Just curious about the Clinchfield route add on. What are your experiences and opinions of it? Is it worth getting?... I’m looking for something a little different than all of these arid/dessert southwestern US routes something with more trees and varied terrain. Maybe some farmland. And, is there actually cabooses in it and can you paint them and livery designer? Would love to hear your thoughts and see some photos or videos of this route.
Cabooses yes Interesting services yes, loading and shunting coal on steep gradients Couple of different branches Normal AtoB manifest services. CONS Very very dark at night, not sure if it’s been fixed as yet. overall though it’s a nice route.
It's a very slow (25mph) monotonous route. There's a lot of curves and gradients but if you're not paying attention, you can spad which is what you don't want. There's 48 services and some challenging runs. I wish there was more to do on the different branches and spurs and turns and stuff. Most runs are a to b runs. No banking comm meaning some services don't work at all even though there are trailing locos. You have to manually move the camera to the back and operate from the window. Some services require you to speed so you don't get red light issues
It isn't a bad route, probably one of the better US freight routes that DTG produced. Some minor scenery issues, some services are a pain. There is also 1 scenerio that's completely pointless (You take a train, and move it across a yard in pieces, it really makes no sense) It could of also used a loco DLC to make use of the multiple coal loaders along the line.
As someone who doesn't like slow US freight, I was surprised how much I actually enjoy Clinchfield. It's a slow route through mountainous terrain and a total of 4 branch lines. Services include both through freight and loads of shunting. The texture tiling on ground terrain is VERY noticeable on this route, which is a shame.
Interesting you should say that, I am always in favour of more loco DLCs especially ones that enhance an existing route and expand options and play-ability. If I am being perfectly honest I am not a fan of the humongous US locos that you see in most of the routes and would like to see some more smaller older stuff for yard work and assorted branch line use. I would suspect a few switchers (like the SW1000 and MP15DC) would be a nice option for working the loading facilities along the line. As well as smaller road switching locos like the GP7/9/15/20/30 &c. We lost some nice smaller options with the loss of NEC. At least Clinchfield has the older F7/9.
Thank you Chief, I'll take the darkness under advisement ;-) As for the cabooses, do you know if they are available in the Livery Designer if one owns this Route? | When I imported Oakville the locos do not appear in LD and apparently are being worked on for eventual access but not presently.
What Clinchfield has that none of the other U.S. freight routes have (AFAIK) is Journeys that chain multiple services into a workday. Starting in the yard, bringing empty cars to the various branch mines, dropping them off and hooking up the loaded cars, then at the end bringing those back to the yard. As someone who enjoys that kind of thing, I had a blast.
I'm still disappointed they didn't bring a reliveried Clinchfield Caboose over into the F7 DLC for CJP
I did a run the other day and it took an hour and a half to cover 13 miles. Admittedly some of that was loading coal but the F7's were really struggling on the Greenbriar branch. It's a nice route and different to the rest of the North American stuff, but most of the time you are running through steep sided wooded valleys with very little distant scenery. Back at the time of release some of the scenarios including at least one in Journey mode were seriously bugged or had to be done in a certain way or the next objective wouldn't trigger. Not sure if this was ever fixed. I haven't run a night time service yet so can't say whether operating in the dark has improved. It's a route best enjoyed in small doses, doing something with a bit more action in between visits.
Well, there were threads in suggestions of adding in more locos to Clinchfield, but now that seems like a faded memory. But, it would indeed be not bad to add in like GP9s/GP7s, SD45-2s or U36Cs to the mix. Chinchfield is a good route for sure, probably the only US route to be in a historic period for some time now. But still good.
Had a little dabble on Clinchfield yesterday evening and it is a nice relaxing experience. It also looks better and less dark in TSW3 than it did previously. So definitely recommended and with the sales coming up should attract a reasonable discount.
The scenery on Clinchfield is some of the nicest in TSW. If you like slow US freight, then definatley go for it. The old school feel with F7 Bulldogs and Cabooses is great and the loading scenarios are quite the challenge. (at least for me )
It's just a shame like most TSW DLC, DTG quickly forget it and never release any enhancements or additional content for the route.
Thanks all. I may take a chance on it. Not sure about sales though… Microsoft/Xbox doesn’t usually get them.
It is a delight, one of the first TSW2 DLCs I picked up and one I keep coming back to. I dunno, maybe it reminds me of being a kid in the lake district or something.
Well yanno... reminding of being a kid could very well be the draw for me too as we travelled a lot through the mountains by train and I used to railfan the British Columbia Railway a lot in the 70s. Now you have me excited to run my custom repaint 1970s BCR SD40-2 in Clinchfield!!
Before I jump in.... can anyone confirm that the caboose is available in Livery Designer? My decision may just hinge on that answer.
Wooohoooo!! SOLD! I’ve also been looking at sand patch lately. What’s everyone’s thoughts on that one?
Sand patch is a great route. It comes with 3 locos. You can even cold start them and many things are interactable which you don't see much these days in tsw. It was the very first route dtg made in the history of tsw and they spent several years on it, making it a really well done route. It's challenging cuz of the gradients and there are different types of scenery so it's not the same monotonous scenery you see on some routes. Sounds aren't the greatest but that's expected on many dtg stuff. There's a good amount of switching, coal loading, loco preparation services and full length runs. If you're on pc, there are sound mods too.
You can switch the camera to the rear, open the window, turn on the 3 switches (engine run, gen field, and fuel pump i believe, i forgot) and apply power and adjust it. It's quite fun actually
Sand Patch Grade is still a favourite of mine. A very nicely done route, and make sure you get the Dash 8 to go with it!
I love Sand Patch, but it's one of the routes hit hard by the derail bug, so consider yourself warned. Your tolerance for a sudden game over an hour into a run will be tested.
