Route Tadami Line: Aizu-wakamatsu - Tadami

Is this route for PS4 and PS5, or is it just for PS5?

 

We've all been waiting for this since TSW4. Great to see it FINALLY get a release date

 

very reasonable price, was honestly expecting this to be the first £34.99 route. not going to be picking this up on release day but certainly one for the wishlist

 

It'll release on PS5 only

 

Is the paper timetable on the right hand side of the cab functional and will it actually show the service you are driving? If it does it would be amazing.

 

the price shocked me, I was expecting £32.99.

However, will this route finally be worth the wait?

For a route like this, im expecting some of the best scenery in the game

 

Seems roughly fair for a TSW DLC these days...maybe a little bit high.
The only thing possibly reducing value is that it's the first route in Asia (let alone Japan) so there's no layers possible.
That means you're ONLY getting one DMU, so that reduces variety and playability.
No freight traffic for example, just passenger service.
I could see it being $29.99, but to be fair recently 25 mile routes seem to be selling around there and this is closer to 50 miles so.... I can see why they are selling it for what they are. On the other hand something like Medway offers more value with layers.
On the other hand, $29.99 puts it in the area of Sufragette and Mildmay... which are only around 13 miles long each.
Or maybe those are just a bit overpriced.

I don't think I'll pick it up on launch because while I will love seeing Japanese rails (the scenery in the Japanese TSC stuff is much different than you get in Europe, UK, US routes, so I can see from the screenshots it will be here!) However, I'm not primarily a passenger driver so this won't be an often used route, more of a once in awhile.

I can wait for it to be on sale.

At the same time, I want it to do well to encourage more routes in other parts of the world since it is "Train Sim World" =-)

 

hope we get a detailed article on signalling and safety systems... possibly in advance, so we can get ready and get driving upon release

 

Will the Tadami Line be equipped with station and in-train announcement systems?

 

To be honest, except for the 2 stations from Aizu-Wakamatsu and Nishi-Wakamatsu, the only trains running on the Tadami Line were the Kiha 40, so nothing to complain about having just one train type. Freight services don't even exist.

It's interesting to see they just write about an authentic timetable, but name no service number. Well, if you look at the Tadami Line timetable from 2011 (before the flood), there are just 7 trains per day and direction, of which 3 go all the way to Tadami (and further up to Koide), 3 go to Aizu-Kawaguchi and 1 ends at Aizu-Sakashita.

So the timetable for the Tadami Line just had 14 trains a day. If you include the Aizu Railway services it'll be an around hourly service for the first two stations (around 5 minutes driving time), but you'd have to ignore the fact that Kiha 40 aren't the right vehicles for the Aizu Railway services.

But yeah, that's how Japanese rural railways are.

I just hope, as Vern wrote in the other thread, the physics and sounds are alright, while their TSC stock really lacked realism there.

 

"The authentic timetable recreates the day-to-day rhythm of the Tadami Line, with services divided into manageable sections to make the full journey easier to experience at your own pace."

Let me emphasize that a bit louder:
services divided into manageable sections

Aaaand that's my purchase postponed indefinitely. If the entire timetable is ruined in this manner, it would straight up be a dealbreaker. I'm not paying full price to experience services in parts 1, 2 and 3 with those hella immersive jumps in/out of the main menu in the middle.

Who asked for this? Everyone hates these divided services. Everyone hated it in Glossop despite whatever technical excuse that was given at the time, everyone's going to hate it here. Congratulations, you out of touch LOVEs, you've shot yourself in the foot once again.

Well, that's probably the reason right there. It's so the timetable doesn't say "00 out of 14 services completed" and people don't mass refund it immediately.

 

To be clear I'm not complaining or asking for more to be added unrealistically. I was just explaining why it wasn't a good fit for me personally at full price. Although if the timetable is really that limited....then I'm seriously questioning the $39.99 price at all.

The price is comparable to and for $5 more you have Preston-Carlisle for example.
This just does not compare in content to either of those unless there's a ton of stuff that they haven't mentioned.
Mildmay and Sufragette are only at $29.99 for just 13 miles though and just one MU each though.
Then again the Thames Valley is about 13 miles for $17.99 with one MU and no layers.
This one does have a lot more mileage, but not a lot of replayability either.
I tend to justify value by how much time I can spend enjoying it before it gets boring.
I don't know that I'll be getting $40 of fun out of it.
Now at a 50% off sale price... I can see it being interesting for a Sunday afternoon enjoying a trip through Japan.

