London Overground Mildmay Line: Stratford-willesden Junction Discussion Thread

My 2 cents on the matter,

i fully respect the guy that’s made the route, I’m sure he’s done a fantastic job with it and I look forward to seeing it finished.

Do I think it was a good idea for TSW right now? I don’t know. It takes me back to Goblin Line, a decent route but incredibly boring after just a few runs which are all identical. And this isn’t even a complete run and I can’t imagine feeling much satisfaction for having completed it.

I also think TSW can’t afford this copy and paste of the same route style when there’s still such limited content available (in comparison to TSC for example). An EMU doing a short stopping service that doesn’t provide any variety. Think to Glossops Line, Goblin Line, Birmingham Cross City, ATS’s new Manchester route. It’s just all the same. There’s so many parts of the UK that still haven’t been explored, it’s disappointing to me that yet another one is coming.

All that being said though, I’m happy that we are seeing more and more third parties that can provide eras and trains they are specifically good at, perhaps allowing DTG to explore other markets with their routes.

 

DTG themselves have acknowledged that players do want longer routes so the criticisms of the length are clearly understandable.

 

That is not the purpose of a discussion thread. People can have whatever thoughts they want. Telling people to effectively not give their thoughts makes no sense as basically comes off as people should only give their thoughts if it's positive or conforms to your views

 

Yeah, I guess that was me who wrote that on the German forum. My main point was that many people use it as an excuse that it's just one person working on this route.
My whole comment was (translated in English for this forum):

The comparison between solo developer and a development team doesn’t really make sense to me. Sure, a single person has to handle more on their own, but if we look at it from a business perspective, it’s about the total number of man-hours.

If a painter I hire comes alone instead of with a team, I don’t expect to get only half the room painted for the same price just because they’re working solo instead of with someone else.

In the end, 200 hours of work are 200 hours of work. Sure, two people can complete them in half the time, but they’d also only earn half the money per person for it.

Completely separate from the solo developer/development team discussion, my issue with routes like this in TSW is:

Unlike TSC, there are no expansions in TSW. The community can’t contribute either because editing existing routes in the editor isn’t possible. And DTG normally don't do extensions either. The only extensions we’ve had so far (DR and SEHS) were free updates for those who already owned the route. So that’s bound to remain an exception.

What this means is that for years to come, if not forever, we’ll be stuck with half a route in TSW. No one is going to rebuild the already existing section, and no one’s likely to build Richmond to Willesden Junction either, since just five stations would make even less sense on their own.

It’s such a shame because there’s so much wasted potential here. The section to Richmond, compared to what’s being announced, has longer distances between stops, the AC OHLE to DC third rail switch, and a bit more of a suburban vibe, giving the route a distinctly different character.

If it were clear that an extension would come — or even just that it were possible — I’d look at the whole thing differently.

 

1. Happy to see another Overground route. It is one of my fav modern UK networks. I like Goblin line.

2. Happy to see another third party.

3. I've been waiting for a Capitalstar.

4. A one man route is interesting to me, I am curious how it turns out. On the one hand its a lot of work for one person but on the other it means every detail of the route will be overseen by the same mind instead of multiple people stitching work together.

5. For the length, I do prefer routes like this to go from end to end, because that lets you take one train back and forth which is how I like to play the shorter routes. I don't care so much about how many miles a route is, its more the gameplay of them. When we do get short ones I like to take on train from end to end as a realistic driver day, multiple times, which I can't do if I have to give it up at a station before the terminus. That said the layout is a dev choice and our choice is to buy it or not, there's not much point in going on ad nauseam about wanting it to be longer.

 

Manchester Airport Commuter is non-linear though?

 

Giving my opinion, which should be as valuable as the opinion of others. You may think what you want, but everything said here is speculative till we see the final result.

 

Don't you think it's funny how the person saying that you can't handle people having a opposing opinion to yours is basically not being able to handle that your opinion is opposing theirs, the hypocrisy of people trapped in the confinement of their own point of view and not being able to see beyond the never ending walls of their own creation will probably be the doom of humanity......

 

I don't have an issue if his opinion is different. Not sure where you got that from. It doesn't make sense though to tell people not to have thoughts on a dicussion thread which is basically what he did

 

Making assumptions here as we don’t know the price or what the final quality will be but

1) Assuming it’ll be around the same price as the Suffragette Line. I’m fine with that. I want the 378 and to me it’s worth the price.

2) Assuming the quality is good I will enjoy it, I like stopping passenger services and although it’s short, there are a lot of stations, so time wise, the runs will be decent.

I totally get that the truncation of the route will be an immersion breaker for some. It is for me on the Bernina Line which I know well. But as I don’t know this line at all, it’s not going to affect me.

Finally I do see this as an investment in the future if TSW. If it does well then the developer will likely do more things I like in the future. If it doesn’t then they may be discouraged and not bother. However as a fan of ‘Bus Stop’ services, I’d like to see more like this and wish the developer much success.

