It's a shame to see that once again there is a consistent ballast colour throughout London-Faversham. In reality there is a very notable difference between ballast on HS1 and on the Network Rail lines, a difference that yourselves noticed back in 2013 with the TS1 London-Faversham route. Yet in a route produced 13+ years later, this has not been recognised. This sort of small change goes a long way to changing the feel of areas and lines in a route, not to mention is more realistic and evident on every video and image of the route. The worst area for it is probably around Dagenham/Rainham, where HS1 runs alongside the LTS route for a period. In this screenshot from Google Earth you can clearly see the difference between the ballast on HS1 (left) and the Network Rail infrastructure (right). Compare it to this screenshot from the trailer, and you see the ballast is an identical shade (and very dark versus reality I will add, but this is an issue across all routes). From experience, this change would not take much effort, time or manpower to implement, as a simple edit of the current textures would suffice. It'd be nice to see this represented either in an update to the route (and LGV Méd while you're there) or even just to be kept in mind for future high speed routes.
I wonder if they're only able to use one colour of ballast (or even type of track) in any given route, and they've gone with the darker colour that appears (looking on Google) on most of the rest of the route.
It's really concerning too about the colour of the ballast. The texture itself is pretty much flat with black. As a result, it makes the network look really dirty and sooty. Which isn't the case because it gets cleaned and the ballast gets replaced and most of the trains can't get sooty.
Yes! The Ballast Color on many routes (like LGV and the upcoming SEHS) needs to be improved. I don’t think it’s the most important issue, but it is definitely up there, and like you said, it helps in making the route feel more real and authentic.
Well maybe this issue that keeps going on and on it seems with the ballast of high speed routes will get fixed soon. They keep making the same mistakes but I guess it's not a big issue. If they fixed these issues, it would make the route feel more authentic and real
I’m in support of anything that improves immersion and makes players happy. Happy players = Loyal players = TSW continues to grow and train enthusiasts can carry on driving trains in their PJ’s.
