Thames Valley Branches Discussion

Correct and the weekend is 7 car - 2x2 car and 1 X3 car

 

I wonder if there'll be a regatta scenario...
Can't think what it may be, apart from the irregular formation.

 

Wonder if the mastery would be the regatta? There's lots of regatta stuff on Twyford station, such as flag bunting.

 

I'm curious how the 70 will layer in. I assume there'll be an engineering train on the branches, either at night or early morning.

 

With the preview stream scheduled for this Thursday, it seems the release is imminent.
I'm a bit on the fence with this one, so we'll see if it sways me.

 

Preview stream on Thursday!

 

Yes, looking forward to this, the extra little touches I've read about in the route description sound great, something to give the route a bit of a different feel. Could be a purchase for me, haven't bought any DLC for a few months weirdly enough.

 

Same here. Apart from my vow not to make any more rash Day One purchases, I just don’t see this having “legs” to carry it beyond more than the two or three runs on each line represented. Still of the view the part of the GWML from Slough to Twyford should have been in there. I know from recent experience that most times, route hopping is simply not working.

Also seems a bit late in the life cycle to be releasing for TSW6 when TSW7 just around the corner. Particularly if it does turn out to be a paid update and/or, no matter how unlikely, offers an irresistible core pack of three most excellent routes, people will be saving their cashola for that.

 

I am looking forward to this one and seeing what's been done!

The one question I have over this is the accuracy of the scenery, as great as the screenshots look the one at Slough isn't a great representation of Slough and looks a little similar to GWE.



Usually wouldn't bother me too much but for a route where the scenery is the big selling point I think its a consideration Hopefully my area around Maidenhead is looking good!

Really interested to see the pricing too!

 

That bridge is not safe!

 

i’m hoping this is £19.99 maximum, otherwise it’ll wait for a sale, likely around Christmas time. it looks great and it’s an interesting concept but i’ll have to see the feedback first

 

Interested to see how this experiment turns out.

The previews have mentioned a lot of cool, experimental features to increase immersion like scattering birds and moving river traffic.

Sounds great in theory, but with performance issues already plaguing the game i'm a little nervous about how it will turn out in practice.

 

£14.99 would be my guess.

Looks interesting - will be tuning in on Thursday!

 

Visited the branches in person today with a Ranger ticket; Creating this comparison for all possible screenshots that I can recognize where it is! Of course I can't fly, time warp or do dangerous things so many of them are not in the same places or lighting conditions.

I do want to call for a refinement of the Windsor Railway Bridge model (maybe the Bourne End railway bridge as well), current model is nowhere near the real one.

 

Looking at the photos, I get a sense of the relaxed atmosphere of the British countryside.

 

Either that or the replica steam locomotive that's in display at Windsor and Eton Central.

 

They're close enough to be recognizable.

 

Im still not sure about this one to me its just three small pieces of track that not connect to anything. I will watch preview and see how it is . Might be worth a punt if not expensive.

 

A relic of the old Madame Tussauds exhibition which I was forced to attend in my younger years.

 

I'm sure there are moving boats on Medway Valley.

 

Yes there is

 

I'm pretty sure we've also had changing crop fields before too.

 

Release date is next Tuesday. Hoping it's a smooth release.

Interesting that you can wishlist this on Steam. I guess this is something they're doing going forward.

 

£15 it is then, less than i was expecting so im more tempted now

 

£15 for it is very reasonable price for you getting that might just tempt me to buy it. I mean i know the jobs will be that long but still ok if you got 20 -30 mins to kill.

 

18 Euro. not bad at all.

 

Yeah, £15 is very tempting. Despite the replayability being relatively low, it feels like the experience of this route will be different - almost like a diorama.

 

I think for the price I'm definitely in to give it a go, I like the shorter runs sometimes so could be perfect! Hopefully the scenery will hold up too!

Edit - Reminds me a little of the IOW 2022 Rivet did. I was also hoping the article would give a little more information to timetable and layers etc but I guess we'll get that on the preview?

 

Hey folks - I've just put out a full interview with Johannes from Incredible Trains!

It's quite the long one lool. We cover how he got into this, why a German dev made British Rail the focus, the concept behind the three disconnected branches, a big chunk on his craft and process, the confirmed roadmap features including the in-cab CCTV screens & the Class 165 overhaul, and where he wants to take Incredible Trains from here. Almost every question came from my community.

Courtesy of Johannes, there are also 100+ exclusive screenshots of Thames Valley throughout, plus an exclusive clip of the 165 cab improvements, approved by DTG. Thank you to Johannes for the opportunity and to Dovetail for approving the exclusive content.

Hope you enjoy it. Cheers!

 

I think that's a pretty reasonable price point. It's a decent price for three quaint little lines, so each is just a few bucks.
Fun for a rainy afternoon.
Seriously, for that price you'd do what... have one supper or watch a movie in the theatre for 90 minutes?
If you can get at least 90 minutes of gameplay out of it then it's good value.

 

£14.99 is incredibly reasonable. I hope the 165 layers in on other routes as well.

I just hope it's not a blurfest, I'll wait to see what other Console users think of it first before I purchase it though.

 

At the price, I'm in.
It looks lovely and scenic.Think it'll make a nice change of pace; enjoying the scenery.
Nice to know the update will come at the same time as mentioned in the YT interview.
Fingers crossed the optimization effort incredible trains has put in,will work for the console owners.

