so an intro to my ramblings. I work for a small heritage railway in south Wales, you've probably never heard of it. at its peak it only ran for about 13 miles servicing the industry up and down the valley it was situated in, it dropped goods off to the main line, from there coal, bricks and whatever foundries had churned out made their way across the empire ( in its steam days) later on when only the mines were left ( in the days of the diesel) this line shifted half a million tons of coal a year, and now..... nothing its all gone, only the small piece that my colleagues and I look after remains, and we laid most of what we run on now! its all that's left after it was ripped up to make a bleeding cycle track!!! even after the local council had agreed to keep it!!!!!! and there's virtually no memory of the place, outside of the older locals only serious spotters interested in our rolling stock, or rail history buffs know that this line existed and why it was important to the world. so one gloomy day whilst I grumped my way around the railway pining for what could have been, a thought (which I'm sure many have had )sprung up!! we could recreate the line as it was in train sim! it would be cheaper, easier, more truthful to the history of the place, ect ect after a while that grew into a greater thought why isn't there a group dedicated too that, preserving true railway history in an interactive form! something like TSW would be perfect to recreate soo many different railway projects, and hopefully draw in crowds from all sides, benefitting all involved. I wish I could set it up but I have no idea where to start who knows maybe this post is the thing that gets me going :') anyway that's all to say is there even a commercial market for such a thing, because I cant think of how else you'd fund such a project especially considering the current state of the government purse a related poll will be going up too all the best
It's the Talyllyn Railway (you're profile picture is of No. 6 Douglas which gave it away ). Anyway, DTG aren't doing any more steam disappointingly, so it's chances of appearing are next to none. Although if they ever do decide to do it again, they should start with this as its small.
I went for the first option in the pole. The West Somerset Railway seems popular in TSW. The line is over 18 miles long so that helps. I think it's fun to have heritage railways in the Train SIM, but obviously nothing beats going to a real railway. I suppose one good thing about all the mining, and some heavy industries and the coal industry now being history in Britain, is there are no more terrible working conditions, like children at pit faces, and 14 hour shifts. Wouldn't want to recreate that in the UK. Good luck with your heritage line.
Hear Hear to all of that. Your idea has been brought to life to in Train Simulator Classic on a purely amateur basis. These routes are available on the TSC Workshop. I seem to remember Old Vern, Young Vern as he was then, had a hand in doing the Ffestiog which came on a CD at the huge price of £5.00. It even replicated the gravity slate wagon run which was a delight to behold. Not sure it would be commercially viable on TSW and routes are very hard to make in TSW for the amateur, (I am told), so i would suggest you go onto the TSC forums and see if anyone would take a stab at your railway. Good luck and hope something comes of your idea.
I'll ride better "I only like boring emus" At high speeds, than plodding along at a speed of 15-25 mph on tiny routes, please excuse me
I have to ask, is your heritage railway the short one up by the big pit at the top of the Welsh valleys, think it's the Pontypool and Blaeavon railway?......
that may be so but you'll never know the joy of sticking your head out of a moving train only to get hot smuts land in your eye LOL I'd take a rattly ride on a cold noisy open sided wagon any day
I hope to see the Severn Valley Railway in TSW at some point i enjoy WSR more heritage Railways will be more welcome
Yes that would be nice, they had some brilliant locos for their diesel gala earlier this year, they could do class 43 in rail adventure colours, the class 70, some 52's and 37's
The Worth Valley is another lovely heritage line, I think it's a complete branch, as it was in Edwardian times. For me an HST or modern diesel doesn't look quite right in the surroundings of Oakworth station. A Gas lamps and turbostar weekend LOL
There is actually quite a lot of them present in TSW, aside of one full addon and its remaster. I play mostly German content, but various heritage/narrow gauge lines are present in some way on DRA, DCZ, SEM, FTF and SRM, just from what I can remember. The thing is, while they are fun in reality, they offer very little gameplay wise in comparison with "normal" routes. It's just smaller, slower, less varying and not offering anything to master in terms of safety systems and similar gameplay. If steam traction gets picked up by some 3rd parties, I think it's more likely than not that we will see Wutachtalbahn revisited again, that's an example of feature-full heritage line that makes a good sense. Otherwise, I don't really see more coming. I would love to see them being added as functional AI models (even low quality) accompanying big routes, instead of just empty tracks, though. On the other hand, small routes can be also achievable in smaller dev teams, so just gang up with few people and you can start creating them by yourself, we have seen stellar TSC routes made by just handful of people.
What an extraordinary poll! Full of the OP's personal opinions and billingsgate. A " yes or no " choice would have been better. Do we really need unmoderated polls on the forum?
