Definitely the ECW route on the Brighton-Seaford section. Ironically, found and purchased thanks to an unofficial demo :P East Coastway Level: 77 Miles driven: 2363.76 So far, this is the only playable route in TSW2 that I find more fun than frustrating. Great for both very short sessions (Brighton-Lewes) and longer play (multiple Brighton-Seaford trips back and forth). Also probably the only route where the lack of diversity of AI trains doesn't hurt that much. Although it's a shame that Gatwick Express trains don't appear on East Coastway after buying the London Commuter add-on. Apparently buying additional DLC doesn't make the AI trains more diverse at all - it was a brutal "reality check" for me The only thing that really bugs me is the lame implementation of AI passengers behavior, especially after the "Rush Hour" update came in.
Since i log my Stats for TSW 2 since September 2021 UK Routes are the Most that i playing in TSW2. My Alltime Favorite is London Communter (don´t have many Problems with the Electrostars so far and the Timetable is incredible) followed by the great Route East Coastway (love the Branch to Seaford). And only after the Southeastern Highspeed coming the first "not UK" Route "Nahverkehr Dresden"... So, i have no Problem to wait for another modern UK Route
Very similar to many of the above - BR Blue is preferred, so: NTP, for the 40s and Peaks, esp the freight TVR, with blue 20's, and I love the class 31 on here, esp the freight GWR Legends for the Blueness, not enough freight! So, more BR Blue era routes please. And, a Deltic for the NTP, and a 25.
My most played uk route is Southeastern High Speed. Despite it's flaws, it oddly keeps drawing me back to it when I play tsw2. Hopefully the preservation update will bring some much needed improvements to the route
For TSW2: SEH BML TVL This does not say anything. SEH wins because you can drive fast. I liked GWE a lot, but did not yet play it much for TSW2. My favourite UK routes are TVL and WSR. I did not play WSR much because the lack of drives. This route deserves a lot of timetables for festivals, maintenance days and so on. If I ever get the chance I would love to create a timetable for WSR. Personally I do not care about UK Routes specifically. I like it to see railroading in other countries, where Switzerland is my favourite (railway) country. If there were any Dutch routes I would play them a lot I guess. I also would love more German historic regional routes. Still remember the Biggetal route for MSTS. So playing UK routes is by lack of better.
Very true. Although I'm established on record as expressing my preference for BR Blue and anything pre 1980ish I have to admit the last couple of evenings getting some guilty pleasure driving the 395's on SEHS. I suppose because compared to the Turbostars you get a nice panoramic view out the front. Then the sounds are actually quite well done, particularly if you run with the cab doors open (!) actually convey a nice heavy feeling. Might only be the power of suggestion but convinced there's a little bit of reverb in the tunnels. Only downside is the high speed part is so short before you hit the bus stop section through North Kent. A shame we didn't get the rest of the HS1 route through to Cheriton or at least Ashford along with Eurostar (possible licensing though) with the cream on the scone through the Chunnel to Calais.
I must be weird- I don't find high-speed A-B running especially engaging. Of the routes which I play at all, I probably play LGV the least; and on SEHS I drive the 375 and 465.
Normally I'd be with you on that Bill, just something about this one particular train that tickles my optical and aural senses. That said, there's only so many times you can go from St Pancras to Ebbsfleet or Faversham and back without craving something else, but then that goes for all the other routes too.
My most played UK route is by far the Cathcart Circle. Sure, it has a bit of repetition (there’s only so many times you can enjoy seeing Crosshill), but considering I’m not a big fan of the start-stop kinds of routes, Cathcart manages to be a really enjoyable route for me. I like the Class 314. I like the circle services. The Newton branch is great. The Neilston branch is very interesting. It’s a wonderful route.
I agree with you on that. I’m really not that interested in many of the high speed services. For example, the ICE services on HMA are literally “drive out of city -> full throttle -> arrive at destination”. They do get boring really quickly. It does get a bit more interesting if there’s something to do for the driver during the ride, for example on SKA, which changes from high speed to regular mainline halfway through and has some interesting curves and speed changes. SEHS is another great example. You’ve got a quick high speed dash with lots of variety (tunnels, bridges, gradients), and then you sort of turn into a normal commuter service with some incredibly slow and twisty sections. It’s just a very interesting mix of slow and fast, and I really appreciate that experience.
Just completed a Railtour service on Cathcart recently. What a great ride, really reminded me of the many reasons why Cathcart is the only route I’ve completed all journey missions on!
The main reason Gatwick Express AI trains haven’t been introduced on ECW yet is because it hasn’t received a huge preservation crew update since the Rush Hour DLCs were released. Besides, it would probably not be easy to insert Gatwick Express AI services into the existing timetable unless they deliberately left open spaces for them back when they initially made the timetable years ago (which I don’t think can be expected realistically). It would certainly be very difficult to find paths and platforms at Brighton for the Gatwick Express services without inadvertently screwing up the existing playable and AI services in the process. Also, it would not be possible to simply replace some of the regular Brighton-London AI with Gatwick Express AI since the amount of destinations is different, which would lead to incorrect PIS. On routes where adding new AI services after release is a realistic possibility, the developers have done it. For example, there are multiple AI ICE services on Rapid Transit which were added in a recent Preservation Crew update.
Remember that a new and different timetable was created to incorporate the 313 on ECW just a few months back -- after London Brighton.
To be fair, they didn’t really create a new timetable. They just copied the old timetable and replaced all the services on the Seaford branch with the 313.