What's Your Least Favorite Route And Why?

From what I've played, it's gonna have to be Sand Patch Grade, it looks dated, bland scenery, and the locomotives sound pretty bad compared to what we have now. Can't wait to see what you guys find to be the worst

 

Rapid Transit is easily my least favorite route, the route itself is mostly fine, but the lack of stock and service variety doesn't make me wanna play it that often. Not exactly a unique pick, people mention it all the time as their least favorite route, but it's very understandable why.

To being up a more unique pick though I have a love/hate relation with Clinchfield. I like the stock and services the route has, and have put a lot of time into it. But it is the buggiest route I've played from my experience, about a dozen services have glitch out on me and forced me to quit. Also there's some clear oversights on the route, such as DTG not adding a helper comm or alerter breaker to the SD40, and having stopping points with no margin for error at the end of through services.

Clinchfield is simultaneously probably my favorite route in the sim, but objectively speaking it's also probably the route I'd have the hardest time recommending to anyone, it's just far too buggy.

 

Rapid Transit and I got that route for free when DTG were giving the Preserved Collection codes for disc users. The audio issues and pzb issues just don't make me play it to be honest. I deleted the route from my Xbox.

HRR would be second. It's just way too short and it starts and ends at random stations.

 

Definitely LIRR, I regret buying it for TSW2020. There are other routes I dislike, mostly American stuff, the TGV thing and Rivet products, but I just didn't buy them.
Used to hate Arosa, but a year after release it's almost in a state I'd consider acceptable now. Almost.

As for Rapid Transit, I liked it in TSW, but haven't really touched it in TSW2. I'm waiting for the preservation update to fix the previous preservation update that attempted to fix the issues brought on by the move to TSW2.

 

Of all the routes I own, my least liked would go to LIRR. The lack of traffic is so much more noticeable because you are often driving along stretches of 4+ parallel tracks with absolutely no one in sight. The scenery is also very lacklustre; I wouldn't know I was in New York if it weren't for the fact that it's called the Long Island Railroad.

I actually don't mind Rapid Transit so much, at least not in its current state. The DB BR 1442 is ripe with issues since the last preservation crew update but I never drive that train anyway. Instead, I prefer to trundle along with different, varied stock enabled through high quality scenarios such as the ones Tom Fresco makes. It is disappointing to think about what could have been. Unlike LIRR, the scenery is not terrible, and the gimmick of servicing the highly detailed and interesting Leipzig underground stations has its appeal (something which we unfortunately forwent with Riesa-Dresden and the Flughafen branch). It's just that, without a properly-modelled Leipzig terminus, service patterns are limited and the southern end of the route feels a bit lifeless.

Nonetheless, it has unique scenery that I enjoy sprinting along from time to time.




Cheers

 

Lol I take it that you aren't all that fond of Rivet Games, but I've heard a lot of people have criticism of them. What are they doing wrong?

 

LIRR is pretty much substandard in every regard: little traffic for the "busiest route in America," inaccurate buildingscapes, poor lighting, boring trains, and above all ATC is hopelessly borked. I wouldn't have bought it, but it came free as part of TSW2020.

OTOH, I love Sand Patch....

 

Bakerloo line here. I remember a time when I had a bust knee, had to go to hospital as a mortified kid to have a potential procedure done on it. This was more exciting than Bakerloo. If you was to put two toilet roll tubes on your eyes, turn the lights off, have a friend make an occasional bang as they roll some scenery they’ve hand drawn in front of you,then you’ll see a similar amount of trains and get a busy experience too. Remember to have a third and fourth friend present to play passenger.

I’m genuinely not sure if I’ve made a complete service on this as personally I don’t game to see how dark my monitor blacks are with 10 seconds of station colour randomly

 

TSW 2 Sand Patch Grade because you can get a Stop Signal Overrun (US NTSB Terminology for UK Rail Accident Investigation Branch & Game SPAD Signal Passed at Danger) at the end if not used to US Diesel freight locomotive.
TSW 2020 Huddersfield Line the Northern Transpennine due to class 101 Daisy DMU being a pain in the arse to stop due to it's vacuum brakes

 

Crane creek simply because I found myself yawning after 5 minutes knowing I got another 1hr+ (which feels like forever) of trundling along a single track. I'm not saying it's wrong but I personally can't handle it. I've managed to complete the scenarios (eventually) but I don't think I've even done a service yet.