 

I’ve shared my opinion previously & remained supportive or at the very least neutral to the announcement, but there is one actual issue I fear I am going to have - Passengers.

The only reason I bought Goblin was to facilitate the DC line on WCML, but did play a couple of services on it & whilst I won’t deny that it is a very nice route with plenty of detail, it doesn’t capture London very well. There are variety of reasons for that but the biggest one IMO is passengers.

The busiest it gets is you might get 10-20 of them meandering upto the platform at some point, but more often than not there’s just a small handful of them that spawn in when you’re already on the platform & 15 seconds from leaving.

I did notice that DTG put effort into giving them more props & actions etc, but so far there has been nothing to address the core issue, which is there just aren’t enough of them.

Now Goblin line IRL can get busy but, throughout the day it isn’t what I’d describe as bustling, so it’s not as in your face when you’re playing between 10am & 3pm.

NLL however is going to be going through some very busy stations. It traverses through much busier areas of London & I really worry about the atmosphere.

DTG made a song & dance out of AI on Goblin but it turned out that most of it appeared on a bridge you can see a few meters of, for about 10 seconds of your run. I really hope NLL can improve on that so we at least get some sense of bustle.

Ultimately though I really hope something is being done about pax spawn distances & numbers. I’d rather have Stratford full of passengers standing around, as opposed to 10 playing on a phone.

 

Apologies if I’ve missed this posted elsewhere - DTG Liam will this layer onto WCMLS please?

 

I'm just a bit disappointed because had the route been extended to Richmond it would've gone past my old house lol.

 

Homerton IRL v TSW


Not too bad.
(Not the best St. View ever, I know.)

 

Better Street View screencap:

Overall it looks pretty good but the roads need cleaning up, the station building is missing features like the windows and double arrow, and it would be nice if the height warning on the bridge was included because it really catches the eye.

 

Can't help but notice the age old return of the sidewalk continuing across the middle of a junction. I can see that it's raised to pavement level in reality, but it's also the same colour as the road. Also, bicycle parking in the middle of the road complete with steel fence posts? Asides from that though this all looks pretty decent.

 

Bicycle parking is actually pretty spot on, it’s an increasingly common sight in London. The pavement is my biggest gripe with this screenshot, otherwise it’s looking good.

 

Ah didn't see that in the street view shots posted above. But yeah that pavement is way more glaring.

 

To those questioning the route because it’s too similar to Goblin - erm no it has a brand new train.
Glossop and Manchester don’t.
Bring it on I say.

 

You know this forum can be a funny old place. Not so long ago there was a thread about accepting recycled trains on new routes, I'm not a fan and said so, but many thought it was perfectly ok to do that, each to their own. But here we have a NEW route and a NEW train and some people are still moaning. I bet those people didn't say anything against the recycled trains. Perhaps because it's in London some people don't like it?

 

I think it's because the ATS route has a logical end to end run and a small terminus at Manchester Airport (as well as some other services on part of the Styal line). I don't mind the fact it resuses the 323 as it's authentic to that line.

Whilst it's great the 378 is coming to TSW, the issue (which I've discussed my own opinions of to death so won't bore you with them), is that only part of the NLL is being included, which in itself is a very short in its entirety anyway. The 378 at the moment is only really offering something with it's ability to layer onto other routes for me.

Each to their own though.

 

Operationally and scenically it is copy and paste of Goblin, with every run stopping everywhere and those stops being just a drop over half a mile apart, on average on the NLL, going through London, itself a rather dull and depressing sort of place, but that is perhaps a topic for elsewhere, and nothing to distinguish this route really.

Yes the unit is different to Goblin, but it is just a normal electrostar which has had a nose job and won't differ massively when driving it to the 710. The unit is just providing an existing driving experience, on an existing route experience.

Like I say, good luck to the lad making this, but I just think this were the worst way I could have imagined him joining the 3rd party pool.

 

The word you're looking for is "fickle"

 

If you actually have bothered to read the criticisms, you would realize that it has nothing to do with the route being in London

 

Agree with the above. Nothing wrong with another London route and we’re not being fickle or picky. It’s just that to make it even remotely interesting, it needs to run between the service end points or, well, at least one of them. Plus at the risk of repeating what’s been said several times - once this goes live, no one else is going to come along and do NLL in its entirety, will become just another part route electric bus stop service in the TSW collection.

 

The only thing which I, personally, would say gives NLL the edge over Goblin is the split of destinations in the west - something we won't get.

As it is (and while I'm not particularly upset with this) it's a case of a route which will feel basically the exact same.

As I said before I understand why the route hasn't went to Richmond or, in particular, Clapham, but it has lost it's one big advantage in doing so.

All three overground lines that we do/will have are A-B runs with no variety in that.

 

I understand what you say, however it's a single developer who began this as a passion project. He's taken on a huge project just with the portion he has chosen as it's not empty fields and a few trees, but a very built up environment of London with often extensive views from raised sections so the route needs to be built out a very long way. Add to this the fact that he's built a whole new train from scratch as well, on his own again.
Consequently you can see what a vast undertaking this was.
That extra 5 miles to Richmond would have been a huge undertaking for him, besides his route already has 18 stations and a 44 minute drive that puts it well into what we expect in this game.

