Amsterdam - Den Haag

Same here. Mine expired at the end of last year and I haven’t renewed it. Not so fussed about travel these days and we have an elderly cat who we have no intention of dumping in a cattery so we can go swanning off. Sorry for OT ramble, but does tie in with simulation bringing these locations to the home, rather than travelling to see them.

 

Yes that's true, driving trains in these foreign lands does make me want to see them. I have a 17 year old cat and also wouldn't leave her in a cattery.

 

There's the older Mat '54 units (retired 1996) and the less old Mat '64 units (retired 2016). Feel free to drop a like on my suggestion for the Mat '64 units if you haven't done so (link in signature).

 

If they include it Westhaven and Houtrakpolder near Sloterdijk station are both relatively busy with freight activity. Also it's common for the Iron train to IJmuiden to go via Haarlem instead of Uitgeest. South of Haarlem is usually not that freight filled, but on occasion they do run there.
The most common freight services here are operated by 6400, 186, 189, 1600/1800, 193 and 600 (UK fans might know these as the class 11)

 

Extra information from today's roadmap:

From a hugely successful release of Spoorlijn Zwolle-Groningen, the first Dutch route in TSW, we're finally gearing up to head back out to the Netherlands with Amsterdam – Den Haag, this time bringing much busier city-style environments to the scene!

As you journey the line, visit the heart of Amsterdam, through the historic city of Leiden until you reach the political capital at Den Haag - or perhaps, branch down to the coastal town of Zandvoort through the Netherland's iconic tulip country.

Operationally, you'll be taking control of a new NS VIRM (Verlengd InterRegio Materieel) locomotive, featuring double-decker passenger sets. Additionally, included with the add-on is the SNG Sprinter EMU from Zwolle-Groningen.

We know many of you have been asking us for more Netherlands content, and can't wait to show you more in the coming months ahead!

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This Confirms a few things
1. Heart of Amsterdam most likely means Amsterdam Centraal, we were already 99% sure about that but still nice to know
2. SNG is the sprinter train, sadly no second train (or honestly thank goodness given how much I despise the SLT)
3. 'Coming months' confirms that this won't be releasing anytime soon. If I were to guess either during the march release cycle or later.

 

I'll be honest, it wasn't what I expected as the next Dutch route, but I think I am going to enjoy this one more than the previous, which if I'm honest, I rarely play as it got dull, quickly.

I do hope you'll be able to explore Den Haag Centraal station on foot. I think it's a wonderful station with the metro on the top level, then coming down to the next level with trams cutting through the building, a bus station outside and then finally down to the ground level where there's trams outside and NS trains. It would be great if an AI tram was modelled.

One question, I take it the line via Schiphol won't be included? (Just think it adds more variety and the last time I went that way it was on a Koploper).

Also, it would be nice if the VIRM is layered on the Zwolle-Groningen route as well.

I'll finish with a confession. On my first-ever visit to Den Haag, I was using Den Haag HS station. I naively thought that the HS stood for High Speed! After a few uses, I soon learned nothing travels at speed around there...

 

There is quite some traffic running on the line, so let’s hope DTG are kind enough to add it in. There are multiple services a day with steel and lime running between Amsterdam and Haarlem (and on to Beverwijk) by DB Cargo running with BR 189 en 193, these services take around 20 minutes. Additionally Rail Force One also runs some steeltrains on this route. There is also I think a daily steel train between Amsterdam Westhaven en Beverwijk, tho mostly this one takes the route via Uitgeest. Then there are a lot of regular en irregular freight services between Amsterdam en Houtrakpolder / Westhaven, but I don’t think DTG will mind adding this in. And freight trains that run from Haarlem al the way to Den Haag sadly don’t run regularly anymore, only when there are trackworks elsewhere, but if they run they are the same services as the ones from Amsterdam to Beverwijk.

 

This is my first choice for a Dutch route. It is a fun route and I think a bold and ambitious choice with the amount of urban coverage and variety of buildings. Schiphol would've be great too but I'm not complaining - that'd be over the top almost, for how much this line is already going to offer.

Train station... You know in Cologne there is a big bridge. There's a little train station on the other side of the bridge from Cologne (Köln Messe/Deutz). Well I got off there with my bags first time in Cologne and had to walk across the bridge to the city. It's a big bridge. That's arguably not as confused as in France getting on a train going to "Gare du Lyon" when trying to go to Lyon. Conductor gets there eventually and write me a paper ticket for a bus ride the opposite direction.

 

On yesterday's live stream Matt said that only the route via Haarlem will be included, not the one via Schiphol.

He also said ICM will be layered on the Amsterdam-Den Haag route if you have Zwolle-Groningen.

Furthermore they talked about how DTG had to choose one train this time for this new route and that between VIRM and SLT they went for VIRM, which in my opinion is the better choice. This is probably also the reason they will include the SNG3 from Zwolle-Groningen if you buy Amsterdam-Den Haag. SLT is still something they are thinking about as a separate loco DLC later (as per Matt) but not officially announced at the moment.

 

We need SLT

 

A bit late I suppose, but there are trains like every 3 minutes across that bridge to Cologne HBF


"HS" in "Den Haag HS" stands for "Holland Spoor".

Before NS was formed in 1938, the Netherlands had multiple rail operators. In larger cities, each operator had their own "main" station. Den Haag HS was the station owned by HIJSM (a major operator of the time), while another big station, Den Haag Rhijnspoor, was operated by their competitor, NRS.