 

I move from PS5 to XSX so lost a lot of my routes but I'd have to say Rapid Transit, Sand Patch Grade and probably Bakerloo are the routes I'd actively avoid playing.

 

Bakerloo, boring & it's a tube train which I'm just not into! Sand patch is not my thing either really.

 

For me it's either Sandpatch Grade, Pinnesula Corridor or the Bakeloo Line.

Sandpatch grade I don't like because I don't like American freight in general (I don't know why), and that its very slow and the scenery isn't particularly exciting, mostly trees.

Pinnesula Corridor I don't like because the scenery is quite bland and it feels very similar all across the route, which get boring very quickly, and I don't enjoy the locomotive which come with it the F40ph mainly because the brakes are very fiddley. But I might enjoy more if I had the dlc as I've heard both them are quite good as the Baby Bullet is a bit faster and has easier brakes to manage and the shunter (I can't remember what it's called) I think I'd like because enjoy shunting on all routes.

And finally Bakerloo I don't like it because half the routes in a tunnel which get very boring and it feels very empty, I only see a few other services when I'm running it.

 

Sand Patch, Rapid Transit and Boston Sprinter out of the routes I have.

SPG is a heavy and slow US freight route, which is simply not my thing. Rapid Transit feels better with the preservation update, but it still feels quite dated. And Boston Sprinter just didn't click for me for some reason.

From the routes I don't own, it would be Cane Creek and Oakville for the same reasons as SPG (Oakville for being short as well) and LGV for not enough variety.

 

It's LIRR. I bought it waaayyy back in TSW2020 ages and until today have tried it like 5-6 times. I constantly keep asking myself "what did I do wrong? Is this a bug? I don't understand what I'm doing" when playing this route. Obviously I have problems with that train, too ;-)

First I wanted to answer RT but to be honest on RT I learned the game and spent a good amount of time there so it can't be that bad ...

 

I tried the toilet roll thing and it isn’t quite as good as Bakerloo, maybe because I didn’t have any friends round to help. I did shine a torch into the toilet roll (I only need one as I can’t see much out of my left eye anyway) to represent the bright stations but I think I still prefer the route in the game, which I do occasionally still play. Maybe I could try busting my knee and regressing to childhood and see if that’s more exciting.

My least favourite route is LIRR. I did have fun with it once but I can’t say I’m ever drawn to playing it these days as it has too many issues and is fairly dull on the way to Hicksville anyway. I do quite like the M7 though so maybe the new route with it will be better. I do still play all the routes I have but not LIRR. Whenever I have tried to go back to it, I either give up the service part way through or get off the train and let the AI take over once I’ve had my fill of all I can take of the dodgy sound.

 

My top three least favourite routes in order are:

1) Rapid Transit: even after the first preservation crew update, this route has plenty of bugs preventing me from using it. The Talent is afwul, LZB bugs on the 182, track rendering is awful etc...
The route itself could be interesting, but there are just so many bugs...
2) Boston Sprinter: Just did the tutorial and that's it. Broken safety systems means I cannot use the route. Period.
3) Peninsula corridor: the route itself could be nice, but it really lacks quality compared to other routes in many aspects: graphics, trains etc... Hoping for the preservation update to bring it back to life.

 

Ditto for me. I started one of the branch runs, but soon realised I had an hour of slow running and, well, life's too short!

I also cannot get slow speed working for love nor money for the loading ones. I only bought this when it was cheap in the sale, so I don't feel too hard done by. Maybe one day I'll persevere with it, if only to get my Masterys on it.

 

LIRR for me. All the American routes rate low for me (except Peninsula Corridor. For some reason I like that one). But LIRR is the worst of all.

Before the recent patch Arosa was also low on my list, but I actually quite enjoy that now.

 

While my interest in American trains is less than non-existent, I've never actually bought any (Well, bar Boston but that came with Rush Hour), and the only purchase I actually regret buying was West Somerset. I bought it on launch day because I wanted to do a launch day stream, and only ever played it twice since, when the 20 came out and when the pres update came out - neither session lasted longer than 10-15 minutes. It's the really low speed that does it for me - I enjoy riding heritage lines, and even think I'd enjoy driving a real one, but in a game it's not for me.

