PC I Love Train Sim World 3

I simply have to second that. Signal(l)ing and safety systems are so vital to a railway sim that it can hardly be taken seriously without them. Please don't think you can just leave things like ATC/CSS away and nobody will miss it.

In general I can totally agree with the praise in the OP, though.

When I got TSW2 for free on the Epic Game store about two years ago, I couldn't imagine how anyone can enjoy running virtual trains on their PC. But after having figured out how to run my first trains up and down Sand Patch Grade, I got hooked by the beauty of the sandbox world and the calm of the train running. Due to the notorious lack of documentation (what in my opinion is much more a benefit than a problem), I dug deeper and deeper into train tech, railway regulations, operating rules and whatever I got into my hands and learned an incredible amount of stuff. It is so rewarding to figure something out in real-world sources, try it in the game and... actually see it work!

Eventually, I even left my car at home and switched to commuting to work by train.

 

I will hijack this question as well - for me, the biggest issue with US freight is the lack of prototypical variety. There are numerous liveries for US freight cars (already I think 4 different for autoracks?), yet they don't sub with each other. The single-color wall of autoracks is far from what it should be. Manifest trains are this weird pre-made combination of "chunks" that look the same every time. Foreign power is a bug rather than a feature now, yet you can see that regularly IRL. Ironically, SPG did it pretty well the first time with randomly generated manifests (also properly made use of livery designer freight cars), locos could also sub in, although it went a bit off the track with CRR subs. I made a thread about this some time ago if you want to read more about it, but yeah, that's the main thing holding all of the US freight routes back for me.

 

I think that's too hard and unfair to Amtrak.

Apart from the NEC which competes well with air travel, Amtrak has a very different remit to the European railroads.

The transcontinental routes are difficult to schedule and have the added burden of using tracks owned and maintained by the freight railroads with which they have to compete for trackage access.

Overall, I would say that Amtrak has done a decent job in the last 50 years and has plans for major expansion of it's network and also its equipment is improving all the time.

It's always had to fight for funding from Washington, but we finally have an administration which is on the side of passenger rail.

 

Sounds like Washington is not the only reason, according to this report.

 

You cant just build rail over someone's property without paying a high price.

 

I completely agree, despite quite a few issues that still need sorting, to have a train sim (and a great one at that) available on console is absolutely amazing (as evident by the likes of London Commuter's epic timetable - just wow). TSW in general has been, and still is, my favourite game and has been many years and hours of enjoyment which I hope long continues well into the future.

From a a big train sim fan, thank you Dovetail.

 

I think it's fair. Passengers don't care about why Amtrak is so slow or late, they just want to get to their destination in a timely manner. That there are so many factors outside of Amtrak's control which degrade service quality is of no concern to the ones paying the fare.

Cheers

 

I'll add on some thoughts to the US freight stuff too:

First, re Matt's comment on the air flow modeling issue: I posted this in my TSW3 feedback thread yesterday, but I'll share here too.

