Hi all, I’m here to elaborate on a question I had on my mind about the origin NEC New York and NEC NY - Trenton and what could have been. As we know, Dovetail re-used scenery from the original NEC from TSW 2020 and ported it over into TWS 3 with NEC New York to Trenton. When Dovetail ported it over, they cut the section from Hellgate Bridge to new Rochelle. (16 miles of track). When adding this to New York to Trenton, you end up with roughly 74 miles of track. although I see why Dovetail cut it short to have New York Penn be the main station of the route, it’s still could have been cool to have an extra 16 miles of track. When reading the main complaints about this route, the main complaint with this section of the route was its speed, dipping to as low as 45 miles an hour. This route however, did have its perks. Such as freight, and its dense, city feeling in my opinion. (although the scenery was rubbish) Freight variety. in the original NEC route, you had the option of doing freight services at Oak Point Yard, Hunts Point Terminal, Fresh Pond Junction, and Harlem River terminal. Altogether, you could do manifest trains and trash trains between Oak point yard and Fresh Pond junction, giving the route some variety other than passenger. we obviously haven’t seen trash trains since which is somewhat disappointing. Still maintained the city feeling. Although the section from New York Penn to New Rochelle, is slow at times the scenery and city feeling was still largely there. Following highways, crossing rivers, and passing densely populated areas every now and then. (Yes the scenery was terrible but it was still nice to have) if this section of the route was going to be brought back, the scenery would have been completely overhauled (I don’t know how legit this is because Dovetail said they couldn’t port the original route over but did with NY - Trenton, but it would’ve been nice to see) I would’ve especially liked to see this section come back, because Joe’s work on the freight layer never came to fruition. But all this leaves one big question, should it have been done? Personally, I think yes because the good outweighs the bad in my opinion. Although this section would have been slower and less speedy, we would have gotten a longer version of New York to Trenton (roughly 74 miles instead of the 58) we also could have seen freight come back for extra variety and something other than passenger. I Personally think Dovetail should have delayed the route in order to analyze it’s true potential and better scenery we could’ve gotten. (I didn’t know whether to post this in off-topic or general discussion so it’s here because I don’t know if I’m honest…)
Well this is about TSW so it’s in the right place. Off Topic is for things that are not TSW related. It would have been nice to have all of the old route included, especially for the freight network that was present in it but I’m sure updating all of that (a lot more than 16 miles of track when you add it all up) was too much of an ask. Even doing what they did with Trenton, they still ran out of time and released an unfinished route and timetable, plus when they did then revisit it no freight could be added. The route still has issues now.
Only for the additional trackage. Nothing else about that route was redeemable. It makes me want to vomit.
When tsw2 was first announced, the plan was to start fresh with nothing porting over which had a ton of backlash. The forums was a mess from what I remember. After all the backlash, dtg had to port everything over in like half a year or something, idk, which is why the preservation crew was created. Each dlc required a lot of work and to bring this over required it to be rebuilt which wasn't enough time for dtg to release it when they were basically crunched for time.
It’s the freight I’m still missing to this day. Running freight along the twisting track through the urban setting had an atmosphere to it that nothing else in TSW has to this point.
I think this part of NEC should be its own route and extended to New Haven because NY Penn is a more natural end point then New Rochelle. In addition to what you posted, the route layout of the original NEC add-on was heavily criticized as it makes little sense operating wise.
This is incorrect, preserved collection was always planned as coming. They just were staggered releases to add new TSW2 features, because the community didn't like the fact the preserved collection content wouldn't work with TSW2 features (like scenario planner.) They then delayed the launch of TSW2 by a couple of weeks to add additional features like scenario planner to the preserved collection routes that were available at launch (East Coastway, Peninsula Corridor (plus loco DLCs), and Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr.) The rest of the collection was added to the game in groups over a series of a few months, not a year and a half. The last of the preserved collection content was released about 3 months after TSW2 launched. The preservation crew was created initially to port these from TSW to TSW2, but then later tasked with improving them until TSW3 released, when the team was officially disbanded/renamed. It's that team that created the Holiday Express DLC for TSW3, for example. https://live.dovetailgames.com/live/train-sim-world/articles/article/tsw2-update https://train-sim-world.fandom.com/wiki/Preserved_Collection
Oh I see. Didn't know that. I guess the backlash was towards the preserved collection not being able to use the new tools? That's what the wiki mentioned. Unless I'm talking about another tsw that received even more backlash, idk
Yes you had the outrage right, but for the wrong reason. The collection was always coming but it wasn't going to have scenario planner support. The livery designer support was also added to most of the preserved collection, but that part took a long time with the HST only recently getting it, breaking the wipers in the process.
