Now when watching the preview stream for Harlem Line, there was a brief moment when Matt ran down all of the DLC that add the various freight cars that have been placed along various points of the route, as seen in the video below: (Skip to 1:03:30 in) To run the list down, it includes: Sand Patch Grade Sherman Hill Peninsula Corridor One other which isn't even out yet Now that last one was later confirmed to be Horseshoe Curve literally just a minute later. But I guess it's a nice touch having those wagons in yard so that they have bit more life rather than just looking empty all the time. Did get briefly excited as I thought there was some new US add-on coming that we didn't know of yet, before realizing that it was Horseshoe (even before I saw what was said after that). Oh well, better luck next time I guess...
Okay that fine, I did kinda realised that. For reference (since I didn't see it) can anyone link to where about Matt said this?
Like literally a minute later. JD: "There's a lot of people guessing it in the chat" Matt: "And they'd be right" JD: "It's horseshoe if anyone's not looking at the chat" Matt: *laughs* "I can't remember exactly what was used off Horseshoe"
Yeah, it's no surprise that what they were talking about is Horseshoe subbing in freight cars on this line. Since it is the next US route after Harlem (and hopefully after Surzee).
Norfolk Southern HSC and for Sand Patch Grade it should have added a Boxcar CSX Paint because Harlem Line goes on top of the NEC New York TSW 2020 Oak Point Link.
That would be my guess as well. I'm glad they added them, as it's good to see random rolling stock laying around. It's something that was really missing from LIRR, for example.
It doesn't, but even lines like this will have a few sidings that park them sometimes, like at yards. If you watch cab ride videos, you will see freight cars there and there, just like on LIRR
But for the southern half of the Harlem route it runs in tandem with the Hudson, which does carry freight. And the little sidings alongside have some parked freight cars.
Not to mention at North White Plains yard, Metro-North have their own rolling stock as mow equipment at the shop (used as a rail washer). Not fully represented, but close enough to put it on a siding for scenery.
Again, they probably done that to recreate the wash train as scenery for the shop (not the right equipment, but close enough). But, I don't think it would make much of a difference anyways if you remove the tankers or added in open hoppers from Peninsula.
Genuine question here - if IRL theres no freight on this line, what are all the sidings for and what should be parked in them?
Congratulations to DTG, just watched a YT video of the line together with last night’s stream and I have to say it’s pretty accurate. Excellent work by the whole team. I am very impressed with the attention to detail and am really pleased I preordered it yesterday.
Not sure, if it was mentioned already, but there are even AI freight trains present, albeit not exactly "on the route" as they're taking the single track at the Harlem River bank. Not sure how often they run, this one popped up at 7:11 - a nice manifest heading up north.
So I originally began this thread as some speculation thread to some comment made in a preview stream for Harlem Line about one of the freight car layers coming from a route that wasn't out at the time, and I just took the bait and ran with it thinking there was some US route that we didn't know about at the time that was due soon... only to realize "Wait, it's Horseshoe Curve, right?", and that was before people pointed that out to me and when I found out that not long after that moment on the stream, it was pointed out that was indeed Horseshoe. But that doesn't really matter anymore, with that aside, now that Harlem is now out and that Horseshoe was finally released last week, we now must ask ourselves... What was it that the likes of Horseshoe, and even Sherman Hill, added in terms of freight cars layers, to this route? Those two routes is what I'm mainly going to focus on here, I won't be focusing on for the most part on the likes of Sand Patch Grade and Pen Corridor because I think we are all quite familiar with what the freight cars on those route are by now, so let's focus on what the new US freight routes contributed to this route. Sherman Hill I've seen comments that they haven't been able to see anything from Sherman Hill on this route and I can say that from having an explore of this route, that freight cars from Sherman Hill do actually show up here. It's just that it's not static wagons that it contributes here. Instead on of the freight consists that make the hourly AI freight train that passes under the Harlem River Lift Bridge on it's way too and from Oak Point Yard consists of the two Boxcar types from Sherman Hill. Reefer Car 60‘ Boxcar It should also be mentioned here that this same consist also had some of the freight cars from Penn Corridor in it too. Horseshoe Curve Now comes the one that I think you're all curious to know about, the one that wasn't out at the time Harlem was originally release, but has now come out last week. So let's ask ourselves, what was it that Horseshoe contributed to this route? The answer is the flatcar which appears in two locations. One is a single one that appears next to the Sand Patch Boxcar at Mott Haven Junction. The other location is actually several of them dotted around the yard just south of Mount Vernon West. This I actually find quite hilarious as it seems the flatcar from HSC appears more here than on Horseshoe itself as it only appears in one services and that's it. Not even as static stock like here on Harlem. Speaking of freight cars that come with Horseshoe, but don't seem to appear on that route at all, I also think the new gondola from that route would of been nice to have been seen here as well as that car would of worked quite well on a route like this. But overall, at the end of all this, I really like what was done here, by taking the various freight cars from various past (and future) US routes and either placing them at various points along the route to give them more life, or by placing them in an AI freight consists that travels the Oak Point Link. This was also probably the most we were going to get in terms of freight layers as that doesn't seem to run on this route in real life, and even if it did, is probably on a rare occasion for maintenance work. But other than that, like what was done here, and hopefully we will see more of in the future. I also would like to see something like this on Long Island Rail Road as this would really add some much needed life to some of those yard dotted along that route which currently look dead. Although that route could also easily get a freight pack of some sorts as, unlike this route, freight does actually run on the LIRR in the form of the New York & Atlantic or from some of it's own locos on maintenance runs. But how you handle freight on LIRR is something that you can all decide on that one.
