Upcoming Release Santa Fe On Cajon Pass - Coming Soon!

Nice for the people who appreciate this, but I'm pretty sure the sales of this product will disappoint. I rarely read anything on this forum about Cajon Pass or US freight content in general. I don't want to sound negative, but US freight content really feels dead for TSW. I've never understood what's fun about it no matter how good it looks, it's just too much of the same.

 

£15 for a timetable and some liveries is absolutely absurd. If this is the benchmark for tsw6 prices then I’m very concerned. Of course I hope that those who purchase this enjoy it and feel like it’s money well spent, but I can’t ever justify the price for this amount of content

 

Will there be a preview stream?

 

Yeah thats not a price to bring people back to US freight. This whole product price is way to high for a few skins and a few cars.

 

Day One buy

 

Any new fixes coming for Birmingham Crewe its still not up to standard i will give this pack a miss

 

Well, it's my turn! First-day purchase! I really hope the release is top-notch! I'm sure the guys at High Iron Simulations did a fantastic job. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of your work! Please give us more and more American routes and rolling stock.

 

You can pretty much enjoy this already in Run 8 with more gameplay features (Industry, Hump yards at Barstow and West Colton) plus if you have all the SoCal network installed, continuing on to LA, Bakersfield, Fresno or even Seligman.

What was needed to revitalise this route was some actual new loco types maybe more vintage stuff, or some Amtrak long distance equipment.

 

wow finally, can't wait to put my hands on this
someone pinch me, I must be dreaming

 

No wander people find freight boring in current neglected DTG interpretation. Fake DPU, no RCL, broken EOT, no OCU and finnaly very poor physic state (couplers failures at minumum) . It could be very engaging type of game with proper attitude. But no, we have arcadish freight gameplay becoming boring quite fast...

 

The reason for that is DTG has realized that very few people actually enjoy driving freight trains just sitting there, occasionally adjusting your speed, and doing that for two hours or more. You can see that more urban-related trains, especially U.S. commuter trains, sell much better.
The package looks beautiful, but this is simply too small a market for such products, and the price doesn’t help promote it either.

 

The problem is actually the opposite it sold very poorly, which is why DTG didn’t make any effort to fix it. After all, doing so would be a waste of money. American passenger trains don’t sell massively either, but they do perform better (the recent NJ Transit was very well received) than U.S. freight trains alone.

Additionally, DTG's largest user base is actually from Europe, not the U.S.

 

And the red German trains and the UK toy trains with their pretty liveries are not?

It's a bit more than that, I would say.

I agree, a new loco or two would be preferable, just like Birmingham- Crewe, but that's not happening in TSW these days.

Yes!!

 

I'm not concerned with the colors of the train, but rather what you can actually do with those trains besides riding from point A to point B for two hours without needing to stop anywhere. So whether a train is DB red or Santa Fe yellow isn't what I meant.

 

The elephant in the room is, of course, why DTG isn't doing this kind of content. They keep telling us that they can't get access or the sounds aren't good enough. Yet here we are with HIS pulling the load for them using assets from DTG's back catalog, something we've been begging them to do for years.

 

That's a bogus argument too. If that were the case, practically all routes would be disqualified, because they rarely manage to find truly high-quality sounds.
I'm not talking about sounds that were recorded while a train was stationary in a depot.

 

18 dollars is kind of steep in my opinion. But, with the amount of new rolling stock we’re getting I guess it’s kind of justified. Will definitely consider getting this with the drought U.S content is in!

A locomotive pack is definitely something I’m looking forward to. Hopefully it’s not a bunch of reskins.
Hopefully the route is a good one. Saluda Grade will always be my dream route for TSW.

 

I agree. That's why every time a route is released, whether it's US, European or UK, there are complaints about loco or emu/dmu sounds. Are developers really making the effort to get authentic sounds? Don't know, though trips to California and the European continent suggest they sometimes do.

Unfortunately, we have to take what we can get.

 

I wish Dovetail would start working with sound modders. There’s some very excellent sound mods for various U.S locomotives like the ES44AC on horseshoe curve that replace the awful horn and engine sounds. I know there’s the problem of licensing and yadda yadda. One can only wish..

