As Lukas hinted during the Nürnberg–Würzburg preview stream (or was it the Gamescom interview?), they are working with a modder to bring a new timetable to Bremen–Oldenburg featuring the BR 440. As I’m very familiar with the area, I’ve been thinking about what that timetable might look like. The route is set in 2009, if I remember correctly. The new operator, NordWestBahn, came to Bremen around 2010 with the BR 440 and the entirely new Regio-S-Bahn concept. Before that, DB operated the local services as Regionalbahn trains using Einheitsloks, n-Wagen and cab cars, as represented in the original route. Around 2020, NordWestBahn acquired a number of FLIRT 3 EMUs and has been operating them on services towards Oldenburg ever since. This leads me to believe that the new timetable will be set somewhere between 2010 and 2020. Even with the BR 440 present, there would still be some important rolling stock missing for Bremen, primarily the LINT DMUs running towards Soltau and Osnabrück. I’m thinking that setting the timetable closer to 2010 might be the better choice from a rolling-stock perspective, because we wouldn’t be missing the IC2 in Bremen at that time. Instead, the BR 101 Expert would be very prominent in the timetable, while Regional-Express services would be operated by BR 111s and BR 146s with Dostos. The trade-off would be that the ICE 4 did not exist yet, and we would be missing the ICE 2 for the Bremen–Munich services. These services were extended to and from Oldenburg early in the morning and late at night. Another problem would be the Vectron. So, regardless of whether the timetable is set around 2010 or closer to 2020, there would always be certain types of rolling stock missing, while some existing stock would not be usable realistically. Another thing the timetable would be missing are coal trains running through Bremen with Class 66. As we don´t have the Class 66 with a German cab, they won´t be present. Really missing a opportunity there. The final big question is whether this new timetable will come with the correct NordWestBahn BR 440s in three- and five-car formations. If not, it would be completely unrealistic for Bremen. I assume this will be a paid gameplay pack with the correct BR 440 variants included, because otherwise the whole pack would make very little sense.
They can always use existing trains to represent services even if it's not realistic. They've done it in the past. If you don't like it, you can always turn the layer off
whatever the format of the new timetable, it’ll be a very welcome addition and will certainly get me back on that route for the first time in a long time. i played it a lot at launch but once i’d exhausted the n wagen and 110, it began to feel very repetitive. decent route which has aged well in terms of scenery, but the service variety and rolling stock doesn’t entertain me much nowadays
