I've been enjoying Tees Valley Line as a new TSW2 user and have sunk literally hours into it. It's fast become my favourite route. I've noticed that there are spurs off of the main route leading to unknown freight areas and also sidings along the route that never get used by the AI or scheduled services. Does anyone know if there is any way to get to and explore some of those bits of route? They don't seem to be track leading to portals, they seem to be modelled industrial areas albeit smaller in scale. Looking in scenario planner as well, there doesn't seem to be any paths that lead to those areas either. I'm sure TVL isn't the only route modelled like this, it just seems a shame not to go and use some of the track that's been modelled there.
I know what you mean, there are many spurs off the mainline on TVL. I think some may be explorable on foot thaugh some might be behind invisible walls. Like today, there were spurs to factories and other industries that were used once in a blue moon or possibly not at all so there may not be paths to all spurs and yards.
Initial plans for routes sometimes have to be cut back when the devs are making them due to deadlines and such, so those areas will be in different states of completion and so are just blocked off with invisible walls, but are still on the map if the track is laid. Since one example of a route (Oakville Sub) had a massive such area left unfinished but left on the map looking like it would be accessible, causing much player backlash, inaccessible areas are erased off the map for new routes prior to release. TVL was originally released before that, so those areas are still on the map, taunting us. Conversely, on the Bakerloo Line and possibly other newer routes, there are areas of track that you can actually walk around that aren’t on the map, which is taking the new policy a bit too far. To get in to those areas of TVL you would have to be lucky and find a gap in the invisible walls to get in there, or try and glitch an external camera into the area (probably easier in TSW2020 than in TSW2 due to there being more control over the camera but still next to impossible), or do what modders do and break into the software (probably only available to do on PC not on consoles). I don’t think you would find anything of great value in there anyway and sadly those bits of track will probably never be opened up and used officially in the future.
The Tees Valley is my favourite route too. I think the reason I've spent so many hours on it is the variety of destinations you can end up at. My second favourite, the Trans Pennine, is, in contrast, rather like driving from one end of the pipe to the other. When I first downloaded Tees Valley I looked at all the sidings and industries and couldn't wait to get started, visiting all those obscure locations. Unfortunately of course, the actual map is rather less exciting. Understandable if deadlines have to be met and imagination is lacking but now we have been given the opportunity to create our own scenarios it would make a massive difference to the repeat drivability of the route if these areas were opened up and we could use all areas of the map. I hope someone at Dovetail would consider adding more useable sidings to all the routes now that scenario planner exists.
It is a big limitation in TSW, the lack of drivable track. Even in places you can access, like a big yard, there is often only a couple of tracks you can use and that actually get used in services. I think for scenario planner to be a success, a great deal of track and path options need to be opened up. Ideally you would pick your start and end points on the real 2D map of the route and every bit of visible track could be selected. That would open the routes up and provide a real opportunity for imaginative gameplay. Maybe one day...
