We have had some good reveals recently, I suspect things will go quiet soon as DTG will be working on something that will include three new routes (call it TSW6 or what you will) We will get a UK route, US route and a German route, am wondering what people would like to see, my wishes are as follows UK Would be nice to see something heading east out of London, Liverpool st to Ipswich, or fenchurch st to shoeburryness, but probably both too long. Alternatively Fort William to Mallaig could be interesting. US About time we another freight Route, my choice would be Marias pass, but again, probably too long. Germany Not sure what to suggest here, Koln Kolblenz would be nice, as would Mannheim Karlsrhule. What do other people want or think?
For the UK I'd like for TSW to revisit the South Eastern network, London Charing Cross to Hastings or a SE suburban Network, with Charing Cross to Sevenoaks, and a spur at Hither Green to go to Dartford... The Class 465 is a really nicely made unit and is very under utilised in the game. Possibly add the 465/0 variant as well just to bulk out the time table properly...
I predict the American route will be the Hudson line, with the Metro North diesel loco that I don't know the name of, along with the M3 and M7 again. Germany seems a bit more unpredictable, I'm hoping for something in Berlin but that would most likely be a laggy mess. Then again, it could be something in Austria again. For England I think that we finally after all this time get something out of Waterloo, ideally with the 444 and 450 (and 455 for deluxe edition?), however I think we'll most likely get the 701. If not, then it'll either be another line out of London or something with Trans-Pennine Express.
I would like to see something like the Southern MML, GEML, another section of ECML, or perhaps another visit to the GW, preferably in the 70s/80s, but either of these would be acceptable in more modern settings which is partly why I focused on them. Another modern, SE commuter route would feel like a bit of a kick in the balls, especially after TSW5's core route being called a mainline, when in fact the focus were actually more on the commuter side of things. Of course I would love to see steam come back as a core TSW6 feature, but based on the way TSW5 went the core feature of TSW6 would be a slideshow powerpoint, which will still be smoother than the framerate.
Milton Keynes to Birmingham for the WCML so it will utilize route hopping for WCML south and Birmingham cross city, and we get a decent run for the class 390.
The diesel for the Metro North that operates on the Hudson line is the P32AC-DM, either pushing or pulling Shoreliner coaches.
That would be a dream come true. I would like to see Dartford to Charing Cross via Lewisham or Greenwich, and including the bexley lines… hmm maybe that’s a bit over kill, but definitely continuing the route from Dartford which we already have and it’s a perfect opportunity to utilise the route hopping feature. I know there’s a user making the southeastern network, but I suspect the project has been abandoned. The last we heard anything was back in the summer 2024.
Would like something from Australia preferably Brisbane or Sydney would also like a freight route like donner pass even better if it has high hoods.
I would really only be interested in the Hudson Line if it included Amtrak and the diesel push- pull to Poughkeepsie along with some driveable CSX freight. Otherwise it would just be too similar to the Harlem line with its M3A's and M7A's and shared trackage at the southern end. Plus Yankee Stadium needs to be in there this time!!
Is this the first TSW6 speculation thread?! What we would like to see and what DTG will give us are, of course, two different things. For the UK, assuming Cardiff City doesn’t turn into the keynote release, I just hope it is not another London Centric electric commuter route. My smart money would be on another section of the ECML, maybe Newcastle heading north, with the Class 91 and Mark 4’s as the new rolling stock along with the existing Azumas. I don’t honestly see it being anything Western oriented as there is still the (F)GW(R) licensing issue and DTG are unlikely to do a historical (BR) route as part of the main TSW6 package. Europe - well I’m guessing they will continue the trend of 70km electric interurban but maybe they will surprise us this time with something a bit different - Hamburg or Frankfurt U-Bahn or maybe part of the Berlin S-Bahn hopefully Ringbahn. More than overdue time DTG visited Berlin. North America. Definitely gets a bit foggier here with freight presumably still on hiatus and licensing issues with many passenger operators. Long shot here will be either Los Angeles down to San Diego, or at least part of it, or maybe a rehash and extension of SF Corridor to reflect the line is now electrified. Dark horse outsider something like San Francisco MUNI or Calgary Transit!
