Makes sense - tbh I haven't really looked too closely at the timetable other than just driving/guarding a few services.
I'm guessing this means that if a Class 67 or 197 ever appear in the game, they can appear in the timetable for this route with minimal work. If so, shows some good planning to avoid issues, such as with the Birmingham route where stock like the 390s are now available but cannot appear without a whole new timetable being created.
I think they've learned from their mistakes by doing this. Almost every timetable now has the appropriate layers filled in, awaiting a possible time when the stock that ran that layer becomes available.
The thing is - if there is a shift towards these much shorter routes, TSW routes haven’t really been that long anyway, what would we do with a c67 or 197? We would need a Cardiff Central - Shrewsbury route to make the MK4 trains even remotely suitable, who would want Cardiff-Hereford for instance? SWC in TSW maybe? Swansea - Bristol? That would make the 197s (and a GWR 800) at least viable. Swansea-Cardiff feels more in scope, though. At least, considering the route lengths we’ve been getting.
Just curious to see what the price is going to be for a 137km route with 1 new train. As its about the same size as a DTG route. And how many months have they been working on this route? If its more expensive than a DTG route I'll be disappointed.
I did look this up but i'm still not sure what the difference is between the br 153/3 and the br 153/9 is.Is it the size/seat configuration/rest room options cab controls/door placement or what?
The main difference between the 153/3 and 153/9 is that the 153/3 is PRM compliant and the 153/9 isn't. PRM (Persons of Reduced Mobility) compliant units have a wheelchair accessible lavatory and have designated areas for 2 wheelchairs rather than just 1.
What's really weird is the game has working elevators and handicap onboard restrooms but i haven't seen a single wheelchair user in the entire game yet.Thou there have been more then a few AI passengers who look and act disabled but i chalk this up to there programming more then any preseved disability.
Yeah by now every single customer who is also active in the forums knows by now, that this "learning curve" LOVE was just a bad joke. The release of these unfinished dlcs lately is fully intentional by skipping the polish and go lazy with the timetable. Many aspects of the dlcs dont even come up to minimum standards we had years back. Im totally fine with skipping dlc after dlc. My last day one was mbta boston, which impressed me by the visit of their workshop when dtg collected the sources.
While my opinion is tainted by my lack of interest in a tiny network around a city I have no interest in visiting and have a preference for electric networks, it just looks so dull as well as badly made. I'll get it for the 153 once the route is on sale for less than £20 and there's a layer for that unit on another DLC like the East Midlands network or if there's a longer mainline route in Wales that it layers into.
Watching part of the second DadRail stream (the two hour plus one) this morning completely reaffirmed my stance, too. Every time he called up the route map, it is just tiny, tiny, tiny. There is no meat to it whatsoever. I don’t know who makes the final call on pricing, whether it’s the EP, someone else or a collective decision but no way on this planet does the value come anywhere near £30. If nothing else, I can see even the variety of short runs on offer getting monotonous and boring after a couple of times over each section.
Very good! I was going to complain that the thread was getting a bit off topic with all the SimRail talk but I’m glad it didn’t stop now.
What I don't understand is why the 150 and 153 don't layer into other UK routes as they have been used the length and breadth of Britain. If licensing is a problem they could be included in a generic Regional Railways style livery or the plain white livery seen when units get debranded. DTG need to add more value to the DLC by making existing assets useable in other timetables. They do this much more for German routes.
Generic stuff minimises revenue potential. Now the 150 and 153 are done behind the scenes the Lampoil will getting looked at for the next exciting DLC!! Season of reveals awaits!! Tune in next week for a reveal of an announcement of a reveal of a deep dive.....
I purchased this route last night and did a couple of services in the 153. Great first impressions, my first trip was Penarth to Coryton on a sunny spring morning, the sunrise and shadows made it particularly atmospheric. I have never traveled on the network in real life but it was still fun to explore. Cardiff Central seems busy with lots of traffic but I think it needs more passengers. Loved seeing the Millennium stadium dominating the horizon as you approached the junction in to Cardiff central. There's a few glitches I noticed but on the feedback thread it seems they have been acknowledged and will be fixed soon.
