So you may remember way back when we first saw Southeastern High Speed at the end of January, there was a massive outcry over the lack of (or pretty much no) fences along the HS1 section of the line between Dagenham Dock and the Thames Tunnel. The fences were later added before release, although they were way too tall and inaccurate in places, but is still better than what it was before and there are mods out there that try to make the fences shorter and more accurate to real life. However, after exploring the area a bit more, I may have discovered why DTG didn't put in the fences initially. Now you're probably wondering "Is this because DTG was too lazy to put them there?" or "They didn't have enough time to put them there initially?". Well you will find that the answer to this simple question is... ...no actually. There is a lot more to it than that. Now one of the things I love doing on this game is going out on foot and wandering along the trackside to see what I can find, whether it would be any hidden paths, Easter eggs, or collectibles that require you go out along the trackside to find them. Now ever since I first saw the route, I was always curious as to whether the c2c line that runs alongside HS1 between Dagenham Dock and Purfleet was accessible by foot even if no trains ran along it and after a doing a little walk along that section of line, turns out it is. You can literality access the entire c2c line that runs alongside HS1 and the freight yard at Dagenham on foot. To prove this, I've gone back and taken a few photos to show you as evidence, but first a disclaimer: I have in no way hacked or modded the game in order to get to these places. You can literality access these places yourself, DTG aren't gonna stop you. In fact, do so right now after you've finished reading this thread, you'll be very surprised about what you will find. But anyways onto the pictures: These first few images are of Dagenham Dock station, which is located just after the eastern portal of the London Tunnel 2 on the left-hand side of HS1, which you can access and stand on the platform. There is a siding just beyond the end of the platform in the fourth image you can see here. You can also walk round the top end of the eastern portal of London Tunnel 2 which is what the next few images are about: This is what you can see from the top of the tunnel portal looking down HS1... …and this is what's behind that view on top of the tunnel portal. Unfortunately, you can't go any further than here as there's an invisible wall that blocks off further access of the area. There's also this hole in the ground on the line that eventually joins onto HS1, however, this isn't really an urgent issue as it's in an area no one is going to see anyways. Moving on down, now on the right-hand side of HS1, this is now walking towards the freight siding near the car factory. You've got this line that in real life, spurs off towards what I think is an aggregate siding (Not quite sure on that). That not represented here, but what is represented is freight yard just beyond where I took this image, which is where we are heading next: So this is freight siding just outside the car factory at Dagenham. Also, in the third image of said place, on the left-hand side of the image, if you keep walking right down to the end of that small siding, you will even join back up onto HS1 were this section of fence ends. Now, I'm not going to show all of what is accessible on foot, but one other location I wanted to show is the other Rainham station along the c2c line. Mostly for the fact I want to show you that it is accessible on foot, but also for the fact that the scenery around it is pretty questionable: First you've got this floating signal box. Then there's the fact that you can't stand on the platforms as they are walk-through for some reason. I will say that the station building doesn't look too bad. You can't walk over that bridge up there (Which is case for many pedestrian bridges along this route and many other routes in TSW/TSW2) …and then you've got how the whole area around the station just feels a bit lacking. Now that's all the photos I've took, but I can assure you that the entire c2c line is accessible by foot. In fact, one of the broken fence collectibles is located on this section of the line, I'm not gonna say where exactly but I'll give you this clue: Spoiler: Broken fence collectible location It's at one of the two c2c stations, I'm not gonna say which one it is though So going back to the initial title of this thread being "So now I see why there were no fences initially..." I have a feeling that with all that I have just shown you is accessible, I feel like DTG took away the fences alongside HS1 just so it would be easier for people to access this part of the route. Now this theory does have a few issues: 1. It makes this part of route massively inaccurate compared to real life as nearly everyone on this forum has pointed out. 2. I does make you question the consistency of DTG as this part of the route is accessible, but the whole WCML section of the Bakerloo Line was blocked off. 3. Being real, I highly doubt there are many people out there who a willing to go out on foot, walk down the line for a bit and reach this part of the route, and it not a easy place to get to on foot either as you have to walk through narrow tunnels to reach this point, regardless of whether you start walking from Stratford or Ebbsfleet. That's unless you jump into scenario planner, create a short service between said two points and then jump out at Dagenham and go out on foot, which is by the way how I was able to get these images. This has been a long thread but what I want to get out of this is firstly, to show that you can get to these locations and the whole of the c2c line on foot and also to show that some of the scenery along this section of the line could do with some major improvements, which is kinda the case of the whole of Southeastern High Speed in general. Either way, I would highly recommend doing this if you have the chance. I certainly is a interesting part to explore, even if the scenery can be a little questionable at times.
While I can see your point, I am wondering why DTG wouldn't make this statement themselves when these points came up? Maybe cause, as Sam said on yesterdays stream, don't get into arguments? Maybe, but I don't think there needs to be an argument, but sometimes it will help the community to understand why certain decisions where made - again, I don't think they are obliged to justify these decisions, but maybe explain them
Thanks for the tip. I'm having a nice "walk" along the line now. Here's an odd thing Whilst you end up walking through the platform and other bits... Inside one of the buildings is this tub of flowers, which is a solid object..