If we get another South Eastern route, it should be a historical one with slam door stock. Possibly NSE era as we don’t have anything in that livery yet. While the 465 is a good drive, there are more interesting and unexplored options for that region. As for people suggesting new routes starting at end points of existing content to route hop. This is exactly why I don’t like the route hopping gimmick. It can be used as another excuse to not do extensions. Milton Keynes to New Street should be an extension to the existing route, not a separate route. You should be able to drive Euston to New Street without getting out of the train to find a glowing spot, loading and finding your train again which might not be there because of the possibility the timetables between the two route products don’t match up. It’s immersion breaking quite simply. If a route goes further in real life, it should be made as an extension and not a new product. There will naturally be a limit on this as you can’t reasonably expect say, the whole ECML or WCML in a single product. Taking the above WCML South example, New Street is the next major station stop, extending to that links two key stations and gives you a good run length in the Pendolino. That’s just over 100 miles total, which is a reasonable distant limit on extensions. From New Street you could make another route, either a route in a different direction such as New Street to Shrewsbury, a key station in the West Midlands and the gateway to Wales, or another WCML route that goes up to the next important station, Birmingham New Street to Crewe makes sense but is 50 miles, you could potentially push that up to Preston for another 100 mile run. From New Street to Shrewsbury, they could then go on and do the Welsh Marches to Newport. It’s mostly a case of better start/end points for routes, using extensions if a longer project could use extra development time, split it into two and link them up at the end with a bigger timetable unlocked that utilises the bigger route if you own both parts. Route hopping should be used at major stations to go in different directions. Like how JT used it for Preston on Blackpool & Shap. Unrelated but there needs to be an option to hide those glowing hopping markers. I don’t often use the feature and find those warp points quite ugly looking, would be nice to hide them like the other glowing pointers.
Or, a bit of both? The 465s have been in service since the 90s, any Southeastern route could be set in the transition era between it and whatever they replaced.
Hmm... if I had to make a wishlist, I'd pick the West Highland Line as the UK route, Köln-Koblenz as the German route, and the Pacific Surfliner as the US route. But that's extremely unlikely to happen. Would be an insta-buy though.
465s have been in services since 1992 I believe. The ones already in the game are the Metro Camell built units built from 1993 to 1995 I believe? There's definitely a crossover, my childhood was spent around 465s and Mk1 EMUs (CEPS, CIGS, VEPs). There was even a short cross over between EPBs and 465s. The last Slamdoors units were withdrawn in 2005, and a pair of CIGs were given permission to remain in service on the Lymington Branch and lasted until May 2010!
If we were to get a new SE route I'd like the new train be the BREL/ABB 465s, with the /9s being a suitable layer. I think a major problem with the 465s is that the BREL/ABB (/0 and /1) aren't that similar to the MetCam (/9 and 466) variants. From the top of my head the bodyshell as a whole is different, you have different anti-climb steps on both and the underframes differ slightly, then of course you need to source new audio. I dont know how much physics differ but that may be something to consider. I'd much prefer for a new model instead of modifying the existing model to the best of their abilities (like what AP did for their EP which was good but you couldn't really avoid some big design differences like the bodyshell). I'd like to see a future update to the 465/9 pack to include a 466. It would be nice to knock out the rest of the third rail Networkers in one big swoop and they can be forgotten about, and maybe sort out the missing Electrostar variants (which would probably be much easier to sort out).
No, I know, I wasn't advocating to modify the existing model. I was advocating a new build unit for a 465/0. You couldn't really modify the 465/9 (which is essentially a upgraded 465/2), into a 465/0, even if you wanted to, because they were built by two independent manufacturers with completely different traction equipment, and to many external differences. They are two separate sub classes in their own right... They aren't like modern Electrostars where as the sub class differences are at best suttle. They are very similar looking, but are completely different in their own right. Second to that the Metro Camell 465/2s and 465/9s are gradually being replaced at the moment. The 465/2s are completely gone and the 465/9s are hanging on, but a few have already gone off lease. It would certainly be easier to modify the existing 375/9 into a /6 or /7, but it would need completely different headlight clusters and a completely different interior layout (glass shelves, different seating) then the current 375/9.
If they were to do a wcmls extention to Birmingham or an East Coast extention on the same timetable a rework of the route hop would be good if they could do it in cab. That way you could arrive at Milton Keynes from Euston, hop over with the load screen so it resets the memory then continue to Birmingham. Seems a logical step as people want longer routes but the people you see on here having crash issues due to memory. It's just doesn't seem plausible to go much longer unless there is a solution to the memory issues. With that in mind in dream world if they did do to Birmingham and ATS did go to crewe and worked to the same timetable then your only 50miles of a euston Manchester run.
