Well assuming they just managed to get a licence, they would problaby just start working on it now, meaning a BNSF freight route would be at least half a year away anyway.
Gotta give a round of applause to the DTG licensing team. That must have been crazy to get BNSF branding outside of the US. The inclusion of BNSF could be HUGE for TSW, as that basically allows any somewhat interesting route around the West Coast.
Any thoughts on what this could be? https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...rsary-of-amtrak-with-train-sim-world-2.49685/ I'm impatient lol
Dec. 9th News: So, looks like TS1 isn't gonna be the only one to celebrate Amtrak's 50th Anniversary. From this article, there will be a special alt livery for the ACS-64 on the Boston Sprinter, as a free update, representing not only a Phase III livery but also has a sponsored TSW2 logo included: Now that is a surprising gift to all that has the route.
Awesome! Maybe it's just me, but I really like the phase 3 Amtrak livery and can't stand the phase 5 livery. So I know which livery I'll use once it's out (if we can choose, if not, I'll just have to get lucky)
Funny you should say that from today's stream: - Matt confirms that this license also implies to TSW as well. But there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment, so it's gonna be a little while to see a BNSF route for consideration in the near future.
Now that DTG has all the major freight and passenger railroads under license, they just need to work on the remaining commuter lines, like Metra and MARC and then there won't be any restrictions on route and loco building for North America.
You're absolutely right, Canada deserves passenger rail. Oakville could have been the start. DTG does have licenses for CP and CN, but not, as far as I know, for GO or VIA. One day, I'm sure.
So in preparation with tomorrow's Roadmap (which may not gonna have much on it, honestly) I've spruced up the OP a bit to be a little clearer and a bit more detailed from the results of what's been made on the NA side in TSW2 so far. Of course, there's one more roadmap week (Dec. 27th is the last) before the end of the year if so, but might as well see what's been done for this year in a short summary, for better or worse (results may vary though). Freight Routes: 5 (3 made this year) Passenger Routes: 3 (1 made this year) Loco Add-ons: 4 (0 made this year) On Roadmap: 2 Routes (1 Pass/1 Freight)
Dec. 14 News: While I did say today's Roadmap may not gonna have much on it on my last post, I was somewhat mistaken. With the ACS 50th livery at 'Next Arrival' (meaning soon), there's also mentioning an expansion pack [as a Gameplay add-on] to the base routes (SPG, SKA, BKL). Meaning, there will be new contents to Sand patch Grade next year for sure. But what's in it, it's too early to tell indeed (unless hinted on the Roadmap stream tonight), but it's there to speculate for now.
That's already part of the pack (which that part will not end well). No, it does say there will be new content in this pack, other than the Creator Club, for the base routes, and that's the focus to speculate on. Whether it's likeable or not.
For Sand Patch, the new content very well could be longer trains or new rolling stock, I suppose both would be very good to see. Same for Köln-Aachen. But what is it for Bakerloo, I wonder? Suerly not new rolling stock, so a busier timetable maybe? Though this is kind of off-topic for this thread. Anyway looking forward to it. Whatever it is for SPG, it should be interesting.
Well we kind of do know what it will have, it's basically DTG's version of the RhB livery pack, it adds liveries, scenarios, services. Also I would infer we aren't getting any new locomotives since I would assume they'd make a point of that. With scenarios and services I honestly don't know what they'd do, scenarios are a complete wildcard, and the Sand Patch timetable at least to me seems fine as is when it comes to things like number of services and frequency. But I'll admit I ain't no expert on Sand Patch, only knowledge I have on it outside of TSW is from a handful of railfan YouTube videos. The one thing about the timetable that comes to mind is that they could finally have longer trains for it. But frankly locking that behind a paywall would be a horrible idea, and I don't see them doing that without also updating services on the original timetable as well. Liveries would be a bit easier to take a stab at, there's a few special community service locos CSX have that are fairly popular, albeit not sure what units they were painted on though, so may or may not be a good fit here. I'm pretty certain they could also go at some older CSX schemes for the SD40-2 and GP38-2, and honestly those would be pretty fun. If they wanted to do anything for the C40-8W that could receive a version of the YN3 livery as well, doubt they'd do anything for stock that isn't included, but never know. Speaking of which i guess they could finally add the OG YN3 livery for the SD40-2 and AC4400, wouldn't be the most exciting thing, but while they're at it might as well do them.
Well, from the Roadmap Stream, there will be a new unit to be added to the expansion pack for SPG. However, it's just a repaint of the SD40 from CRR on what they called "CSX-S" (meaning it's a Stealth Stripe livery). But, it's gonna be acted as a "Heritage" unit and yes this is gonna be very fictional on this route in this pack (as there's not a single CSX unit in this livery anymore). Hopefully they can tweak some fixes for both of these SD40s (may not gonna happen, but still).
