Upcoming Release Blackpool Branches – Coming Soon!

Watch all the British fan boys roll in soon lol

 

I’m not even British and I’m indeed rolling in very promising route, just gets better each time we hear about it!

 

Looking forward to some pacer action! I'm not really into BR stuff but I know I’ll enjoy this.

Love all the extra liveries the locos come in too.

I also noticed the article said nothing about differences between console gens so I'm gonna assume it's the same for all of us which is nice

 

Absolute WOW ! …more from J.T. please & we will BUY BUY BUY !

 

Not British and the route itself means very little to me, but love the era and stock.

The addition of the Class 101 is a real incentive. One of my favorites.

( Curious cat: why is there not a link between the two Blackpool stations ? ).

 

Plan to buy this with Edinburg to Glagsow and Peak forest in sales

 

First day purchase, can't wait

 

To link Blackpool North and South (or Central as the south line originally went to) you would have to go right through the middle of Blackpool, plus there is no real reason to connect the two up.

 

No connection to the line, but JT’s recent TSC releases are really nice, so hopefully that’s carried over to TSW. The photos have been amazing. I also have good faith that JT will fix any bugs - The only worry I have is how long DTG will take to release any fixes.

The main attraction for me is the variety of stock on the route. This is what I want to see. Not DTG’s One train routes. It’s the reason I still play TSC more. The graphics may not be so good but the immersion is a lot higher as there is plenty of other stock about.

Day One purchase for me. Really hoping it’s as good as it looks.

 

Wow. All 3 original Pacer liveries. I can't remember the last time that we got so much in one add on pack.

 

I really really want this route. (and nope, not British either). But I also want my other british routes to work on PS5 too and that puts a dampener on things right now.

Although I will say that this effort by Just Trains looks like it may rival Niddertalbahn on effort and attention to detail, which would make it an easy day one buy normally.

 

From the images, this really puts DTG’s own routes to shame. Amazing what you can achieve with some extra effort.

 

Anything can be hidden behind a beautiful wrapper, I advise everyone to moderate their expectations)

P. S. But the work is impressive of course

 

This links back to the old days before even the big four operators, of which Blackpool was within LMS territory. It wasn't uncommon to see towns or cities with more than one railway station, you can even see this in Peak Forest at Buxton with its two stations on two lines. The reason for these was simply competition, individual railway companies would construct their own stations and much like the corporations of today, they would be directly in competition. In the case of Blackpool it even used to have a third station directly on the opposite side of the tower to Blackpool North, aptly named Blackpool Central. This was actually the largest of the three with 14 platforms and a massive freight yard south of it, but with everything grouped under LMS and later British Railways, Central was closed in 1964 and everything demolished soon after.

So that's why the two exist and why they weren't linked from the beginning - they were competitors. Blackpool South was a station on the track that went into Blackpool Central and was originally named Waterloo Road, it was renamed to Blackpool South when Central and its goods yard were demolished and the line was cut back to Waterloo Road being its terminus. Eventually in 1982, so just four years before this route's depiction, the track to South was lifted to become a single track.

As for why it's not linked today, simply put the land once occupied by the rest of the former Central trackbed has long since built over. BR were quick to sell the redundant land off to construction developments, and ever since then there have been buildings in the way of the southern track ever being extended any further.

Sorry to go on such a ramble, I love railway history.

 

Oh Yes! Chocolate & Cream "Skipper" livery will be visiting St Ives

 

-German players get TSG and Niddertalbahn.
-Uk Players get Just Trains and this.

*sigh*

 

This route does look impressive. The amount of content included should be a new standard for TSW, and it puts DTG to shame. They'd probably charge extra for the additional 142 liveries and dress it as a "gameplay add on".

However it doesn't change the fact that I fundamentally don't have as much interest in this time period as modern day, and it also doesn't change the fact that I fundamentally despise pacers. So I think I'll wait for a discount. Although I've been waiting for a discount on playstation for Niddertahlbahn, New York Trenton and Peak Forest for months, so that might be a very long wait.

 

Shame there are no US developers, or devs that want to work on tsw

 

And we barely have any US based developers for TSC...

 

This. A mainline route set in anything but modern day is a must at some point. Clinchfield just isn't enough after this long period of nothing.

 

The problem i see with DTG is, the br blue which "didnt sell well" is neither the routes nor the trains they released. Both is even done very well by dtg. Its their business case which doesnt sell well. DTGs marketing is effective in creating a hype, even that much, they could probably afford to go with fire and forget. But a hype is shortterm and mostly gone after the release.
Variety is what players will letting stay with the product. Thats why the 24h timetable is a major feature compared to tsc. (Also tsw4s features is a huge step forward to the needed variety, for example the free roam and editor)

Understandable dtg cant release a route with 5 new locos, but they could have gone more the direction, which JT is going. A second livery is something small, but adds a huge difference.

 

I think something that also contributed to the belief that the era doesn't sell was the release of DLoGW. But that didn't sell badly because of it being BR Blue, that sold badly because it was a bad addon. The one compliment you can give it is that it gave us the multiple timetable system which today is used to optimise routes for old gen consoles, apart from that, well... every featured vehicle was a retexture, it was a 1970s timetable slapped onto a 2018 route which just looked wrong, not to mention that the Class 52's reskin was, the 101 simply got some new stickers, and the 08 and MK2 coaches were a complete cut and paste from NTP without a single change. But since then they've only done either modern or steam era routes for UK content.

