Route Nec: New York - Stamford Feedback Thread

Pay close attention: this addon seems to contain errors in the Grand Central area… The same as the earlier addons with “stuck trains”… Honestly, it’s really quite stupid. How can something like this still happen after so many times?! I find it sad that this hasn’t been reduced to zero by now…
You’re asking €40 for it, and the very first livestream I watch already shows these long-standing problems. Truly laughable!!!

Source:

 

Where do you see stuck trains. Can you elaborate. On approach to GCT during rush hour you might be waiting for a slot to get in. This is normal.

 

When he arrive at the central tunnel. Direct in front many trains and 1 is off path

Link with time frame:

 

Video has leave the premiere version... I have add the right time frame. Watch closely. BA has to remove an off path train.

Link:


46:12 minutes

 

Forgive me if this isn't the right spot to flag this, but I'm reading the Gameplay Guide and the link to the TSW Addon Database (https://dovetailgames.freshdesk.com/en/support/solutions/articles/80001072374) isn't working.

 

Isnt show up on xbox

 

Store Link
https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/st...or-metro-north-new-york-stamford/9ngr2qx1z9v3

 

Could someone please take a look at the signal aspects for the position light types used in this route? When you have a horizontal aspect on the top head, you can either have
Red - blank - Red
Or
Amber - Amber - Amber


What is in game,
Amber - blank - Amber
is NOT a valid Amtrak / Norac signal.

 

I currently have 560 services on the PS5. Can someone donfirm if thats all the timetable services or are we missing some. As some on my discord has said they have 585 playable timetable services on their Xbox.

 

I think your freight services for some reason shows as zero on the UI so it should in reality show 585 had that same issue on dev. But you have all services

 

I don’t think this is a bug. cactusjuice can explain it better than I can, but several of these signals are older and only have amber lights. This was the case at dock interlocking on Trenton for example.

 

• Possibly an attempt at “Approach Medium” or “Advance Approach”, but those would be shown as:
  
  • Single yellow (top head), or
  • Yellow over green / yellow over yellow (using both heads), depending on the rule system.

Either way its been implemented wrongly.

 

Courtesy of Jovet, this is what I mean - it looks like they combined the aspect of an unmodified position light signal with a colorized one. You can’t have it both ways. Either you have 2 red lamps on the top head or three Amber lamps on the top head, not two Amber heads.

 

DTG should imho look into a core system which would detect and automatically delete such trains, possibly with some information that the user would then provide to DTG (what AI service, what point, what time), or be automatically provided to DTG. Becasue arriving onto back of a queue caused by stuck AI is really annoying, and having to investigate yourself and delete the train manually is a big immersion breaker.

 

Yeah after a time period they have to remove them self will be perfect solution.

 

how are the blurry textures on xbox? for me that’s gonna be the difference between buying or holding off

 

I'm waiting for the same reason, since the 805 DLC and the recent dlc for tsw 6, preformence problem became more and more present in addition to the rest. I like US content and look forward for this dlc but i will be patient

 

Im on xbox x and not noticed any blurriness. Edit just done a run with acs-64 and really blurry looked terrible.

 

was watching this video. First sign of problems at 28:20 and then jump to 29:00. That looks like a stuck train somewhere.

 

I'm on PS5 pro with almost all the layers installed apart from the Horseshoe Curve layer. I've done two services so far, one from Penn and one into GCT and I'm happy to report that I've not encountered a single blurry texture.

 

How are the frame rates on the route, and at grand central and penn in rush hour? Below 20 or above?

 

Anyone else think the M8 is a bit sluggish or is like that irl. Also brakes are not good in the snow/wet weather.

 

Can't speak for rush hour, I think the services I did were at midday. But even then neither station was quiet, both were busy. I'd say the route ran very smooth, definitely above 20, seemed to be worse when looking at the map of GCT when zoomed in with the platform/track labels on.

 

decided to refund this. outside of the bronx it’s not the most exciting thing ever, gonna save my money for medway

 

I am interested in the route but not touching another NEC until they at least fix the speed control on the Acela for consoles. 3 years waiting to fix this issue that was identified on day 1 in 2023.

