Surfliner route and the P42 with Superliners are some of the most, if not the very most, requested American content. Now that Metrolink and LAUPT are in the game I think it is very likely that either the northern or southern Surfliner route is one of the next American routes to come to the game. LA-SBA is roughly 100 miles but because of Antelope Valley Line they now have the first roughly 14 miles taken care of to the Burbank Airport. I could see that happening and you get Metrolink, Surfliner, and the Coast Starlight. Plus Union Pacific traffic as well. Matt basically said today on stream that the MP36 with Bombardier cars will be coming to the game with a Metrolink reskin, so if you go back to the building deeper buckets....this seems like the next area in the US they are focusing on.
I have an idea on how they'll bring it, think I'm gonna make a detailed suggestion when I get home from work...
Please do! I always enjoy your suggestion posts, and Ventura County is where I grew up so I would love to see it.
Unfortunately, I think It may go the other direction for traffic and gameplay reasons, including Amtraks yard at Redondo Junction
That's fair, I think that would be the better route choice going down to Oceanside cause it's considerably busier. However you miss out on having a long distance Amtrak train outside of SW Chief between LA and Fullerton. I actually wrote out what the timetable would look like for that route in a spreadsheet if you are ever curious to see it or want to add it to your post later.
The Surfliner gets requested soooo often, would definitely be cool if they decided to do it at some point considering they’ve got lots of rolling stock references now!
Probably could do with Metrolink given the fact the route is releasing with a new station that isn't even in service yet.
Matt has already commented on the Superliner pics, saying that when they make a field trip to a TOC's depot, they photo and record absolutely everything they can, whether there are any current plans to use it or not, because you never know what the future may bring.
Yeah I heard him say that but Amtrak doesn't store any of their Surfliner equipment at Metrolink's CMF so that means that had to get separate permission from what Metrolink was allowing them to do.
And if you look at the pictures they posted on the roadmap article, the interior photo is a Surfliner car. The exterior photo with the red stripe is a Superliner car. While they are similar they are two distinctly different cars so they theoretically appear to have reference material for both which means hopefully we could get Surfliners AND the long distance Superliners in the future. But Surfliner consists frequently use Superliner cars so that could have been the sole motivation haha.
I believe that this is a vectron cab as it is built by siemens and is also the exact same on the acs-64 and sc-44
Yes but it's "strange" that they decided to put Superliner pics on their article and not a F125 for example. If I was DTG I would not create a "false hope" by putting pictures of rolling stocks that are not in game or confirmed.
The Surfliner equipment can sub for a short bit on Antelope Valley, but not enough for a full fledge Loco DLC. The Amtrak long distance superliners can fit on as layers for..... Antelope Valley (Coast Starlight) Peninsula Corridor (Coast Starlight) Cane Creek (California Zephyr) Cajon Pass (Southwest Chief) Sand Patch Grade (Capitol Limited) A new route that features AT LEAST LA to Fullerton can feature both the Southwest Chief and Surfliner stuff.
These things write themselves. It's so easy to predict. Los Angeles-San Diego is so oversaturated. It has been done so many times. The new, freeware LA-San Diego route update that was done for free kind of takes care of that desire. It's far better than the original route released in 2013 and is brought to current 2023 standards. Then you had a freeware version for MSTS, and lets not forget the infamous Facing Point Media scandal of a route in 2003... There's at least 3 versions of the route, and I might even be forgetting some. There was at least one for Trainz as well. DTG/TSW team CLAIM they want to focus on stuff not done before... well, no one has ever made the Surfliner route Los Angeles-Goleta. I feel like going all the way to SLO would be too much for them. But at the very least, do LA-Goleta. You already have LAUPT and the first 14 miles of the route complete from the Antelope Valley route. Plenty of variety on the route, too. UP freight (local and mainline) and passenger trains. The new Metrolink stuff can be used, Coast Starlight with new P42 and Superliner DLC, and how about a Charger... something else also never been done before for any Train Sim. And the Chargers have been in service since 2017 all together and 2019 on the Surfline. If they really want to PRACTICE what they PREACH, they'll focus on the north route to Goleta with a new Charger and proper Surfliner equipment. Do something that's never been done before like you claim you want to do!! Why do I have a feeling they'll do the south route and likely not the full thing because "people don't like running a route for longer than an hour." Save the run then and continue it another time! No one is forcing you to sit and do the entire thing. That's an easy excuse to take a half-a** approach at a route. I thought I read a rumor that if they do the route, it'll only be Oceanside to San Diego. No one else has had a problem with making the entire route, along with the equipment to run on it. If it is in fact the south route, I'll have a very hard time spending money on another version of it. AND if it's not even the full route, forget it. I'll stick with the TSC route. BUT, if they actually release an entirely new route north of LA to at least Goleta, take my money all day. Again though, I'll have no interest in a route that's incomplete. Los Angeles-Goleta (new route, never been done. First 14 miles and LAUPT already completed) SC44 Surfliner Charger (new, never been done) Accurate Surfliner equipment (new, never been done before. Previous versions had inaccuracies and flaws.) P42 and Superliner equipment (Been done, but a TSW version would blow any other version from another sim out of the water. Can also be run on the Antelope Valley Line as a Coast Starlight detour over the famed Tehachapi) The Surfliner stuff has been one of, if not the most requested route for TSW. And stepping out of the box and doing the northern route to Goleta I think would be incredibly popular and likely sell well. A 4th version of LA-San Diego won't sell nearly as well if I had to guess. And if neither of the routes are done in their entirety and only include a portion of the route to please a small group of people who only like to run a route for an hour, that would sell even far less. DTG should really LISTEN to the community, if they care about their consumers, instead of doing something they think is good. The consumers are right here telling you what they want! At this point, the consumers have spoken. The ball is kind of in your court DTG Matt and TSW team. All of this said, not really holding out a lot of hope we will see any Surfliner in TSW. Okay, now I'll get off my soap box.
