Just Trains Making Wcml Over Shap And Br Class 87

I've not heard anything but I do hope so, there are placeholders in place for the 87 on the Glasgow-Euston services which are currently 47 hauled. JT have probably got it all covered.

 

I am not concerned about the Flying Scotsman being there as a layer, not only will I be able to prove its superiority over the LMR locos beating Shap, but these days we can just disable the layer anyway. What I actually came here to say were that I realised there were mixed sets in the screenshots, but others seem to have been much quicker at clocking onto that one than I were.

 

Yeah if I can remove Flying Scotsman as a layer I will do, sodding Flying Cashcow haha.

 

There's a fab video covering the aspects of driving the class 87 by Matt on ts classic including neutral sections and on wcml.

 

Love the screenshots and can't wait to experience the route - it's a credit to the design team that I recognise some of those pics by the scenery from my numerous times getting the train between Penrith and Manchester.

If they bring out this and the Manchester route around the same time, my bank balance will be taking a bit of a hit! I've been holding out on buying various bits and bobs (the WCML South + Pendolino, the London line and the new trains for Scotland) till there's a sale, but these two coming routes I doubt I'll have the patience to hold out on. Thankfully I already have pretty much all the DLC to get full value for Preston-Carlisle.

 

So I think I get it now just from watching that video alone.

Notch up: takes it up a bit at time. Isn't continuous.

Run up: continuous. You want to ensure with both notch up and run up they are not moving beyond yellow zone as engine overloads.

If going to fast and want to coast it's best to run down or notch down. And then hold.

And for neutral sections you want to make sure you run the engine down to zero.

 

One thing I don't understand is the two guages to right of the ammeter load thing in cab which shows different coloured zones.

Are they the power output indicators. Why are there two guages if only one engine? A bit confused.

 

Edit: two notch indicators as one is for another loco and another for the loco you are driving.

 

So if the notch indicator showed you reached max notches (100%) which is an indication of the power applied and you were to tap up more would it not let you.

 

No, you can’t go above 100%.

 

I've found this cabride video from Penrith to Oxenholme

 

I must caveat what I’m about to say with two things. One, it’s in reference to the screenshots in the quoted post and two, pointing out that I’m a huge fan of Just Trains and rate their stuff very very highly indeed. I’ve said it consistently for a long time (since they upped their game significantly when they started on Midland Mainline) but there is a huge elephant in the room here that needs addressing….

In those images the distant scenery looks like a monumental step backwards.

In TSW4 and onwards DTG brought in a technique whereby they were able to import very high resolution Lidar data (terrain meshes and imaging) to the game (much like flight sim), giving us scenery like we saw in Voralberg, Antelope Valley, Salzburg, Bernina Line and many others. This was supposed to be the new standard and I struggle to think of a post TSW4 route that doesn’t use this technique. As I said, even Rivet knocked it out of the park with Bernina Line as the distant scenery on that route was amazing. Just in case anyone had forgotten how good it was;




This however, is meant to be Lune Gorge in TSW5;



This is a real-world shot of the same area;



So why does the area around Lune Gorge look like Train Sim Classic? It’s not overly dramatic to say that it simply doesn’t stack up against other new TSW routes because we know how TSW can (and should) look, and we can also see how it is in the real world. I’ve driven through that area many times for real and, if nothing else, the perspective and scale is all wrong. The majesty of Lune Gorge is quite breathtaking in reality and it looks very much like Just Trains have failed to recreate that in its entirety for some reason. I’m also very surprised to see a preponderance of really obvious 2D tree models on the hills which reminds me of the bad old days of Mein Spessart Bahn.



What is going on here? Have JT bitten off more than they can chew? Is the dreaded TSW deadline issue coming back to bite us all on the backside yet again? I really really hope not but a picture paints a thousand words. I’m just beyond baffled by it to be honest. It can’t be a performance thing because those other mentioned routes came out on console. All the low-down, moody, misty shots look epic but all the shots with distant scenery in them leave a lot to be desired to me.