Just some other things that I think would really enhance US freight stuff:
- Add more prototypical operations. TSW simulates a combined engineer/conductor role but the conductor side is severely lacking. I want to be able to place the EOT myself, hook up air hoses and use the anglecocks. The german freight stuff is getting more advanced with the different brake modes and what not, I think its time to start giving some love to the US stuff.
- Better switching services. I don't do switching a lot, mostly because trekking along at <10 MPH isn't my thing, but occasionally I'll venture into it.
- But, things like kicking cars isn't possible in TSW since IIRC the brakes come on as soon as you uncouple (or if you're going too fast you can derail). There's also no instructions about using handbrakes to tie down sets of cars - which there are rules for how many handbrakes to apply in different scenarios, and with the "auto-brake" thing there really isn't much incentive to actually do it anyway.
- Also I think for switching services we need separate AI and player instructions. The last switching service I did on SMH (I don't remember which one it was) involved breaking one train into two and one thing that really bothered me (and usually does in switching services) is the objective stop markers are often placed way too far down the line from where you'd actually need to stop. So in that SMH service, after grabbing the cars you need to, you then have to pull like half a mile ahead to complete the objective, where in reality you'd pull just until the last car clears the switch for the track you want to enter. (I hope this makes sense). Obviously the scripted objectives are for the AI, but it'd be a much better experience to have a player objective that just says "move A-B cars from track 4 to track 5" and it's up to you to figure that out. (the AI objectives could be toggle-able for newer/inexperienced players
- Working flow meter. Also in my TSW3 feedback thread I mentioned that this is actually a useful gauge for estimating when the brakes have released (but before full recharge) and the train can get moving.
- Also adding a vote to the DPU/fencing. I've started not using the Banking Comm and just use an external camera to manually control the rear locos to simulate the fencing. However, this has its own issues with the long consist bug (the waiting screen), and for some locos it's actually impossible to open the windows from the outside with the external cameras
- Using the power notches to speed up the compressor in recharging the air. On GE units, the compressor is electrical but you can use notch 1 to speed it up if you have to do a full recharge. On EMDs, the compressor is tied to the engine and you can go to N3 to speed it up.
- Related to braking, when placing the DB handle in 'SETUP', that's when the engine should rev up (hence 'setup'). Most of the freight engines don't rev the engine up until something like DB4.5. I think they also go to N8 equivalent (at least from the audio), which isn't right. Run8 shows the RPM going to about 500 with DB engaged which should be something like N2 or N3. The Caltrain stock blended brakes actually do this correctly (you'll hear the engine spin up before the DB blends in), so the behavior has been done before.

I think everything else has already been accounted for.


And just to add more on topic to the thread, I've been critical of DTG lately, mostly because I have a different POV on their TSW3 decision and inconsistent quality of DLC recently, but TSW has given me plenty of hours of enjoyment in the almost 4 years I've owned the game. Having a first-person version of a simulator is whole different experience from something with fixed camera positions. It's much more immersive to be able to actually interact with the world rather than just "exist" in it. One of the things I really liked when I first got the game was being able to open the engine bay doors in the GP38/SD40 of SPG and actually start the engine the real way. I also probably would've never realized how much I enjoy German trains and working with PZB. I'm still not a master, but I've reached the point where I feel comfortable going past certain non-green aspects knowing I don't have to slap acknowledge. And actually if I'm being honest, the issues with TSW (like physics, signalling, etc.) have actually ended up in me going down rabbit holes of how these things actually work and I've learned quite a bit (on top of what the game teaches or Matt puts together in a three hour long PowerPoint video).

 

I happened upon this thread right after securing my 5 millionth ability point and reached level 339.

what a great thread to read.

I love this game. Period.

when I was a little boy I dreamed of being an engineer. I had a cab ride here in the us when I was 6 years old … a long time ago … and was hooked.

some 45 years later I lived out my dream as a 59th birthday present and actually drove a train on a railway in England. It was one of the engines in this game. It was a great day …. But only one day

with train sim world 3 … I get to live the dream every day on many railroads and several countries. I there will never be “enough” train sim world. Not enough routes countries scenarios services locomotives … nothing

and to put one of my absolute favorites engines … the war bonnets .. was over the top.

All I need is a gg1!

thank you @op thank you fellow railfans and thank you DTG!

 

In my experience the accelerometer on the Sherman Hill SD70ACe was so slow to react that you couldn't t really go by it (much unlike the accelerometer on the Oakville GP9RN, for example, that works great imho). Don't know if this has been improved since I last played Sherman Hill. But maybe this is the reason why it was skipped on the Cajon Pass ES44C4.

 

Personally my biggest issue with Cajon Pass is the visuals. Unfinished scenery, ugly terrain and holes in the ground near the tracks, track ballast not matching the ground ballast texture, road traffic popping in and out and driving the wrong way, etc.

