San Bernardino Is Fantastic...

I don't want to jump the gun, but I just started playing around with San Bernardino line and so far it is fantastic.

I started off checking out the timetable, and looking quickly the Metrolink services seem correct on first glance. The start times for the ones I checked seem to match the real life Metrolink timetable and they all seem to be there. I know Metrolink is a pretty low density timetable by TSW standards but AVL was pretty wonky in a lot of places so that is a good sign so far.

Loading up to LA Union for Train 304, the station seemed much busier than I had ever seen it on Antelope Valley. The station was basically full, vs the same time on AVL (around 7:30) having only 4 trains in the station. That seems to indicate they have replicated the real timetable including the other lines decently, more thoroughly than on AVL.

The trains present were a total mix of F125s, MP36s, and the trains were all a mix of Bombardier and Rotem cars. Overall looked great and much more realistic than AVL with only the Rotems and F125.

As I was leaving I saw one train waiting which was reverse (loco facing union instead of cabcar facing union) which from my understanding of Metrolink is a-typical but does happen. AVL had at least one service that did that. Neat.

LA Union and the area around it is re-used from AVL obviously but on first glance I did notice some differences. The endless hole that drops you under the map if you walk over it on foot (near the Chrysler 300 next to the station building) is fixed. The textures for the asphalt near the LA Sheriff detention centre has been changed (more on that later).

Now as soon as I started driving and crossed the LA river into the "new" parts of the route, things started looking great. Right away I noticed the urban part of the route feels MUCH better than AVL. Now, granted, the urban part of AVL is going through parts of LA that I don't think are the most scenic IRL (warehouses etc) but San Bernardino looks and feels much better so far. The floating parked cars and buildings are much better than they were in AVL. Some cars floating on the highway as seen in the preview stream exist but overall it seems like they did a much better job with making sure things that should be on the ground are on the ground.

The level crossings that were like half a foot to a foot raised in AVL seem to be much closer to the way they should be so far on SBD. As you can see care has been made to give them the appearance of something a car can actually drive over.

The trees/foliage/grass/textures all seem much better and probably the best I've seen on a US route. There is a really nice palm tree asset that appears quite a bit which I think is new (you can see one right when you cross LA river which isn't there in AVL). There is also a much more pronounced green colouring for the grass and green areas of the foliage IMO.

The city itself feels much more alive/authentic. Again this is a new part of LA so it might look different in real life but in game it definitely feels like a more authentic city. The placement and style of buildings, road layouts, vines on walls, the amount and orientation of parked cars and trucks... everything feels more "right".



One of the things I do often when I get a new route is as I am driving along and notice buildings/assets that interest me, I compare them to Google maps/streetview and see what is there in real life. I don't expect every corner store to be an exact replica but I do find it cool/nice when a McDonalds gets the generic in game fast food asset, or an apartment building gets a similar looking stand in. I don't like it when for example what is a fast food restaurant in real life is a derelict shed building in game.

So far, when I am doing that in SBD, they did a great job getting everything to match.

Also, surprisingly, they've gone through the effort of making unique assets for a lot of relatively mundane trackside scenery. I am talking about signage for car dealers, malls, etc. These aren't scenic landmarks so I'd expect them to re-use generic assets here but they actually re-created approximations that are pretty damn close. See below:

 

More assets which impress me:



Level crossings much improved:


Now the route isn't perfect. As noted above in the level crossing photo, they need to work on some of them to keep cars from driving through them.

Also, this is a relatively minor gripe, but I noticed a new texture being used for asphalt roads, parking lots, etc. In some ways that is good because some of the old ones looked too plasticky and not like real roads, but I think this new one needs a bit of work as it is a little too rough. You can see that in the picture of the road above.

Also:




Now, these aren't terrible. They look fine from the cab. But to me they do look a little too rough for asphalt. More like dirt.

 

Here is a shot from AVL where you can see they've changed the ground texture. A little nitpicky maybe but the new texture looks a bit rough to me (AVL top SBD bottom):



Overall I am LOVING this route so far and it is right up my alley, I was expecting it to be my least favourite route of the new 3 but I think it will be my favourite.

Granted I haven't even finished my first run on it but so far so good!

 

Thank you for your initial feedback. The Beta team spent many hours researching and providing feedback to the Devs. They were very receptive to our input and we all truly wanted to bring the best content available to the US community. It's been great seeing the love this route has been getting from the most part. We hope this is only going to make future routes even better!

 

You can tell care went into this route from everyone involved. I am going to update this thread as I see things that I like or that are interesting.

The stations too - VERY nicely detailed.



(I like how the animal shadows cast onto the train)

Love this flyover section too:

 

It would be a real twist if the (by the mood on this forum) least exciting route from the TSW 5 pack becomes the highlight of this release...
I really hope so, the US region was/is in need of some love

 

Of course I suppose part of the advantage of this sort of thing is it creates assets that are appropriate for reuse in other routes.

 

Looks like the additional months of dev time paid off considering how long ago this was announced! Can’t wait to give it a try later this evening.

