I’d recommend Cathcart, Rush Hour or East Coastway as the best. IOW and West Cornwall as the worst. I plan to buy LGV next, leaving Clinchfield as the only PC route I haven’t purchased.
Im honestly surprised Oakville is rated so high up, it is usually considered one of the worse North American routes on TSW2.
Honestly same. Oakville is the only NA route I have yet to buy on pc (I did have it in TSW and TSW 2 on xbox). I never cared for it too much. Although this is only based on Steam reviews and not reviews from Microsoft store on xbox and the playstaion store. Also it's interesting that the original TSW 2020 Oakville dlc falls under the mixed reviews category.
I'd Reccommend Cathcart, East Coastway, Brighton Mainline and Dresden - Riesa. East Coastway is a very picturesque route, with a fair variety of stopping Lewes/Seaford-Brighton services, and Semi-fast Brighton - Eastbourne (for Hastings and Ore). The 313 (I imagine, I haven't bought it, yet) also makes the route feel complete, with both options for rolling stock being there. Brighton Mainline is another good route for the Electrostars. With a huge amount of variety, Short 'Metro' services around London, Regional/Semi-Fast to Brighton, Reigate, and destinations where the train goes off map, the Gatwick Express to Brighton and Gatwick (from Victoria). The 387 and 377 are both very enjoyable drives, as well. Dresden is the first German route I've bought directly (I got Rapid Transit through preserved collection, from the original TSW Release, and Köln - Aachen was/is of course in TSW2 base game), although, to be fair, it was in the season pass. I personally had no interest for Boston, quite a lot of interest in Dresden, and loads for Brighton Mainline (Mostly from the experience on TS). Whilst Dresden has it's issues, the route is without a doubt one of the - maybe even the - most visually wonderful routes. Meißen or Crossing the River in Dresden at Night, I don't think much tops it in this game. And then there's Cathcart. Now I have a Bias towards this, being the only (for now ) Scottish route in the game, and I am a Scot. The 314 is a train I grew up with, and it's incredibly well recreated. I feel like I'm back in the thing. The route itself, whilst it has it's flaws, it's Incredibly well made, with good amounts of Custom Assets, and mostly correct scenery and stations. In order, I'd reccommend: Cathcart (Biased) Dresden East Coastway Brighton Mainline (it does crash quite a lot for me)
I think most of the problems stem from Rivet's attempt at the 150, the scenery looks quite bare in some places as well I think.
Steam scores are weird. How can Clinchfield, one of the very best routes, possibly be "mixed?" It must have to do with a lot of buyers simply not liking long, slow freight runs. Similarly how Cane Creek (which isn't all that bad) brings up the rear, even though it is much better than, say, Arosa (a real stinker). And I'm not sure how LGV is rated so highly- an A-B straight shot with one train and bland (at best!) scenery. Which game the OP targets first should in the first instance reflect the kind of gameplay he likes. If a hypothetical Berlin U-Bahn were to be released to 100% positive scores and universal raves, it still wouldn't be a target for you, personally, if you, personally can't stand driving subways. --------------------------- According to my private survey of reviews with a sample size of one (me), I would list them as Very positive: Clinchfield RR RH London Commuter (Brighton Main Line) RH Nahverkehr Dresden (Riesa-Dresden) Glasgow Cathcart Circle Positive: Ruhr-Sieg Nord Main-Spessart Bahn Haupstrecke München-Augsburg Great Western Express Northern Trans-Pennine Tees Valley Line East Coastway Sand Patch Grade* Mostly positive: Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr Schnellfahrstrecke Köln* Rhein-Ruhr Osten West Somerset Railway Mixed: Rapid Transit Hamburg-Lübeck LGV Mediterrranee Peninsula Corridor Cane Creek Southeastern High-speed Isle of Wight Oakville Subdivision Mostly negative: Bakerloo Line* Long Island Railroad RH Boston Commuter (Boston-Providence) Arosa Linie West Cornwall Local *Base-game route, included for reference
I wouldn't use steam reviews as a guidance to purchasing routes. I don't know how some of them got rated so high over others. Like LGV? How did it get such favourable ratings? The route is not bad but is it really one of the best routes? Is it really better than Boston? GWE might have been a must buy when it came out but when you look at it today it's a really outdated route. London Commuter get"s favourable reviews over Dresden which has less problems than London Commuter? Not sure how trustworthy these ratings are.