The degree to which I’m looking forward to this route has really been tempered by these screenshots because winding through that gorge in a 87 with the terrain fidelity seen in Bernina Line, Voralberg etc should have been epic but as it stands it isn’t going to be. The whole point of this route is the scenery. It’s the trains too yes, but without the scenery to match it just isn’t the same.

The huge inconsistencies in this game continue to baffle me. Why are 3rd party developers not made to use the new Lidar technique? Why is there not a set standard that all routes must hit going forward? When it’s a developer of the standard of JT omitting quite major features like this I do find it even more confusing to be honest. I’m not asking for the world, just a bit of consistency and where high resolution imaging and meshes are the norm for it to remain so. Where new features are added to the game then that should be the base standard for all content, 1st, 2nd or 3rd party, on all subsequent releases. Something that should have set a new standard is simply going to be a shoulder shrug instead. What an absolute shame.

 

It does look bad but I'm not sure what else they could do other than mixing up the grass textures. There aren't rocks or trees to mask them bare terrain, they really are just big grassy hills with nothing on them.

Those aren't 2D trees, they're the LOD versions of standard 3D trees. DTG policy as far as I'm aware is for true 2D trees to never be used. If you look at the actual 2D trees used on ECW for example you will notice a large difference.

 

As I said, the use of lidar data and imaging has been the case with all (or most) other TSW4 routes. I believe those are real world satellite textures, not man-made ones. No way did Rivet hand paint the texture on those mountains (if they did then where the hell has that Rivet disappeared to?). In the same way that FS works I’d bet they are satellite images which is the whole point of importing terrain of that quality. It might need colour correcting and tidying up but the essence of it is a real world image. You can literally see what they ‘could have done’ in the Bernina Line screenshots. Instead they’ve done it the (very) old fashioned way and I just don’t understand why, we’re supposed to have moved on from that.

FWIW this is the sort of Lidar data available for the UK (and Germany and the US too), why is it not being used? Just look at the screenshots on that product page and note what it says about the impact on performance. Note also that this same product is available for console. There is no reason distant scenery in TSW can’t look like this;

https://orbxdirect.com/product/eu-b...pGN0WG3xNUpXlcujb8gn74rUMMUVvchwyk6rzFzAjUVMT

Regarding the trees, they are absolutely 2D trees, and they’re listed as a distant asset in the editor. Many routes use them in and amongst 3D trees to fill the area without knackering performance. That makes total sense. What doesn’t make sense is using them on their own without 3D trees in the mix as in the second image I posted.

 

Yes but the only difference is that the 8F (and the Jubilee layer for Over Shap) isn't AWS-fitted so it is mostly accurate whilst this is what Flying Scotsman looked like in the 80s - https://www.flickr.com/photos/71592768@N08/14000860916/in/photostream/

I don't want to sound like a rivet-counter but the TSW Flying Scotsman is GSM-R fitted (which wasn't introduced until 2000) and also has the modern flashing tail lamp..

Again, I don't mean to be pedantic but I think it would ruin the immurson if (say) your driving an 87 from Carlisle to Preston and a 2023-condition Flying Scotsman passes you on the other track

 

Just Trains don't do release dates so only DTG will confirm. However Just Trains did confirm when replying to a comment on Facebook that the route isn't being release in October..

My guess is that they are doing the same thing they did with Blackpool Branches - They announced the route in August/September and releasing in November. The Friday Screenshots were taken during beta-testing so shouldn't be too long now (month or two at most).

In short, we could see Dovetail announce the release date in a Over Shap-sentric Article late October to Early November

 

Agreed, for me it is the same if a class 40 comes past as they also would not have been seen in 1986. Assuming JT have set up the substitutions in the same way as they have in BPO then we can deselect what we don't want to see.

 

I thought the hills looked a bit cartoonish, reminded me a bit of Arosa. I must admit thought I was not brave enough to say anything!

I will still be getting the route as it is my era and I am sure most of the scenery and detail will be great, as well as the trains, but the Lune Gorge which should be one of the highlights of the route won't be so satisfying.

