Dovetail have set a recent trend of moving into more historical German content so I wanted to put forward the out there suggestion that I've had in my head for a while. I find Cold War history just fascinating and the great thing about a routes like Crewe-Liverpool is that they're actually able to recreate a little slice of life from a particular era. Therefore I'm proposing having the Berlin S-Bahn line S1 set in about 1987. This would put it after the sale to BVG (and some limited modernisation work), but still firmly within the completely unique era of a divided city with trains taking commuters through not-quite-hostile territory as the line criss-crosses the inter-Berlin border. My proposed line is S1 from Frohnau in West Berlin's north to Wannsee in its south-western tip. At the time it consisted of 24 active stations plus 5 ghost stations. It would be the first 750V DC German route Obviously one of the unique things about setting this route in the period is having the north-south tunnel, Containing lines S1, S2, and S3, which actually go into the territory of the GDR. The Geisterbahnhof (ghost stations) along this section of the route such as Potsdamer Platz were left dimly lit, sealed off from the streets above, and patrolled by East German Border Guards. These would be eery and atmospheric, as well as having unique operations requiring the driver to slow for the station but not stop. The route also contained the only above-ground ghost station at Bornholmer Strasse and straddled the Berlin wall for a section of the route including the Wollankstrasse station within East Berlin (but due to the exits being in the West trains were permitted to stop). Finally in this period Friedrichstrasse within East Berlin operated as a border crossing, with S-bahn passengers permitted to change onto the U-bahn or go through passport control. The relevant rolling stock would be the DR class 275. This would be some of the oldest rolling stock in the game, these pre-war EMUs were transferred from DR to BVG to operate the lines S1, S2, S3. Some modernisation of the units was carried out in the period the route would be set. There would also be the possibility to include the prototype Class 480, in their ultimately rejected crystal livery. However I believe only two of these would be made by the proposed period. I'm aware it may seem a bit much for a train sim to be tackling something like the Cold War but I genuinely think this would be an interesting and special route that would really take advantage of TSW's ability to recreate a bit of history. Finally some video links showing the s-bahn in the period:
I think this would be an excellent addition. I always loved the red and cream color paint scheme of the Berlin S-Bahn trains and agree that this would be a fascinating time period to explore. I believe some of the old ProTrain series of MSTS add-ons explored Berlin during this time period, so I don't see why it couldn't be executed in TSW. The S25 route already exists in TSC, it shouldn't be much of a stretch to develop even a modern version of the S1 at the very least.
Are you trying to make the S25/S26 TSC Heart of Berlin route set in the 1980s? There's a manual on how to run a DR Baureihe 276/275 in TSC. Baureihe means class. DLC BVG BR480 German Wiki Link and English Wiki link Videos are in the German language about the DLC train BVG Baureihe (Class) 480 uses a Jana Louka announcement voice. Sadly DTG will force it to be like 425 442 1442 422 423 & Dostos announcer Ingo Ruff