There were roughly 3 or 4 different Stealth liveries before the Yn1. And after looking (just to remember the livery codes), yeah, this image above is gonna be the closest that's gonna be repainted on the SD40 for this pack.
I was vaguely hoping for a Chessie livery (long shot, I know). Got to admit that I‘m not a fan of the stealth liveries, much less so with the fictitious nature of the pack.
Nothing concrete. 3 scenarios per route. For SPG, a few services are supposedly added and the new SD40 will sub in on the existing timetable.
For PC users - sadly, consoles don't do mods - I have made a set of seven vintage CSX liveries for SD40-2, and eight CSX-predecessor 'fallen flags' for GP38-2.
No idea why they haven't gone with the CSX F40PH locos. Would be much better choice compared to a semi-fictional livery I think.
The idea with the loco they want to make is to make a heritage-ish SD40 based on the Clinchfield one, so you take a loco, slightly update it and give it a paint job to run special services. All while being borderline fictional. Yet you could do the same with the F40s (and choose either CSX or B&O livery) and have it be fairly realistic. Granted the cars are their own chapter, but that would apply to the SD40 as well.
Or you could apply the new retro Phase 3 livery to it, since the FP40s that do (or did) actually run over Sand Patch were the Amtrak Capitol Limited; and the Boston Amfleets for coaches..
Working the Capitol Limited into the SPG timetable would be great. I enjoy running the new SD70 and its physics package on SPG now. Having mile long trains on SPG would be even better.
No, iirc SPG is set in 2018 (late 2010s for sure). Meaning there hasn't been a single Stealth, or any other early liveries, survived in CSX's roster (plus the remaining SD40s are already upgraded to the Dash 2s at this point).
Actually, there is drone footage of the locos idled at Cumberland during COVID, with one rather rusty Stealth Stripe. Admittedly, this one had the yellow nose patches added, but it was there in 2020.
Yeah, after a bit of research look, I did found that sol survivor of that livery you mentioned (which I did not think it still existed until now). Apparently, however, it's owned by Georges Creek (GCK), but I'll admit I'm surprised to see it's been stored in Cumberland during the pandemic (after it was stored at Roanoke for some time). Learned something new every day.
I mean I think it would be cool but I think it's too gimmicky. Could only real use it for OCS trains, so it wouldn't really add that many services and they don't really substitute well on too freight services. Personally I would like to see either an SD50, AC6000CW, or a C40-8 (standard cab version).
The CSX F40s are only used for the CEO train, a sort of corporate jet on rails which doesn't run any set schedule. And, as said above, TSW doesn't have any of the old-school US coaches required.
On a side note with US freight routes I wish that DTG would revisit the Sandpatch grade and the totally unrealistic substitutions when other DLCs are installed… This week I got Clinchfield RR, Sherman Hill, and Cane Creek… For some reason DTG has set it up so that ALL the equivalent locos from those DLC show up as subs in Sand Patch… so if you fire up SPG now with those installed you see Clinchfield SD40s which haven’t existed for decades running around, and tons of Union Pacific locomotives as if it was the southwest. I get that there are Union Pacific locos that do end up on the real sand patch grade but the amount of them as well as the time machine Clinchfield locomotives should be adjusted or removed.
Yeah. I havn't driven SPG in a while, but I've heard it's pretty ridiculous. Funnily enough, the substitution doesn't work the other way, only SPG gets all the locomotives.
Would definitely love to see a Canadian passenger route. GO Transit (Metrolinx) often has social media posts about what it’s like to be an engineer for them and they do take efforts to make it look really cool as a recruitment tool, so I’d have to think they’d be receptive to licensing.
YES! I mentioned in another thread that I cry a little whenever I play Oakville Subdivision and see all the completely deserted GO stations. GO would be a good one because they could probably use some of the assets and station work that they did in Oakville sub... just adding GO to that route wouldn't be great though unless they continue it to Union Station so it would need a bit more work. They also have the Baby Bullet and the Bombardier bi-levels from Caltrain that they could use as a starting point for GO equipment... not the exact same specs but would make it easier than starting from scratch. Licensing might be the hold up because even in Oakville, there are GO ticket machines at the stations but if you look close the Presto wording is removed and the GO logo is 2 green circles instead of the real logo. Another cool would be Montreal area mix of commuter (Exo) and freight traffic/CN/CP/Via. Via itself might be a bit harder to do since most of their runs even in the corridor are a lot longer than what TSW typically models and their rolling stock hasn't been made in TSW yet with the exception of some similar F40s.
