At the moment, I feel that the route Is very quiet, which in someways makes it boring. I know this may sound like a suggestion but I do hope that the route gets either new trains as separate dlc, or the timetable gets an upgrade.
In fairness it wasn’t the busiest secondary main line but there are certainly a few gaps, even disregarding the lack of Buxton services. The project really suffered from not going to Derby resulting in express services that don’t call at Ambergate only being driveable to or from Matlock. None of the consists have buffet or restaurant cars in then, which would have been conveyed on most long distance services at that time. I believe there was an overnight service from St Pancras to Manchester and vv which may well have conveyed sleeping cars, also not in game. Although slightly better than the barren Spirit Of Steam, Peak Forest does at times seem like a rather artificially created playground rather than 100% accurate rendering of the route and time. Another model railway that needed a much bigger variety of locos and stock to accurately reflect the service level.
It lacks the stopping services between Crewe and Liverpool certainly. I imagine there could be a lot more freight too. As has been said many times, this route has such potential for DLC, local trains, trip freights, shunting etc. However it has clearly been abandoned by DTG, DTG have abandoned steam also. The only way there is likely to be any new DLC and/or a new timetable is if a third party gets involved.
I would have loved for SoS to have been a success, but as has been said before, it seems to have been put into the "too difficult/CBA" catagory. There could have been a wealth of steam locomotive DLCs adding so much content to this route (and of course Peak Forest). We can only hope some 3rd party picks it up
Wasn’t the original post about Spirit of Steam (i.e. Crewe - Liverpool)? When you called it a secondary mainline I was about to get all uppity about it, and then I realised you were talking about Peak Forest! In terms of Crewe - Liverpool though, I do think the scope for moving it forward a couple of years and adding diesels to make it busier and more interesting, is enormous. I doubt DTG would do it, but someone else might. It could be an incredible route, because the railway infrastructure and scenery is actually really well done. The only thing I’m not sure about is how well the signalling system would stand up to a more intense service. We all know how wobbly TSW can be when it comes to semaphores.
Definitely, you can often see the engines hanging around yards and sheds, which is frustrating because they are doing nothing.
Oops... Must have had PFR on the brain for some reason. But yes, SoS is quite dead, there should be many more trains in the timetable, worked by a much greater variety of locos and rolling stock than what's in game.
Hopefully dtg or a third party will show it some luv in the future. Its a fab route. You can make some scenarios to make it kind of busy but can populate sidings etc.... I'm pleading dtg please finish what you started.
The main problem for me about the SoS timetable is not so much a lack of services, but the completely unachievable timings the timetable gives you. Routes that are frustrating to drive are not ones I return to play very often.
Agreed. AI generated timings are even more of a spoiler with steam than they are with diesel/electric.
They definitely seemed to use Class 86 timings. interesting aside. Back when this was released, we were told the location and era was picked so Paul Jackson could relive his youthful train watching days at Crewe station. According to the information on Wikipedia he wasn’t born until 1962 (so a year younger than me). So I doubt very much he has much memory of before 1969/1970. So by rights, we should have got Crewe to Liverpool with tap changer AC electric locos, Class 304 EMU’s on the stoppers and Class 25 on the trip freights etc. Shouldn’t have been a steam loco in sight! Just musing…
Eh, 40s came first and although they look incredibly similar 40s have one more axle per bogey and weigh a lot more and are more powerful, they also sound completely different, I would say better but many would disagree but as you say both were english electric.