Also performance is horrible in the yards. To some degree it's understandable due to the many freight cars being on the screen, I do wonder if they could be optimized further.

 

Is that also a problem for liveries? E.g. the autoracks we have - you could still have a unit train, but at least the logos and colours could vary a bit.

As I have mentioned in my thread, some sort of a "base" for each loco (and freight cars for that matter) should be considered. In this base, you have all the physics and can do necessary updates, which then apply to all its "copies". We have 3 locos with the same broken dynamic brake (CSX AC44, UP AC44, NS ES44), they all were built on one another, yet fixing them now would be about going through each of them individually (and ES44 has the new air braking if I'm not mistaken). Can't there instead be a "GE AC 6-axle 4400hp" base you could do all the fixes on and then just "dress it in" the proper model, livery, and, if needed, model-specific behavior? And although it might be a bit more complicated with locos, it should definitely work with freight cars, just an autorack physics base and a bunch of liveries for it. Training Centre should be a "database" of freight cars, routes can pull from.

 

Ah right, that’s fair enough then. My bad. I’ve deleted the post & thanks for clearing it up. Hopefully you can see, if you re-read the bit quoted by Monder, how it could be interpreted that way though.

 

For me, Cajon Pass is one of the best looking routes for scenery. It’s a night and day comparison to Sherman Hill which was very poor. It’s not perfect but as a PS5 player, I find it streets ahead of many other routes. Barstow yards have an issue with the draw distance for tracks and rolling stock and some mountains don’t draw in properly but overall it is a huge improvement, especially for distant scenery. The camera boundaries are too close to the tracks on much of the Victorville to Barstow section but otherwise it is a well built route and the AC unit works better than any other seen in TSW even if it has some missing functionality as noted elsewhere.

The road traffic system in TSW needs work and its issues stand out in Cajon Pass due to there being so much road so close to the track. There are many areas where the cars are floating which is poor and very often one vehicle stops then others drive through it, and the cars do just appear and disappear often, but I think that’s down to the system rather than the route building but I could be wrong. It can be very distracting.

 

Apart from the missing section of mountain, I will concede that TSW Cajon looks stunning compared to its Run 8 or even TSC/MSTS counterparts.

Back on the OP, it was a strange thing the last couple of evenings a toss up between playing TSW, TSC or Mass Effect Legendary edition. Guess where I ended up? TSW and driving the 150 on WCL, would you believe! Well it doesn't help that the ME_L version needs me to keep yanking the joypad out of the PC to actually be able to control the the game just too much hassle.

 

CJP is soo good \o/

 

Well, not that it gets broken, but for example, the dynamic brake on AC4400s is a problem that got solved on the newest ES44C4. The dynamic brake there works as it should. Yet this improvement never gets backported to older content, nor do the improvements to other aspects. So AC4400 will never be able to be used as a foreign power, and freight cars from before SMH won't be able to sub because they have old air brakes. The roster of in-game vehicles is growing making it possible to create varied trains like IRL, yet their interactions are limited because of different tech (and the problem with loaded substitution you've mentioned).

 

Outside the NEC, passengers on Amtrak tend to fall into one of three categories:

1. Railfans (like us).
2. Those unable to fly for medical or religious reasons (you meet a lot of Amish and similar on Amtrak).
3. Sightseeing holidaymakers enjoying a 'land cruise'.

No one's overly concerned about timekeeping (just as well), because nobody seriously ponders "I have to go from NY to Chicago, shall I take the train or fly?". It isn't really the same as rail passenger services in Europe. There is, of course, plenty of suburban rail in and around the major US cities.

 

US freight-2-passenger ratio is inverted EU one. Dense passenger rail traffic is close to non existing in US in comparison.

 

So if someone in Berlin is going on Holiday to Marbella they don't really need to consider their options?
NYC to Chicago is 790 miles, Berlin to Marbella is 1800...
Yes America is big, but please don't think that Europe isn't (Hamburg to Munich is 790 miles and that's just within Germany itself...)