I think the northern route would be super cool as well as I used to live there, if it was done properly of course. Some cool and unique gameplay opportunities for sure! It does have significantly less traffic than the southern route (obviously) so there are still a fair amount of people who would like to have the southern route. Without the P42s and Superliners for the Coast Starlight, the northern route would be pointless compared to the southern section IMO. Lots and lots of folks want a long route to run long distance Amtrak trains on.
Just because it's been made soo many times already from more than a decade ago and a recent update in tsc, doesn't mean it should not be made. Msts is a thing of the past. Tsc doesn't offer a 24hr timetable. Your suggestion is great btw, but there are some issues with your comment on making the entire southern portion. You don't seem to understand the complexities of route building and building the full route towards the south. The main limitation of making the entire route from la to sd is due to how long it takes to make a route which gets much harder with length. Nothing is easy and I wouldn't call it a half-a** approach. The original tsc route is like 128 miles. That is 128 miles of stuff that needs to be modeled. Autogen is unable to create a perfect environment 1:1 at the moment.
Thats a terrible cutoff point for the route, for one thats 112 miles of mostly urban landscape that DTG would have to model, minus the 14 miles from Antelope Valley, and that is still 98 miles. 20 more miles than AVL..... On top of that the Coast Starlight doesn't even stop anywhere close to that station, with its nearest stop being either San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbra (Which is still a stretch for DTG), Ventura to LA would be the most reasonable distance, though it cuts the Coast Starlight's route back to Oxnard. Of course this cutting back also removes any coastal views, which is why I don't see a northern route happening atm. I rumored the LA to Oceanside, not the Oceanside to San Diego line because it makes sense from an operation standpoint on what DTG has right now, as I posted here: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...nks-orange-county-line-la-to-oceanside.72706/ The route from Oceanside to San Diego is a no go right now unless DTG gets the licensing from Coaster.....
Perhaps its for the Ventura line in the future. As the Surfliner would have a good distance on that Metrolink route.
They could do the little bit to Ventura Downtown for the Surfliner and the Ventura East branch for the Metroliner. As Amtrak seems to stop at a few stations as well.
The Ventura East Station really isn't a branch, its just the station is located in the middle of a wye.....
I was simply saying this because DTG themselves claim they want to focus on stuff that's never been done before. Their words, not mine. With that logic, Surfliner south has been done several times. Surfliner north has never been done. I'm glad you liked my suggestion though! I don't see how that's a terrible cutoff point for the route..? It's literally the northern terminus for most Surfliner trains and is the turn around point back to LA. It would make the most sense to end there. An extension to SLO will likely never happen. It's almost like a whole other route from Goleta-SLO. A terrible cutoff point is ending it part way through, like at Ventura. Ventura is 3 stops short of the end of the route (Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, and Goleta) and is something in the range of 37 miles away. If you're gonna go all the way to Ventura, why not just go the little extra distance to Goleta. That said, maybe not wanting to do the coastal work, which would be the best part of the route, would hold them back. IF they only did the route to at least Ventura, you would get the option of running the Metrolink equipment to East Ventura. So there is that. I still vote for doing the whole thing LA-Goleta, though. You make a good point about the operational standpoint of going just to Oceanside. I misread your original post as Oceanside-San Diego. They had a lot of trouble getting licensing for the original Coaster stuff in TSC and ended up releasing a custom rendition of the equipment with no logos. No signage at stations either. Thankfully, this has all long been included by amazing freeware developers. All of this said, I really have fairly high doubts we will see any version at all of a Surfliner route in TSW. At least not right now. It's highly requested but I just don't have a strong feeling anything will happen.
