Just had a superb run, Chinley (oh what a wonderful Station that used to be) to Matlock. Got the hang of the Jubilee class now. Run was on time. Had the cut off at 18 most of the time, made the grades perfect ok, Had to turn off Dynamic Weather, yesterday tried with it and rained all the way FPS down to 3! some times. Enjoyable how it should be. I used to fire Jubilees back in the 1950/60's pleasure to take the shovel again.
It’s just a crying shame that DTG turned their backs on any further steam traction in the game. PFR is a very nice run though.
I do the love the Route. It's got some beautiful scenery and it's just made so well! Hopefully steam will get a reprieve some day!
Lukas has been teasing German steam for a while so who knows… we might get more steam someday from TSG. Was on a German interview around the release of TSW6. Can’t find it now. But also see this chat, one of the final posts is a chat from Discord: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/voice-on-the-karwendel-railway-mittenwaldbahn.93640/
It is a lovely route but not long enough. I very often insert a free roam consist into a timetable run, with a 4F on passenger stopping duties.
Plus it was a bit of a cheek by DTG not running the 8 miles or so down into Derby, finishing at Ambergate instead. But for how steam is in TSW, I prefer driving on this route to dreary SoS.
what really surprised me is how no modders jumped on the routes to bring them to life, like what happened with other routes and enhanced timetables. if even modders avoided the routes, maybe thats very telling of the general interest in them. I love both of them, but Peak Forest is just utterly lush
I find PFR route a lot more pleasing visually, but it could just be SOS is rather boring because it iwas in real life. Wasn't around in the 50s/60s to see it. =-) PFR is just a more interesting drive of the two for me. The 104 was set to reinvigorate that route with some added timetable, and early diesels have been suggested as a way to salvage it, but no one has taken up the project.
I have half an extra paths mod built with a view to bringing most of the sidings into life and creating some BR Blue scenarios. The trouble is the changes to the TSW versions (4 to 5 to 6) have messed up my Unofficial Editor so I'm not sure if this can be completed. (Will try and finish this in TSW4 first and the see if it just transfers across to TSW5 and 6.
I think both sos and pf should have come with diesel and steam. Even if dtg just did a few external changes to traction already in the game. If SOS was set a couple of years later it would have been much better.
Exactly. Like a lot of other games, they suffered from lack of infrastructure (in this case rolling stock.) DCS is similar in that it's a flight simulator but is often "sand box" with stuff farmed out to third parties, so it's whatever each company feels like making. Thus, like TSW it's a hodge-podge. They released a WW 2 Pacific map...with nothing to go on it for example, and a company made a cool Russian plane that was too new and had no map to go on. TSW is kind of the same. We get different eras up and down the WCML because people just felt like doing different eras. People complain, but that's what the "open world" style of third parties does. It gives them the choice. Now I see WHY TSW does that (to get more produced since their own studio is pretty small) but the tradeoff is more diversity and product with lower integration or "vision" for the greater whole. The whole "steam" thing suffered as a result. Not because it's "third party" per se but because they didn't develop the infrastructure (rolling stock) to support it. The other routes benefit from a ton of "layers" to improve the fullness of the timetables. For some reason SOS and PFR lacked any of those layers because they never bothered adding any of the early diesel content. Now granted, not everything WOULD "fit" on those routes, but with layers you can throw on a lot of "sort of fits" stuff that would have given the option of more usage of the route and filling the very barren timetables. The Class 8, Class 20, Class 101, etc.... they'd have worked fine just to put more on the rails. SOS and PFR were very isolated from the rest of the game and withered on the vine. That integration was key because they already had a strike against them in being a less popular overall era for most (MOST not all) players. So, they needed more tie in to succeed. As much as people complain about the "realism" of the steam part, I think the lack of "realism" by ignoring the appropriate diesel traction at the time was a far larger reason for its failure.
My thoughts exactly. Look at Crewe not that long after 1958. The route would be really busy with stock we already or now have in tsw. Dtg have made a couple of routes that just don't make sense. Like the suffragette line, it just feels so empty. You arrive at barking expecting it to be really busy and it's like all trains have been cancelled. On the other hand they could have done either section of windrush and had quite a busy route. I know people just wanna drive trains and don't care that 90%of the traffic is missing but dtg could try and make routes that give you the feel of the railway they represent. Maybe I just expect too much.
PFR has some suitable diesel stock, the 08, 101, 20 (did they really venture that way back then?), 37 (same question), the 40, 45 and 47. Of course it needs a rat and everything will need slathers of green paint (I'm a blue boy myself but will begrudgingly accept green). Sadly though there is no incentive for a developer to do all of the above and make a new diesel/steam crossover era timetable and sadly the complexities of the editor in general scare most folks off except the hardened users, who are still put off on said route. It is a crying shame though, it is a beautiful route and doesn't need much if anything by way of an enhancement pack like NTP/TVL/BML/WCL/WCMLS did.
I tried my best to make a timetable for pf but like you say, the editor is not user friendly. If a modder would take on the job name your price!
Agreed. It's rather low hanging fruit to just throw some existing stock into a new timetable with some liveries (blue to green) compared to making a whole new route. It would likewise be a lower price than a whole new route. Something like a Skyhook pack in complexity and cost. I can see it being a nice smaller project for a third party. It'd sell pretty decent, even if for just some "green" liveries and for people who bought the PFR/SOS originally.
