I was driving an Azuma on train sim world 4 and I got to Retford, I have 2 minutes spare so I use the external camera to go over to platform 1 and it showed under a service that it was operated by Hull trains. I have no idea why since I'm pretty sure Hull trains is not in the game.
HT is a First brand, and current thinking is that DTG have lost their First license (lack of and refusal to do any work on GWE, WCL being BR due to ‘licensing issues,’ no SWR livery on the 484 etc). It would be nice if DTG confirmed/denied this but as it stands HT won’t be making an appearance any time soon most likely.
All we know about licences is mostly just what we see and what we don't. DTG don't tend to talk much about them, and I don't feel its our place to know. Otherwise some people might try and take it on themselves to harrass companies that do or don't work with them. Look at people saying Northern never would and then suddenly we get the Northern 323 GWE has been repetedly catagorised as "too old", which most likely is true, given it was the second? route ever made and they have said route building techniques have changed. That and when SEHS was extended, it was basically rebuilt rather than "extended". WCL was rivets doing, so who knows why they picked... whatever era its supposed to be, because, it's a mess (timetable wise) I think it was because the HST couldn't be reworked (as even livery designer took years) and other than the 150/2 wasn't enough on its own and there was only NTP/TVL locos left. Not sure on the 484, again, it was rivet's doing, so not sure what was going on there.
Northern is government owned, so there was never really any concerns about licensing given how freely the DfT seem to give licenses away (BR, LNER, DRS etc).
Back to the subject matter, I believe this was done with the aim that if Grand Central/ Hull trains and any other operator licence was aquired, it could be retrospectively fitted into the timetable with no major changes, I.E. swapped out for the correct livery and loco.
Northern was considered "off the cards" until the UK Government nationalised the franchise - at which point it became likely. (The Glossop Line 323 is in the nationalised livery.) The presence of DRA in the 150 cab, the interior having FGW colours, and posters with a GWR Green 150, all suggest that Rivet were aiming to have a GWR and/or FGW era version of WCL - similar to the Cornish Mainline route on TSC. The 484 is quite clear; they couldn't get the license. It's the same reason the 483 is in NSE livery, on a modern representation of the route. The 484 has only ever worn the SWR Island Line livery, so rivet had to either make a fictional replacement or cancel the work they'd already started. It's not "Rivet's doing".
I thought the 483 ran in LT red or NSE colours anyway? Or at least, it was when I was on the IoW last
By the time of IoW's physical setting, it was all LT Red. NSE was phased out years prior. Even the TSC rendition (*shivers*) had LT red, set in 2011.
