On the flipside, this is a very specific problem DTG SHOULD be able to fix quite easily, if that's the only thing that's in the way. Christrains may not be as official a dev currently the way Rivet and Skyhook are, but Christrains is generally of decent quality, and if this is the only thing holding him back, we could possibly try and petition DTG to treat Christrains similarly to River and Skyhook. From his interview, his German loco for TS20xx got overwhelming praise, even more than official content. And for that reason he seems to be popular in Germany as well. Perhaps (if Christrains agrees of course), we could petition DTG to have Christrains walk the same path as River, who before they made their first route, Isle of Wight, made the German DB BR 204, perhaps a little bit as a warmup. If DTG got cajoled to view Christrains as an official game studio and go through them in his work similar to how River is, he could get access to the tools needed to make his trains. He could make an official German rolling stock DLC as a contractor(perhaps a high door Dostos?) which means DTG would have someone well versed in, and an advocate for Dutch content on board who would I think certainly be willing to assist DTG in making a Dutch route down the line. This would be ideal, and it's a win-win, given how well received Christrains German loco is as well. DTG gets a German train DLC that is almost certain to succeed, as well as the contracted service of an extremely competent developer. And we, the Dutch community, get a very real shot at a Dutch route. Perhaps even a contractual agreement? If both DTG and Christrains were to agree to that, stating that Christrains will do 1 or 2 German rolling stock on the condition that DTG starts actively persuing and developing a Dutch route within half a year of the agreement. Such an agreement should hold up in court, and it's still a very favorable agreement I'd say for the price both would pay for it. Of course we'll have to make sure DTG knows about this wish, but I think it may just be crazy enough to work
I could very well see ChrisTrains working with DTG in the same way as AP, providing sounds and research, but not much more. Of course I'd love to see him make rolling stock too. However entire routes might be asking a lot from ChrisTrains, though he could still help DTG with them.
Please remind me, who were AP again? Well of course asking him to make an entire route on his own would be a borderline insane thing to ask somebody to do, unless Christrains is actually an extremely masochistic workaholic Rather, I was talking about an agreement where Christrains would agree possibly, if he himself agreed, to make 1 or 2 German rolling stock DLC for DTG which will be published in the Steam store in a similar agreement the way Rivet released DB BR 204 through DTG on Steam. In return, in this agreement, DTG would start the production of a Dutch route jointly with Christrains, Christrains of course, being tasked with developing the NS rolling stock for that route. It's a win-win really, as I said before.
That should solve the Problem of Dutch & German rolling stock that has ATB EG/NG ETCS equipped like DB BR189 & NS Abellio ET25 for Arnhem Oberhausen Duisburg Railway and DB BR189 for Amsterdam Amserfoot Lelystad freight services.
I don't know if these appear on this section of the route yet (haven't really travelled a lot since lockdown started)... The new livery. Not really an improvement over the older livery if you ask me. :P
Reasonably recent video showing the Amsterdam Centraal --> Amersfoort section of the route, on board of a Sprinter service (these are commuter services stopping at most stations). And, it has a speedometer in the bottomleft corner.
Thank you all for your continious support, as 'likes' still keep coming. Although the chances of seeing a Dutch routes are close to zero, lets keep hope and lets show that there certainly is a request for them.
I've been thinking what would be a good (and realistic) selection of trains to come with such a route, and I'm wondering what others option on this would be. Ideally, this route would include a train for stopping services (sprinter), intercity services and freight. And then there's the time period. As most of the people here on the forums seems to be relatively young, I guess a modern-day setting would be most sensible (although personally, being a tad older, I wouldn't mind going back in time). I've been thinking about the following selection of trains; Sprinter services The SLT would be the train for sprinter services, it's been around a while so I guess it's a well known train, both for young people and the older ones who still travel by train every once in a while. I know it's used a lot around the Hilversum area for quite a few years. It also appears on many other parts of the country which would benefit any other Dutch routes that may eventually someday get created. Intercity services Developing 1 brand new train is already quite a strain on the budget, so developing another entire trainset for InterCity services is probably not a realistic expectation. Fortunately, the international Amsterdam-Berlin intercity service runs on the Amsterdam-Hilversum-Amersfoort part of the route. I believe we already have these coaches as part of the DB BR101 DLC, which would mean only the locomotive would need to be created (which is hopefully considerbly less effort than an entire EMU trainset). Freight services Now, on the freight part I'm not sure what would be best. Freight trains are international so it's not uncommon to see German locos and wagons. Leasing companies have also been operating various locomotives in the country. But I'm not sure about the exact types they've been using. I guess a DB BR185 wouldn't look out of place. Class 66 have also been running in our country, but might need adjustments on the safety systems plus new licenses to show them in appropiate liveries. I don't know which of the NS 1600/1700/1800 series have been used for freight, but I don't think they've been used for freight services much in the past decade. I'm also not enough of a train nut to know the differences between the NS 1600/1700/1800 series, but I guess it could be an option that may not be ideal, but realistic enough to get away with. Possible loco DLC Now one thing we'd still be missing is a dedicated intercity trainset. There's only one that's as iconic as this one; the ICM. I suspect it's unrealistic to expect two brand new trainsets in a route DLC, so it'd have to be a seperate loco DLC. I've been showing a picture of the pre-modernized version on purpose, because I think the working walk-through doors would be an unique and interesting feature of this train set. It'd be a shame to use the modernized version which no longer has this feature. And even for the younger people of our community, I take it the pre-modernized version is still recognizable enough. What do you all think about such a selection of trains for this route? Do you think it's realistic? Would you go for another selection?