Also... not liking the reports of log jams at GCT.

 

M8's are slightly more sluggish than the M7a and M3a mainly because they are heavier.
My advice in rain/snow is to drive carefully and anticipate speed changes and upcoming stations. The M8s are known to be prone to wheelslip in real life as well. Also, there is a snow brake feature in the cab (right below the door open button on the right side of the cab) that should give you a little extra friction brake.

 

I thought it very honest of The British Ace to show timetable issues in his preview video.

 

Is there a keyboard binding for the pan up button and ac/dc switch . Thanks

 

not a bug the signal looks like this in real life.

 

Shame the Hvac controls are not on this ADU like it was on the M9 i liked being able to disable the loud AC sound that always seems to be on full blast. One issue i noticed is the wheel bearing area on the trucks does not rotate with the reset of the wheel like it should. Its just stationary. not a gameplay issue just a realism one.

 

At New Rochelle Platform 4

 

In the preview of The British Ace I noticed that the overhead wires are pretty messy. He was playing in a pre-release version.

I have not watched a clip off the final version.

Look at the bridge a 23:23:

 

So they've managed to resell the NEC north corridor from TSW2020 in 2 parts eh

 

Is this still TSW? Scenery looks absolutely stunning in some places.

OK, it's TSW. Da hell happened with tunnels again? Why the Penn tunnels are always broken? Why do you think there are so many lights in the tunnel, DTG? Maybe they should at least ILLUMINATE SOMETHING?
Why do the sounds of the joints on the ACS-64 still sound like they were taken from some cartoon?
Why are the screens on the ACS-64 still unreadable in sunny weather? They glare in the sunlight!
Also sometimes(apparently it depends on the position of the sun) the world seems very dark through the windshields of ACS-64.

In reality, this route is full of joints - why do we have smooth tracks again in the game?

 

For Rail Driver users, the combined throttle brake on M8 is a might twitchy. I have my sensitivity set at 3 for all routes, but will probably have to go up in here for the 8.

 

Wow...what a bummer. About to finish Acela 2150 at Stamford and I get my first EVER game crash on PS5. Sigh.

 

This line has joints all over in real life and since when was having jointed tracks in the train simulator bad??

 

For those with a raildriver, the acknowledge button takes forever to register. It's almost an entire two seconds for the M8. Please change this.

 

Tbf, I've had game crashes on TSW on ps5 on east coast way etc. The game will crash, it's not always route specific

 

Hi Sharon sorry to bother you Is there a keyboard binding for the pan up button and ac/dc switch . Thanks

 

The M8s pull much more juice from catenary. Frankly, I have no problems with how it drives. It's very quick and on par with some of the fastest EMUs we have in game. I think the issue stems from the fact that the M7s and M3 accelerate far quicker in game than their real life counterparts. DTG has quoted the acceleration rates the M7 and M9 were developed with, but I believe the MTA has nerfed their acceleration rates with software updates for both railroad agencies. As someone who rides Metro North periodically, it's absurd how quick the trains from the Harlem Line DLC accelerate and decelerate. Same can be said about LIRR. Nowhere near reality.

 

What? I said that in the "simulator" the tracks are smooth - not a single joint.

FPS in Stamford is sad. And there was only 2 M8's and one Amtrak train.

 

Issues I have noticed on the SD40-2:
- The rear numberboard light switch does not function
- The sounds are from the Cajon Pass SD40-2, which are massively incorrect for the CSX SD40-2s. Right now the locomotive has a K3LA and an E-bell, where it should have a K5LA and a mechanical bell
- The dynamic brake fans spin instead of the radiator fans (this is also an issue with the Cajon/Training Center SD40-2)
- The brake hoses on the front are resting in a position as if there is a plow on the front, where they should just hang down as there is no plow
- Ditchlights don't flash (both front and rear)
- The ditchlight switch turns both the front and rear ditchlights on at the same time (They should be turned on when the corresponding headlight switch is set to Bright & Ditch Lights)
- Turning the headlights to dim turns on a single ditchlight bulb with it
- The brake cut-off valve is rotated 90 degrees from where it should be (Cut-out should be vertical, freight should be 90 degrees to the right, and passenger is straight down)
- The thumbnail and naming are inconsistent and incorrect. In the menu, it shows the thumbnail as the YN2 SD40-2, and the menu name is "SD40-2 YN2", and the locomotive name in the menu is just "SD40-2". The locomotive is in YN3b livery, and having such a generic name for the locomotive (being just SD40-2) makes it hard to differentiate in the tab-key train spawning menu.
- All 4 manual wiper handles around the cab are angled incorrectly, and move incorrectly when interacted with. The conductor's front door is the worst of the bunch, with its default position being clipped up into the wiper motor box
- The wiper control knobs do not move when interacted with
- The crossing chains on either end lower when interacted with, but the step platforms do not