 

Certainly true, but keep in mind that for a typical Amtrak long distance service, very few of the passengers journey from end to end. Long distance routes serve multiple communities along the way that have limited access to airports or other public transportation. For a small subsidy - pre - pandemic, Amtrak covered 95% of its operating costs - Amtrak provides transit to these communities and $100s of millions of economic impact.

 

What Europe is, that the US isn't (outside the NEC) is densely populated. You have to have a critical mass of potential passengers before a route becomes economically viable - or for that matter, even in demand at all.

The ICE route 11 from Hamburg to Munich stops in Berlin – Wittenberg – Leipzig – Erfurt – Eisenach – Fulda – Frankfurt – Mannheim – Stuttgart – Ulm – Augsburg. I'm not going to add up the population that represents, but compare that to the stops on the Lake Shore Limited, New York - Chicago: only Buffalo and Cleveland are major cities. Moreover, any railway's long distance services are underpinned by vigorous local/regional services, which are even more without a base in most of America.

Let's not forget that Amtrak exists because passenger rail in the USA was dying for lack of business. The railroads were begging Congress to take it off their hands because it was bleeding them to death. As it is, Amtrak has lost a billion or more dollars every single year since it was founded- the consumer demand just isn't there.

 

My apologies to the OP for leading this thread on such an unrelated tangent.

Cheers

 

I <3 TSW too \o/

For its diversity and great timetable mode

 

You cant tell me the barren landscape that TSW3 has is BETTER than the ground textures of Cajon on TSC for both Kuju's and Cajon alpha.....

The Pass itself was neglected in the route building department, at least past Hesperia towards San Bernardino. It wasnt given the same time as between Victorville and Barstow, and it shows....

 

It's a shame, that these are the kinds of things we will never see fixed...

 

But I like it like it is.

 

Not to mention there is a missing scenery asset in the game files for San Bernardino that will never be placed.
(Photo from the TSC discord)

 

I doubt many people go from Berlin to Marbella by train who don't fall into one of my three categories. You can go London-Berlin by train in a day (I've done it, but I'd place myself in category (1) ), but it's a long day and no business person would consider it a viable alternative to flying, even though it's high speed more than half the way. As solicitr points out, there are, unlike most Amtrak routes, plenty of intermediate cities to generate additional passenger traffic.

 

You’re right, I can’t, I haven’t played either and can’t tell from a couple of screenshots if it stands up throughout the whole route. I was comparing it to other TSW routes that I do know. I really don’t care what it looks like in TSC because I don’t have it and never will. I think it’s one of the better routes for TSW, that’s all.

 

There are a few things wrong with Cajon Pass. There are some scenery/ vegetation gaffs; the ballast/ track is amateurish in some stretches; the trackside signals are hard to see from a reasonable distance in some areas; and the route needs at least one more drivable loco.

None of these issues are serious enough to make the route problematic. It's still an excellent route, second only to Sand Patch Grade, though that really isn't a great compliment considering that SPG is at least 5 years old and you would expect a 2022 route to be much more advanced. But we've played that tune to death, haven't we?

 

That's too simplistic and inaccurate.

Out of Chicago, for instance, there are Amtrak routes used for business and by politicians ( to Milwaukee, Springfield and St Louis), students going to and from school ( to Champaign, Urbana and Carbondale etc.) and routes into Michigan, Indiana and Ohio which are used for purposes other than the ones you mention.

Then there are West Coast routes which are not tourist attractions, but also used for business and education.

Given the irksome nature of flying these days, many Americans find Amtrak a very viable and less nerve-racking mode of travel, other than for cross-country journeys.

 

A problem I have with the criticism of Cajon's vegetative cover is that in the Southwestern desert how much visible plant life there is is a function of the time of year and how much if any rain has fallen in the recent past. I have been in the Mojave when it was as dead and empty as the lunar surface, and other times when it was covered in thorny chaparral. The game rendition is on the barren side, but not outside the realistic range.

