A fun thing for you to try You will require the Peninsular Corridor route with or without the Baby Bullet DLC. Instructions Go to Timetable Mode in Pen Corridor and select the Gallery Cab Car or Bi-level Cab Car. Select service 206F Empty from depot 04:00. Take your time setting up your train then proceed out of the depot. Continue until you are about to join the mainline, you will notice a freight train on your right. That train will become the UP2 Northbound Empty Hoppers service heading to Pier 96. When you join the mainline, stop at the first station, Santa Clara, and wait until around 04:16 Here’s where the fun begins... The freight train will drive up the normal running track. You will run parallel to it on the southbound track. Congratulations, you are now in a two horse race with a freight train! You can run all the way to 2.5 miles short of San Francisco with your freight friend along side you. The freight train turns off here down to Pier 96. You can finish the run to get your AP points. You may have to apologise to the engineer of service 102 who should have left SF at 04:55 but I’m sure he or she will understand why you have blocked the line. It’s maybe not realistic but it’s fun to try for something different. NB To run in daylight, select a summer preset, to run in the dark, select any other season. Enjoy
Hey, great... sounds like a lot of fun to me! Some nice photo ops in this ‘scenario’ of yours too... thanks for sharing.
I do love this thread - and a great description in the OP. But it also highlights for me one of the key weaknesses of TSW - there is often very little other traffic. TS1 has been a bit of a revelation to me. If you do the first scenario for the Pendolino on WCML North, which is simply to drop the 390 off at Glasgow from a nearby siding (about a mile...), then you get to see more traffic competing for paths in both directions in five minutes than you might see in five hours playing TSW. Or fifty hours. And that immersion makes it feel much more real in TS1 than TSW. Quite a shocker....! And the detail and lighting in TS1 (for this WCML scenario) is surprisingly stunning (but then again, I do love me a night scenario).
But hey, nice discovery! I didn’t know you could even do this in TSW. I think this might be a glitch, unless DTG put this in on purpose to be discovered, kinda like a little Easter egg for ya
Wait, so let me get this straight: your train is on the southbound track, how come there’s no traffic heading ur way to stop u?
This might seem like a lot, but can the same thing be done if you select the freight service instead of the passenger service? I wonder.
No. The passenger train will be long gone. You could try and catch it up I suppose. You could also try starting the passenger service then after stopping at the station, walk over and take control of the freight train before it leaves, at which point the passenger train would then become an AI train for you to chase. I’ve not tried that myself yet.
I drove the service normally at first and wondered why it was on the wrong track. It’s either there on purpose to enable this experience, or you run on the southbound track to avoid messing up the freight service if you took too long setting up for some reason. I’d say it was deliberate. The middle of the night, no trains in sight. First train heading south is 04.55 ish from SF.
Just had to try this, so I did... it’s a blast, and you have 45mi or so in which to get some sweet pics! Nice job discovering this, stu... now I’m wondering how many more of these fun-runs we can all dig up.
I just tried it out, oh what a competition! That was fun, in really brought the competitive side of me out I hope we can find other things like this in other routes (maybe the same one) so we can have even more fun!
Well when running the service, I noticed directly it was intended to go all the way to San Francisco as an extra service to fill up the station for when the morning starts (kinda obvious, at first I thought it was a glitch because usually those services end up spawning at diridon then go to CEMOF), so my guess now is that it completes its regular service and it just happens that a freight train is headed ur direction later on (because u wait for the freight train instead of proceeding normally), so maybe all this is just a coincidence, but I’m glad the service could be modified and someone discovered this little “scenario” to have some fun!
I forgot to reply to this the other day so here goes. Thanks, I’m glad you like my post, and it also painfully highlights another issue with TSW... As the freight train first arrives from a portal on the branch line at Santa Clara, when the locos run around the train, the engineer flatly refuses to get out of his or her cab and ends up driving the whole of this run facing the wrong way in the third locomotive. Somebody though has had the presence of mind to attach an EOT device to the front of what is now the lead locomotive, to add to the unreality. You get to race a train with no engineer and an annoying flashing red light at the front. AI drivers always refuse to change ends in TSW, as can also be seen a lot in the Class 37 on TVL. Another thing very noticeable is that this wrongly placed EOT device is also bugged, as it stops flashing when it gets close to the camera, which is helpful in this case as it shouldn’t be there in the first place. The two bugs cancel each other out, two wrongs make an ‘almost right‘. This bug is also very obvious if you ever watch the MP15 doing its stuff as the red light disappears as it gets close to you many times in a switching manoeuvre. As a further aside, eagle eyed players may also have noticed that flashing signals on Pen Cor change when you get close to them. The flashing rate slows down drastically, as if by magic, although you don’t meet many on this run. These things go some way in trying to spoil my racing fun but ultimately just make me laugh. You will not spoil my fun, silly bugs.