For the record, I didn't pick up Sufragette or Mildmay either because to me they're overpriced. However, many in the community did so...*shrugs* It's all a matter of personal taste.

 

Perhaps you have the time to continuous drive for 3 hours for every single service? I don't and I welcome them breaking down the services.

 

To me that’s a positive because most of the time I don’t want to be driving a three hour service in one go and we all know how unreliable the game’s save function is. For continuing a service after each part there’s no need to go back to the main menu, you just “Return to Free Roam” after the debrief screen, which can be done in as little as two seconds. It’s a minor immersion interruption but not as big as the one that would result from saving and loading the save later, as that can take a very long time and does involve the main menu.

 

There's the save button right there. It's been functional for years already. Having an opportunity to do a full uninterrupted multi-hour drive is something people have been asking about for YEARS, and to have it ruined at the last second is just so infuriating.

I swear, there better be at least some services that don't have interruptions in the middle.

 

It's USUALLY usable. Plus you can only save one at a time.

 

This is a fair critique on a 50 mile line with 28 potential stops.
Even if you only stop for a minute or two at each stop, that can add up.

From wikipedia
Services

Linemap
All trains are local (all-stations) services, with approximately eight to nine trains in each direction per day. Only three round-trips operate over the entire line, and some seasonal trains operate through onto the line from the Ban'etsu West and Jōetsu lines. Due to the many curves on the line trains take over four hours to traverse its 135.2 km (84.0 mi) length.[7]

Makes me wonder how long it takes for the 50 miles we are getting and what happened to the other 34 miles?

 

https://timetables.jreast.co.jp/en/timetable/list0018.html
https://timetables.jreast.co.jp/en/2608/train/020/021411.html
Well, Aizu-Wakamatsu to Aizu-Kawaguchi is 1:50, so 3 hours for the included drive is probably right. Did every service drive the full length from Wakamatsu to Tadami at the time the route is set?

 

I don't think every service went the whole distance, only 3 or 4 times a day was the whole route run at once.

 

That means there's even less of a reason to chop up full-length services, if there's shorter services present as well.

 

It's not exactly a huge dealbreaker, I wouldn't want anything to happen during a 2 hour service.

 

I can see the issue with the 3 or 4 long services being broken up. Not saying it's "game breaking" or anything, but if the goal is to give something for everyone.... there ARE short runs (everything BUT the 3-4 long ones) so it seems silly to not leave the 3-4 alone for those few people who DO like super long runs.
Then both sides could be happy, since the majority of the time table are already "short" runs.
Eliminating all the longer runs seems unnecessary.
However, I'm sure they had reasons.

I do wonder though if the reason has to do with game performance rather than timing.
Wasn't there mention that as more and more trains over time "exit" the map they remain in memory, not really ending, leading to decreased performance over time? Was it Matt or Alex that said that in one of the stuttering/bluriness discussions? Therefore I can see that even though it's a low-traffic route if enough of the other AI traffic over 3 hours keeps going "off the map" but clogging up the memory that the gameplay could get progressively worse over time.

Just a guess on my part however.

 

You do realise that when the little menu pops up after completing the part 1, if you click "return to freeroam" you'll be put into part 2 assuming your still sat in a driving seat

 

Yeah because as we all know the save function works perfectly every time AND we have multiple save slots to ensure we don't have to pick and choose if we want to save the service we are driving and so lose the previous save.

 

I've not had problems with the save function in 3+ years. There was this one ancient German route that needed the train controls basically reset entirely upon loading, but that's about it as far as I can recall. Besides, I don't think "a core function is badly made, so let's do stuff to accomodate its flawed design" is a strong argument for reducing the authenticity of a timetable.

Passive-aggressive much? Yes, I realize that. I just don't care. I want the full 3-hour, 40000-or-however-many-points experience, completing which with no penalties will grant me an unironic sense of pride and accomplishment. I was looking forward to this route for years and now I'm sat here arguing with people who think that chopping up gameplay into "manageable sections" is good, actually, because the save function is badly implemented.

Personally, I will not be buying what I perceive to be a willfully defective product, that is, if I can't drive from one end to the other without menus, pop-ups, free roams and all that nonsense. That's it. As such, I've removed the route from my wishlist and I'll be waiting for gameplay footage before I decide to buy or not. Who knows what other compromises were made.