 

Agreed.
Slow speed is an immersion killer.

Short stretches no problem, but long ones with the current state of graphics is a death sentence.
No matter how good they are on routes like West Somerset I've yet to complete a scenario

 

Subjectively I think WSR is the worst. The extremely slow speed limits is just infuriating to me. No idea how I managed to buy it without doing the most basic research about it.

In terms of DLC (route+trains) I think WCL (which I never bought) is the absolute worst, because of the awful rolling stock, I have a similar feeling for HHL (with the added bonus that it injects the awful BR112 on all your other german routes as well).

In terms of strictly the route, I think LGV is very bipolar, between Aix-en-Provence and Marseille is awesome, the stretch to Avigon is dreadful, so I'd go for that.

I actually don't mind RT. It's not my favourite or anything but I enjoy running it, it's a nice mix between Regional and S-Bahn, which I quite like to be honest. Of course now both the BR182 and BR1442 are not usable (the 182's speedo is off by ~3 or 4 km/h and the 1442 is locked in the wrong PZB mode) so good luck playing that.

 

West Cornwall is the worst route to date with glaring scenery omissions which make it look and feel like a fictional route. Rivet have put a lot of effort into producing excellent replication into both their locomotives and stations which I cannot fault, but their scenery replication is absolutely diabolical.

 

Least played route for me is still Bakerloo Line, a dark boring tunnel, single track, no AI visible, no railfan shots possible, and stopping at exery streetlantern...

The don't own it, and will never ever get it DLC: Cane Creek, Sherman Hill, Horseshoe Curve...snail US freight through a dessert. Locos and consists maybe impression, but Sand Patch delivers enough content for this kind of services. West Somerset Railway - snail UK railroading in prae-historic 500 year old diesel locos.

 

LIRR for me. The route itself is quite intresting with different routes to drive along but it is empty. I remeber the intro for it saying something about Jamaica being one of the busiest stations in North America and in TSW its empty most of the time. I'm glad I didn't buy it as a standalone DLC. I also avoid Arosa due to the jumping glitch which was due to the engine upgrade but no other loco/train seemed to have a similar problem. I avoid Boston Sprinter due to the saftey/signalling systems issues that appear to slow you down for no reason making you 10 mins late.
I did really enjoy SEHS before I decided to start my own livery (unfinished) for the 375 and now it appears on 50% of the AI but the love to Ukraine livery for the 395 doesn't.

 

For me it was NEC: New York for TSW1. It had so many bugs that I just didn't play it at all.

 

I suppose of the routes I own I'd probably have to say the Isle of Wight, half the time I forget it's there, and the other half of the time I choose to play another route instead, sadly it just doesn’t interest me.

 

Sandpatch is not too bad, the problem is that loooonnng 25 MPH stretch in the middle on track alignment that looks as though it should be good for 40 at least. I was actually reading a book while that section was trundling by.

My least played route is probably Oakville. I did the first couple of Journey trips and haven't been back since. A pretty much dead flat and short stretch of mainline really has nothing to offer. There are far more interesting stretches of Canadian route - even on the Eastern side - they could have chosen. Just glad I picked it up for uber discount.

And I would also toss in Clinchfield. The premise was great, period route and Appalachian Coal Country but it didn't really gel, partly because some of the scenarios were so tightly scripted, easy to have them break down.

Boston Sprinter got boring quickly, especially when Journey mode gave extended sequences of cab car running. TBH I haven't done much with the other two RH routes either - London to Brighton is pointless unless you can finish the run without saving and the Electrostars are uninteresting to drive. Dresden to Riesa comes down to another German commuter route with over half your time spent driving characterless Electric-Karts or Dosto cab cars.

Oh one more to mention - Sherman Hill. Has potential but until DTG pull their thumbs out and sort the optimisation it remains to all intents and purposes unplayable.

 

Ok - so discounting the following DLC routes which I dont own below - my absolute least favourites by light years are CN Oakville and Bakerloo, both I own and both Ive uninstalled. Given that Ive zero interest in subway/undergrounds and that its a core route I'll discount this and say the only route Ive ever regretted purchasing is CN Oakville, its flat, straight one trick pony with absolute zero attraction for me. Ive never refunded anything on steam but I really regret spending the £2.49 this cost me in the Christmas sales. Quite why anyone would pay full price for this is beyond me.