When both companies merged into "Staatsspoor" in 1890, Den Haag suddenly had two main stations, both served by the same operator. While "Den Haag Holland Spoor" ("Den Haag HS") retained its name, "Den Haag Rhijnspoor" was renamed to "Den Haag Staatsspoor", or "Den Haag SS" for short.

By the early 1920s, the Dutch government owned all rail operators and eventually merged them into one entity on 1 January 1938: NS.

In 1973, Den Haag Staatsspoor was replaced with Den Haag Centraal, which became the main station. It's a terminus station without through-tracks, which meant that HS still carried an important function as the main through-station of the city.

Today, Den Haag Centraal is used for train that start or terminate in Den Haag (as it's not a through station), while Holland Spoor is mainly used a a station for trains calling at Den Haag, but not terminating or starting there. Exceptions to that rule do exist of course.

Both stations are near to each other, and pretty much all trains departing from Centraal in the direction of Rotterdam first call at HS (a few minutes into the ride) to offer changeover to faster IC's towards the south (lines 2200/2300, 3200 ad 3500 specifically, that don't call at Centraal).

Here's a snippet of the official NS rail map where you can see all of this in easy to understand Colored Spaghetti™:

 

We need SLT for Den Haag - Amsterdam, DDZ for Zwolle-Groningen and we need a whole heap of Stadler stock in various liveries in general

 

VIRM is definetely cooler than the SLT. Gameplay wise, the SLT would add little to the already existing SNG.

 

I'd rather go back in time with the Mat '64, NS1800, DD-AR, SGM and pre-modernization ICM. But it seems modern stuff is more in demand these days.

 

Exactly.
VIRM(m) is also more useful for other Dutch routes. It can already layer in on Zwolle-Groningen for example, and pretty much any future Dutch (NS) route you can think of will be able to fit the VIRM(m) as a layer, but that is not the case for SLT.

 

We need something like TSG for Dutch routes if we want older stock and routes set in the (far) past.

DTG mostly focusses on modern rail (with a few exceptions).

Now, if they'd ever do a French route with a BB7200 locomotive, a quick and cheap refit will give you the NS1600 and NS1800 locos, and a quick refit of that will give you the NS1700.

And a Flirt3 (the modern one, not the one that comes with the Swiss S-bahn route) will fit into multiple Dutch routes as well as a few German routes (that already exist in TSW), so that would be a quick win too.

 

These are the three liveries that the VIRM(m) comes in today:


Fig 1.The original livery for the VIRM (not modernised, so not VIRMm) had the blue stripe going over the top level windows. there are still units driving around in this livery, but they are an endangered species. NS later painted a large section of the front a bright yellow (not pictured here) to comply with the new EU guidelines.



Fig 2. The first refurbished (modernised) VIRMm units had the blue strip going across the lower level windows. Thee is also a variant of this livery where the nose is yellow up to the bottom of the front windows (because of EU regulation), and the passenger doors are accentuated with a thick yellow "frame" to comply with the new EU guidelines


Fig3. The most recent livery, called "Flow", is the same livery that the BR193 and most ICNGs come in. Largely yellow (also a slightly darker shade of yellow) with a big white NS logo on each car, and the door accentuated with a thick blue "frame".

The livery in Fig.1 will eventually be replaced with the livery on Fig3 for all yet-to-be-refurbushed units. Refubished units with the livery in Fig.2 won't receive the "fig3" livery any tome soon.


Other than these standard liveries, NS has applied special liveries to some units in the past. If I'm not mistaken, there are currently no units with special liveries, but if the route is set in 2018-2020-ish, then you could in theory run those special liveries:


Olympic units, to promote the Dutch Olympic team during multiple Olympic Games through the years (as NS sponsored them). Multiple units received these liveries (not just one), and the liveries differ for each Olympic year. The liveries on the outside were orange, with pictures of olympic sports and sport(wo)men. On the inside of the trains, the floors were decorated as gravel, swimming pool lanes, a tennis court and a basketball (or indoor) court, among others.

Some Koploper/ICM units also recieved these liveries.

Green Energy, the "Groene Trein" ("Green Train") was liveried both outside and inside to celebrate NS' switch to 100% green energy in the early 2000s. The unit appears green, but is in fact dotted with NS blue and NS yellow squares that give the impression of "green" from a distance. The inside of the train was covered with facts about green energy and pictures of (modern) windmills and solar panels.

"Lekker Lezen" was a small livery to promote reading books while travelling by train. It's a simple livery with text on the otherwise normal yellow-blue livery of the VIRM (see Fig1).

OVCHIP was a disastrously ugly (IMHO) pink-and-white livery to promote the introduction of the new pay-as-you-go chipcards in 2009 (which have been phased out since).

Finally, in 2013, to celebrate Willem-Alexander becoming King of the Netherlands, unit 9520 was decorated as "Kroningstrein", in royal orange with dutch banners and some text.

 

I hope that now that there's some Dutch routes, it'll attract some third party developers for more Dutch content.

Unfortunately, last time I asked, ChrisTrains had no interest in TSW.

 

I'm really excited to have this in TSW. I got to ride one from Arnhem to Amsterdam after a concert in June. As well as riding one I saw a few, I think some had the older filament style bulbs and some had newer LEDS (kind of like the HST when some were still Valenta powered and some had the MTUs). I hope this is also replicated in-game.

 

I saw recently a youtube vid about a new Dutch mod route for TSW. It was also.in the north east, Enschede / Almelo I believe