 

Yep. I've already noticed them used in a few places on this route itself. While they are nearly exact replicas of the real signs outside El Monte they also would work for a variety of different types of malls/stores/dealerships across many US routes where those style of signs are fairly standard.

 

This is easily the route i cared least about before i saw the stream.
Now downloading it and this will be the first one i drive

 

Never really bothered much with US content aside from Boston Sprinter but this looked terrific on the stream the other day, so much so I finally checked out Antelope Valley the other day and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to giving this a go tonight.

 

When I watched the preview stream the route looked really good I was impressed I look forward to playing it next week

 

Certainly looks very impressive. If the car shadow floating effects, ballast popping and points shadows were fixed (and almost everything else is solvable with reshade and ini tweaks), then it would be hard to fault this route. The creators have done a magnificent job with the tools available, thats pretty clear.

 

I came across something and I am wondering if it is a bug or realism... maybe MAX1319 knows...

So running service 304 I got stopped by a red about 2 miles from Rancho Cucamonga... I looked down the line and didn't see any other trains so I tried the contact signaller button and got "Denied: Check Switches".



I've never seen that message in TSW before, so I looked on the map again. Right in front of me there was a switch set fine.

Further down the line, at the Rancho Cucamonga Acacia Siding, sure enough there was a switch set onto the siding. I used the map to switch it and my light changed to green.

The switch in question:

 

OK I’m driving now, but basically you have to make sure that all your switches are set correctly all the way to the next signal. Those are manual, switches,. it mainly happens with the free services, but there are a couple of passenger service that also has that. I believe Matt mentioned, that on the stream, doing the freight service

 

What I am wondering is if this is a bug that I should report, or something thats meant to be like that in the route because of some real life situations?

 

That’s the way it was done

 

Just finished my first full run and have to agree its a great looking route

 

It's prototypical (see the first reply to this)
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw5-early-access-–-everything-you-need-to-know.84566/

 

Thank you! I really liked the F125 on Antelope Valey but unfortunately the route itself became boring quickly. So I did not expect much of this route.
Your post made me try it though and it’s so much better than Antelope Valley. This route really feels ‘lived in’ and gives the feeling that you are providing a commute service.

Posting this while waiting on a longer stop at Fontana Metrolink

 

Yeah! Even thought this route is pretty much just as long as AVL time wise, it feels like it goes by much faster. I think the more frequent stops and the urban scenery makes it a more interesting route to me. I think I will be playing it a lot, like you I love the F125 and now with the MP36 there’s two to choose from.

 

Finished my service, here are a few other observations/notes:

I saw a few of these posters, at least 3 of them, promoting safety around tracks. I am not sure if these are really at those stations or part of a wider thing DTG is doing to promote safety but cool either way, better than the generic posters we've been seeing over and over.


I noticed garbage/debris on trackside and some platforms. Small detail but not something I've seen on many routes and adds to realism:

Payphone asset I've never seen before:

These yellow gates to prevent cars from driving on the right of way, present at many of the grade crossings, and there in real life:

 

I found some of the ex-cab cars. They are physically different because they have the cab windows blocked off. Interesting to me is that they come in both liveries, same as the coaches. I thought DTG would cut a corner to save time by making the passenger coach come in one livery and the cab car come in the other livery, but they actually put both liveries on cab cars AND coaches which adds to variety. The cab cars seem to have units in the 600s while the coaches I've seen are in the 100s.



On the subject of unit numbers, but not so good, the unit numbers on the MP36 seem to have a possibility of repetition... I saw two unit 899s at the same time appearing a few platforms down from each other, one on its own and one attached to a two train consist. Not sure why they numbers would duplicate since I would think theres enough units between the F125 and MP36 to cover the whole timetable:

 

Good observation on those gates…… we noticed them too

 

Loving the feedback everyone. Tempting tempting tempting....!

 

For the entire run, the scenery was generally fantastic, but this is by far the most wonky part of the route I saw. It was also apparent in the preview stream. Just east of the Baldwin Park station, this grade grossing has a weird mix of the rough look asphalt texture combined with spots where the sand straight up comes through the road. Very obvious and looks more like scenery that would be far from the tracks than stuff you'd be driving right through.



Another thing I noticed which must be an error is the stop marker signs at eastbound Rancho Cucamonga. The stop marker the game puts on the track seems fine but if you try to stop at the 5 car sign where it is, most of your train would be off the platform and the raised wheelchair platform wouldn't be anywhere near the train.

Every other station I checked going eastbound, the stop marker signs seemed to be bang on, just these ones seemed waaay off.



Also noticed this cool British telephone box at one of the stations (forget which). It stands out quite a bit so I am assuming it must be there in real life:

 

Also, from a performance point of view, I was worried about this route but knock on wood, on PS5 it is extremely smooth. Only potential FPS drop I felt was a bit at 7:30 am in LA Union right when I spawned in but even that improved the second time I did it. The rest of the route had no issues with performance (outside of the standard microstutters).

Also noticed in general that load times on TSW5 seem vastly improved, BUT that is just with the 4 day 1 routes installed (San Bernardino, Cajon, Frankfurt, and WCML). We will see how the load times change on the 17th when I load in all the rest of my DLC.