a Dutch route in TSW2 would be really cool!! (NL Nederlandse treinverkeer in trein sim, zou een goeie aanvuller kunnen zijn in TSW 2 al die geweldige lijnen.) As IC that ICMm Sprinter the SNG and the 1600/1800 as dlc or something like that. ATB once is something different than always PZB.... It would be great if Chris from ChrisTrains could work on it, he has made great NS equipment for Train Simulator (Railworks) in my opinion.
I agree and as a matter of fact Just Trains sells it for $20.99 16.11 GBP due to $1 = 76p (XE Midmarket rate) EUR 19.29 XE Midmarket rate due to $1 = 92 eurocents. I can probably see this as the first TSW 2 Just Trains Route
88 likes so far, thanks for all your support. But I'd like to bring this suggestion under the attention of anyone who hasn't liked it yet. I still think the Amsterdam/Schiphol - Amersfoort route section is an interesting one, with different landscapes, different station architecture, different types of services and quite a few possibilities for trains, all on a section that has a realistic length for a TSW route. (Perhaps even on the short side by now, considering TSW routes are slowly getting longer).
Would also add some unique trains and landscape to train sim world, wich i think would be popular by many people!
I agree we need more countries. After Holland, it would be nice to see Ireland (my home), Belgium, Italy, more of France & Switzerland, and Austria.
Indeed. Although you won't find mountains in The Netherlands, being a country with a high population density, you can often find diverse landscapes within a small region, especially around the Randstad-area. As for trains, I believe the newest trains are less unique, with the general worldwide trend of having a few large train manufacturers. To offer more uniqueness, one would have to look at the less-modern trains.
Agreed, and to help DTG or 3rd party developers it'd nice if there's some stuff that could be re-used. Thankfully, there's designs based on other country's designs and there's international trains. For example, up to 2012 the Benelux Express ran with Dutch coaches and a Belgian locomotive between The Netherlands and Belgium. Making this train could benefit both countries. The NS 1600 series was based upon a French design. Making this loco could benefit both countries as well.
In addition to that ICR coaches used to go international for quite long distances, being seen in Luxemburg, Belgium, Germany and sometimes even France.
...the reasons for DTG to hold back with other countries (not just the Netherlands) would be quite a few. On the one hand a lack of developers who come from the respective country, have experience with the UE4 and want to build their own route for TSW. On the other hand a lack of presets for the UE4 at DTG itself, which are required for the corresponding route. Since almost every country has its own signal and train protection systems. These would first have to be modeled and included in an asset library. Although there are already suitable Dutch train models for the TSC, they would have to get new physics programming and material adjustments. The main reason may be a lack of willingness to take risks to address new regional markets. From the 3 main countries or target groups: UK, US and Germany, it's known that a minimum turnover can be expected per DLC at launch, since many want to expand their collections. Sales are also generated with regular discount campaigns. After the TGV DLC from 2020 one would have expected to see more French routes in TSW, but it only stuck to one. The fact that Holland is in the middle of Europe and there is a lot of cross-border traffic makes it all the more exciting. So I hope for at least one such route in the future. In my opinion cross-border traffic would always be an option to integrate new countries easily, be it Austria, Czech Republic, Poland or Denmark. It's double the work, due to double the signal and safety technology, but at the same time you lay a new foundation and appeal to new rail fans!