 

I do like the interview it's described as rural, scenic and slower paced.
Reminds me of WSR where you're not in a high speed rush.
I'm guessing like Medway too, but I haven't picked that up so don't know for sure.
That and the work on the 165 sounded really good, considering while I don't care for EMUs in general, it is one of the better ones (for me.)
Can't beat the visibility compared to say the letter box of the 150s.

 

Medway is very well done,varied services and a polished route.
I do get the Shed feeling with the 350 always making an appearance.Be nice to have a filthy Diesel unit for a change with Thames valley.
The upgraded Stratford route with extension and announcements should be great now it's on its way next week.
I'm a big fan of UK routes and rarely run anything else when I get the spare time.
Cheers

 

I enjoyed the interview with Johannes. With the price being very reasonable I will purchase this day 1. I imagine it’ll work ok on console being the type of route it is? Looking forward to the Richmond extension too and hopefully more London content in the future.

 

Said it on Monday but I’m actually surprised this was right! I’m looking forward to seeing the route in action - it is certainly an interesting concept.

 

I think I'm in the minority, but I'm not sure I'll pick this up at full price. I really don't like short runs, and this reminds me of CCN, which really left me unsatisfied. Incredible Trains do some excellent work, but the short journeys just put me off.

 

The scenery is exquisitely crafted; even those unable to visit in person can get a real sense of traveling there.

 

absolutely; yes, there’s limited replay value, but it’s something different which is a nice change

 

Still my view. In fairness the price is nice but ultimately it’s still less than 20 (scattered) driveable miles with a reworked train, so it would have been a hard sell to pitch it any higher, IMHO. However I will probably pick it up in a few months once it gets something off in a sale and any bugs have been ironed out.

 

According to the Video 125 film, it was too expensove to remove after the exhibition so they left it there.

 

That's the story, but no-one local believes it. It wasn't even a complete replica.

 

I don't mind the shorter runs personally. I wish CCN had been done a little more in this vein with much more focus and care being taken on the scenery at a more fair price...

 

Is it even that many? I thought it was more like 13-14?
2 miles, 7 miles, 4.5 miles?

I'm not saying it's not "fair" at around $20.
The Mildmay is $30 for 12 miles with just one EMU for example.
The Suffragette is $30 for about 13 miles.

So honestly the creator could probably ask about $30 for it, so $20 is a good deal. (Arguably there are a couple layers on the others that Thames doesn't seem to have) There may be more of a timetable on the other lines (busier) so there's more runs to "complete" for mastery I suppose. But $20 is still a good deal.

My only reason for not picking it up now is that it's not really my "thing" being a passenger route and I'd only like to see the actual scenery and effort that went into it on more of a "tour", not the fun of running all the passenger operations. As such a simple lark around on a riany afternoon would be the "value" in it for me. That's why I'd like to pick it up on sale.

For people who are native to the area or looking for some nice slow paced passenger ops AS a passenger driver then it's definitely worth the money.

 

My impressions are that most of the scenery looks really good I love the foliage density and the detail in the urban areas. Apart from Slough and Maidenhead which I was hoping would look better. I couldn't see it great on the stream but it didn't look like the station exit from Maidenhead station onto the clock tower side car park wasn't there. Slough the external area around the station could've been improved. It's not a deal-breaker for me but on a route where the scenery is a big selling point I do think it's worth mentioning.

I like the addition of the rail tour with the 37 and it's nice to see what looked like the WSR mk1s on the train. Which even if they aren't totally viable is a nice addition in my opinion.

The token exchange looks really nicely modelled and I like the detail with that!

Overall I personally do like what I've seen and I can see the care and attention that has gone into the route! I just wish Maidenhead and Slough looked a little better!

 

I'm getting it. The guy's clearly very talented and I suspect I'll get more "play time" out of this quirky DLC than my least favourite TSW route (currently the Cardiff thingy).

 

Disappointing that Station Approach at Maidenhead is missing and I've made my points before about the scenery at Slough. The class 20 at Slough was weird, I didn't hear why it was there, but you only ever see Network Rail vehicles there and not very often.

I understand from the stream there wasn't the budget for custom models but Windsor looks so off, so many styles of buildings you wouldn't see there. Plus Windsor Royal Shopping Centre is all wrong and there's missing office buildings, which have been replaced here by a multi-story car park.

The Hurricane model in Alexandra Gardens is far too bright, needs to be duller. A plane that bright would have been shot down easily!

The other one that got me was Cookham. I worked in Cookham Rise for 2 years so remember it vividly. Weird little things I noticed like the lamposts being far too tall, but the one that made me laugh - and I bet no-one else would ever notice it - is High Road by the station doesn't have a path as I used to have to walk in the road and almost got hit one dark winter's night. There's also missing shops on the other side of the station and the texturing of the station building doesn't look right.

And this is why I can't get local routes. When you know it too well, you notice too much and become too critical!

The positives are most of the line between Slough and Windsor has been recreated well (I still don't like the bridge though and Chalvey refuse centre looks like it's missing - I visit there often ).
The token system at Bourne End is a really nice touch, but the station was rarely that busy. I bet with that and the changing ends, it'll be the line that gets played the most.

I've still not changed my mind about getting it - but from the comments many folk enjoyed it and that's all that matters.

 

I did giggle at the start of the livestream when they loaded into Marlow and about 50,000 people got out the train.

 

Maybe because it's set in 2017?