 

No wonder DLoGW had a bad reception.

 

I bought diesel legends mainly because the livery. Wouldnt waste a single second on a short cut like this. (1970s timetable on a modern route?? No thank you, this is a typical example of a bad business case started by Dtg: "lets make some money without putting effort into it". How dare to push the "black peter called didnt sell well" to the era or worse the loyal customers.

The mod, which backdated the route was a success. Cant replace a era recreation, but still the needed change to actually enjoy this timetable.

 

The roof of the Class 52, WSR vs DLoGW. The whole thing summed up in one image.

 

DLOGW doesn’t look so bad if you drive in the dark, apart from the more obvious infrastructure changes such as Airport Jn and of course the GWR corporate image stations.

 

Edinburgh*

I seen a video of someone get called on one of the main streets for saying burg instead of burgh

 

This looks like another of those passenger-overloaded routes that I will probably purchase because of the obviously slighted freight and particularly shunting content. Perhaps I will start learning to build my own activities using the new editor?

 

Blackpool Branches is day-one for me.

Really hope we hear more about something new before the roadmap because it's pretty bare after this one releases.

 

I'd rather DTG put a brake on the content mill in favour of dealing with the massive backlog of issues with existing content...

 

As it may well be known I am looking forward to this muchly and certainly a day one. A lot of work has gone into this and it shows.

 

Well from the october roadmap, there is maintalbahn, a swiss route and gameplay pack from rivet and a winter core update releasing in 0-3 months. Then it's a series of routes, locos, gameplay packs looking ahead. It is also almost christmas/new years which are holidays

 

I see your point but as a player from England I also enjoy seeing what TSG content is, so it’s countries not players of course.

I’m willing to bet they’re is at least 1 player from one of the 3 countries who don’t like they’re own stuff and prefer the other country/s

 

Shows what I know! Thought the chocolate and cream pacer was indigenous to Devon and Cornwall (GWR)

 

As I understand it, it was meant for there but then it didn't work so well and they threw it out. Then privatisation came and the Welsh valleys were full of Pacers, it was always either a Pacer or a Sprinter on the Merthyr line when I was there.

 

The Pacer's exceedingly long rigid wheelbase meant it was a very poor fit for any line with a lot of sharp curves. It was rejected from the Conwy Valley Line, at the very least, with 101s being reintroduced under a "heritage train" branding.

 

By 1988 all the chocolate and cream "Skippers" had been sent to Newton Heath and Heaton depots due to being unsuitable for the tight curves in the south west. Although pacers did return to the south west during privitisation so something must had changed, unless they kept them off the branch lines.

 

I can't speak for Cornwall as my time there has been pretty limited and I haven't been there in over a decade, but I lived in the area of Merthyr Tydfil for several years up until 2012. As far as I recall the valley lines from Cardiff up to Pontypridd and the three branches leading off of there (Merthyr, Aberdare and Treherbert) were almost an equal split between 150 Sprinters and 142 Pacers while under ATW. However I certainly remember how loud the Pacers were on curves, so I'm not at all surprised that they were originally taken out of the region. They had 15 Class 142 Pacers and 15 Class 143 Pacers, but I only recall 142s going up the valleys as I only saw the 143s on the Barry Island line, there were perhaps others further away that I just never saw.

 

Same with the Plymouth - Gunnislake line, particularly the section between Bere Alston and Calstock.

 

The Liverpool to Man Vic line got a Pacer allocation for a while - a far cry from the present electrification scheme. Pacers had to absolutely crawl over the complex Victoria station throat, and always felt vaguely unstable while doing so. Once I got a Sprinter substitute on the same route, and it took the same junction much more quickly and comfortably. To say nothing of the noise…

Lancaster to Leeds via Carnforth was also run by Pacers for a while. Now look at the curvature in the vicinity of Carnforth. Absolutely ear-splitting.

I can only imagine that the wheel lathes got a lot of use for Pacer wheelsets.

 

As someone who is around class 142 Pacers quite a lot, I really hope there will be flange squeal.
On the line I volunteer at, we had to put in grease dispensers on one of the sharper curves to soften the sound due to the locals complaining.

 

I haven’t managed to establish whether the Preston / Blackpool / Ormskirk route will be available for TSW3 on PS5. Can anyone confirm this for me? I really don’t want to buy TSW4 just so I can drive one extra route. I may change my mind about paying for the upgrade if:
- Haptic feedback in the PS5 controller is now part of the simulation
- Screen stutter is resolved (fully)

 

It’s TSW4 only I’m afraid.

 

Yep TSW4 only

 

All new releases since the release of TSW4 will be for TSW4 only.

 

Liverpool to Manchester via Chat Moss was 142s from 1986 until 2015, certainly a while...

 

Just watched the Railfan TV video on YouTube. I like the audio announcement done by Tom who apparently is local. I thought he was from Liverpool, hearing the accent, but obviously he lives north of Blackpool. Guess that Scouse, Blackpool and Wigan are in the same group of accents. That’s also why I like Scotrail Express. Looking forward to driving the Pacer with the old four gearbox. I also think I heard a guard whistle feature on the Intercity train. Right?

 

It is a feature