Upcoming Release Master The West Midlands!

Love the way the livery designer tried to make the old 101 look a little bit less archaic by painting a black rectangle across the windscreens, to disguise the fact there were three rounded ones, and make it look like one big modern panel.

 

Same with the Network Southeast livery on the IoW Class 485, to try and hide the fact that at the end it was a ~65yo train...

 

Probably rarely they weren't the desired type to run the Paddington suburban services.

They would have been rare as Tyseley had only a few class 101 units in 1992, most of their class 101 vehicles were paired with class 116 DMBS's.

I would suggest that nine out of ten photo's of the Cross City line in DMU days will show a three car suburban unit or occasionally a four car set.

 

This is what I found and shows 2 car sets but unsure on the specific class though

 

Thanks for sharing that, will watch it properly later.
The video showed Tyseley based Class 115 (four car), 116 (three car, no headcode box), 117 (three car), 118 (three car, domed headcode box) and 150/1 in Centro livery (like the West Cornwall 150/2 but no front end gangway) on the Redditch branch. A Tyseley 153 working the Bromsgrove - Barnt Green shuttle (through services to Bromsgrove on the Cross City Line only happened in recent years) and an almost new Cardiff based 158 on a Regional Railways service.

The line wasn't yet electrified. The 323's weren't ready when the line was energised so until it was the line solidered on with the remaining few first generation DMU's, any spare second generation DMU's and a mix of indigenous class 304 and 310 EMU's plus imported 305 and 308 EMU's.

Sets were at a premium. One Saturday afternoon I travelled from Perry Barr on the Walsall line to New Street in the rear cab of a single car 153.

Class 116's operated in the West Midlands since 1958. The 115's arrived from Merseyside in the mid 1980's followed by the 117's and 118's from Bristol and Plymouth. Sets were supplemented by Class 127 centre cars made redundant from the electrification of the St Pancras- Bedford line, either to extend sets to four cars or replace worn out Class 116 trailers. Once the lines out of Marylebone and Paddington were over to Class 165/166 operation further 115s and 117s arrived. Some of the 117s, including the Regional Railways liveried one in the video moved on to Edingburgh and survived until the new millenium.

 

These are all high density suburban types which were designed for lines like this. Class 116's were the mainstay for many years but as stated above were altered during the 80's.

I think one of the aims was to not have any sets without a lavatory, the class 116 centre cars didn't have a lavatory so were either replaced by lavatory fitted centre cars, also through gangways were being fitted to units. For a time in the 80's Tyseley sets were numbered to differentiate between gangwayed sets and non-gangwayed sets. Eventually the non-gangwayed sets were phased out.

Also four car sets were formed by adding lavatory fitted centre car to an existing set. These were great fun up Old Hill bank on a stopper, especially in the leaf fall season. I think they were nicknamed slugs.

There was a time in the 80's when some class 101 trailers were running between class 116 motor vehicles.

 

This may already have been brought up and if it has I apologise. I'm not going to complain about the price itself because it is what it is however I do find it bizarre that the route is identical in price to the bundle that includes TSW 3 if you were buying it brand new. I realise that the starter packs have been £29.99 since day one, but it seems like an odd price mismatch.

Wouldn't it make more sense to charge a different amount on those instead? With how it currently is, the base game is basically being given away for free alongside your chosen route and that seems odd. I guess that's about hooking people into the market though...

 

It's more for those who are new to the game. You only get bcc and no other route. You don't get skw, cjp or sehs or sos (deluxe edition only)

 

It's basically a hook to get people to acquire the base game for free but it's a bit insidious for those who already own the game and looking at this £5 price rise. Similar if not quite the same as various insurance companies or broadband companies who offer "deal" prices to attract new customers, but existing users pay more. Best thing at this stage is to vote with your wallet, wait for a sale and/or hope DTG sell so few copies at this price they are forced to reconsider their policy and drop the cost for existing owners to a more realistic amount.

If they need to increase prices fair enough but how about £27.99 to existing owners and bring back the 10% discount for preorder (which would put it back to around what we were paying before).

 

I was given to understand that you still get extended SEHS and/or updated SoS if you already own these for TSW2, even on this pack. I only got this from another user though. Perhaps someone from DTG could confirm whether this is correct.

 

If you already own sos and sehs you can download the tsw3 versions when you buy the game I'm pretty sure. So you should be able to download them with this purchase and not rebuy them

 

I agree. I personally preferred when they used to do two or even three. The first preview should have been a month or so ago when the community could have fed back and things could be changed (including even the New Street lighting, bridge supports etc)
I think in the past people have been very vocal about "first looks" because they knew DTG said these things were finished weeks in advance, but then continued to dev things right up to the last day (ie hypocritical)

That DTG now do delay some releases to help develop properly was asked for years ago on this forum, so why DTG can't do a "Hey, this is 90% done for what we think, what do you guys think?" and then actually work on it alongside the community would be better than hiding upcoming releases and then last minute putting it on a screen.

