Road Map Train Sim World 5 Roadmap: April 2025

I think it’s loosely something like ‘Scottish routes are branded with Scotrail locos, the Welsh route is branded with Transport for Wales, but the wider English collection is broader and can often overlap into the other aforementioned countries. There’s overlap both ways IRL, but generally the Scottish and Welsh stuff is branded with a national government owned / operated venture.

 

What a nice surprise today, I really liked the April’s fool edition and also appreciated the actual roadmap very much.

The addition of “Flughafen Fernbahnhof” on S-Bahn Rhein-Main is a great response to user feedback, thanks for this unexpected turn of events, DTG! Also I am so excited for the gameplay for Linke Rheinstrecke. I was hoping for such a pack — now it’s even better than what I hoped for, bringing additional life to LFR and a nice surprise of additional rolling stock. Much appreciated, TSG!

And on top one thing which I have been hoping for quite a while: the release on GeForce Now. I love GFN — especially on my ROG Ally that is neither very powerful nor has a lot of storage but with GFN I can play the games in the highest quality. Great surprise!

 

Will S-Bahn-Frankfurt have playable freight services. Because there are many big freight yards on that route. Especially Shunting on them could be very nice.

 

With the new German route gen 9 (and PC) only I think we are reaching a point where gen 8 support is axed certainly by TSW6 for the best really as it must be so time consuming trying to optimise for such old systems now

 

Even on Gen 9 the Frankfurt route worries me. It looks amazing but based on the amount of rolling stock/layers and complexity of it I can just imagine it’s going to be a disaster with the blurring texture issue that’s been effecting all the complicated German routes for months with no remedy.

That one I am going to wait for player feedback before putting money into. They really need to address the blurred out textures. I still barely touch the current Frankfurt route because of it.

 

Exactly. Plus the video memory errors too etc with Frankfurt-Fulda - still all bewildering for this on Gen 9.

 

So is the Peak Forest DLC dead?

 

Not dead, just a long way from release.

 

I believe these photos were just to demonstrate free roam use. The intermodal wagons were also seen on fife circle in the article but they’ve only been suggested to be implemented into WCMLS and PBD

 

This was confirmed on Discord:

 

I think it’s best to assume if not buried, it’s certainly laid out embalmed in the Funeral Home. DTG can spin it all they like but it sounds like Simtrack are nothing more than an enthusiastic amateur who got in at the deep end and sank. AKA Cosplay Company (oh I do like that phrase since finding it on Reddit yesterday).

 

OMSI, A/ETS, MSFS etc all have similar devs & they all fall into the same trap as each other in announcing things far too early, when the reality is it takes them years to publish.

With TSW the third party situation does create a certain amount of misleading expectation too, I’m not convinced that Incredible Trains, Simtrack & All Aboard should be lumped into the same category as the likes of Rivet/SHG/JT etc, it’s like saying Asda & your newsagent are the same thing.

 

I hope the KWG layers for S-Bahn Frankfurt also include the Railbow pack ICEs. I love the variety that they bring to the setting with little change needed for a visible effect. Otherwise I‘m still already buzzing for it… maybe it forecasts a possible SFS Köln-Rhein/Main?? Both termini are in existence (whether it‘s extended to Frankfurt Hbf or cut at the official end point at the airport…)

 

I'm trying to recall whether any proposed dlc has ever been removed from the roadmap while on life support and then miraculously been revived and reappeared on the roadmap at a later time.

Can't think of anything. Can someone correct me?

 

Possibly the 313

 

the very DLC on the roadmap right now (br 420)

 

Well, I watched the Roadmap, against my better judgement. As I expected there was no mention of steam traction, US content, the save function or pricing policy. And just a confusing and noncommittal answer about the core issues. As usual the stream was dominated by PR and self congratulating banter.

The difficult or embarrassing questions were ignored as usual and will likely be omitted in the follow-up post.

Maybe we should stick to " cream puff " questions like " What was most enjoyable....etc.". They're guaranteed to get a prompt response.

 

BR 420.

 

Fair points, but this is nothing new imo- the streams have always been PR exercises, but the community seems to forget this occasionally and think "so and so was really on our side"....like no, man, DTG was signing their checks too, they were just better at their job lol!

The only really interesting part of the live streams imo are when they inadvertantly reveal something to be broken lol.

 

Interesting the route for the old Krokodil is 1984. An interesting spin on the German scene.
Too bad about the phantom DE loco and the Class 104.

 

Nice Roadmap! Looking forward to the Frankfurt-Route!

 

1. DTG are no longer working on steam. No 3rd party has said they are as yet.
2. US content generally takes longer to produce as source material is not "just down the road"
3. Save Function is unfortunately another of the "we are working on it DTG specials"
4. Pricing is not going to be influenced by forum posts, clearly the product is selling and sales will pick up bargain hunters.

Livestream questions have always been cherry picked as to avoid focusing on the negative. DTG are exceptionally good at hiding away from criticism.

 

Well said. In short though: There is hardly any point watching the roadmap streams because the sort of presentation at the start is just a recitation of the roadmap article and as has been said many times: The really interesting questions always get no answer or they just say that they cannot say anything about it (which is fair but why include the question in the first place… obviously about 90% of the questions don‘t get put on stream anyways so why choose questions and then not answer them…)

 

Sadly that's true. If you read the article, then watching the stream itself is entirely pointless. I wish there was less corporate PR stuff and more honest interaction with the community.

Also they pre-select the questions, yet half of them still go unanswered by Matt saying "I don't know, will have to ask the team about that". Like what's the point of the Q&A then?

