Sherman Hill is currently 50% on the PS Store, but is it worth buying? What bugs/issues have you encountered or need to be fixed? Is the route fun? Would you recommend buying it and why?
If You like SPG - you will like Sherman Hill. The same story, different lanscape... ... and better track layout (more rollercoastish). I like it. 50% off could be insta-buy for me.
Out of curiosity. I had a lot of trouble with longer trains crashing on SPG. Especially auto rack cars and the container cars. I haven’t played in a while, but this was an issue that was preventing me from buying Sherman Hill. I’m a big fan of the freight routes in this game. In your experience, has this issue been resolved? I’m personally playing on a PS5.
I quite like Sherman Hill, with the performance caveats that a) I'm on PC, so I can't speak to stability on Playstation, and b) to get an acceptable framerate, I have to swap in a vanilla .ini file in place of my custom one, so on console you may find it rather slideshow-y.
Also on PS5. The crashing I've had on SPG is related to CPU issues when using external cameras, specifically when switching to the end of the train. If the train is anywhere about 40 cars it's an insta-hang then crash. On Sherman Hill this is much better. Sure, it still hangs then crashes if you keep flicking between ends of the train but you really have to try and make it crash, under normal use it is fine. I really like it on PS and it mostly runs pretty well with an average 50fps (there are some significant drops around the yards. Not sure if these have been fixed as had to uninstall it make more room for more DLC). If you like American freight then at this price it's a must buy. The main visual downside for me is that when you're high up the sky in the distance is so blue looks sort of looks like a sea. It's a bit of an immersion killerbiut not too bad. The variety of the gameplay and challenge of managing the breaks decending with a 100 car train more than makes up for it.
Really depends on whether North American freight is your cup of tea. If you feel so inclined, you could read my posts on it from a similar thread: (Click on the little arrow below to see what statements I’m responding to in the next quote.)
I bought it in the sale a few weeks ago when there was a decent discount but not quite as much as this. I am not a massive US freight fan but fancied the idea of the long consists on PS5 and the fact you could do a little bit more than just go end to end. It's a similar feel to Cane Creek if you have that one only this one is miles better IMO. Aside for the two ends of the route on Cane Creek everything was a bit bland, bordering on boring but here there is still quite a bit to see and it's not single track until you get to the section where it splits to two single track routes. I've also found it a good one for creating my own Off The Rails stuff to give other locos in the collection a bit of a run (the Javelin and HST are a joy on this one if you can suspend reality in your mind for a bit). Which reminds me, this is also a faster route than Cane Creek and Sandpatch. I don't regret paying £16.99 or whatever it was just a few weeks ago and at this price I would say go for it
Sherman Hill runs fine for me on PS5 (not tried the PS4 version yet). I've not encountered any issues with frame rates or game crashes. Only time I had an issue was when I left the game on pause for over 6 hours and when I restarted, the distance counter stopped working and then I had a game crash when I tried to change cameras. There is an issue with the collectibles. Like London Commuter, some remain behind invisible walls so 100% cannot be achieved.
The only things I don’t like about Sherman Hill are that you can’t see your whole train behind you as although you may have 107 vehicles in your train you only see around 40 of them before they don’t draw, and the view from inside the cab is a bit washed out compared to the external cameras. Other than that I haven’t had any issues with it on PS5 and it seems a lot more stable than SPG. The draw distances seem a bit short for a lot of important scenery items but this is TSW, so that’s to be expected. It’s a good route overall, grab it while it’s cheap.
I think it's 100% worth it. No game-breaking bugs that I've noticed. It's a "chill" route as are most US freight routes are but it has challenges that I've had fun managing. Scenery is nice- pretty quiet but it is Montana after all. It's my go to route when I want something challenging yet I'm not rushing around trying to meet a timetable. Now, everyone leads with talk of the SD70 and the hundred car consists. Those are both great but even the switching services are pretty solid; there's a fair bit of activity going on around the yard. Pretty immersive, I've had a good time with those. And going back to the SD70 mainline runs: one of my favorite things about the services is that you've got a choice between doing the full 1 1/2 + hour run from Cheyanne to Laramie or you can do some shorter runs to/from Hermosa. Either way, you're hauling some tonnage. And to echo what one of the previous posters mentioned, there's a huge difference between the 50 car SPG consists vs these 100 car consists. Hill starts are a fun challenge, as is learning how to utilize your all of your brake systems down the steep grades.
I’ve made my own review on here before, but I’ll gladly talk about Sherman Hill again. Whenever you have a couple of hours, Sherman Hill is a really great route to drive. It includes two great locomotives, and quite an enjoyable service mode. The main services are quite fun. The uphill services, while having no challenge to them, are very enjoyable to admire the boring Wyoming scenery. It lets you appreciate the simple things you may encounter, like railroad crossings and windmills. Uphill is best enjoyed with the lighter trains, such as super fruit or autorack trains. The heavy ones, like grain and ethanol, won’t even get past 15 mph, so you have to really enjoy the scenery to get fun out of those. Downhill is where it’s really at. Don’t let the speed limits deceive you, some trains may have to go less than half of the speed limit for the dynamic brakes to handle the train. It’s an exciting challenge, and if you get it right, it’ll be a great time. The SD40-2 gives some really enjoyable switching services as well. Some have you doing some regular switching in Cheyenne, and some involve transporting tanker cars from one place to another. My favorite is the service where you couple to a set of covered hoppers, and reverse the train for a couple of miles to a cement factory. Good stuff. Sherman Hill is a really good route, and you should enjoy it if you’ve been enjoying other US freight routes, such as Sand Patch Grade.
I recommend you this route if you like US trains! It is long, it have different areas related to scenery, speed limits, industrial locations where you can go to pick-up and leave wagons, or switching. The SD70ACE it is one of my favorites locomotives! It is a pity, you have always have to turn off the bogie lights, because are always turn on by default even at daytime. The problem is they are very noticeable, and does not seems to be real. Furthermore you usually have 2, or 3 of them in your train. DTG mentioned it is that way, but I have saw several videos of this locomotive with them off. I believe they must be off by default. The bell is another issue, as it is not even heard from the cab. But on a real locomotive you hear it very well. Even on the CSX AC4400 you can do it. Another detail is it have only one crew member - the engineer - meanwhile all US freight trains it have 2!. On SPG you have it. Here strangely not. The main visual issue is the one mentioned above. The short visual for the tracks mainly!. Considering is a semi-desert route, this is very noticeable, and lost about realism when driving it. I tried also to make a Scenario using the planner tool, in order to make it more entertaining. But the part where you have tow "paralel" routes, going to Laramie, - it's split on a single track one, and a other one with 2 tracks- you only have the chance to go on the single one! Even when you select to depart a train from Laramie, it shows on the map, you - and the others AI trains- will go trough the double track one, that is false! All the trains from and to Laramie, goes on the single track part only! Which limits the scenario possibilities. This also generates another problem: the trains does not stop on the destination track in the yard. They mysteriously stop at the switch before it. So you can never finish your Scenario! Is frustrating after driving around one and half hours. But with normal Scenarios and timetable there is no problem. I have normal PS4 and - alsmost - no problem about crashes. Only situation which have generated them, is due to after one of the updates - I mentioning this due to this did not happen ever before, when I purchased at launch time - unfortunately! - , if you change the view from the locomotive to the last car of your train, it mostly caused the crash of the game! This is mainly if there is another long train around, or at Laramie or Chayenne.