I'm also not sure who DTG have actually streaming nowadays. Sam and Nat obviously moved on. JD doesn't seem to drive outside of 4Up so that leaves Matt...

 

Nope, this is accurate so long as you stay on the same platform

 

It's a good job they previewed the WCL route before release lol, then it was off sale for 2 more weeks. Hopefully this is a major improvement. I trust DTG far more than Rivet after all.

 

Yes, you are correct. But if you are a new player and never played tsw2 or never played the routes, you wouldn't get those routes for free

 

Agreed. I don't like this last minute reveal approach and the lack of preview streams well in advance for community feedback - it just seems completely illogical, especially now with the promise of post-release patches to fix any issues (which should have been dealt with prior to release).

I long for the days when there use to be lots of preview streams well in advance which didn't just provide valued feedback, but a chance to whet the appetite and really look forward to the route.

 

What I don't like is the ambassadors doing the release day streams.

It should be DTG so they can answer questions on the product that ambassadors can't answer.

Every month seems to have less and less streams from DTG. It's obvious they don't like doing them anymore.

I don't blame them it is after all after hours and since they have to be in the office, for some its a long commute eg. The one who likes to go to bed early and seems to start rushing the stream when it gets longer than 1 1/2 hours.

Sorry JD I still love ya though.

But we should get at minimum 2 official streams per DLC from DTG. In my opinion.

 

The latter I can do without. The former (if that act on the comment and make relevant changes) would actually quell a lot of the shouty angry people on this forum and others.
Hype is an internet nonsense, getting things right isn't

 

I don't know why but I feel there is something wrong with their deceleration sound and acceleration sound when you compare their version to the one I hear on the youtube video
In Game https://twitter.com/trainsimworld/status/1591838545852997634 VS
In RealLife ,
The sound in the game sound so tinny and very low compared to the one in real life, also where is the clickety clack sound, when the train run over the track?, that is a big loss in immersion as with other routes that DTG created.

 

There is very little jointed track left on the UK rail network, apart from a few secondary lines and certainly last time I travelled into Birmingham from the south west it is welded rail all the way, so no joint noise other than over points or crossings. Can't say north of Birmingham towards Lichfield as it's 45 years (!) since I last travelled along there, but extremely unlikely to be jointed track.

 

How much would this route to be on all platforms because with it so close of release please tell us how much

 

It might be ok, in my experience a lot of the emu's on tsw sound reasonable enough.

 

£29.99 I think

 

Yes, that's true but I still feel that a lot of track noise is not represented very well in TSW (or TS really). There are a lot of random rumble and odd noises that you hear when travelling on trains today. Uneven track, junctions, stuff like that.

 

It's $39.99.

 

Jointed noise is fine in TSC, seems to be missing quite a lot from TSW.

I think TSW gets rail screech better when doing curves, but again falls in its consistency.

TSC has some truly horrible screech though, Fife Circle is horrendous for it.

 

Oh yes I agree, even welded rail can sound different depending on the state of the track bed, wear and tear on the railhead etc. I remember a few years ago now using the Tyne and Wear Metro, all welded but the track was absolutely cussed and really noisy, even on plain line.

 

Trains are noisy beasts, whatever the traction method. Only occasionally has TSW been able to capture the clanking, jangling, rattling, clunking, rumbling, screeching clattering and groaning of its locos and rolling stock.

 

Thats what i also said, it seem that TS have more better track noise then TSW, but still can't figure out why. It has to be time for the audio team to realise this by now, but still they are doing it, don't know why?

 

It feels that the audio team for some reason are inconsistent when it comes to these track noise sound, only like you said, only on some route occasionally. I wonder why is that. How could a really TS have better track sound still, is it so hard to reproduce?

 

Here the map of the official route, i don't know how close it is to the Real Life One though, Still excited, Are we missing any station?

 

It's not at that angle in real life, but otherwise, spot on.


Edit: Ah, PegasusLeosRailwayFanatix beat me to it!

 

LOL

 

I wonder how they are going to make the terminal station and how far can we go. Is there a concourse view?

 

A few spelling mistakes there! I hope Duddeston and Bournville are spelt correctly in the game.

 

It’s spot on! It’s just aligned east facing (look at the compass in the right corner).

 

Also at the terminal station Will we see them add the other ai train cross-city route, such as the London midland City, along with the northern railway, etc? I am not familiar with this place so I don't know which line or train is at the Terminal Station.

 

I believe it has been mentioned a few times in various streams about audio in TSW and that they can only use 16 channels for audio whereas TSC can use more than that. There has to be a balance in TSW so the audio team have to pick and choose which sounds to put in which unfortunately does result in certain noises being omitted.

 

Dtg don't have those licenses and there isn't appropriate stock I believe. Idk anything about uk railways and what the trains are but they aren't going to add ai that use different trains or don't have the license to

 

That is really sloppy and shows a complete lack of any sort of proof reading or other checks in place before releasing the material. Amateur. £30, yegods!