West Coast Main Line: Trent Valley From All Aboard Studios

They did have all layers active, but they used an early service, notably one that avoided the busiest station (Crewe) & MKC. I’m definitely not pinning any hopes of not seeing the texture issue on the back of that stream.

FYI the 390’s memory footprint was reduced by around 15%, not half.

 

Thanks to Jan for asking and Dan for answering my questions about Kilsby Tunnel and the Northampton Loop.

Kilsby Tunnel (previously mentioned lighting issues aside) sounds like it will be hellfire and worth a visit on foot.

And while disappointing, nevertheless the situation as regards Northampton is understood. I didn’t realise the current timetable has so few trains through to the Trent Valley, though of course we could still have driven the outer suburban services from MKC to Rugby. It is what it is and you could argue the OG WCMLS should have gone to Northampton, instead of stopping short at MKC. As a now retired route builder in the old sims, I know how easy it is to yield the temptation to lay a few more miles of track. It’s filling in the detail and scenery that takes the time.

Odds on this being in my HD by the end of next week, now shortened to 12/1.

 

They drove a train out of there on the stream so I hope it's included

 

oh i thought i heard them say it went from ~120mb to 60. misheard then.

didn't see the whole stream but shocking that they missed out crewe because that's where all the problems on B2C occurred

 

The very short route trailer has a look at Kilsby Tunnel including a view from the vent shaft,


Now I didn't watch much of the stream, mainly because I was falling asleep after a long day up in the friendly skies, but while I was largely happy with what I saw I did notice that Crewe in particular was very quiet (it was the end of the 350 run, there was a 150 waiting to depart, a 323 parked up in P1 and a Pendo did race through non-stop after a couple of minutes), there didn't seem to be any static vehicles especially outside LNWR which would easily have a 153 and a Gronk outside of it during the day and it was hard to tell from the cab view but it looked like LSL's site was empty too.

With regard to the timetable being quiet, let's not forget that a large amount of the freight traffic is missing simply because we don't have the loco's for the job...

 

It didn't seem too bad to me. There are 10 Avanti services per hour during the daytime. 3 turn off at Rugby to Birmingham, another 2 at Colwich to Manchester via Stoke. That leaves the Glasgow, Chester, Manchester via Crewe and 2 Liverpool services. Finally, at Stafford one of the Birmingham services rejoins as it continues towards Glasgow/Edinburgh/Blackpool.
The services aren't evenly spaced either. I've stood at Rugeley Trent Valley and there can be long gaps.
And finally, I couldn't finish this post without mentioning maths and the fact that relative velocities will affect the amount of traffic you see, but that's not a calculation I'm doing during my lunch break .

 

I only watched a bit of the stream but it actually seemed quite good. The sounds of the 350/4 were great, however they said they won't be ported onto the other variants. This unfortunately creates a situation where one variant of the same train is significantly better than the others which irks me a bit.

 

I watched the livestream for about an hour, even though I’m not really interested in UK routes.

What struck me, though, was that there was very little AI traffic, and I’ve never seen so few passengers on any other route as on this one.

 

I’m not really understanding all the issues regarding the double objective.

I first became aware of it on Riviera Line and Birmingham to Crewe, to prevent the immersion breaking close doors on a red, for example overtaken trains at Dawlish Warren have the feature.

If it’s a workaround to prevent that which is undoubtedly immersion breaking I’m all for it. You shouldn’t have to close doors earlier anyway, really and with signal delays in the game no services in reality would ever depart at “00 seconds” on the dot as well.

 

Good stream last night.
Enjoyed it.
Wasn't sure about how busy the route was from the stream, it'd make sense they left room for their new freight loco.
The 350 was the highlight,it sounds very good indeed.
Day one for me;I'm still enjoying the previous AABS dlc .
Hopefully fix the texture problem inside and out on the 805,it's very noticeable on external cab view.

 

This is what concerns me with this route. It’s the West Coast Main Line and it should be busy. However, if it was busy it would blur I suspect.

As for the 350/4 sounds not being ported to the other variants, don’t AABS own the 350/2? So why wouldn’t they be able to port them?

 

I think what they said was there were no plans to, not a flat no.

It almost seems to be a rule of TSW that no plans is a guarantee something will happen!

 

Just watched the stream and very impressed. The fact that it’s running on Series X at mostly 60fps with no apparent blurries and with the full timetable means this is most likely day 1 for me.

 

I watched the stream, the part on PC and a bit of the part on Xbox. All the time I had the feeling, just another boring mainline route with not much going, no amazing scenery or landmarks. But ok, if there where landmarks or an amazing scenery, you don't see it anyway from the Class 350 small cab window.

What I actually want to say, I really want to see something else then mainlines over and over again, maybe the Thames Valley Branches is more my cup of tea. There are also to much German routes mainlines and not much scenic branchlines.

 

They used the 390, which didn't really suffer blurry textures on any route tbf.

The class 350 on console will be the blurry mess

 

Dan mentioned he couldn’t see the team doing another long route of this calibre again, that’s fine since AABS connect all their routes up into a network. I wish more third party developers did this, stuck to one area of the railway and expanded upon it.

I’m hoping Firefly’s next route will be a continuation of their first.

When it comes to the WCML, AABS probably have one more route left in them and that being the MK to Birmingham new street section.
I’ve read feedback on here about them not extending up to Liverpool or Carlisle, so that looks like it’s off the cards.

 

I'm sure he said something along the lines of no more WCML. But I might be misremembering.

 

You are correct, I caught that one too. Though of course that doesn't rule out an offshoot from the current AABS network and it also depends what you define as WCML, as technically Rugby to Birmingham is the "Grand" etc...

As regards the frequency of AI traffic, it was explained on the first 350 run the Trent Valley is not that busy, as trains which started to depart Euston, Manchester and Liverpool etc. around 0600 have not reached the area yet.

 

But of course if they did a run around midday there would be plenty!

 

Oh I didn’t catch that. I guess it’s not a massive deal breaker getting the remaining part.

If the WCML is done they might focus on routes starting on the WCML and diverging onto another. Crewe to Derby I wouldn’t mind seeing as a starter.
The East Midlands is crying out to be further explored.

 

I think the main point of this long route will be to give the fast trains a place to stretch their legs at long last. Personally as well as the 807 I’m looking forward to driving the 390 on a decent run more than the 350 which is getting a tad boring now.
It’s so frustrating on WCMLS to be restrained by such a short run on the Pendo. Now we’ll be able to sprint and lean to our hearts content.