I've been reading a lot on the forums lately about how passenger operations are the most demanded for TSW3, so this has prompted me to create a post to ask how much support there is out here for more freight. For me, I love freight operations...no whiny passengers, no braking just when you are getting up to steam, variety is the spice of life, and almost endless variety of scenarios! Scenarios that are based on hauling hops from some rural siding to the big city for delivery for a brewery or running aluminum to an aircraft factory or hauling fish from the coast to the big city while they are still fresh adds SO much to the immersion of train simulator. Hauling passengers from station to station is fun, but at a certain point it becomes monotonous and it doesn't matter if you are on a german route or a canadian route or whatever. With freight, timetables can be specific to an area of the world which makes things more interesting and timeless. I'm sure I am not the only freight monkey here...who's with me? For starters, a nice freight specific route for TS3 based at Felixstowe UK would be much appreciated.
Here's the thing ja, just freight routes are something that end up being slow, a few people don't like em because there's little to no change In pace. Routes with variety imo are the best - take the tsc freeware northern lines route for example, it has the burn naze terminal for freight operations, northern commuter and semi fast services to Blackpool North. Also having Felixtowne freight only route would end up annoying so many people who beg for the geml haha.. love the idea but freight has a lot of flaws that quite a few people aren't a fan of ja?
I got into freight in TSW with DRA. It offers a lot of variety, but more importantly, it opened up a whole new world as it brought the possibility to manipulate the brakes of the train. With this it is now possible to set up the train to real world regulations. It brought a whole new level of immersion. I regularly spend tens of minutes to sometimes disable brakes, do the necessary calculations and set up the service accordingly, putting the brakes into the required brake settings etc. Admittedly not something for everyone, but I love this level of realism
I like both passenger and freight with more of an interest towards passenger. Passenger operations are easier and faster and some unique sounds. Freight is also good but sometimes it can be too slow for my liking. What I like about freight is the challenge even though I don't operate it realistically for the most part lol. I much prefer American freight over German freight. It's something about massive locomotives and their power that draws me in. Also I like the variety freight can offer such as loading, unloading, shunting, mainline runs.
I like freight a lot, especially US freight routes. There aren’t enough loading and unloading tasks though and what there is is a bit sketchy.
Another thing that the German routes are missing are actually freight services that run to a Hump Yard Deutsche Bahn Rangierbahnhof. There should have been two for the game if added in to the matching routes first off is Bahnstrecke Hagen Finnentrop Siegen Ruhr Sieg Nord und Bahnstrecke Wuppertal Steinbeck Ennepetal Hagen Rhein Ruhr Osten Rbf Hagen Vorhalle which will end up marching them if built. Dresden area routes Nahverkehr Dresden & Bahnstrecke Dresden Chemnitz Werdau Tharandter Rampe Rangierbahnhof Dresden Friedrichstadt. The way that both Marshalling Yards work is actually using a hump to sort goods waggons out don't watch their final destination with another train being formed using the existing Rangierloks Deutsche Bahn terminology for a Switcher locomotive United States shunting locomotive Australia and United Kingdom. These are DB Baureihe 204 DR Baureihe 112 V100 DB Baureihe 360 V60 (not the East German version DR Baureihe 104-106 V60 Goldbroiler) & Vossloh G6 DB Baureihe 650.
I like freight for the variety of equipment, operations, and tasks. In my mind, passenger service is pretty much all the same thing repeated over and over with constant stopping and starting, breaking up enjoyment and creating a kind of machine-like monotony. Now I realize long haul freight can be monotonous for some people too, but the constant speed and grade changes create variety in travel not to mention that one must absolutely pay attention to maintain proper control. When you throw in switching to make up and take down trains as well as higher speed mainline hauls vs shorter slower speed branch line hauls the interest keeps changing to keep your mind in the game. As a model railroader as well as a TSW Operator I have never been a fan of passenger trains as the models are so long and take up too much room to operate realistically in scale. And I honestly do not see the "fun" in running station to station with no other interactions. With freight there is always extra tasks along the way, prior to departure and/or upon arrival. Plus the variety of freight locomotives and cars outweighs passenger ones probably 10 to one (best guess) in each case. They say "variety is the spice of life",,,, well freight is the variety of trains. Of course any passenger fan can and would say the same thing. Which really makes this an unwinnable discussion as each has its pros & cons to each individual. In other words - there is no correct answer nor any wrong ones. Personally, I am a freight fan with a few passenger interests, and if given a choice I would choose freight over passenger.
I don’t quite understand your obsession with listing terms in countless languages, but I’ll help you get it right. A hump yard is not the same as a Rangierbahnhof. A Rangierbahnhof is just a yard, a hump yard is described as a Rangierbahnhof mit Ablaufberg (literally: yard with a hump) or, less common in my experience, a Ablaufbahnhof (hump station).
My point was that I was trying to get non English language railway terms that are going to be useful in the game. That should explain I was using non-English language terms in my comments
In real life freight is something I don't want to do ever again as I enjoy the passenger malarkey. In TSW however I love doing the freight runs on Tees Valley, NTP and SEHS as there is just something different to it. I would happily take a route where you have longer freight runs as it is something the British routes lack.
Something I feel DTG could do much better is add more loading/unloading operations to the freight scenarios, as stujoy said above. It's frustrating to load up TSW to load hoppers with the expectation to actually take them somewhere and then get "congratulations, let's see how you did!" I think there are one or two pretty decent ones for Tees Valley and a series for East Coastway for the Class 66 that would be nice if they put them all into the same scenario rather than breaking them up into three different scenarios. THAT is what kills the immersion for me. Perhaps that's why more people prefer passenger operations. Too bad the scenario builder for TSW is so limited; we could create some really interesting situations in Train Sim Classic fairly easily.
How about a Hump operation. The video is from Zurich Limmattal. Also covers RRO RSN Hagen Vorhalle & Riesa-Dresden DCZ Elbtalbahn Rbf Dresden Friedrichstadt For Multiplayer if added a Yard worker in Austrian German OBB terminology Verschubleiter. SBB & DB Rangierbeliter Note the video is in Austrian German
From the UK point of view there are several areas where we could have some great freight operations. The existing TVL could be extended to Boulby. You have the Mendip Quarry stone traffic from Merehead and Whatley in Somerset. Go back a few years pre Greta and net zero nonsense, coal was King nowhere more so than the South Yorkshire area centred around Knottingley with several power stations and numerous collieries in the area. Ditto the area around Blyth in Northumberland or South Wales.
I'd love to have a route with more yard operations. Perhaps we could get a hump yard. I still want the BNSF (or ATSF) Seligman Sub route with high-speed heavy freight trains running at 70mph.
A similar (but different) approach would be to create a multi-route package of switching activities (both scenarios and timetable sessions). In 2019, DTG brought out something similar to this: the TSW BR Heavy Freight pack, so a precedent already exists.