 

It looks like money savings on tsw, only interested in gwe, ska and core updates

 

1. Oooh.. what could that teaser be from all aboard?
2. Still no updates on Manchester Airport Commuter, Great Western Express remaster and Koln-Aachen High speed Line smh....
3. YESS Finally The North London Line is finally getting an extension which will make it a good end-end route and will make it the 3rd route to have a power voltage change over between AC And DC , Along With Southeastern High Speed and LGV Meditereaane..
4. DJsnapattack I Thought you said the North London Line should be considered a finished project?

 

A welcome addition, I hope that it does not take too much of the single developers time, as he will be doing this for free.

 

It's a real shame they haven't managed to complete the 104, although they have been doing some good work supporting other dev teams, for example they built the scenarios on Preston - Carlisle.

I have no idea the economics of supporting other devs vs. releasing your own products, but maybe they could extend that work into making scenario packs for existing routes.

 

Trains here in the states are fading out. High speed hopes are slim for the foreseeable future. Hate to say this as I grew up going to our local rail museum with my grandpa who retired from a regional railway

 

I read the roadmap when it came out, but haven’t had a chance to read the community’s thoughts on it until now… been a busy second half of the week for me!

Anyways, this is one of the better roadmaps in recent memory for me. Tons of appealing projects in there.

• I love when content that has already been announced gets even better. This doesn’t happen often in TSW history (e.g. Meissen branch for Dresden-Riesa), so having two such announcements in one article is pretty special. The new station turns S-Bahn Frankfurt from “huh, interesting” into “wow, I’m gonna have to get this sooner or later” for me. It’s simply a great addition. And the Richmond extension for Mildmay is exactly what I wanted as it takes us into a corner of London we haven’t really explored with TSW previously. This turns from a no-buy into “buy during the next decent sale” for me. I’ll also be in London for a few days soon, which makes my mood even better in that case. Will need to explore this in real life then! (Incidentally, I’m also planning a cross-country train trip with my best mate right now which may take us through the Frankfurt main and airport stations, as well as along the Left Rhinestrecke!)
• I also love the recent trend of making loco DLCs and expansion packs for recently released routes, signified by the new Pacer announcement here. Linke Rheinstrecke is finally getting a well-deserved DLC, and it looks quite promising. Getting to try the Krokodil on a completely different type of route will be fun, and those green passenger wagons are simply iconic.
• Will also need to highlight that I’m rather worried about the lack of news on the Köln-Aachen timetable and GWE remaster. The Peak Forest pack seems to have (temporarily) vanished from the roadmap, which is sad because I recently bought that route and really liked it. Would’ve been quite interested in that pack, but it looks like the developer(s?) bit off more than they could chew. Same issue with the ATS Manchester route… heard about the development difficulties and conflicts a while ago to be fair. I wasn’t particularly interested in that one (just no special stuff to make it worth my attention), but was hoping for it to be a stepping stone on the way to a “proper” route with a new train and all in the future. Oh well…

 

Is it possible to replace the BR143 by the BR146 loc? I really dislike the behaviour of the BR143.

 

Are there RE-services from Mainz to Frankfurt, as the RB10 between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden (heading Koblenz and Neuwied)?

 

Yes, there are several on the Mainbahn (southern line) all originating from Frankfurt Hbf: RE2 (Koblenz), RE3 (Saarbrücken) and RB31/33 (Alzey/Bad Kreuznach) but the latter RBs are only extensions from Mainz to Frankfurt that are run occasionally, not too frequently. In the north we have the RB10 and RE4/14 which runs to Mannheim via the freight loop and then to Mainz but the issue is that for the RB/RE services in the north to be playable we would need the loop past Mainzer Landstraße between Frankfurt Hbf and Höchst (the line we have there is exclusively used by the S1/2, the regional services drive around all the stations before Höchst)

 

Nice one on the Mildmay extension to Richmond. Will likely pick this route up post that realise.

 

It would be nice to know if Left Rhine will get a touch-up for the release of the 194, like fixing the broken level crossings and missing hectometre posts at the Kolblenz end.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath. It's a third party pack, I very much doubt it will trigger DTG to make any improvements to the actual route.

 

Considering there's only one new DTG product on the roadmap, any chance we could expect new announcements soon?

 

The announcement will likely be TSW 6… when you look at the development of the roadmap it very much resembles that of last year: Towards the summer the roadmap empties, especially the DTG stuff because they‘re working on the new core

 

Still four months away until August.

 

Four months to having to install all our content into the new game!

 

Can I say this I'm fed up with having to reinstall every single year but just at the point their no point in going on anymore cause it's no listened to at all all can say at least make it easier to do it or makes this last time untill new version of tsw probably on new unreal engine,will I buy it probably cause 3 routes at a reduced cost you going to but it's just same old every year

 

Four months until the announcement, five until we install content!

 

Also probably 4 months until we get a new petition drive for the government to so-say save the franchise from the Evil empire of DTG.......

 

I‘ve just had an idea although I‘m not sure it will work: Why don‘t you just copy the .pak files of the routes etc. from the TSW 5 to then TSW 6 folder? So before installing TSW 6 you unmark all DLCs in the properties tab so they do not download upon install. Maybe this works but I‘m not 100% sure

 

There are probably subtle differences, even if just in IDs. Also console users can't...

 

I’m pretty certain this worked for the move from TSW 4 to 5 on PC Steam

 

Last I heard from DTG, all DLCs have to be recooked to work with the new TSW versions. It's been a while, so maybe that's changed with the most recent ones, but I imagine a lot of people would already have been talking about it if that were the case.