 

I understand. As I've mentioned previously, I think as a solo developer it would of been a better idea spending a few more months on the project and going the extra 5 miles to Richmond which would have been a more logical conclusion.

You can see the developer has his head screwed on in terms of the detail, so I don't think it's beyond the realm of impossibility that'll he'll extend it to Richmond at some time in the future. Would sure make a good end to end route... So fingers crossed. It's one of the reasons it won't be purchased by me though.

What makes the DC Lines and Goblin lso attractive to me as a player is the ability to run full services, and what they lack in mileage they sure make up for with the amount of playability and scenery that they offer.

 

I wonder if we'll see the route extended once the first part has come out, and see the branches added, as a two part type scenario?

 

Actually willing to pay a full price day 1 for a (complete) line if its well done.

To be honest Tsw offers a lot of good content and routes, but im really not interested in incomplete half lines, especially around london.

I rather prefere a shorter complete route or section. This literally stops in the middle, so no buy until sale from my side.

Probably its best if the dev is thinking over this project and considers to actually create the line to richmond. I can immagine im not the only one who thinks that half lines are an absolute dealbraker.

 

I'm not sure if this has been awnsered. Will the Class 378 have its own dedicated sounds rather than recycling from the 377?

 

Anything less than a real extension in the same map will be a disappointment, and so far the only one of those we’ve had is the Leven branch where the track was laid during the original build, and that was stated in advance as coming later.
I’m not optimistic at the moment. TSW and optimism are not good bedfellows.

 

I actually think an extension is likely, the developer started trying to create the entire LO system but it was scaled back to a section. It's a big task for one man.

Or, if I can bribe the developer with a tenner, he could extend the other end of the GOBLIN slightly to include all of the LTS/C2C line so that, with route hopping, you can drive a freight train from London Gateway docks in Essex to Milton Keynes via GOBLIN and NLL.

I was going to try not to mention the LTS/C2C this year, give everyone a rest from it. I've failed.

 

The obvious solution is for DTG to finally do an SWR network route with the overground layering in so it effectively finishes the route for him. Perhaps if route hopping is enhanced so that a portal is present on track so you can carry on the service while still in driver mode.

 

I'm looking forward to the upcoming route although it's short I've started seeing the fine balance you find Shorter routes are way more In depth with scenery and the longer ones are just minimalistic for memory usage and if it's 8 trains per hour and freight services it's gonna be guaranteed a yellow light won't be far away so I'm looking forward to a new EMU and another London route and hopefully the low speeds and frequent stops are paired with enjoyable views outside the cab

 

I suspect the big difficulty for extending the route comes from the fact that for Richmond you'd really need District Line stock as the routes run together and for Clapham Junction you'd need some representation of the Waterloo commuter stock, or that end of the route would be quite bare.

For me, Willesden Jct. to Stratford makes a good distance and acceptable driving time.

My main hope is that someone does Freightliner 86s and 70s that can be layered in as they were quite a regular sight on NLL freight.

 

TSW is no stranger to missing layers/empty stations. However, Clapham Junction is there on London Commuter and they could use the reskinned 484 as AI District Line layers if they wished.

For Incredible Trains, that may be a bit much to ask. We must temper expectations for a one-man army.

 

A few more screenshots on this route, not many too notable ones but in this one there are class 710 reskined as Elizabeth line ones I believe. And in the background you can see possibly a greater anglia one if I’m not mistaken? And also in the background there is a DLR train! Looking forward to this route!

And the iconic London buses!

 

A Boris bus which add more realism and he also made a B07 as AI just for the scenery ! That’s proper dedication for a one man army work.

 

It’s a while since I’ve been to London. Is this what Routemaster buses look like these days? Bring back the old design is what I say. But then, I’m an old codger.

 

This new Overground route I feel will be like GOBLIN, but 10x better; more work has been put in to get that 'London' vibe just right, and I feel that has been missing from recent routes.

 

The other screenshots from the Roadmap and Facebook

 

Blame Boris.

 

This is shaping up to be a real stand-out route - well done incrediblehannes!

 

Blame health & safety….no more buses with open platforms…

 

Not just in London, everywhere. I remember back in the day on double deckers with rear platforms, people would walk down the stairs ready to alight, when the bus was in motion, swaying along. I suppose there must have been the odd accident where someone tumbled off the platform into following traffic, but not an everyday occurrence.

These days on modern hermetically sealed vehicles there are notices everywhere telling people not to even stand up until the bus is stationary at the stop,

 

And the DLR train looking quite accurate with the branded livery

 

And we have packets of nuts with "May contain nuts" stamped on them.

 

Don’t forget coffee cups that state ‘contents may be hot’ lol

 

Then there's stuff which is obviously not food carrying a label saying something along the lines of "not suitable for consumption".

Anyway,