Simply put it is the wrong livery. Other operators have other liveries, other cabs, other interiors. This is why you don't see east midlands 158's at Glasgow Central and LNER azuma trains at London Paddington. There would need to be a complete interior and exterior overall per operator depending on the differences from TOC to TOC. It's effectively a waste of time and money without a proper route to run it on. For example it you want a GWR 150, just wait for another GWR route to come out. It'll almost certainly happen. Same if you want northern or ScotRail if it's the 153 your after. But if your that desperate creators club exists where you can get these liveries and scenarios to match. Sure the Interior won't be the same but it's a temporary fix til such a time that these liveries are released in a full route/timetable.
Well we have got 2 + 4 GW HST's masquerading on Glasgow to Edinburgh, so the artistic licence has precedent.
This is just another symptom of having everything set in the Modern day. The UK content as whole would be much more alive if even half of it was set back in Sectorisation era’s. That being said, if we’re continuing to get reused stock, it would be nice to at least get 1 other ToC variant along with it. The 150/2 alone was so poor the first time around & hasn’t exactly made leaps & bounds with CCN, there isn’t so much value in it they couldn’t have added one other livery & interior.
I think game designers need to make pragmatic choices. I'd rather have a Regional Railways or NR white 153 on the Midland timetable rather than nothing at all. People can always switch them off if they don't like them. I don't worry about the wrong shade of seat colour when I'm driving a train and, in any case, 153s have moved around so much they often carried the livery of their former franchise for a long time after moving operators. Some 153s carried Regional Railways livery into the 21st century. But I agree about Sectorisation - circa 1991 provides a small number of operators but a huge range of liveries, most of which could appear almost anywhere!
Blackpool and Carlisle seem to be just about the most discussed routes on here. Someone must be buying them... I suspect the truth is that historic routes need much more research to get right. For today's railways you just have to look out of the window... It's all about the bottom line and margins.
Fair point. Although I don't agree with that. But to be fair, that did happen for a brief period at least at depots. As aposed to TFW 150s
I think TSW had a lot less players in its early days when it released its BR era content... Given the success and huge progress the game has made since those early days, and the amount of new players, if DTG developed a new BR route in house it could be a HUGE success. But to match the reception of JTs releases, make quality a priority. JT have made a success of it because of the love that goes into a route... Might I make a suggestion, BR Mk1 slam door electrics on the SWML or SEML? The sound packs and reference material already exist... One thing DTG should learn from Cardiff Valley. Keep developments in house and do not outsource work if you're putting you name on a route that doesn't excel or match the quality of your own previous in-house developed content. I don't think anyone cares about outsourcing arrangements, but what they clearly do care about is content matching the standards that are possible and other developers have set a benchmark with. DTG developed the GOBLIN? To the back track into the barely mediocre content we presently have with this add on... (Well in my opinion).
We have 171 years of railway history, pre-privatisation fiasco. All DTG can do is concentrate on the worst era in UK railway history.
Rationale is that it sells, and that its easy to research. But yes basically we are stuck in a modern day cycle with only JT feeding us some older stuff.
We have GWR HSTs on EDN (158) and are set to have ScotRail 158s on the Manchester Airport route. Also there's no reason to say that the 150/153 couldn't be amended in a Mildmay-style debranded layer.
On the Xbox Series X just bought the route today getting these particular artifacts I've seen before on other dlc I own, the route is quite nice if you can ignore this and the route by route for me at least audio popping and obvious let downs in scenery, I did raise support tickets but I've seen over the years how they are pretty redundant it would seem. The class 153 ai is eerily silent too.
A lot of people including myself have reported this weird glitch so I suspect that will be fixed in the next patch.
Hi Jamie, the same issue still also occurs with the Eanos Wagons that came with the BR 193 Vectron. Can this be finally logged and sorted as well as it's exactly the same bug? Thank you.
As anyone done job 2F50 Treherbert to Cardiff Central . I cant get into Cardiff Queen street keeps say train is off path but its clear path into Queens street and the blue route is ok. Tried 3 times and still cant do it.
The layout and scenery for this route is just straight up handsome and I really like the single-track branches. Cardiff has an urban, and light suburban / rural feel to it which I never expected from a route in Whales. I'm glad I purchased Cardiff Central over the London Overground since I tend to get bored of London Overground routes fairly quicky. Cardiff Network (imo) has more interesting elements which have me playing it over and over. No disappointments here.
