Foreign Power On Horseshoe Curve, Is This New?

I've played alot of services on Horseshoe Curve in TSW2 and a handful so far in TSW3. I've only ever seen the two NS locos there but today I was playing service 65E and saw this little train backing up at Cresson with a pair of CSX SD40s on one end, the other end was a trio of NS GP38s.





And when I was using the free camera to take the second screenshot I noticed this CSX\UP GP38 pair parked in the little yard at Cresson.



Is this something new or have I just not noticed all this time?

DW

 

They might just be subbing into each other. Like a sd40s subbing into each other, etc. Now, idk if those trains actually run irl since idk which operators operate where and I rarely play this route so I haven't seen that happen.

 

But, again, another argument for giving us control over livery spawns- while you will from time to time see a UP road engine on the East Coast, you will never see a GP-38 which these days is strictly a switcher and occasional local freight engine, and doesn't wander off its home trackage.

 

*sigh*.....the subbing system is so broken..... this is ridiculous....

 

Also on HSC I've recently had a Cane Creek AC4400 sub onto an AI train I've met - THIS is the kind of loco substitution that should work on all US freight routes, mainline diesels sometimes wander off like this and it really adds to the variety. Freight car substitution... that's a whole different topic.

 

As long as it isn't excessive, or improper. For example on Cajon, there are thru intermodal freights from NS to BNSF and visa versa, those should see a high substitution of mainline power from HSC, while a manifest from somewhere like San Diego to Barstow should see less.

 

I remember once I got Clinchfield, CC, and SH in TSW2 it basically got to a point where CSX livery became a rarity on SPG, almost never showing up.

 

Yeah, that was far from ideal. But the positive thing about it was that thanks to SH SD70 we finally had a mainline diesel there that could properly go down the grade

 

On the subject of CJP, has anyone ever seen any power besides BNSF? I have not, and have never seen any custom liveries either, and I have finished the journey bar one service.

DTG JD, are you able to shed any light on this? I'm just trying to find out if custom liveries/DLC substitutions are even possible on CJP, for AI services and static stock. It is my belief that this is information that the players should have access to, just to know if a certain feature on a specific route is even activated, or not. Thank you.

 

If what has been mentioned ages ago still stands (which I believe it does), the custom liveries appearance is tied to the substitution as a whole (don't ask me why...), so when nothing substitutes (which it doesn't on CJP), not even the liveries appear. All consists on CJP are rigidly predefined trains with predefined locos (notice how all manifests are of one or two types). When substitution was going wild on SPG, foreign power could appear as well as custom liveries, because both follow the same rules. Someone can correct me on this or give an update, but this was the situation for quite some time.

 

Well I didn't know that and it is very interesting and as you said explains what is happening, so thank you. The way I play TSW liveries are important. I am hopeful that for future routes, DTG might be able to tell us what kind of functionality custom liveries/substitutions will have, before we buy!

 

It is especially painful given how many US freight cars are already in the game, yet they basically never mix into other routes and consists. There are already 4 different autorack liveries in the game, yet all autorack trains are always only the livery that came with the route (and on CJP not even a new livery).

 

In my simple way of thinking about this, if you’re going to have a livery designer to customize equipment then that equipment should be able to appear and be used in the routes. Otherwise why even have livery designer?

I upgraded from 2020 to TSW 3 particularly because of delivery designer and that I could run customized equipment. If I had known that the customized equipment was not going to show up in the game in certain instances I likely would not have upgraded.

A weird point in all of this is that you cannot customize any of the Oakville equipment but the CJP equipment shows up in Oakville.

I’d have to say that the association between the custom liveries and them showing up in the various routes has some broken issues that need to be tended to. Having said that, one of the most enjoyable aspects when playing this game is seeing your custom equipment in the yard on a passing train or even in the consist of your own train.

CJP fails this. Oakville gets an A+. And Clinchfield is over done on the locos with no shows on rolling stock. however Oakville’s locos not being in LD is something else that needs attention.