 

I believe the reason JT included the class 40 as a layer was because TSW is a bit sparse for BR-era diesels. Would have been nice if the class 37 & 20 had more to do in the route. The 37 was AI only and only appeared on freight trains and the Class 20 would only been seen hauling the Preston Docker railtour

 

Route's not finished yet so it can be fixed and additionally don't be a perfectionist as there is no way JT can make the route look like the Matrix.
Edit: trying to mention JT in this post do they have an account by any chance.

 

They're not comparing it to the Matrix though, they're comparing it to other DTG & Rivet routes. It's completely fair to hold JT to the same standards as other companies, and 100% distant scenery's rather meh. Honestly I remember even thinking that on Blackpool to an extent as well, but it was easier to ignore because that was a much flatter route.

 

The amazing "lidar views" got me back to TSW, after only playing TSC for a couple years again... the views on Bernina Line/Vorarlberg and the twenty four timetable are the two things that seperate TSW from TSC. How can you not include that in the new JT route? I never even noticed when briefly looking at the new screenshots. Thanks and not thanks for pointing that out JetWash.
I hope JT comments on this issue...

And one more thing in defense of Rivet: I also own the Bernina Line on TSC and it´s by far the best distant mountain scenery you will see in that game. They did an amazing job painting the terrain of mountains in Train Sim Classic and covering the area around ospizio bernina with snow in all seasons. I´m baffled that they are spending so much time on random scottish communter lines, rather than doing, what they are good at. Why no more stunning mountain scenery in Switzerland oder maybe the Highland Line in Scotland?

 

It kind of made sense why you don’t see the 37 (aside from that WCL Substitution) hauling passengers

Edit: Forgot to say why.
It’s because the 37’s we do have didn’t have ETH/ETS
And if the /7 does have ETS, It’s the wrong livery / time period as oakleymoss#1362 pointed out to me when I said that Blackpool had a 8F from 1958, relating to that it has GSMR which didn’t exist in 1986/7

 

There is a very abrupt transition between the dun coloured moorland terrain and the lower grassy slopes. Never got that far in the editor but surely there must be a way of blending adjoining textures to avoid that effect? Mind that said, the painting tools in TSC were a PITA to work with when it came to mixing and swirling different textures together (Trainz Surveyor is still King in that area) but one would have thought the TSW editor would offer more flexibility.

Hopefully if JT are reading this (constructive) feedback, they will go back in and have another pass over the areas to try and impart a more lifelike appearance.

 

Only 37/4s had ETH, none were in the original Railfreight single tone grey as they were delivered from conversion into Large logo blue. 37/4s were rare in Blackpool until 1989 when the Nottingham to Blackpool was running. 20s would have been a lot more common through Preston than the railtour as they dominated the coal trains in the North West on HAA wagons which we don't have in TSW.

 

In 1986 there were still some steam heated passenger trains in operation although very few and their demise was imminent.

In summer it was not at all unusual to see "freight" loco's on passenger trains as heating wasn't required.

 

May help to know that Rivet Games are led by Tim Gatland, who is the co-founder of Dovetail Games (in fact "RailSimulator.com" - basically Gatland gave the funds to Kuju to make Rail Simulator with his then company Fund4Games), and they are based in Scotland and used to be a DTG studio that was set up by the other Alan Thomson (Thomson Interactive). Both Rivet and Thomson were seemingly in love with the swiss mountains.

I do agree - a Highlands route is sorely missing. (Personally, I'm not a big fan of bus stop commuter gameplay.)

 

Surprised the Mallaig line isn't done.

 

Just saw this is a JT thread - pardon for going OT.

 

But isn't Thomson still running separately to Rivet?

 

Yes. Though their last release was Glasgow - Dunblane / Alloa, more than a year ago. Can't imagine them surviving if they're not making money with other stuff. Many 3rd parties are also 2nd party contractors, because you can't run a business from selling one DLC per year to a few thousand customers, this work needs funding through other sources of employment, bear in mind that both Steam or the other platforms and DTG are getting their cut from the DLC, leaving not that much for the third party dev, also a reason many former TSC devs are staying away from TSW because they cannot publish their stuff independently from DTG any more.