Fired up the Locomaster Profiles Cardiff to Rhymney loco hauled cab ride on the exercise bike this morning and actually felt quite sad. Now that DTG have issued this tiny little route, there’s probably little chance of them or any other developer revisiting the Cardiff Valley Lines and building us a proper full length route such as Rhymney to Barry Island set in the late 90’s/early 00’s when these loco hauled peak services were in their prime. But just as the part Mildmay and part Bernina line mean we will never see the full length of those in the game, DTG with their lack of vision have killed off Cardiff. Unless they genuinely intend to expand the network later, though based on past results that seems doubtful. Ironically an early 00’s proper Valley Line to Rhymney might even have been easier to build. Less complex track layout at Cardiff Central and Queen Street. The JT Class 142 could have been drafted in along with the updated WCL 150. A reskinned Class 37 or Class 37/4 rework hauling the existing Mark 2A coaches. Maybe a Class 143, which the game needs anyway.
I feel we’ve been somewhat cheated with this route, i admit the teams done a fantastic job modelling everything accurately at the time and we’ve gotten some gold from it, £30 for most who bought it without deals for such a small loop of stations and neither of the valley lines (I’m more partial to the rhymney line though merthyr line makes a great deal of sense) feels a little cheeky. I worry we aren’t going to get anymore beyond this, hopefully im wrong and we get at least one of the northern stretches but to be teased with the services destination and online going 2 stations past central and that’s the lot is a bit crushing. I understand if there’s restrictions to what can be done, especially with restoration and updating works going on over the last year already putting stress on TFW never-mind having a team of people plodding about taking data points and notes but when a London service can take an hour to complete and Cardiff could be 15 minutes on average, it feels lacklustre
I agree… it’s a totally missed opportunity, unless they have future plans to bolt bits on like the Thames Valley branches. It would be criminal if they didn’t - Cardiff is captured really well but there’s not that much to do there. The Valleys could be spectacular. So much scope for Cardiff - GWR runs to Bristol/Swansea/Carmarthen, TfW to Crewe/Shrewsbury, freight for Margam/Trostre etc…
Could do with a 756 and 231 gameplay pack.. but guess you would have to go back and electrify the lines for the 756.
I agree it could be longer but how is anyone cheated? You know what you are getting, if it's not worth £30 to you then wait for a sale, simple! I enjoy it as sometimes it's nice to have a shorter run or do multiple runs. I would have preferred it to be longer but I like the self contained services on it.
I got it as part of TSW6’s Special Edition bundle — and I got that whole bundle for 50% off, so I saved even more! Out of all the included routes, it is probably the one that has positively surprised me the most. The amount of service variety is huge, and I love that you can start out in the suburbs, traverse the urban city center, and then end up on the outskirts again. The fact that you go right through a busy yard during many services is also quite fun. I would probably have never bought it separately (unless 80%+ off), but I’m glad it was included in the bundle.
It's a fun route IMO. Was just driving the pacers on it the other day- good stuff. Maybe one day it will be extended- i'd enjoy that
As a route it’s a glorified shunting sandbox, I’m sure I’ve left comments further back in the thread so I’m not going to rehash it all. The saving grace of it is the 153, it’s right up there with the best of rolling stock IMO & easily one of the better soundsets to come out of DTG. Of course though it’s not great value for the cost. Overall I think it’s a shame this was Wales’ debut into TSW. Pretty sad & somewhat comedic that any actual driving of the TFW stock has to be done on the English routes. Hopefully one day we’ll get a proper Welsh route & I certainly hope we get some more 153’s.
As far as I'm aware there was never any suggestion this route was going to be extended, and certainly the potential for extensions should never play into anyone's decision to buy a route (unless such an extension was explicitly promised on the product page). So on that basis I wouldn't agree that anyone's been cheated, although I agree it's an u underwhelming route that doesn't meet its potential due to being cut short in various locations. I bought it when it was released, found it to be way below standard and requested a refund, then eventually repurchased it at a 44% discount once it had been patched. I've only played it two or three times since then as I find it's a very uninspiring route to drive and the look is too... clinical (as per all Rivet routes). Its only redeeming factor as far as I'm concerned is indeed the fact that - once they too had been patched - you find yourself with two 153 variants and an improved 150, which all layer into other routes and also feature (on PC at least) in some brilliant third-party timetables and a collection of excellent .pak file reskins. If I'd been a console player I would probably have requested a refund again the second time round, or just not bothered. JB
