My main interest is American Freight, although I do enjoy doing a passenger run from time to time. From what videos I've seen the new route looks pretty nice, but I'm curious as to how much there is to do freight wise? How many services and scenarios are there running freight? Any switching? Local services?
There are two scenarios and about a dozen services. One scenario is switching and unloading aggregates. The second one is mainline haul with a stop on the way where a switcher loco adds more cars to your train. I haven't done any of the services, but they seem varied enough, with some switching. If you like both freight and passenger operations, go for it. It's a very well done route. If you only want freight, I'd say wait for a discount.
I've run through most of them now...about to go do the tenth and last "journey" scenario, which is a late-night service. It's been fairly simple, but a good learning experience. The freight hauling on offer here seems to barely represent the route in real life, so there's definitely room for later expansion, say with a UP GP40. Here's a blog post from 2009 that describes freight service in the area: https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/03/freight-on-peninsula.html The journey starts with the training scenario, and runs you around the clock, through both scenarios above and seven of the nine freight services. For switching, you'll work the South San Francisco Yard breaking down an incoming train of loaded aggregate hoppers, then take fifteen loads to the construction yard where you'll dump them in five-car cuts and then take them back to SSF Yard. So far, I've not seen any service that includes the centerbeam flat included with the route. Interestingly, the way to get to Free Roam is to complete a service...at the end, after the scores come up, Free Roam will be an option.
Thanks, I appreciate the info. Sounds like this is primarily a passenger route, at least at this time. I might pick it up if/when it goes on sale, or if we ever get an editor see if others start making freight scenarios for it.
This is a great piece of work, especially since it features something that cannot happen in TS: not only the AI switcher that adds cars to your train, but also ... well, I'll let others discover that. I hope that the TSW2020 creators provide more of this sort of work in future switching activities.
Im mostly into British, Australian(not in tsw) and german railways but i loved the csx freight services and long island railroad so im looking forward to getting penn corridor. If im right a new route should come out around December or January