So you will have to wait for SimTrack and other 3rd parties, because they can't live from TSW but are developing in their spare time next to their jobs.

 

Me too, but reading Matt’s comments in the “Better Suggestions” thread it’s the traffic levels that probably put it down the list. I mean I personally would pay £30 Day One for 1982 with a Class 27 and the transition to steam heat 37’s just starting. In fact I was running one of the Bossman Black Five scenarios on the route in TSC a few evenings ago and thinking then, how great this would look in TSW particularly if they could get LiDAR terrain data in there.

 

Yes, DTG do not want to make such routes. Cane Creek was done by Skyhook, it was more a LIDAR showoff, but easy to build route with hardly any signals, an empty timetable and reused stock.

Skyhook fell flat on their face with MML, and the cost for fixing that route eventually led to their decision to focus on other products, selling 3D models and their own Lawn Mower sim. Route building has not made them famous. (Their last effort for TSC, the Alexandria-Monroe route, was also very quickly put together with lots of floating scenery and reused stock).

 

I too would love to see this route, especially in BR days whether it was 27's or 37's, preferably 27's though. I wouldn't even object to a version with a class 156 but that wouldn't nearly be as interesting.

Surely most would see that routes like Fort William to Mallaig are special in their own right and that you don't need a half hourly service for a route to be interesting.

This sort of route is the opposite of something like BML and WCMLS and therefore represents another strand of railway operation.

I don't believe the Tadami line will be very busy either.

We will never see routes in places like the Highlands or in many parts of Wales and parts of rural England if traffic levels are always going to be one of the main considerations behind route selection and certain styles of routes and railway operations will never be experienced in TSW.

 

Berninaline and all the Swiss routes on TSC are great! I just bought all that stuff in the massive Rivet sale (thanks for that). They should really extend Bernina to St. Moritz like in TSC and build the other Rhb routes. This Lidar stuff looks stunning and should be used more in TSW going forward.

 

Agreed, and there's a nice selection of stock available (Glacier Express, and for OldVern the brilliant FahrBar coach https://store.steampowered.com/app/2202027/TS_Marketplace_FahrBAR_Charity_Coach_Pack/



So how are we gonna get back to JustTrains making WCML over Shap here..?

Here's Lancaster and Preston in TSC

 

But they never fill the busy routes properly, even BML had no Thameslinks although certainly busy. I get a little bored with some routes that have a conveyer belt of the same train (which isn't usually the case in reality) The West Highland is an iconic route which has the Steam angle and If set at the right time quite a bit of freight activity in Fort William area, set it now though only the Alcan runs. Here's hoping for early 80s...

 

That’s not going to be ‘fixed’, it can’t be. Also, I’m not being a perfectionist, I’m simply asking why what is now a standard feature of TSW is so conspicuous by its absence on a route that would benefit from it most?

ps There’s nothing wrong with being a perfectionist by the way, or at least always striving to do your best. Perhaps if more people took pride in what they did and held themselves to higher standards generally things wouldn’t be such a flippin’ mess (general comment not aimed at JT or this route!)

 

Personally I think it looks really fab.

 

Hi All,

In response to the Lidar issue/hill issue. We have used Lidar, which gives the high detailed creases which you can see in the quoted screenshot, there are very noticable little bumps on certain areas of the lune gorge in a similar vein to other Lidar routes, these may not be seen in the screenshot but they are there and you'll see them when you drive along. We haven't used the same "smart" landscape material as Rivet would've used on Bernina but this is because as below, the Lune Gorge is a valley of hills, not mountains of rocks and cliffs.

Comparing Bernina and WCMLPC will not really work as the valley floor in the Lune Gorge is c150m and the tops of the hills are (only) 350m, these aren't mountains, but rolling moorland hills/fells. Bernina area in general by comparison varies from 1500m to 4000m as seen in the screenshot, it is alpine mountains, a rather different affair to the hills of northern England. We did try our best with terrain paint and scenery to give flavour to the hills and we are impressed with what Thomas has achieved with his scenery. Of course others may disagree and this is a matter of opinion and in turn, is absolutely fine.