I'd like to second noir - many heritage lines would make for an excellent first TSW project, either as a mod or a commercial project. Gameplay wise, I do actually think you can get some good variety out of a heritage line though. Sure, not many (different) trains may run on any one given day, but since a realistic 24 hour timetable will be much faster and easier to make than for a mainline railway, you can just make more than one! If a heritage route shipped with one "standard operating day" timetable (good for dropping things into using free roam) plus two or three ones recreating different events (steam gala, diesel gala, photo freight train event...) I certainly wouldn't have any complaints.
I voted no, but kind of for the opposite reasons the OP offered in the multiple ‘no’ options… I much prefer old trains to modern trains. To me, a heritage railway is an attempted re-creation of the past - not as good as actually being there and experiencing the real thing, but given that we don’t have a time machine, the best we can do. The other way of re-creating the past is through a simulator - such as a route on TSW set in a past era. Also less good than experiencing the real thing, but still fun. What I can never really see the point of is a simulator of a heritage railway. It’s a re-creation of a re-creation. Why not just re-create the real thing? For example, if I want to re-create the experience of driving a Western diesel hydraulic, why would I want to re-create driving it at 25mph on a heritage branch line which it would never work when in service, when I can re-create it in all its glory on the Great Western mainline, doing 90mph? Having said all of that, the idea of re-creating a lost railway is a good one (I wouldn’t re-create it as a heritage line - I’d re-create it in its heyday). I suspect the challenge would be finding enough accurate information to do it, but some of the more famous lost lines (like the Somerset & Dorset) do have quite a lot of information about them out there. The benefit would be that, given that it’s gone, it would be more difficult for anyone to prove the developer wrong when they had to do some guess-work…
IMO if we were to get another heritage line I reckon it would be the NYMR. I did read somewhere though that licensing might be the only difficulty with that though. My personal preference for another one would be a combo of modern+heritage addon route of Exeter to Plymouth with the Paignton and Kingswear branch included, set in modern times.
Wouldn't be opposed to the idea, but It'd definitely be something for smaller teams to take on since many current heritage railways are quite small. Therefore it'd be somewhat of a bummer if other projects were being delayed.. solely to make someone's local narrow gauge railway. Also, will say, the poll very much feels like an old fan being spiteful towards people who enjoy modern trains. Just saying.
If there's a route being made for tsw, that has a small heritage railway adjacent to or it shares a station with. I think they should include it in the route. Especially if there's rolling stock for the railway available. Although as mentioned above, I would rather see the railway created in it's prime. Rather than see what little remains of it as a heritage route.
It's not clear from the original post if the OP intends a "heritage" (museum) railway...or a functioning railway from "back in the day" era correct. Those are two different things in my opinion, because an active railway moving freight, passengers, etc would be quite interesting. That's the only thing "missing" as it were from WSR. It's a beautiful route and has decent stock on it. You just don't do much but slow tours. Even the occasional coal run from the mainline to refill the hopper or some track maintenance would break it up. Like Peak Forest it's a whole lot of beauty that just seems criminally underused. If the OP is suggesting an active railway using the heritage railway as a source of historical data and resources then that's an entirely different animal. It would be something new and varied if there were multiple industries on the route, perhaps some passenger and even stuff you don't see anymore like mail runs. Maybe snow plowing in winter? Some variety. Granted, as people have already said if it's steam it's a no-go in TSW because of the huge hubbub around that. TSC on the other hand it would be welcomed if a third party developer would make it because DTG isn't doing routes themselves anymore. Now early diesel.... that's a very underused part of the spectrum that TSW doesn't have and could support.
I like the idea of more heritage as West Somerset is excellent (particularly in its remastered form) but problem is, with the UK ones at least, most are too short to be worthwhile gameplay wise. Think WSR is the longest heritage line in the UK and only really (off the top of my head) NYMR, Severn Valley and Mid Norfolk are also a comparable length. As iconic as say Keighley and Worth Valley is, it’s only 5 miles long.
I love the WSR and would love to see SVR, KWVR, Bluebell, NYMR and others like K&ESR. Short routes they may be, but they could be made fun with access to the Stations and parts of the line like Signal boxes etc., to add to the enjoyment and to compensate for short routes like KWVR. Also as many are short routes, more attention to detail in replicating the real route would be fantastic. l would love to see a Heritage Pack involving a few routes either as an add-on pack or maybe a new game pack. Come on DTG, go for it.
I voted yes but with caveats. First - pointless without steam traction which DTG are showing no interest in perpetuating and preferably fixing for TSW. Doing a run with a high powered main line diesel hauling 5 coaches at 25 MPH is mind numbingly boring. Second - it needs to be something iconic or with a bit of a challenge in terms of gradients. Severn Valley fits the former while NYMR the latter. There's also licensing to consider. While some heritage railways might welcome the idea, particularly if they get a kickback from sales, others - especially those in the hole for money, might see the existence of a simulated representation abstracting from people coming to visit, when they can just stay at home and experience it in the sim (and probably for less cost than what some of these railways now charge for a return ticket).