I used to like the old NEC route back a while ago in TSW1 Xbox one original. Im a XSX 4K snob nowadays and can’t take the blurry non 4K textures of TSW1 so it’s a completely caput route for me now. Had a look back not so long ago on it and my better than 20/20 vision couldn’t read the words on the desk and stuff due to blur. And the scenery out of the window was worse than the graphics of GTA SA original tbh half of me says it would have been a good import the other half is the route was quite issue plagued best left and maybe redone better at some point.
If DTG has ported over every other route and loco from TSW1 into 2, and everything from 2 into 3 and then 3 into 4, but has never gone back to NEC or those two locos in all that time, there's probably a good reason for it.
Glad I’m not the only one who tried Some months ago now, I installed TSW2020 on my PS5 specifically to check out freight on the old NEC. I was shocked when I spawned and saw the gauge textures on the GP38-2. That and the god awful classic control scheme. I still completed a run, but it made it very clear to me that going back to TSW2020 for it is just not an option.
As far as I can remember there was to many issues with that route; signals and speed limits, floating buildings etc. It was a route that was created when Unreal was very new to the developers and I remember it being said somewhere that the work they had to put in to get it on par with the other TSW2 content back then wasn't worth it.
I still hope NEC New York - New Rochelle gets (re)created for the latest TSW version and become part of the preserved content. IMO it is a mistake to exlude it from preserved collection.
they built the routes differently back then, NEC was built in a way they thought may have worked better but they ended up building them differently afterwards, so they were working with something unfamiliar if they were to port it (probably other reasons also) and thus it would have been easier to just re build the route instead of porting it.
I was thinking more in the way some of the issues present then are still here now. I would have thought they would have eliminated most of them by now.
If they poured the whole thing they might as well make it Northeast Corridor Newark to Providence 192 mi via Stonington Connecticut Mystic Aquarium. Even better 240 mi NEC Newark Boston checkpoints are the major stations that includes New London for LIRR Greenport Orient Point Ferry
Yes, because porting New York - New Rochelle is remotely similar (in terms of workload) to building Newark - Providence.. Spoiler: ? Do you ever make sense? Also, punctuation pls
I'm all for long routes and all that but... that is WAYYY too much. We'll be seeing this route maybe in 2027...
I get it and for that route it's commuter Rail Amtrak action from Newark, NJ to New London, CT. Amtrak High Speed running New London to Wickford Junction Rhode Island where it picks up another commuter rail MBTA Wickford Junction to Boston South Station via Ruggles Northeastern University railway station. The only one to do that portion of the route I mentioned is my brother because he has his friends go to school in the Boston Providence region which is why he's familiar with it.
NEC: New York was the first route I ever played. I loved it as it allowed me to re-live my Amtrak journeys at a time when traveling was uncertain due to the pandemic. I will say it is hard to go back to due to the classic control scheme. The southern portion of this route has been rendered obsolete for me due to New York-Trenton, but the northern half is the only reason why I still have TSW 2020 on my PS4. I played that part of the route after going to New Rochelle IRL last year and it was rough going back to the TSW 2020 way of doing things. The route also felt pretty sparse without any Metro North trains. I definitely would love to see the northern portion of the route remastered and extended to maybe Stamford or New Haven with both Amtrak and Metro North services. Would love if we could get the GCT to New Rochelle stretch too (I believe the New Haven line splits off from the Harlem line at Woodlawn, so the only new section needed would be Woodlawn to New Rochelle).