In reference to the Carnforth tree issue, that's because the 3D trees do not render that far away, intentionally so they don't draw on performance. I'm not sure how I got that shot anyway to be honest as it's seemingly above/at the maximum height of the playable camera! 2D trees again was an intentional decision and I'm confident the vast majority of users would not have/will not notice them unduly. Perhaps a bad choice of screenshot on my part.

Ref 60103 appearing. Purely to give people something different to do. You will only see it in one month of the year and sadly it's a case of meeting expectations, if we don't include a steam tour then we'd see a good number of people asking why we hadn't (The Jubilee is also playable on this tour). Its the same for the slight variations such as use of Class 40. Once again an intentional decision to give people the most entertaining gameplay without strictly saying "This is exactly how the WCML was on the 19th August 1986". That's not our goal. The 1986-7 timetable is used and the core stock/gameplay focuses on that, however beyond that there's leeway inserted to allow use of other locos etc. Hopefully this is understandable for the vast majority of users, fully understand that if you want a precise authentic approach that this may not be to your liking.

I haven't tried it myself but I understand there is/was meant to be a feature in TSW5 where you can turn of layers. Perhaps this might be the best bet for those who only want to see certain trains. The Class 40 for instance has no "turns" of it's own. It layers into turns carried out by other locos and in most cases is workings where they had previously worked a couple of years prior.

Thanks for the feedback and we look forward to you all getting your hands on the product. We're confident its a step beyond Blackpool Branches and we've really put all our power into providing a fun experience. Thanks also for the kind words, these do not go unnoticed.

Cheers,
Mark

 

Appreciate the update. It's one I'm really looking forward too as its from my era, so to speak.

 

Like the Class 40 and 45 Diesels, I think Steam locos requires a bit of artistic license on this route, unless you switch the layers off.

Whilst Steamtown Carnforth was used as a base for mainline Steam locos during that time period (Scotsman included, albeit without smoke deflectors, double chimney and in LNER livery), Steam was banned from electrified routes at that time (tours out of Carnforth generally ran along the Cumbrian Coast and tours to Carlisle ran via the Settle and Carlisle line instead), so for example the LMS Jubilee railtour for the route JT previously mentioned that runs from Preston to Carlisle via Shap, would not have been able to happen until the early to mid 90's in reality.

But as someone who's interest is in Steam, I'm fine with Scotsman and the Jubilee being included on the route and looking forward to the challenge of driving them over Shap, as well as trying out the 87 and other services.

 

ok fair play.. I knew that the 1968 steam ban was lifted in 1972 but I didn't know that steam tours were banned from electrified routes until the 90s

 

Thanks very much for the input @JTMark, I’m sure it’s something that has been said before but is worth repeating: it is really apparent both this and Blackpool Branches are/were true passion projects. Thank you!

 

Indeed, steam of course was common up the Cumbrian Coast in this era but the first up Shap wasn't until the 90s as you say. It's a shame we don't have a Duchess or Lizzie to throw over there, alas Scotsman is about the best big loco we have and the Jubilee was as close as we could get to proper LMS power over the hills. It's fun to drive them over there. I also had a lot of fun getting the A3 up shap in the snow from a stand at Tebay in a free roam, despite the flaws in TSW's steam operation.

 

The only issue I have with the Scotsman is that it's the modern version with smoke deflectors on a vintage route so i'll probably disable that layer and have the Jubilee's appear instead. Gonna be too weird to have a modern train fitted with GSMR and AWS on an 80's route but that's of course not JT's fault.

One question I have for Mark or anyone at JT who can answer, does the route has AWS fitted? I'm assuming by 1986 AWS was fitted on the route in reality

 

Does the AWS fitted Jubilee from WCL also layer on this tour?

 

I don't think we had realised that Jubilee was different. I'll ask Benedict and see if we can get it layered in.