I have used TS for years and purchased TSW as soon as it came out. I have always been a "Freight Guy" and have spent hours pulling and pushing freight around. I would like to try some passenger service. What route(s) would be best to learn the basics of passenger operations? I do have all the DLC that is offered for TSW2 and RailDriver. Thanks for the suggestions. Cellersaver
East Coastway seems to be quite popular. London Commuter is another good one. Therandter Rampe looks great and has the tilting diesel 612 which makes it's first appearance in TSW. Nahverkehr Dresden is probably the busiest route and has lots of high speed, commuter, and freight.
Cathcart Circle is a good one. You get a lovely EMU in the Class 314, and you make frequent stops around the circle, or get up to speed on the route’s branches. It’s just a great suburban commuter route. Peninsula Corridor is also a wonderful choice for an American commuter route. The F40 has a sort of slowness to it, being a diesel locomotive, and the manually lapped braking is a decently fun challenge for stopping at stations. The route makes you feel very speedy and fast when you get up to 79 mph.
Northern Transpennines quite good, it comes with 3 trains all quite fun to drive and if you ever feel like adding freight there the heavy freight dlc, which is quite good.
Well, to learn the "basics of passenger" I think, you shouldn't choose a route with many stops in a short distance while having to stick to a tough timetable. So, I wouldn't recommend anything like Bakerloo, Cathcart Circle, Rhein-Ruhr-Osten, Hauptstrecke Rhein-Ruhr, Peninsula Corridor...all these S-Bahn/commuter routes, well the basics of passenger compared to freight, I would define as, stopping at an pre-defined point, getting back up to line speed as soon as possible and then again braking for the next stop. So, mostly I would recommend less stops with a certain distance in between as a beginner. So, let's say East Coastway, the RegionalExpress-services on Köln-Aachen or Main-Spessart-Bahn, Boston Sprinter, to some extend I would say Harlem Line, Ruhr-Sieg-Nord, Hamburg-Lübeck and London Commuter (Harlem and London services can have some very short distance stops, Ruhr-Sieg-Nord and Hamburg-Lübeck, well the BR 112/143 sometimes seem to have it's own will).
You should start with something easy first. Try Munich Ausburg, Koln Anchen or DRA with Ice 3 / BR 101. Also MSB and RSN have some interesting RE services where you don't have to stop each 1 KM for a station. If you don't want to worry about German signal (very challenging but rewarding when mastered), try some London to Brighton services, you have some stops but not to many to be to hard until you get used to. And if you want the ultimate diesel smoke and oil feeling go with Transpenine. After you warm up you când also go for some tight timetable and lots of stops commuter services as mentioned in other comments
Not sure what you really mean with the "basics of passenger operations". In my experience, handling freight trains is considerably more challenging than passenger trains, although I guess the challenge of passenger trains can be found in keeping up to the timetable. Making a small step from freight to passengers, routes like Ruhr Sieg Nord or West Somerset come to mind. You should have little problems handling these trains as they pretty much handle identical to freight trains. I guess that applies to pretty much any loco-hauled passenger trains though. The next step would be modern DMUs and EMUs. They're pretty straightforward to operate, but they're fast. So your main challenge would be keeping up with the timetable. Approaching stations are just the right speed is probably the main challenge. And the last step would be trains that actually have some features you don't usually see on freight trains. So I guess that's mainly the Class 101 with its gears system, and the high speed trains with their in-cab signalling systems (and power change for LVG and SEHS). But in general, passenger trains are easier than freight trains. I'd say just try anything you'd like to try. Worst that could happen is overshooting a platform or running late on the timetable. :P
Riesa Dresden is amazing if you have a lot of other German dlc to add the later services. Boston, good trains but bugged signalling London to Brighton, 1400 services and the busiest route by far. Hustle and bustle
Cathcart Circle with the ballast fix from trainsimcommunity.. IMO You get the best sounds for an electric from the go without having to tinker
My top choices: Dresden Chemnitz- for the sheer joy of running the 612 on such a challenging and beautiful route. London Commuter - an amazing timetable that keeps you on you toes, and on the brakes! Riesa Dresden - so many different passenger runs, at varying speeds and with branch lines. But you need all the layers to fully appreciate it. Anything with the 101 - an incredible loco with great timetable runs on multiple German routes. It’s so hard to narrow this down!
Any passenger route will do and any passenger service except the high speed services like ICE or LGV. They don’t really stop along the route and use in cab signalling to run at higher speeds, so are best left until more general passenger duties are tried out. Passenger trains are all about stopping and picking up passengers and keeping to the timetable and there are many routes that offer that. Good starting points would be… Any US passenger route. London Commuter or East Coastway for UK electric. GWE for UK diesel. HRR or MSB for German passenger.
Edit, Person I quoted was referring to the German 101, not the British 101.like I'm talking about. I'll leave this up though, as I do think this is still decent advice on its own. The British Rail Class 101 is a more complex loco to drive with its gear system, it's lacking in both acceleration and braking, and I find the services it's used on to have extremely tight schedules. I wouldn't recommend it as a beginner loco in the slightest, something with a Networker or a Electrostar would be much better from a beginners point of view.
My top 5 passenger routes for a beginner may cause a little controversy but hear me out. Few of these routes are high quality when it comes trains included and aren't without their issues/highest quality scenery but they act as a good introduction into more complex routes such as London Commuter or Riesa Dresden. Harlem - it's short but lovely to drive and the Incab signalling works a treat. Haven't stopped driving this since purchase. Hamburg Lubeck - I'm going against the grain here, but I love this route it's a variety of different runs from Hamburg. This is a really good route to learn the intrigues of PZB and SIFA and for that reason alone it's in my top 5. Cartcart - ok it's short and low speeds with only a single train set. But it's a fab commuter route with plenty of stations close to be each other, which IMO will help a novice learn precision stopping points at stations. East Coast way - I prefer this to London Commuter in many ways especially if youre just starting out. You will need the separate 313 trainset DLC to fully enjoy it. Peninsula Corridor - again probably not on everyone's favourite route list but it's a decent stretch if you want longer runs. Again I'd recommend getting the baby bullet DLC to get the best out of it.
Get Riesa Dresden or RSN. If you don't like the passenger runs, there is still a lot of freight to do. For RSN you definitely need the BR155 and the BR363 as well.
I've been getting more into hauptstrecke rhein-ruhr lately. It's pretty short but at least you don't lose an hour's progress because your system crashed because the save function is broken. Might be a decent place to start.
Now the feature you’re missing that DTG have missed for you with every passenger route I’m all ears for you to elaborate on.
Haupstrecke Rhein-Ruhr is good fun - short, easy to drive, busy. East Coastway is another good pick if you want the added bonus of some fantastic scenery. It's not as busy as London Commuter, but I still prefer it as it's a more interesting route. I picked up Cathcart in the recent sale and am also enjoying it - it looks fantastic and the loco is really nice to drive too. However, the stops are much more frequent than those on East Coastway.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. After trying the training scenarios for several routes, I think I will start with East Coastway (my first non-North American route). I usually take my time to make sure I operate the services properly. Going from freight to passenger for the first time is like going from go-cart racing to F1. Thanks again for the help. George