Old fan yes, spiteful toward modern train enjoyers no, expressing my love for heritage rail through humour YES. its all a bit of fun don't take things too seriously on a forum dedicated to essentially virtual model trainsets
too clarify I was thinking if it was a big enough project you could show both time periods of a heritage line, both in its operational heyday and its current state. this really is just musings but I'm starting to think its something I'd like to set up. I really want to preserve the history of railways and how they worked day to day, to recreate that noise and bustle and feel the era come to life around you. shunting empty coal wagons to be filled, taking those wagons on to the next industry where you pick up a few wagons going to the railhead too. dropping everything off at the mainline junction and sending the loco back to the sheds after the days work. BUT it could be cool and a lot simpler to start off just doing the current state of most lines, plenty of odd stuff running passenger services, shunting demos, Pway trains, midnight murder mystery specials. all on a map no bigger than 5 miles but with lots of little things to do
I'm not against having heritage railways in TSW. But with the 25mph speed limits they'd have offer something that keep it's engaging rather then going back and forth at 25mph... For example, like having a narrow gauge Welsh railway set in it's hey day that would offer a engaging variety of challenges. Unfortunately DTG has abandoned steam which is sad, we can only hope another developer picks up this market where DTG has left...
D J JAMY The heritage line that you volunteer on, was it built as broad gauge originally? Then converted to narrow gauge? ( standard gauge)
No we never were broad gauge, but we weren't always a locomotive powered railway, and our railway was one of the first public railways. you can probably get it from that, we also house a whacky assortment of rolling stock that you'd never have seen on our line. and if that isn't enough find the No. 08795 there be the answers you seek LOL
If they ever start producing steam again in the sim I would much rather they appear in a suitable period route rather than a heritage railway. The same with heritage modern traction. Preserved railways are great in real life, but for me not so exciting on a simulator, especially the long runs. Something around 5 miles like the KWVR would be okay. But I would rather see more period routes before they start making more heritage lines. So my response would be yes with many caveats and not reflected by any of the options in the rather odd poll, some of which is needlessly uncouth.
I would love to see the NYMR or an extension to the Tees Valley up to Bishop Auckland with the Weardale Railway and Locomotion at Shildon thrown in for Good measure
One of my favourite TSC routes is the Welsh Highland & Ffestiniog line and I do enjoy WSR especially since the update and steam timetable so yes bring it on. And why stop at the UK? I’d love to see the Harz railway in TSW one day.
I think when the kesr extension is finished it will be around 15 miles long. Would like to see the 1066 line with the kesr branching off at robertsbridge. Probably way beyond dtg's budget though.
Personally I am not against it, but there would be conditions. One of these would be that I would prefer them to be the shorter ones, perhaps 10 miles maximum, as WSR length is what I think makes WSR feel dull, at the halfway point it doesn't feel too bad. Another one would be the line would have to be busy/more interesting as a heritage line that when it were in real action: essentially the GCR should come as a 50s route at the latest, not as the heritage line. Also steam locos would be essential.
Thing is for me with Heritage Railways is I would love to see some more (for example my local one, the Bluebell Railway) and I do enjoy occasionally going on WSR. But personally I'm not sure if they should, as most are short length (most Heritage lines are less than 10 miles long), limited to mostly 25mph or lower speeds and lack variety of services (things that don't particularly bother me personally, but might for others). It also doesn't help that the selection of Steam locomotives is so limited (not helped by Steam having being ditched by DTG), which somewhat lets down WSR Remastered, as there aren't any Classes of Steam loco in game based on that Railway, so the Timetable is based around what's available (don't get me wrong I still really enjoy playing that route). I like the idea that the NYMR could be in development, as it's 18 miles long, with potential scope to add the Whitby services on the Esk Valley line too and extend the journey length. But it wouldn't feel as enjoyable with just 4 Classes of Steam locos in game on a Railway with a large and varied Steam collection (of which none of the existing Classes in game are based on the line, much like the WSR). It's better with the Diesel selection as there's 08's, Class 31's, Class 37 and Class 47 locos on the line however. Admittedly I am a Steam enthusiast so have a bias there, but that's just my thoughts on Heritage Railway routes.
For some steam there is no alternative since it doesn't exist anymore. No way to get "accurate" sounds and such. There are diesel heritage railways too.
Well the steam engines on heritage railways are still around of course. In the UK there are a lot of different classes preserved. If you were making a route with one or two locos you would have to pick something quite obscure to be in a position where you couldn't find suitable preserved steamers for reference.