Routes not owned
Cane Creek - on my wish list to pick up in a sale
Isle of Wright - the shortness and lack of variety means it would need to be very cheap for it to appear value for money for me.
West Cornwall - the mixed eras turns me off this completely.
LGV Med - a highspeed one trick pony, from what Ive seen appears on the boring side.
München - Augsburg - I actually dont know why Ive never purchased this, definately on my wish list.
West Somerset - again on my wish list to pick up in a sale

 

West Somerset is okay apart from the tedious (realistic) speed limit, but like BML you really need to finish in one sitting to beat the flakey save system which gets completely baffled by the single track sections.

 

I know it's a unit DLC but the 1938 stock has got to be one of the worst ones on TSW. For some reason it has absolutely no run sounds outside of the traction motors, so travelling in the tunnels is completely silent. The traction motor sounds are the same default 'old emu' ones that get used on every pre 1970ish emu for ts. The compressor is pretty much inaudible and is taken from a standard stock instead of a 1938 stock. Over every section gap, the traction motors cut out for at least a second and sometimes just disappear altogether in my experience. This can make it impossible to get up steep gradients and I've gapped myself several times just south of Queens Park despite several motor coaches still being on the juice. hope you enjoyed my rant about a complete waste of £12 xx

 

I feel like the 1938 stock and DB BR 187 are the worst loco dlc's ever released. They are well modeled but the bugs and clear as day issues just make them abominations that shouldn't have been released

 

exactly

 

For me I can only afford to buy the UK routes. I love the GWE but the way it is done in game is such a shame imo.

 

Coming back to Oakville and to some extent Sandpatch, part of the problem is the switching tasks where you are given various rakes of wagons to shuffle from one track to another, but there's no real purpose. Run 8 does give that purpose in that you break down incoming road trains to form outgoing locals (with the assistance of the hump at Barstow and West Colton). This has to be physically worked out to the industries concerned and left, then picked up later when loaded or discharged, worked back to the yard and reformed into the various outgoing road trains.

DTG have missed a trick with how they approach North American freight in this respect, to all intents and purposes is set up no different to running A to B on other routes - even Clinchfield suffers from this lack of in depth operation. Maybe they figure some people won't have the patience or moxie to indulge this type of activity.

In fact I bet a pound of blood pudding that Scouse Steam, when released, will have the same aimless functionality when it comes to freight, despite the huge potential for simulating real traffic, pick up freight etc.

 

Least favorite? Probably LIRR. Can't understand weird speed limits, lack of AI. Least Played? SFJ. Because it crashes. Otherwise I love this route.

 

Bakerloo. It manages to tick pretty much every box of stuff I don't like.

 

Rapid Transit is definitely at the bottom of my list. First of all, the DB BR 1442 is currently one of the worst trains in the game to drive, with sounds being ridiculously quiet when in the cab, the setup randomly requiring the MCB and parking brake, PZB being completely messed up, and probably some other things.

As for the route itself, one thing I've always noticed is that the lighting is strangely bright compared to every other route in the game. It looks odd. The gameplay experience isn't exactly exciting, where a full-length S2 service along the route takes an entire hour and a half. Not my ideal choice for frequent starting and stopping. When the route got a preservation update, it added a nice new timetable that is actually quite busy. But while it's nice, it's just not fun to drive thanks to the included Talent 2. And if you don't own Ruhr Sieg Nord and the 182, you miss out on a good chunk of the timetable. Overall, not a great route to play. My best compliment is that it's quite nice how this is indeed a complete route, being the full S2 line. It's a nicely built route, but not a fun experience.

 

At the moment, the LIRR.
It just feels so dead, not to mention missing safety systems, lack of PIS, wrong or missing sounds etc.

 

LIRR No Brainer, because of the lack of accuracy to the real-life route, such as the building, scenery, city skyscraper, building, station, station asset such as the ticket machine, light on platform, Lack of AI Train not busy and doesn't feel Rush Hour at all, Tunnel inaccurate texture, and lighting, and the train and rolling stock all horrible sound, AC sound cut off, Horn is Awful, Engine propulsion not continuous during idle position, texture all horrible on the train as well, No realistic Track Noise, such as the screeching of the train when going through the curve, switching track, junction noise, going through the tunnel, no city ambient or atmosphere feeling when driving along this route.

