Frankfurt - Fulda Hidden Tracks: S-bahn Tunnels & Nordmainischestrecke

Time for some interesting stuff...


Those underground section had tracks suspiciously well laid (had included level details, also station stops included with name localized), suspiciously well signaled & are not properly barriered (enterable from Frankfurt South, and will not cause 'out of bounds' warning). Some track also extend much more from the visible area. Those can be peeked by using GodMode's show all ribbons feature.
Now we know from Lucas we would have a BR 420 soon, I wonder what this could mean...

Also, RE54 go all the way to hanau out of bounds via a secondary route. Those tracks have pantographs, signals, standing wagons & for some reason level crossing, but has zero scenery. Probably had the same fate as the Dresden Airport branch.


There's also a industrial route south of Frankfurt Hbf, heading to the river. Will phase through building but is drivable.


Really appreciate the route building team for building those stuff.

 

S-Bahn Frankfurt Tief-Hanau via the tunnels and the nordmainische Strecke seem to only be missing scenery and would both be of great use in the route. They added scenery to the Meißen Branch later on with Dresden-Riesa. Maybe we get lucky with this one, if enough people are vocal about it. I would even pay for the scenery to be added and the timetables beeing adjusted to the new branches.

 

I would pay for it if, for example, TSG offers this underground line expansion with the br 420, that seems to come to FFA in the next months.
Could sell it as "TSG DB Br 420 FFA expansion bundle". They said in the preview it should be a new route for the effort? Im more than ready to pay for an extension!

 

I can see the S bahn tunnel to connect both frankfurt Süd and Offenback to Hbf Tief to be possible. as an extension, not a new route. The line from Frankfurt Süd to Hanau over the port/container yard would be amazing but I fear it would have performance issues for people not running impeccable pc's. then again we have the layer selector now, a perfect tool to make busier and more realistic timetables.

route hopping is cool and all but the need to get out of your train and get to the point. then hope that service is in sync on both timetables and you aren't delayed at all and you can make it back on time. I fear route hopping will be the new "we didn't add this to the timetable so just use free roam mode lol"

But before I think of what could add even more to this route. I still have many many hours left to enjoy playing this great route.

 

I'd love to even pay for a second Nordmainstrecke from Ffm Süd to Hanau and the S-Bahn-Tunnel via Konstabler.... The Hafenbahn section looks interesting too, but IIRC there's not much service except steam railtour and then it should blend together to the EZB.
Please Lucas, do your magic and give us the second part of the fantastic Frankfurt scenery

 

Thanks everyone for the information, just added more information to post title.

 

Could you post a side by side (or top to bottom if that's your thing) images of the full map here and that that's shown in the game itself? Would be interesting to see how much was hidden

 

Thanks for catching this!

This DLC already is fantastic as it is but to have the northern route via Frankfurt Ost and Maintal would be just amazing. It would offer a huge potential for freight traffic with the Container terminal. Also most of the freight traffic is routed via the northern route. If dreaming a bit further the "Frankfurter Hafenbahn" covering the harbor area around Frankfurt-Ost could offer almost endless shunting opportunities. But even without that, it would be a fantastic expansion which i definitely would be happy to pay for.

I am therefore suggesting the "Kinzigtalbahn Freight Pack" with the northern route via Frankfurt Ost to Hanau and the BR 290 for shunting duties (e.g. also in the Hanau port).

 

Not sure if anyone has noticed yet but kilburn park is fully modelled on the WCML bakerloo line, barring the lighting, PIDS, and the trains not stopping there.

 

kilburn park already existed, this has been made from scratch

 

yeah i know that however my point was that it is "hidden" content.

 

There is a service every two hours from Berlin to Frankfurt Airport. It would have been an easy win to include the branch via Forsthaus to Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Fernbahnhof (about 8 minutes driving time, half of it in a tunnel). They have all the assets for Flughafen and Stadion from TSC.

It´s a shame they never seem to go those extra 5 miles to make a route really special. Don´t get me wrong, this route is good.... best German route I would say.

 

So i tried it in timetable mode and you can set a destination from nearly before Frankfurt Tief to Offenbach Ost.
You can complete the full run without signal, barrier or other problems.
I rate the citytunnel a 7/10 because you can see very much ai trafic, the track looks good and the number of stations is also good.
Only downside is it could use more Scenery. Would pay for that too. Maybe a new loco? by TSG?

Serious now, please Dtg if this has any chance to get implemented, even with a paywall, this potential cant be left unused.
If there is literally nothing planned, then please just say it, so we wont set our hopes highand be dissapointed afterwards.

 

The silence from DTG is what I am curious about. Every time they go silent, something happens.

 

I would love to see the S6 from Frankfurt Süd to Friedberg as Bonus or as extra addon

 

Default

Revealed

 

Thanks! By crikey, at a glance that looks almost double the trackage. Such a shame they can't at least make it at least explorable if not actually used

Do any of the AI services traverse the upper large section in its entirety?

 

All of them do.

 

It could simply be that it was easier to create a timetable this way. The public timetable does not contain exact times for leaving a particular tunnel entrance. By having these stops modelled, albeit AI-only, they can have an actual run along the route, resulting in a far more realistic timetable. Otherwise, each visible section would be its own technical service in the editor and they would need to know the exact timings and stuff. Plus, each service is a bit of overhead.

The same could be the case for the freight services via the northern route. By having it actually built, they can have far more realistic runs of these AI trains.

 

I absolutely agree with you. And additionally it would make building this extensions far more easy timetable and route wise

 

2martens This is a good thought. They could actually only be there for AI... but why not put some scenery on them? Nordmainische Strecke should have been part of the route. ICE and freight can go both ways depending on the traffic situation in Frankfurt.