 

Other than the floating cars, and a few other things with lighting, this is by far my FAVORITE of all the routes and I truly thought it would be on the other end of the spectrum. WOW. The scenery is SO GOOD. The sounds on the MP36 are incredible and the stations are modelled so well. AMAZING JOB on this one. WOW, AGAIN!!!

 

It's a fantastic route!

Great scenery, the stock is well done, and the services are interesting.

There's even a proper freight timetable.

Well done, ya'll!

P.S. there are still core TSW issues like floating cars, but i'd say they've done as great job capturing the SoCal vibe.

 

I kept speeding cause I was too busy looking at all the small details away from the train LMAOO
the signs, the rocks and clutter, just wow. so good!

 

I SPAD on my first run from watching the scenery lol- honestly hadn't run anything American in a while and have been spoiled by european safety systems.

 

With regard to the stop marker signs at Rancho Cucamonga, this is actually realistic and another testament to the detail that went into this route. The reason they are like that is that eastbound Metrolink trains used to use the opposite track, and since the platforms are offset, that was where the signs needed to be. It appears that new signs have not yet been put in irl to account for eastbound trains using track 2 now.

 

Thats awesome! Wow. Yeah, funny because I was thinking "these signs are so far off the eastbound platform but would actually be right on the money of I was using the other platform".

 

It's indeed way better than what we saw on the preview stream. Looked very good besides the obvious floating cars. Also pleasantly surprised about the passenger poses on the platforms. This is how all passengers should behave on other routes.

 

Must say that is looking nice. Probably my next port of call after finishing my run on WCML.

Los Santos by train!

And why can’t Run 8 have graphics and detail like that?!

Well done to all involved.

 

Can’t wait for you to post night Lightning. Even on a complete cloudy night you can…. well I will let you be the judge

 

This does seem very wrong I would say. There's no way a passenger train driver would be dealing with this, let alone walking 2 miles there and back to deal with it, the freight train crew needs to tidy that up after shunting, so if AI leaves a siding, it needs to set even the manual switch back to the mainline.

 

I got a reply from one of the local beta member, "Yeah you're absolutely right, a passenger engineer would not normally be dealing with this, because a freight crew would be expected to set the switch back the right way after they use it. However, this was the best solution we could do in-game to both keep manual junctions and not have to put fake signals everywhere (given that AI trains can’t set the switches back) which imo would be even worse. The one improvement that doesn’t seem to have made it to the shipping build is that instead of getting a red signal, you’ll now get a restricting so you can at least pass the signal and look for switches as you move down the track, rather than having to set everything from 2 miles away".

 

Can't wait to play this. I'm gonna leave the best until last.

 

I am really enjoying this route , but would like it more if I could find the Alerter on the two loco's

 

that's turns the MP36 safety systems on. animation is currently not working

 

Thank you

 

Decided to do an early morning run today (in game and also real life, lol) going from San Bernardino to LA. Using today's date, weekday timetable. Sept 13 2024.

Started off 303Q which was a depot run from San Bernardino EMF to downtown at 03:50. Based on the departure times for the Rotem cabs I figured this train would turn into SB 303 which is the second San Bernardino train to leave in the morning (I was correct). I selected the MP36 which put me in unit 900 on this dark morning.



Passing through San Bernardino station (empty) I crossed paths with the first train of the day, SB 301 pushed by a F125 making its first station stop. Also at the same time a BNSF intermodal was passing, having just come down the Cajon Pass.



Arrived at San Bernardino downtown. As I guessed my train was now going to become SB 303 and leave in just over 10 minutes (4:10am). That gave me time to properly shut down the cab of the MP36, set up the cab for the Rotem cab car and drink my coffee. While I was waiting, another train arrived from the depot, this one was a 4 car set pulled in by an F125 which would later become Inland Empire train 803. The station was pretty quiet for passengers this early.



I got going on time shortly after 4:10 and made my first few station stops in the dark. Night lighting is pretty decent on the route, various houses and buildings were lit up quite well. Eventually as I got closer to 5am the sun started lighting up the horizon to the east, behind me.



By the time I made my station stop in Covina, the sunrise was getting pretty nice, with the palm trees set against it at the station.

 

It was getting quite light out by the time I made it to El Monte.


Leaving El Monte, there is a flyover which is one of my favourite parts of the route. Something about a big heavy US train over head in a city is cool.



Entering the I10 section I dimmed my headlights to avoid blinding drivers.


Another great view of the palm trees set against the sunrise.


Station stop at Cal State. All the stations are great on this route, but the mural at this one is very cool.

 

Turning the bend around LATC, the LA skyline comes into view, including the tower at LA Union.

Crossing the LA river and preparing for the final stop.

And we've arrived just before 6am. A few other trains in the station, including VC100 beside me, and two AI trains connected together which would have come in that way from depot.

I was curious where my unit 900 would go next, I thought maybe a depot run the the central facility, but whatever service was planned for it next was AI only.


All in all another great run on this route. No issues/bugs/etc to note other than the little core issues that we already know about like the traffic etc.

 

The aircraft you see north from El Monte is departure pattern from Ontario international airport