 

It's less about the stopping times (they are often less than one minute) but more about the line speed. As with many Japanese local railways it's a rather slow ride, the maximum line speed on the Tadami Line is 65 km/h, slowing down to 45 or even less on many parts.

Depending on the train, it takes around 2:50 h to 3:10 h for the 54 miles between Aizu-Wakamatsu and Tadami.
This is in fact the slower part of the line, the 30 miles between Tadami and Koide just take another 1:15 h, as the track between Tadami and Oshirakawa was just opened 1971. This more modern part of the route was omitted already back in the TSC route, though.

 

But if you then try and save on the second portion, chances are the save game bug will kick in when the objective data fails to load back in next time you load the run.

Maybe the solution is to offer two timetables, the authentic one with the full length runs and the second with the split journeys.

 

this seem to follow the same pattern and logic as liberec: stará-paka
a "complete" route with a new vehicle, new country, route developed by 3rd party studio... so the $39.99 price was quite predictable

 

I asked for this. I didn't hate it on Glossop. Guess I'm not part of everybody lol.

What's to hate about it? Just continue on to the next part of the service. There's not even a loading screen.

I truly don't understand this complaint at all.

 

This might be the biggest tantrum ever on this forum, and that's actually saying quite a bit!!! LMAO

 

Oh no, now you've done it. You'll awaken the "THERE'S TOO MANY TIMETABLES!" people.

 

I thought I was being entirely calm, if very sarcastic. Sorry if it came across as a tantrum. I probably shouldn't care as much.

 

Sarcasm is the unofficial language of the forum.

 

Wonder how many issues this route will have

 

which is what I do for Antelope Valley and San Bernardino Line services ... at first I wasnt about to buy this, but the length looks as good value, the train looks chill to drive... and I hope they release a good manual so I can learn stuff in advance... so I guess I will be getting this for long drives ... btw what are like average speeds on this line? similar to slower UK routes?

edit: checked it, and by speeds it looks as sth a bit akin to Niddertalbahn

 

*crosses fingers* please don't be a blurry mess....

 

Not sure how I was being passive agressive but ok

 

You can simply choose to return to free roam and it will.automatically assign you to that trains next service (which will be the next section). You say nobody likes these split sections but that's simply not true at all. Very little people have 30 mins free, let alone 3 hours. And the save feature can be temperamental.

 

Is the 'Continue in Free Roam' option still a hit and miss? Wouldn't that solve that issue?

I personally like the broken up services on these types of routes with long services. It's about the only way I can play them in absence of a working save game function.

 

Also, doesn't Glossop only split services when the driver changes ends?

 

Same here, frankly this is a big win for me.

 

Finally the wait is over! Mandatory purchase!

 

I don't even know what to say. Are the people who "don't have 30 minutes free" the new target demographic? I seem to recall when everyone was clamoring for longer routes and longer services... Maybe Matt was right all along. You can file this under "tantrum" as well, I guess.

 

I don't have the speed limits, but I have one of the timetables.
https://www.rail-sim-community.com/index.php?file-download/123/

Looks like for the start to Tadami (the part we are getting in game) it's about 88 km in about 3 hours so that's about 30km/h (about 19 mph) average in total (including stops)
That's not really fair because some stops seem to have longer waits than others and some are much steeper grades, so it's tough to say a "normal" speed for the route.
However, it's easy to say nothing exceeds 45 km/h (30mph)
Some areas it looks like around say Honna it looks like you only go 2.8 miles in 16 minutes.
A few legs seem to indicate around 40 km/h on average (25 mph)
Needless to say this will be a very SLOW ride.
Scenic yes, but very slow.

 

These are still Longer services!!! Just broken up for convenience and possibly performance I suppose. Just because it's not a technical "complete three hour service" doesn't negate the fact its a long journey.

 

Background on the Tadami Line for comparison
https://asocialnomad.com/japan/tadami-line/

 

Well... a FEW people wanted longer services. A FEW people wanted shorter services. Most people seemed okay with the 45 minute limit that DTG has generally suggested as the "sweet spot" in whatever product testing they had done. Of course it's still up to the third party developers to decide what they want to do.

 

It’s a excuse, because it’s working on Thames Valley without a Problem

 

...Thames Valley splits the Marlow services.