 

Yes, there are definitely people who enjoy it, and my goal is absolutely not to discourage them. But I do want to make the point that a price of £14 isn't going to help attract more people to U.S. freight train content. Anyway, I've made my point and I don't want to block others from sharing their opinions, so I'll leave it at that!

 

Sound mods save us.

 

Well, I don't think this release is going to attract a large influx of people to American freight. I think it appeals mostly to those of us who are already fans of this segment and who have suffered through a long winter of drought and discontent. You can't blame US fans for clutching at straws at this point.
I doubt that we are suddenly going to see any new US freight content from DTG. The drought will continue.

 

100% true!

 

I'm going to remain blindly optimistic about this. Especially with how DTG seems to be highly against doing American freight now, I'll take any American freight DLC that comes our way, especially from a new third party developer. Personally, I can't see much wrong with it just from screenshots alone either, but we'll only really be able to judge its quality once we see live gameplay. If it delivers what it says it's going to deliver, I think it's going to be pretty fun. Having some "retro" American freight for a change is going to be pretty fun, especially with such an iconic road, and it'll add a lot more to do on a route that has been out for a few years at this point.

 

I enjoy Cajon and this looks fun.
I'll pick it up in a sale.

 

I don't know, the article did highlight this....

 

Have you tried taking a heavy freight train down a steep hill? That takes skill to not runaway.

 

Bus stoppers simply pull the brake handle. What's so difficult about that?

 

Comparing a bus to a train on a steep grade are very different. The average U.S freight train weights between 3 to 18 thousand tons (18 thousand tons is about 39,683,207 million pounds). The average bus weighs 25 to 36 thousand pounds. Now, imagine having to take a freight train with over 100 cars down a grade of 2-3%. Most trains that go down Cajon have to use the dynamic brakes along with the automatic. Also, the Cajon pass section alone is around 20 miles long, so take into account the weight of your engines, loaded cars, and weather, your in for a rough ride if you aren’t experienced and know what your doing. A bus can stop on a dime pretty much. Freight trains take anywhere from 1-3 minutes, and that’s on a flat track.

 

Sorry, but is that really the only thing you have to wait 1.5 hours for? Not very inspiring if you ask me!
But fair not everyone has the same inspirations about this route and i will respect that!

 

I'll be getting this unless initial impressions are terrible. Waited a long time for some US Freight content, and it mentions High Iron is developing a route and loco dlc as well, which is a good sign.

This article didn't really give a ton of detail for something that's releasing in less than two weeks, though. Are UP services playable? How many services are switching vs mainline, etc?

I think a preview stream would be a good idea

 

You should contact a company that calibrates sarcasm meters. Yours is clearly malfunctioning.

 

Juggling the three braking systems on the way down keeps you pretty much constantly engaged. Recovering control of those giant trains is difficult at best and impossible at worst, so you really need to keep on top of what's happening now and what's coming up.

 

While I won't pick this up straight away as I got the special edition of TSW6 and a few routes (new to me) to blast through scenarios and explore, this comes to the cost of a couple of pints in central London so I'd be quite happy to pick this up somewhere down the line and enjoy a quiet night in rather than 2-3 drinks in the pub.

 

Or wait for it on sale for half off. It's definitely worth it for that.
I would like to see more layering though, since Santa Fe stock would fit on historically at least a couple maps, and even if not "accurate" would offer some spice by substituting in on other routes with the SD-40-2 and C40-8W (Sand Patch)
Not sure if it's a "first day" purchase for me, but I'd pick it up on sale.
Cajon Pass isn't great but Santa Fe stuff is fun nostalgia.

For the people whinging about there being "more boring US freight content"... well that's entirely a matter of opinion. I find commuter, urban stuff as boring as watching paint dry and very monotonous.
Different people enjoy different things.

As we've discussed before, the player base does skew European and modern urban EMU.
Doesn't mean the other fans aren't there (maybe..20%?) but the majority are happy to keep whizzing around in modern EMUs in cities.
So that's what you already see over and over and over.
Giving the 20% what they want on occasion isn't going to hurt that 80% still being covered in the game for the majority.

My only concern is the limited implementation in TSW when so much more value could be had for such little extra work.
But that's not just in HIS it's across TSW. It's just... weird implementations.
This pack in particular seems decent for what it is, but still limited.
I think instead of a whole timetable for example they could have just gone for substitutions of locos and used the extra workload by NOT doing a separate timetable into maybe developing another loco or doing layers on other routes... something with more innate value to more players. The extra timetable is a lot of work for what I don't see as additional value for me.