Not the first time I share a video of an in-cab video, but I found a video which also shows speed limits and signal aspects. (Starting halfway the video because the first part of the video isn't part of the route I'm suggesting in this topic). Don't forget to support the suggestion by giving the first post a like, if you haven't done so already
You are correct if they want cross-border traffic they should use the following routes Bremen Oldenburg Leer (Ostf) Bad Nieuwschans Groningen Bremen Osnabrück Bad Bentheim Hengelo Rhein Ruhr West Venlo Mönchengladbach Neuss Düsseldorf Wuppertal Steinbeck. Lastly the major route between Germany and the Netherlands Hollandstrecke Köln Düsseldorf Duisburg Emmerich am Rhein Zevenaar Arnhem Utrecht Amsterdam Centraal. Regarding the Dutch route being proposed here it actually feeds onto Bremen Hbf via Bad Bentheim & Osnabrück Hbf. Following the route of the 1980s D231/232 Holland Skandinavien Express D237 Nord West Express
Just giving my like and +1 to these suggestions. It'd be really great to get a new country into TSW. Going to the Netherlands is an ambitious avenue to go down, as you'd need to get new licensing agreements with NS, completely new traction, and new signalling/safety systems. This would be a huge plus for players and add a lot of interest, plus it'll make for easier marketing because it's "new route, new country, new trains, new systems".
You are correct the best way to do this are extending German routes to the Dutch side of the Border this one should be Bremen Hbf Osnabrück Bad Bentheim Amersfoort. There is another route from Bremen to the Netherlands it's actually making the 129 km Oldenburg Leer(Ostf) Bad Nieuwschans Groningen line. Lastly 202 km Hollandstrecke Duisburg/Bochum-Oberhausen Emmerich am Rhein Zevenaar Arnhem Utrecht Centraal. Remember to change change voltages at Emmerich am Rhein 15kv 16.7hz 25kv 50hz AC Zevenaar 25kv 50hz 1.5kv DC in the future that will become 25kv 50hz 3kv DC system.
Yeah, it seems they're updating the front to be yellow rather than blue, I suspect because of safety regulations.
I love the liveries on the ICM and VIRM. The Sprinter's blue seems too modern to me. Also the yellow front of British DMUs, among my favorite liveries. Loved the DMUs since I was a kid, had this book with pictures of them. Of all the trains I've taken (US, NL, UK, DE, FR, IT, CH, AT) the ones around Amsterdam give me the best feeling inside. Just something special.
Purno seen this https://www.trix.de/de/produkte/details/article/25425/1857 ? I see Trix and Minitrix had releases of this some years ago, not sure if much is changed about the new one here, sounds like it has a good sound module. Also may be off topic for TSW.
Ah yes sorry, I meant that I realized it may be off topic for this forum to even talk about model trains. I was excited to notice there is a new ICM model coming out this month when I was looking around at websites the other night, thought that it was significant news and maybe there would be some other fans of the train in this thread, then I found there were prior models of the train in HO and N scale, although some years back.
With the upcoming map editor and ability for custom trains in TSW 4, should we start organizing a community effort to make something like this? I'm more of a VIRM/IRM guy but a Koploper would be absolutely amazing too. I'd be willing to do some modeling work for scenery pieces if that would help, depending on what exactly we can load into the maps.
It'd be awesome if the community could create such a route, but I'm afraid I don't have the skills required to make a useful contribution.
I wouldn't mind seeing the line out to Zandvoort aan Zee in there too because then you can open up a scope for a Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix based scenario.
That'd be a whole different line. As far as I know, no train from Amersfoort or Lelystad goes all the way to Zandvoort.
If ChrisTrains would undertake this that would be fantastic. ChrisTrains for his train models, and we have the following sources people to work on routes potentially: https://simtogether.com/files/category/12-the-netherlands/ https://dutchsims.nl/viewforum.php?f=9
He already put a post on his site to say: that he hopes that there will be ChrisTrains products for tsw: https://www.christrains.com/helpdesk/knowledgebase.php?article=121 So that's a start
Thanks for sharing. That's positive news, considerably more positive than his stance on TSW a few years ago.
What I miss in TSW in general is more airport connections. I think we have London Gatwick in "London Commuter" and Newark International in "North East Corridor". The opportunities to have some more arriving and departing air traffic, which we could look at when being around the airports. Köln also has an airport not far from the main station which is already in TSW. Would really love some more airport connections with air traffic.
I doubt you're gonna see much of the airplanes around Schiphol Airport. The train station is in a tunnel, and you can't expect DTG to model one of the busiests airports just to allow people to get a closer view on the airplanes. There's a whole different genre of simulators out there for those people who likes planes.
What I mean is actually to enhance the immersion when driving the trains only. I don't want a new MSFS or airport simulator. In London Gatwick for example, there are airplanes departing over the tracks when the train is underneath. Okay, this is not possible here since the respective train station is in a tunnel. But on the Schnellfahrstrecke Köln-Aachen DLC for example, you can see airplanes taking off when you come close and arrive at Cologne, flying some kind of a loop over the city. And all of this, while the airport isn't even part of this DLC. Something like this is really cool and can enhance the immersion much as rather driving to something called "airport" and there is no sign of any plane or helicopter traffic at all.