...the EOTD on the front of the freight I did notice- the fact that the engineer never moved from his previous lead loco, and was therefore facing the wrong way the entire run, I did not. Just crazy... but I still had a lot of fun and hope I can find more just like this.
Well... your thread inspired some great artwork. Double plus good.....! But if you want to see traffic, get TS1. Most "career" scenarios into or out of mainline termini seem to involve a lot of parallel running, sometimes with several other trains, in both directions.... and it's really quite immersive... because it looks and feels realistic... You might get this on TSW's LIRR in one or two places..... but in TS1.... the simulation feel is really quite good - you can sometimes learn better braking points on approaches to speed restrictions from the AI running next to you... like in racing games..... ;-) Also - I am starting to like the TS1 world more than UE. There is a certain constancy of "What You See Is What You Get" in TS1.... so you can read (and functionally use) things like speed signs and mileposts. Again - more immersion. The LOD on other trains doesn't drop off a cliff when they are more than ten yards away.... and you don't get nonsense with lack of lighting/reflections or very late pop-in driven by off-the-wall settings for dynamic shadows.... Again - more immersion in TS1. And the landscapes in TS1 can be utterly fantastic, especially the built-up areas, at night. But in daylight as well, the FOV and the depth of field seem much more realistic. Also... on TS1.... I have also never seen any train appear out of or disappear into thin air, but on TSW this seems to happen quite a bit (GWE being the worst offender). I think... finally... I am a TSW to TS1 convert... Maybe TSW will catch up functionally, but right now it is way behind (which might seem fair enough, as TS1 is a relatively mature product...and TSW is "only" about three years old...). I haven't even "enhanced" my track and sky-box on TS1... yet some of the routes look fantastic. And some of the train models look better than some of the models in TSW. It has been a real revelation. The one thing that TSW has got.... the ability to walk around.... I really do miss that. And the clear HUD. I might have to do a comparison thread at some point.... if I can find a way to break into small chunks.... ;-O
Aaah - I just had an idea... I think I have PC as a route on TS1.... I might have a look at it (haven't bothered with that one so far on TS1, as I have done it death on PS4....) - I wonder how TS1 PC directly compares to PS4 PC ...... and maybe I can find a scenario like your example here... Watch this space..... ;-D
Wow, I have noticed that, no wonder I thought “why the heck is this engineer driving the train backwards?”, because I saw him when I wanted a close up shot @ Santa Clara. Also it shows that AI trains don’t turn on their lights accordingly, they run with only the lights on as if it were the 1970s, ditch lights are mandatory these days!
I wanted to add these screenshots in the first place, but they do really prove my (and others’) point/s.
I would dearly love to have TS1 but it’s (or I’m keeping it) out of my reach I’m afraid. Firstly, I’d have to buy a PC and secondly, with the enormous amount of content available I would end up spending a fortune on it. I don’t even have a quarter of a fortune. I know I’d be able to get more content per pound on TS but I’d still spend money I don’t have. I’m rather glad of the restrictions TSW forces upon me. I have to share the PS4 with another party, who will play the occasional game on it, and the TV it is connected to, on which myself and said other party will watch University Challenge, Father Brown reruns and some Netflix rubbish of an evening. At the moment I am happy with the low number of available DLC for TSW and the few hours of play time I get, although I do certainly fill those hours. I know I would go mad with TS1 because I would want all the trains and all the routes and there would be too much time available for me use it! I also prefer the way TSW is, with the driver focused world, it’s the kind of train sim I’d always wanted. I deleted Trainz off my Mac on the day I got TSW. I miss certain aspects of it, and TS certainly looks a better sim than Trainz, but I’m going to leave TS where it belongs, out of my hands. I’m happy with what I’ve got.
