Hi As much as there have been some better and worse releases of DLC for TSW, I would like to say that I am very much looking forward to this classic route making it into TSW. However, I cannot share my excitement without sharing a few comments, suggestions and expectations as well. 1. Length First thing, that I think many other have noted as well, the first route initially released in Railworks was 106 kilometers long. The TSW release will be 61 kilometers long. It is probably clear to see where I am going with this. What is known as the "Ruhr-Sieg Bahn" goes from Hagen all the way to Siegen, however only a bit more than the half seems to be covered. Now I am sure there have been made decisions, and there are various arguments regarding the length of the route, so I will not complain about this as such. Even though Great Western Express was only half of the initial Railworks release, it was a fantastic piece of DLC, in my opinion because of the variety and realism of the services, which brings me on to the my next topic. 2. Services Service mode was initially advertised as being a 24 hour realistic and dynamic timetable. Now since GWE, the quality of the services have plummeted. GWE services were great and realistic, RT services were sort of done to a timetable, but horribly simplified, NEC services were nowhere near something anyone wanted to see, especially visible by all the Secaucus complaints, however in my opinion WSR services saw an improvement. So I believe you can make a step in the right direction here, however this is where the first problem comes into view. In fact, Deutsche Bahn does not operate trains along this route anymore. The Class 143 with double-decker coaches don't operate along this route anymore. Assuming you have done your research, you definitely know this, by now at least. This doesn't stop me from losing hope though, but I do want services made to a realistic timetable, with some sort of variety. Some services could have more coaches than others, and some services do have different stopping patterns, addition of empty services etc. and the Cargo services only makes this even better. 3. Further extensions? Many suggestions have been made to extend the GWE route, and the same can be done with RSL. However possible extensions are very limited, apart from extending in the direction of Siegen. There is one branch line that branches off from Letmathe, (which will be in from the first release) and extends only 5 kilometers north to Iserlohn. Now it would be great to hear that you already are implementing this in first release, however 5 kilometers could also be added later on. In regards to rolling stock, I know DTG is limited in licenses etc. The line is today operated by Abeillo Rail with BR426 and BR427, and I would understand why you chose to begin with Deutsche Bahn due to the licensing requirements. How will this turn out? Obviously I can't say how it will turn out, but I still have belief in DTG, and that they can produce good functioning and good looking products, with the occasional bugs. We can only wait and see if I will be proven wrong, however I still believe DTG can make something spectacular. Do you agree or disagree? Is there something that hasn't been said? Let me know, I'd love to see what you have to say, and I am sure DTG does as well.
Firstly well made post OP . I tend to agree with most of what your saying and commend you on how you approached to the route length subject , allot of people just seem to throw there dummies out of the pram on this one, I personally think it’s a fine distance both from a gameplay perspective ( length of service) and considering the extra detail level I believe we all expect from TSW I'd say its probably a fair compromise. I’d rather a shorter initial version that is far more detailed and immersive than some epic 100+ km route but lacks detail and accuracy, and keep in mind the longer the route the more dev time required, so if there is a balancing act in terms of release pace and length of route I think there about spot on with it. My two main concerns are these: Signaling: They need to get this correct this time, I don’t want to have to skip 30 + services simply due to the fact I know they have signaling issues, issues the community has raised and documents and are still not fixed so I hope they double down on this. Service Mode: As the OP has already pointed out service mode can be hit and miss recently, service mode should be and is for the most part the core re-playability of the game, so will DTG make sure that any new trains that make sense to run in service mode from other DLCs carry over lets hope so. AI traffic density due to in part the lack of loco variety, is just not where it needs to be, and I hope we see this part of the game improve. But also improved based on real time-tables . All in all looking forward to this content hope the signaling works this time