On the ACS-64:
- The ADU text material is very dim in the daylight (This issue is also present on the NYT ACS-64, and was fixed on the BPE ACS-64)

On the Amfleets:
- The new Weather Glass v2 is not applied to any of the Amfleets, it's still the old WGv1

The route itself:
- The crossing sounds at the Harlem River Transfer yard are broken, the bells turn on and off intermittently and then stop all together after a few plays

I play on PC/Steam

 

the csx sd40 has that missing reverser handle bug when in free rome.


also in the tsw pc editor the csx sd40 has strip of water sticking out.

 

In the live stream there are a lot of sections where the overhead wires are missing, why?? I will pass this Dlc for the moment.

 

I'm making this a separate post because this is realism feedback and not bug reports.

It's quite important that the SD40-2 should have cab signalling. As the NEC uses non-physical signals along the line at certain points, any time the SD40-2 is brought onto the mainline, you *have to* rely on the HUD for critical signalling information. As far as I'm aware, the CSX SD40-2s have two types of cab signalling: Conrail-style pulse code cab signalling, and after a certain point they were also ACSES equipped. The locomotives also should have locomotive speed limiters to operate on the NEC. After the 1987 Gunpow train collision, it is mandated that locomotives are equipped with a minimum of cab signalling and an automatic train stop feature to operate on the NEC.

The Conrail pulse code cab signals are almost sort of like the British AWS system. When you get a signal aspect lower than your current aspect, you have to acknowledge it with a button input. I don't believe this system can initiate an automatic train stop on its own, it just blares a whistle at you until it is acknowledged. The automatic train stop from not acknowledging signals was implemented later using the locomotive speed limiter system.



(Funnily enough, the CSX SD40-2 included in New York - New Haven in Train Sim Classic actually has a proper cab signalling setup, though the model of the cab signal is a little bit larger than it is IRL)

The locomotive speed limiter is quite self-explanatory. It's the speed half of the cab signalling system, which monitors the locomotive's speed and has deceleration curves for stop signal aspects and speed changes, much like ACSES or PZB. It also limits the locomotives to a top speed of 50MPH. There's a physical indicator light on the outside of the locomotive that is turned on when the system is cut-in and operating.

Unfortunately I don't have any reference on ACSES and its implementation in freight locomotives on the NEC because the technology is so new and considered sensitive information that is not easily publicly accessible due to its nature for train safety. Someone with insider information might be able to assist with this.

CSX also uses locomotives with a modified front and rear pilot for third-rail equipped territories for clearance reasons. These are all marked with a yellow band around the bottom of the pilot. Some locomotives are also equipped with plows with modified third rail clearance as well, and these also usually have the yellow paint around the edge of them. Someone more knowledgeable than me on CSX's roster could probably give a specific numbering series that has these modified clearance pilots.


The fact that the model we ended up getting for NYS is just a port of the same old Sandpatch SD40-2 with "improvements" (that ended up breaking more than it did fixing anything) is extremely disappointing. This route cost $5 more than normal, and we couldn't even get some yellow paint around the pilots (or even a YN3 reskin like the original TSW 2020 NEC:NY route) to differentiate them??

 

Once again, the XBOX SX is crashing due to "out of memory" errors at Penn Station and in Stamford. I started two trips—"Penn Station to Stamford" and back—in timetable mode, but neither trip could be completed. This is no fun anymore, especially for 40 euros!