Anyways you can see that the UP doesn’t turn on his/her lights according to current railroad rules, and the EOTD doesn’t flash (as stujoy has said) when the camera gets close to it. Besides, the lack of an engineer in the lead locomotive kinda makes the run weirder, but you can’t see him in these shots (or from the cab of the cab car) so I guess it’s not that much of a big deal.
Upon sight - this rainy picture was immediately saved to my desktop, to be added to my wallpaper folder..... thank you very kindly..... ;-) I promise not to print it off and sell it in Covent Garden market.... Love the night... love the rain... ;-)
Sensible approach. I have tried to tell myself that I should stop in about August (um...2020... probably....), take a break, and re-start my writing.... I don't see myself deleting TSW any time soon - it has got a lot of plus points. Even after I got bored of GWE, and especially the 166.... I found myself doing the service where you take the 166 from Reading Traincare to Reading station at 3.00am (or something like that), and I chose "blizzard" setting.... You walk up to the train in the siding with your torch on, with the sound of the wind whipping around you... and suddenly I realised that I actually felt really cold.. ... (like seriously...really... and I never feel cold.... due to my very good circulation... LOL...).... and then you get in the train thinking "why oh why oh why did I get myself intro this job....." and then you set-up and drive the train through the blizzardy gloom the short distance to Reading.... and blinkin' heck... it felt atmospheric.... When you look at services like this in the list, it is easy to wonder why such seemingly pointless services exist... but they can create a mood... and in this case... for me... it really was a flash of genius.
Well said... I like all of this. Even with the obvious issues TSW has here and there, I’m very glad I have this sim to experience, to enjoy, to get immersed in and to learn from.
That’s exactly what I (kinda) felt running services in the rain, cold and wet (not too much tho), and when I ran the “Bay Area Breakdown” scenario for the bullet dlc, the simple words of “sweltering summer heat” added to the time setting kinda made me sweat, lol! At least I started feeling hot, as if I were actually there, was gonna drive the train, and take it down (only to bring it back to my starting point, lol). When it mentioned the “nicely air conditioned passenger cars” part, it brought back memories (and the feeling, the real feeling) of being in a passenger car with the AC set to max cold after standing at a station where it’s hot as heck, really cool (literally).
At least, setting the obvious bugs and route distance aside, it is really immersive, now imagine it with a VR headset on when (idk if DTG actually plans to) TSW has full vr support
Funnily enough.... I use a PSVR headset (both on PC for TS1 and TSW , and on PS4 for TSW) - it's not real VR - just the cinema mode..... (so the "screen" appears to be about 30ft wide, but only six feet away...).. but it excludes all distractions, and with good earphones.... the immersion sets in quickly. Providing actual VR support for TSW should be fairly straightforward (it is a feature available in UE)... but it requires some pre-planning, both in ensuring that the environment is navigable (fairly easy), but you also have to be extremely hot on optimsation for performance (very difficult....).
I recently discovered that to do this the baby bullet dlc isn’t required at all to do it. I found out the same thing is possible with the gallery car, and also features other services. I tried repeating this with another service (there are more no stop full-run-down-the-line to CEMOF services with the f40 and mp36) I don’t remember the number I just know it’s at 21:24 on the timetable and another at 22:10 (maybe? I forgot lol) but unfortunately the freight service at 20:55 (UP Southbound Empty Hoppers part 1) from south San Fran doesn’t match with the passenger service no matter what
I also do know that the UP Southbound Part 2 service comes on departing for Santa Clara/Newhall Yard from Redwood City at around when another service going to CEMOF departing from San Francisco, I haven’t tried it yet but maybe there’s a way to match the two trains? Edit: maybe not since they’re both gonna depart on the same track
The only thing I thought of that you may not need the baby bullet is that if this service was already there with the gallery car prior to the baby bullet coming out and stealing some of its services. I don’t remember whether it was because it was only when running it with the bb cab car that I noticed its special feature. This is the only service I’ve seen that runs down the ‘wrong’ track to enable side by side running, as it’s in the middle of the night. EDIT - The “race” can be run with the Gallery Cab Car as well, as either cab car is able to be used for the service. Original post edited to reflect this.
I still absolutely love this thread, but as I promised earlier, here is a picture 500 yards out of Victoria... from TS1 (Chatham Main Line combined with London to Brighton)..... the seven... ahem... seven... EMUs on the right are all on the move as they shuffle in and out of Victoria.... and they still put some static EMUs in (including some you can't see from this view) on the left... just to make it look even more busy... It looks stunning when you drive it - and it sounds amazing too. this is completely routine - you never have to hunt to see other traffic on TS1.