The line could do with a remaster, either inhouse or modders. I think the limit for SOS was hardware the game was being aimed at. most consoles, and PCs at the time were limited to RAM. nowadays, especially on PC we have 32 - 64GB of RAM. We can handle a lot of traffic assets from what should have been busy stations and sidings. The new routes that are being released show this. They are hecking busy. Now imagine that traffic density at rush hour at Liverpool Lime and we can only imagine how good it could have been (or still could be).
Personally believe that if third party groups wanted to create some steam locos and give them proper advanced/expert abilities like in TSC, then there would be a much bigger drive for this sort of thing. I remember having the BMG Black 5s and being blown away by how realistic they were. if this level of detail and difficulty was added to TSW6, then this would certainly bring a market in, especially myself. The 8F is WAY too quiet in my opinion. No bark, no bite, no fun. A route with good quality, advanced steam would be amazing; heritage or a predated route
They said at the time SOS had a real timetable for the period, sorry I don't believe it , I'm sure this route was bustling in its day ,it's a ghost town lucky if you see one or two ai trains on a run ,missed opportunity in my opinion
Peak Forrest what an opportunity missed, should have gone to Derby, I think DTG miss the market here that there is a lot us older peeps that would love an updated route like this and would pay for it, no plastic, early diesels semaphore signals etc. When men where made of steel.
I’m currently toying with the wicked notion of setting up a scenario to take a GWR Cucumber across there!
I think some of the timetable was there. None of the local services between Crewe and Liverpool were in though.
Remember though that half of what would have been there in real life doesn't exist in TSW. It wasn't just Jubilees and 8Fs for example. So even if the timetable is accurate for the era, it doesn't take into account what they didn't add to it.
the empty yards was probably the reason why it didn't go to derby you would of ended up with the same empty space as in SOS, i admit whilst i do own SOS i haven't yet had a run on it for the empty space reason. i got it for the additional layers. in general PFR is a route that bugs me some what. the first run i did was from gowhole yard and the big blue retaining wall is missing at bugsworth and then the next bridge was the wrong type, same with a few others on the run up to peak forest. i know this may seem a small issue and those that are not local to the area wouldn't notice but you can look them up on free to view references on the internet (google maps being one). however they have done some good research in some areas like chapel which has non of the new housing developments in it and is about the right for 1963. also some of the small details coming up from ambergate stand out really well. the stations and the trackwork it pretty much spot on with just a few small things missing that you would have to dig a bit deeper through books and photos to add in. ive done the WTT and stock to death in other threads how ever if a 3rd party came along and gave it a revamp with that extra bit of TLC and added in a bit more extra detail, i would certainty part with my money for it, as it has the potential to be one of TSW stand out routes.
Nah, adding diesels into these releases wouldn’t fix the problem. The focus of these routes was steam traction and it was that element of simulation and lack of post release support that let these products down. That’s before mentioning promised extra features like fully implemented manual firing mode being missing. Spirit of Steam should’ve been followed up with some locomotive packs to fill in its timetable, a Coronation Class on express duties, a Jinty doing shunting moves, layer in the 4F from Peak Forest for local goods, there were plenty of options for the route to give us a proper steam mainline experience. Matt even said at the time of its release that it was their most successful route launch for a DLC so it’s just confusing why they didn’t follow it up with more locomotives.
Fully agree. You would think they would want to achieve a very immersive steam experience. There is so much missed potential and would really help to make TSW a complete railway experience. Our only hope now seems to be third parties.
Not to mention a Black Five or BR Standard 5 which would have given them a pretty much go anywhere loco for future steam routes. Would have loved to thrash a Five from Dingwall to Kyle and back (or Fort William to Mallaig) in TSW, but never to be.
We were going to get one before Victoria works quit after the announcement of DTG not longer working on steam
Guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I think the lack of traffic and bad reception of achievable steam sim was what killed the route. They would have worked on more if the reception was better, but like most businesses if people don't show they support something the company sees no reason to continue. It's throwing money down a hole. If instead there had been diesel traction and better sales, they likely would have continued with steam and improved it. But if people aren't buying either of the first two routes of steam...that's a sign that people "don't want steam locomotives." Remember they go by sales figures, not that one guy on the forum. Money talks. If they sold really well, it would have been different. Again I'll repeat... nothing is stopping third parties from doing more steam content, just like Just Trains and Train Sim Germany dove into 80s stuff when DTG moved away from them. Nothing is stopping a company from moving in and developing their own content. Except perhaps a perceived lack of support.
Those third parties have cited the physics being the main barrier for them attempting TSW, I've seen discussions in the Golden Age Developments Discord server where a fair few of the steam focused third parties communicate. It almost always comes back around to those simulation physics. Lukas dropped a very vague hint at a possible TSG steam locomotive. Considering how advanced the 101 is, maybe they have skill and know-how to sort the steam simulation out? I also remember back during TSW3 seeing either Lukas or Ed say on Discord that before they went with Niddertalbahn, they wanted to do a steam era German route, but the state of the physics put that idea on ice. Again, it comes around to that core simulation...
The lack of traffic was due to many services missing from the timetable. If the timetable was complete I would happily be using both routes. They had plenty of support when SOS was released many people got invested in it on these forums and many were joining in on the development thread.
