they decided to also open the line to the second West station as well in one opening. The one to Minda's base: Meadow Hills Station.

Station List

Labrador

• Grand Central Station

North Line

• North Station
• Olton Hall Station
• Watermill Station

East Line

• East Station
• Creeperville Station
• Community Station

South Line

• CRN HQ
• Easter 2023 Station
• Frosty Laboratory Station

West Line

• Wild West Station
• Bifurcation Station

Ring Line

Going clockwise from Olton Hall Station:

• Olton Hall Station (North Line)
• Rail Museum Station
• Halligen Station
• Darkwood Station
• Creeperville Station (East Line)
• Potato Bunker Station
• Swallowtail Station
• Pardus Paladin Station
• CRN HQ (South Line) -
• Brick Spring Station
• Cyberpunk Station
• Felis Station
• Bifurcation Station (West Line)
• Pyramid Station
• Far Fields Station
• Forum Station
• Olton Hall Station (North Line)

Corgi

• Grand Central Station

North Line

• NTN HQ Station
• Ramon Station
• Frostlake Lodge Station

East Line

• Templar Station
• Puppy Park Station
• Wild Ruins Station

South Line

• Polar Station
• Maze Station
• South 3
• XMas2022/Mirri Mirri

West Line

• Berghütte Station
• Meadow Hills Station
• Seacliff Station

Branch Lines

Mechantasy Line

• Qo'nos Station
• Domadagr Station
• Sea Ruins Station

Corgi East Branchstations

• Threebridge Union Station
• Ticket Station

Corgi South Branchstations

• Cliff Garden Station
• Shroom Valley Station

Snowtopia Line

• Snowy Slopes Station
• Train Station
• Syruptopia left out TS 1&2 due to unimportance

Coast Line

Going clockwise from Ramon Station:

• Ramon Station
• Speybridge station
• North Beach Station
• Qo'nos
• Templar Station
• Threebridge Union Station
• Fairytale Station
• Polar Station
• Aurum Station
• Berghütte Station
• Westfire Station
• Seaplatform station
• Sakura station