Wow, all of that sounds good to me... what platforms were supported by TS1 by the way? And do you have the audio patched into a home theater rig by chance? Nice post, thanks for sharing!
I run the audio through my PSVR headet earphones, so you can get a great sound effect as trains pass you...... ;-) It's also nice to have the massive projected cinema screen, and no distractions, through PSVR. I often just use the sound from the TV (which is good), but now I am tempted to run the audio through my Arcam amp.... hmmm..... I will have a look at the PSVR decoder and see what the audio output options are (if any) beyond the HDMI channel..... ;-)
It's actually even better at night..... here is a sleepy scene at the same location, but 30 years earlier.... I can't recall seeing any lighting like this in TSW. I am finding TS1 to be quite the revelation.... When you pass this sort of slam-door stock at night, it sounds and feels utterly real. All of the AI trains, whether moving or stabled also seem to retain a decent level of detail, and move incredibly smoothly. Okay - apologies....going off topic now maybe... ;-)
...highly recommended to patch the audio into your HT rig- if nothing else but to test it out. I have my non-Pro PS4 tied into my 5.1 HT rig with a decent single sub... I like the extra punch a HT setup brings to many of my PS4 games, incl TSW. Sounds like you have some nice gear, should probably sound sweet!
Wow, even TSW can’t support that much traffic in a route, bcuz, well, it lags! Always happens! At CEMOF and San Francisco there’s always lag and everything moves so slowly and the clock on the HUD slows down not to mention the frame rate drops, even with just 4 trains! Whew. May I ask if you’ve ever experienced lag when playing ts1?
I have tested TS1 on various PCs, and it will just start to lag slightly (easily bearably) on my cheap (< £300) laptop, which has no GPU. But on my dedicated simulation rig (16 Gb RAM plus 8Gb VRAM)... no.... Can't remember it ever really lagging - although it once OOM'd when I did a quick camera turn at Liverpool Street station (I will test this again though, because it could have had another cause). People set up "Railfan" scenarios where there is a ridiculous amount of traffic - and these all run fine. Going back to the 750V EMUs.... there is also something about the default FOV that makes driving alongside several EMUs very immersive..... because you get a very good impression of relative speeds - and it seems hyper realistic to me. The builds at London Bridge, Victoria, Waterloo and Clapham Junction all load up breathlessly - even when packed with EMUs. If you go for the Riviera in the Fifties or Weardale, then you get several steam trains running around... some with almost endless consists of wagons.... as you pass heavily populated yards, sometimes on both sides. Basically - it's properly alive. But back to topic.... Something that you could do, but I haven't tried.... is to literally set-up a race scenario out of a mainline station with at least two fast roads out. Nothing stopping you placing some AI next to you, and then both set off when the lights go green... ;-)
I have another one sort of. You will need the newest DLC for this one. (the M3) But you can do this with just the M7 You start on the LIRR 10:50AM service. (First one to Belmont Park) At Woodside you will notice there is 2 other trains behind you and one going to NY penn. A total of 4 trains can be seen at Woodside. Your train is an M3 you have a 50% chance to have an M7 behind you. If so reverse your M3 to connect with the M7 behind you. Now you can travel the entire length to Hempstead with this 16 car M3/M7 EMU. It is very interesting I have done it multiple times it is quite franky funny to see this type of mixed EMU. Also listen to the two different propulsions on both of the trains is sounds interesting. NOTE: Doing this may result in you breaking the specific LIRR timetable. I have noticed doing this will break the AI on the route and they will stop driving after a certain signal.
I don’t have the M3 yet but I’ll try this anyway just to get the long M7 and then in the future when I get the M3 in a sale I’ll do the mix and match.
I tried this but couldn’t join the other train as I went through a red signal as I reversed towards it and the session ended. I suspected this would happen but thought there might be some trick to it, so how exactly do you manage to join the train behind you without getting kicked out of the session?
After stopping at Woodside proceed forward for a little bit, until you see the train behind you stop at Woodside. Stop the train then reverse to link with the train behind you. Once that's done you can now drive this "Special" 16 car train all the way to Hempstead. If you want to go the extra length, The next Hicksville bound train will arrive in about 15-20 Minutes. You could wait there to try that one which would make your train a 26 car train, but it's not necessary.
