Currently, we only have Philadelphia to New Haven. Adding New Haven - Boston would mean operating the Acela Express train at 150 MPH, the fastest operating speed and currently, one of the fastest trains in America under the Avelia, the new Acela. New Haven - Boston also has very historical stations like New London Union Stations. This would also mean that Shore Line East train services can be played. Shore Line East runs from New Haven - New London, and sometimes go to Grand Central and other places west of New Haven. Shore Line East uses GP40-H2's, P40DC's, and Mafersa Coach and Cab Cars. Shore Line East also plans to use the M9 EMU's used for Metro North and New Haven Railroad in the future. This route also has another route called MBTA and they run from Boston to Providence which is only a small part of MBTA included in the tracks of the NEC. This entire route has lots of curves and straights with 150 MPH zones so it would make a challenge on maintaining a steady speed. There is nothing else to say about this route except for it has some of the coolest places on the NEC.
I don't need to read anything else. To quote someone on my friend list: "Driving fast is fun". Therefore, this line would be fun to play. That's enough reason to do it.
Someone was working on this as a workshop route, but stopped due to constant errors and crashes in the editor, would be nice to get the line officially as an addon.
MBTA is a state government ran transportation agency covering more than just heavy rail service (Lite Rail, Buses, ect...). Also color is more purple than pink.
It was cActUsjUiCe with his team. He moved the project over to TSW and is now (I assume) waiting for the editor. https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/northeast-corridor-development-project.14278/
Waiting for something that DTG plans to never release is like waiting for your opportunity to be crowned King of England.
The new Acela could be the selling point. I'd include existing locos, probably in the form of a scenario pack and bundle supplied right away. The AEM-7 and current Acela aren't too bad, just could use a touch here and there. MBTA rolling stock seems to be available, too, except for the actual skins. I'm not sure about exact specifics, but CSX / NS assets would be welcome. Adding Miami-WPB passively to the scenario pack would round out sights of freight nicely. (The scenarios could cover two years: 2000 and 2022. Or anything in between, just pointing out the obvious that not all trains are available at any given time. There is also earlier stuff but not sure it can be made fully populated. And it would get too much for anyone not me. FL9, E33, Springfield stuff, various EMUs.) If it goes further and a merged route is supplied, obviously it could / should use the NJCL as well. In that case it could use the Ohio Steel treatment (tons of scenarios to cover various assignments). Of course the new workshop can help it. My main point is, the NEC is a great candidate to create fairly versatile trains as is. My main gripe with most existing routes is the limited versatility of rolling stock. My second gripe is the excessive amounts of copy-paste. The third is how train DLCs tend to be underused - the route scenarios don't use them as AI. Hence the suggestion of a megabundle. Conspiration theory time - you already started it, maybe took over. The workshop was stopped to create a case for buying it.
I doubt NJCL would be used. It's already bundled with Morristown. However, I would be curious if the line connects directly to the New York-New Haven route or has a unique terminus. I suspect it's connected as I can't see why New Haven would have two separate termini. Being a major city known worldwide and the financial capital of America, having a longer drive into the city might be interesting by making the older one a route requirement to run the route and thus, by necessity, bundling it to avoid all the negative reviews saying "ROUTE DOESN'T WORK DTG GIVE ME A REFUND STEAM IS DENYING ME" blah blah..That and the fact that the NYNH scenario packs are sitting in the pipeline and would still only use the NYNH segment without the new line, plus several trains that are used in those packs and could be employed on the new portion of the route. So this indeed could be an interesting bundle. The DLC could simply be called NEC: Boston to New York and you want to make clear that New York-New Haven comes with the route bundle; however, it would be fair to prior purchasers to be able to discount it and owned trains as with Battle for Sherman Hill, or even offering a cheaper standalone version noting that all other content must be owned to use the route. Further, any train that is created for Boston-New Haven can be a standalone DLC instead of being part of the route, though it could be seen as a money grab if someone buys the train and later the route, so maybe it's still best to keep one train included and have the extra locos available from day 1, and part of the bundle. Oh, and the bundle could include scenarios created by someone like Gary. The train pack of course has a set of its own, as does the route (US Asset Pack required), but the full bundle gives its own set. This way he can incorporate all included DLC in the scenarios.
Include Providence and Worcester local jobs, picking up, delivering rolling stock! Would be fun to add a local freight train to a busy NEC route schedule.
FYI they are actually going to be increasing the speed limits because of the availa on the NEC because it's that fast!
Interesting tidbit, that. I suspect someone will have to create an update to NEC in the Workshop using that train. A second paid DLC would otherwise have to include Boston all the way to New York under the new speeds, and the old NEC potentially renamed to show the age of that edition (2010s or whatever).
I suspect they won't be raising them to much, due to both the vintage nature of the NEC, and the fact that it's not as straight as what the Avelia Liberty would need in order to hit it's top design speed of 200-some mph, if I recall correctly.
they can go 187 MPH with tilting off and I don't think tilting is really needed on 150 MPH straights. the also made the train handle all the
New Haven to Boston along with Philadelphia to Baltimore are the missing NEC routes since Train Sim 21 has Washington to Baltimore followed by Philadelphia to New York and NY Penn Station to New Haven. Boston to New Haven has ACS-64 Amfleet Viewerliner II for trains 66 & 67 Acela Express MBTA F40PH & HSP 46 for TF Green Airport to Boston South Station.
Philly to Baltimore is coming as a workshop extension, effectively creating a Philly - Washington route, and technically making the entire NEC drivable, though with different routes.
Is a link to this Workshop area currently known? Also, can I assume the signals are going to be standardized across the entire route so you can take, say, an NYNH train all the way to Baltimore with a working signaling system? Northeast Corridor obviously goes New York to Philadelphia, and NEC is New York to New Haven, so I assume the project is making one full long route.
Well the track is nearing completion and there's a stream just about every weekend of the progress available on Brandon (cActUsjUiCe's) YouTube channel. Scenery has yet to begin. As for signalling, I'm not entirely certain but would expect for it to be the same signals from the DC-Baltimore route. And unfortunately it's not possible presently to hook up this new route with the existing DLCs. Perhaps a completely new NY-PHI route could be attempted (possibly creating an entire New York - Washington route) but that is far into the future. In conclusion, as for the present day, there will only be the DC-PHI route, NY-PHI, NYNH, and NH-BOS. (Technically the entire NEC) However these are all completely separate routes.
Why can the existing DLCs not be hooked up, exactly? I'll look up the channel on my laptop. Interesting.
I believe it comes down to route origin points, and while it is technically possible it makes things very complex and frankly, not worth it (from what Danny has said). The original NEC has a different route origin than NYNH and the NJCL, which do share the same point, thus they were able to be merged. Same for tossing the Hudson Line and Morristown into the mix. The original NEC in a lot of ways is just an odd black sheep that can't fit in with the others very well, and would rather benefit from a complete rebuild than trying to connect it with those that have a higher standard.
My view is, if the process to make it fit only has to be done once, then that can form the basis for later merges. Heck, if it's possible for the origin points to be changed on an edited version of the route and make that a file in itself, that could be useful for route merging in general. But not knowing details, I'm sure it really is a pain.
Absolutely correct but to make it even better how about Northeast Corridor Boston to Philadelphia since you forgot NEC New York to Philadelphia. Total distance is now 316 miles Boston to Philly. Game manual will now resemble Frankfurt to Basel the Frankfurt high speed dlc. Train 66 & 67 have Viewfinder II sleepers