 

Thats new. HSC originally had no substitutions. I ran it a ton on TSW2 when it came out and never saw anything other than NS even though I had every freight DLC installed.

For some reason the SD40 seems to be subbing all over the place in TSW3. Maybe because there are so many different versions and the game is just picking whatever one randomly... I haven't been playing a lot of US freight lately so I haven't seen these new instances. I do know when I played Sand Patch grade the BNSF SD40 was showing up there (but never saw the ES44).

As has been pointed out a few times foreign power is a real thing but how its been happening in TSW hasn't been great. SD40s and GP38s at this point should not be appearing anywhere other than their home railroads. Those locos are kept for local and yard work on the Class I railroads so they wouldn't be getting sent on journeys outside of their home. You wouldn't really see a UP loco being used as yard power at a NS yard. They use their own older locos generally.

The big mainline locomotives are a different story and are sent all over the country. So out of what we have in the game, what should reasonable be showing up outside of its home route would be: CSX AC44 and C40-8W, UP AC44 and SD70ACe, NS ES44, BNSF ES44. If those were to pop into routes on other railways tracks that would be more realistic than the SD40s and GP38s. Right now I don't see those ones subbing at all across the routes.

Also for a while Sand Patch was having TONS of substitution where you'd see as many UP locomotives on the route as you did CSX. That's way unrealistic. My experience in seeing trains is that yeah foreign power shows up all the time but its pretty rare to see a situation where foreign locos outnumber the home locos especially in yards.

For a bit of real life example, this summer I went to the real life locations of HSC and SPG to do trainspotting. In two entire days in the Altoona-Johnstown area I only saw maybe 3-4 foreign power locomotives (oddly enough all UP). But dozens of NS locos. And on a full day in Cumberland-Rockwood area I didn't see a single foreign power loco, every single one I saw was CSX. Of course its a crap shoot what you could see on any given day but thats just a baseline.

For game purposes I'd say if they want to do foreign power they should figure out a way to do it where:
1. Only the newer widecab mainline locos appear as foreign power, the ones I listed above.
2. Make it somewhat rare. So that you do see them, but not where they show up as much or more than what should be the home power.

 

Not sure Dash-8s see any foreign power action these days, given they see barely any action at all. You might also technically have a problem with eras. For example, the SD70ACes are pre-2012 (no PTC on the roof), while ES44C4s are current-day versions. Speaking of those, you would also have to specify where they could appear. C4s are similar in performance to DC six axles and wouldn't appear on heavy trains (coal, for example). All of this is doable and probably not difficult; just saying that there's more to it.

 

Are you saying that you will be removing it or that you will make it so NS UP CSX can sub into each other in the future?

 

If changes are made, can this be done transparently/consulted with the community? I see this as an area where a bad decision can cause a serious immersion break, while a good decision can help a whole lot to elevate it. And since all of us want the latter, we would definitely gladly give feedback where possible.

 

The answer, for both substitutions and player liveries, is to provide the player with checkbox yes/no options: Yes, I do want this to appear/No, I do not want this to appear.

 

I would have agreed but CSX did recently pull a bunch out of storage for use and I’ve heard part of the reason was to pay back leased power… some of them are not the best looking after so long sitting around, this one was spotted leading recently:

 

This would be nice. It would save situations where for example I had to uninstall Clinchfield whenever I played SPG because I hated seeing a 1970s SD40 subbing in (they since fixed that in a patch).

 

Great, another US route with broken substitutions, just what I needed to see on TSW3 right now (not!).
At this point, might as well pull the plug on substitutions for US routes then until it is fixed. Seeing GP38s and SD40s subbing in is getting ridiculous now (and you're not changing my mind on foreign power either).

 

Custom liveries now seem broken for the 465 in SEHS as well, this must have happened in one of the recent updates, because it had previously been working. On the pause screen I have noticed that the individual unit number for the 465 no longer displays either, just a blank space, which is probably related. The 395 and 66 are still working, so far.