 

Cajon Pass, Summer time.
Seems like plenty of vegetation to me.

 

Matt, I really love TSW3, but I really miss 4 things:

1. The sound of operation and movement of the locomotive along the rails when the external chamber is turned on (key 2) is very weak or absent (from the latest BR110, BR101 and others). There is only the sound of wagons rolling at high speed. You can pass it at least at the level of sounds as when you turn on the external camera (3).

2. Switching the camera to peeking out of the cabin window (also called the shunting position) should be done in the same way on all locomotives (when the keys are pressed to the right or left for the first time at the camera view position (1). On all locomotives in different ways, where after the first press, where after the second, where after the third, where it doesn't exist at all (Lucerne) And it's best to define separate keys for these cameras as in the TC.

3. The sound volume is not enough for me at the maximum setting of the headphones on almost all routes. You can increase it to a level like on Lucerne or Spirit of Steam (I noted that there is a different maximum volume level, which means it is possible).

4. I really liked the night lighting from the 425 headlights on the burden. This can be done on all routes.

 

Some locos have a digital acceleration readout on the box - notably, both CN locos in Oakville do - but that's not quite what I'm talking about. As a Run-8 player you'll know what I'm referring to- a second "needle" (really a digital animation) on the speedo concentric with the speed indicator. This has been standard ever since the first "glass cockpit" locos from EMD and GE appeared in the 90s.

 

Here from about 4:43, etc


Specifically, it's a forecast of what your speed will be in one minute given current settings and conditions- a visual representation of the digital "mph/min" readout.

 

Usually inducing abject panic when it moves too far above your current sped, especially as the "Vernometer" now records speeding infractions!

 

Since the underlying maths already exist in TSW - they have to, given the digital readouts in some locos - it wouldn't be that huge a deal to add the needle animation to the MFD screen.

 

Ok, this is my first time seeing the accelerometer needle and I instantly love that! We have the ball on the HUD, but this MFD element is
a) really cool, definitely essential if you want to drive US freight HUDless
b) very sensitive - with the ball you really have to zoom in to see if it's above or below, this goes pretty far even with relatively small acceleration (which might also be good feedback for the ball, the scale should probably be logarithmic on it)

 

Matt, just to add to what FD1003 has already said in response to this, I would like to direct you to two more things, which prevents you from driving the 401 realistically under LZB and PZB. I had written a post on this in the past:
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/ice-1-afb-pzb-behaving-badly.61215/
Point 2) was already acknowledged in this thread, but the other two are just as annoying…

Apart from that, I am also enjoying TSW3 a lot

 

Wow, I'd hoped for a few others who appreciate TSW3 to chip in, but this blew up in all kinds of interesting directions. Stories were shared, details were nitpicked over, constructive discussion was had, management got involved.

Callum B. What an amazing journey, in every sense of the word. Funny how something that's only a little intriguing at first can lead to new paths in life. Do you tell your classmates what got you to Germany? And I had to smile at your apology for "derailing the thread" - it was interesting to read the Amtrak discussion.

DTG Matt Thanks for being so active in this thread answering people's questions and hearing their concerns. Since you mentioned how Germany was better for trainspotters than "EMU land": I dunno if you've personally stood on Hackerbrücke to watch the trains coming out of Munich Hbf, but I heartily recommend it. And a visit to the beergarden around the corner afterwards. (The one on the north side.)

One little niggle I have with the dynamic weather is that we can't start with clear weather with snow on the ground, unless I'm missing something? It's either clear with no snow at all or light snowfall. Is this something that could be changed, or would you need to go deep into the coding for that?

 

Yeah, clear starts to days with snow lying are something I saw a lot this december upon waking up.

 

A positive thread on the forum… wow never thought I’d see the day, love to see it, TSW 3 gives me endless hours of enjoyment, there maybe little annoying bugs but report them and move on, and enjoy things while we can