It's an odd choice.

Maybe there's more to it from a behind the scenes perspective, but more locos you can just easily "swap in" for a similar model even if it's not entirely "accurate" would be a lot more useful and less work than a whole new timetable. An SD-40 is an SD-40 realistically, no matter the livery. There's nothing game breaking on just swapping it in for any other SD-40.

 

Well, its finally here, though there is still some nitpicks here and there with it.

One thing is this manifest, its still too uniform. The bar was set with Boston Worcester with Freight Manifests, and should be the bar for it going forward.


Quality wise, guess we'll see if HIS cuts as much corners here as on TSC, or if they actually put effort into this.

 

It’s dtg, what do you expect from a dev who clearly doesn’t listen to their community.

 

For £15 it is a bit steep but l will buy it. I presume that this will only work in TSW6 and will not be compatible with TSW5

 

Correct, however you can still get the tsw6 starter pack for free and all of your dlc will transfer across

 

It's about time they are coming out with it it took long enough I been waiting for it to come out I can't wait to play it

 

Sorry, maybe I misunderstood you, but I never said there was no interest at all. I actually wrote exactly what you said. There’s only a small group who enjoys this, and that makes it difficult to sell. Aside from the price, which is simply way too high especially with such a small group of interested people, I think."

 

I'll unashamedly be getting it. I Iove both CJP & US freight. Challenging and fun. We need more packs like this. However, will see if it justifies the price.

The wagon consists do need to be way more random and varied too.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. It's been 18 months from announcement, and this article was little more than a rehash of what we have been hearing all along. What industries, if any, are served? What resources were utilized to research the time period? How did you figure out what the service pattern would have been? What is the mix of trains like? How many additional services does Sherman Hill give and what are they? How about some pictures of the existing TSW freight cars in the new liveries? How does this compare to the original CJP?

Besides all that, all the pictures I have seen have been blazing new factory paint with no weathering. This one has a lot of red flags. We'll see.

 

For me, the big question is whether the C40-8 braking physics and horn sound have been improved with this release. How about suspension physics? Is it more than just a reskin of the old CSX Sand Patch DLC?

 

100%. There has been next to no info about the UP services on this route other than the fact that they are layering in. From the videos I have seen from the late 80's/early 90's UP services seem as prevalent as Santa Fe was. So hopefully there are quite a few playable UP services as well. It is a shame we couldn't have gotten another UP loco in there. Also if you really want to make it like 90s they will add Southern Pacific services as a future add on. Although my US freight knowledge is very limited so I don't know how much track sharing went on between those three railroads

 

At the time this route is set, UP had trackage rights from Barstow to San Bernardino, they didn't have any direct connection to their tracks in the LA area, so they used the ATSF trackage to get to it. Southern Pacific only ran on the Palmdale Cutoff that they built and owned till the UP bought them out in 1996. They "should" be seen like how the UP trains are seen on the original Cajon Pass timetable, but there isn't much to do to make them playable. There is no excuse for the UP services in this ATSF pack to NOT be playable however....

 

Everyone keeps saying "US freight is dead"

How are they supposed to bring it back to life if all anyone does is complain whenever anyone tried.

It's LONG and HEAVY trains going up and down steep grades or flat donkey desert, the fun is trying to stop 15k tonnes from getting away from you going down a steep grades.

 

Over 95% of my routes or UK routes, as I am familiar with them. Preston/Carlisle is by far my favourite to drive. I am quite new getting into the us rail scene. And I have to completely disagree with you. Taking a big freight train down that Cajon Pass gradient is one of the most engaging things you can do. You are constantly juggling your speed and bouncing between the different braking options. First time I tried it I completely lost the train. Plus there are services that start well beyond Barstow so you don't have to drive for over an hour before you drop down from the summit.

Admittedly climbing the steep Cajon Pass coming from San Bernadino isn't quite as entertaining. Just whack it in Notch 8 and watch the train creep up the climb

 

Ah that s cool to know. Having played cajon pass and seeing how UP layers slightly on that I was curious how on old Cajon Pass videos UP was so prevalent with Santa FE on the same tracks. Thanks for informing me. Even more excited for this release