My second would be the Bakerloo Line, not interesting at all.

 

My least favourite is Bakerloo as I'm not really that excited by driving in tunnels...

Interestingly, at variance to most of the posts in this thread I actually really rather enjoy LIRR, West Cornwall, Oakville and Sand Patch Grade.

The biggest disappointment for me though has got to be Sherman Hill - for all the hate heaped onto West Cornwall for it's scenery, at least it has some... I get vast swathes of Sherman Hill where it is literally just the basic ground texture painted on the terrain and very little (if anything) else at all...

 

And that would be because it’s like that irl…

 

Hillarious! Made my day

 

Indeed, quite so - but literally painting the terrain mesh and doing nothing further is hardly up to 2021 software standards!

At first I thought it was my graphics settings, but I cranked them up to Ultra and 200% screen scaling and it still stayed the same!

 

What do you mean by the mixed era? I want to purchase it at some point.

 

It is supposed to be set in the early/mid 90's but uses layers from NTP. In fact I would say it is set in the mid 90's as the Regional Railways livery wasn't wide spread on class 150 Sprinters until about 1995.

Whilst the blue/grey livery in NTP hadn't exactly disappeared by the time WCL is set, it wasn't a common sight and certainly not used on intercity services to Cornwall. Also, the class 45's featured were last in service in 1988 and the intercity class 47 fleet was all in intercity mainline or swallow livery and not BR plain blue. The carriages would have been mark 2 air conditioned stock in intercity swallow livery not the early mark 2 to 2C carriages in blue/grey, which by the mid 90's were very much in the decline. The class 101 in blue/grey would have been seen up till about 1992, the few first generation DMU's used after then until about 1996, on the St. Ives branch, were a motley collection of mainly class 117/122 in various different liveries. Frankly it is a litany of inaccuracies and not something you expect on something supposed to be a simulator!

I know not everything can be accurate 100% of the time but this doesn't even get close and this is the main reason I haven't purchased WCL, the other reason being the completely wrong way the sounds and physics are set up on the class 150.

My most regretted purchase is the LIRR as it is too quiet traffic wise. I quite like Rapid Transit, or I will do when/if they improve the class 1442.

 

Sometimes the best thing about WCL is exiting the route

 

There's a lot of routes I dislike simply because they aren't my kind of thing, so I'm not gonna say it's Sand Patch or *insert modern German route here*, because even though I'd rather watch paint dry than play them, they aren't aimed at me to begin with.

Out of all the routes that ARE aimed at me, my least favourite would have to be the West Somerset Railway. And it breaks my heart to say that, because I have such fond memories of the line irl. Back when I was a kid, we used to go to Butlins Minehead every summer and we'd always spend time on the line, sometimes more than we spent at Butlins itself!

The main thing that bothers me is the traction. NONE of my many memories of the WSR involve 47s and 09 shunters. I think the only time I ever rode behind a diesel on this line was on a Class 31, and that was on a rail tour which went up to Taunton and beyond.

I know everyone loves that Liverpool to Crewe is the first steam route, and I'm excited too, but I really think they should have done a Great Western route so more appropriate traction could come to this route, ie. A Manor or Prairie tank engine. Not only would it fit more in with what I think the line is more associated with, but I feel like keeping a steam loco at 25mph would be more interesting than keeping a 47 at that speed (which is the other reason I dislike this route, my god it's boring to drive).

 

I'm excited we are finally getting a section of wcml & it's also my home route but disappointed it's set in the steam era, I would love to run the route in a 66 or an 86/87/90 or other modern traction but hey steam it is I'll still buy it on day one as like I say it's my home route & I can't wait to see how they have represented my locality & what is/is not included.

 

Or as I put in my signature, the Somerset and Dorset* which had a significant cross section of motive power, challenging gradients and nice scenery. Other possibly than a bit of top down pressure from The Boss, I really don't know what decided 35 miles of Crewe to Liverpool was the best choice for the first steam route. I'll still buy it, but there were far more iconic routes and motive power they could have chosen, IMHO.

*Or the others in my list.