If I was doing Payware in TSW, I would add the scenery and also Aschaffenburg (20 Km from Hanau) and Frankfurt Airport (10 Km from Frankfurt Süd). Would make the route a great network with endless possibilities.

 

Or to Mainz via Flughafen to have the Route Hopping connection to LFR

 

Simulating trains running do cost CPU performance, and they contribute to the lagging experience you may have. Considering the underground section have many traffic (you would sometimes see 5 trains just in this hidden place) there doesn't seem to make many sense for the BR 423 to just have a ~13min playable service & go through the entire underground just to appear far west of Frankfurt am Main for a brief minute.

Nordmainischestrecke on the other hand usually only see 1-2 RE54 passing that section at the same time, not a great issue I guess. Though since this route has proper signal models (tracks this far usually have blocky signals or just nothing) and crossings, it was probably cut in early stages.

 

They might as well have just given it scenery and included it in the release then...

 

While I agree, it would be fantastic to have some branches or Hbf Tief with the S-Bahn station, I think it is also a bit unfair to critique DTG for that. The route is extensive and with FFM main station was already a lot of effort and work.

Something similar to Meißen would be fantastic and for many worth paying something extra if done well.

 

I don't think they would give us the S Bahn extension from the good of their hearts, but I would be very interested in paying for it in the form of a loco DLC. I don't know how that would work exactly, but it seems like a waste that all of this content is there without anything being done to it.

 

It's for the 420 all this sbhan stuff

 

Did the 420 run there in 2017?

 

Yes they did

 

Thank you for taking a deep dive into the unknown lands of Frankfurt!
To be fair: I think it’s like 100% certain the 420 will come to Frankfurt-Fulda. However: The idea of a “Frankfurt-Fulda; S-Bahn journeys-pack” is really nice! Imagine having those route sections, the 420 and maybe an improved 423 with correct interior etc.!
What we do have to keep in mind though is that it’s often the case that more parts of routes were build to a certain point and then dropped.
As KWG came out, people followed the line from the Nantenbacher-Kurve until Lohr am Main- and it was also very well build until that point but never implemented. Same on Berninaline: The line is actually built until St. Moritz and the trains are all driving until there, but only tracks and signals are existing- there is no scenery.
But to be honest I would really love to have this at some point; so Lukas, as someone said above: Do your magic man!

 

Lukas did hint on stream about the sbhan tunnel

 

What do you think which line will they build for the br 420?

 

I'm really fascinated by this. I've tried driving the BR423 into the city tunnel and it feels like it would be really interesting metro-style gameplay. The gradients are very steep and the scedules are tight. There are a lot of different lines squeezing into 1 tunnel and so there's a lot of pzb/(lzb?) action. The trains can be 12 cars long and need to be squeezed into the platforms by stopping just at the right place like on the Bakerloo Line. I really hope that something comes out of this in the near future.

 

And do we know who is developing a class 420? DTG os TSG? I guess Lukas on Gamescom said something like TSG are working now on second Expert loco due the succes of BR 101 Expert?

 

tsg have been ‘working on’ the 420 for about 4 years now. iirc it was on one of the first roadmaps after tsw2 launched

 

Thanks, already digged in older threads and found this statement from TSG member (10th of march, 2022):

exterior looked pretty much complete even in beggining of 2022, also interior seems to be done (fuses in back wall, sunshades,.. can be seen through the window).

 

Wouldn't mind a dedicated S-Bahn route using the 420/423.

More Interestingly, The line to Hanau via Frankfurt Ost is layed out. Wouldn't it be nice to have an alternative route on top of the main one!

 

It would... as a freight train or an ICE you can run both ways depending on traffic in the Frankfurt area.

 

UFT633fh6PPhwlJVz-_KvzQ80nfL8WEfXw by Jakobix posted Sep 16, 2024 at 3:40 PM

This picture was reposted in the rail-sim forum. I think they planned more. "Two diverging paths"...

 

No they retire 2014 in Frankfurt

 

Thing is that it takes a really long time to build everything accurately. If there's any tunnels, it also has to be light baked which takes a while.

 

I´ve built routes in TSC... don´t need to be schooled about that sort of thing =)

 

Frankfurt Stresemannallee station is fully modeled with PIS screens and even collectibles (!), but you can’t drive any services to and from there as the S-Bahn trains go into the city tunnel directly after the next station (Frankfurt Süd) and I guess the devs rightfully didn’t see any reason to add these 1-minute services to the timetable.

This further reinforces our theory that a Frankfurt City Tunnel expansion or route is coming, they probably fully built this station knowing it would be used then.

Edit: Perhaps it was the other way around. According to this response from Matt in the Early Access stream (timestamp 04:04:30), it seems like they were planning on doing the tunnels, but scrapped them due to the release schedule. Maybe this is also what happened to the alternative line to Hanau.

 

Why would it be used? Stresemannallee is on the route towards Darmstadt. It has nothing to do with the S8/9 from Hanau to Hauptbahnhof.

 

It’s on the S3 and S4 which both go through the city tunnel to the Hauptbahnhof as well.

 

I hope they get better at them. lengthening the S-bahn frankfurt or the S2 in dresden to the airport would make them way more fun and worth it to play. why play a 5 minute S2 if you have an hour long S1. I really hope like the Meissen branch or even a longer branch but a full paid remaster is something we see more of in the future.

 

Man, for this extension I really would pay extra ...

 

Tsc and tsw are 2 different games. Using unreal is complex

 

This Expansion called BR 420 from TSG

 

Don't let your hopes fly too high ... the Köln-Aachen actionpack took years!