As the new year have arrived, time to see where the 3rd party of the US content is heading (whether its gonna be bleak or not moving forward). The first being HIS with their Santa Fe gameplay pack, with progress on creating new covered hoppers during the season of reveal. And now, a newcomer is coming to TSW from the TSC community, Travel By Train (TbT) This would be interesting to see for sure, even from their previous loco add-ons that they've done from TSC (thought what's their first project is gonna be is clearly unknown for now).
Yeah, they mostly done EMD & GE Locos that haven't been done before. But model wise are mostly, meh, to say the least (along with other issues that are addressed, more or less).
Very excited about this news. They have done interesting stuff for TSC like the SD70 (Standard Cab), the SD70ACU, a nice collection of Geeps and intersting older stuff from GE. Hope they will do the same for TSW. And perhaps they take a step in direction, that's new for them (steam).
So from this month's Roadmap (Feb.), not only HIS show some WIP screenshots from their Santa Fe pack but also announced a new member added to their team, Jonathan Lewis (Milepost), making it 8 members working for their TSW projects moving forward (But still be working on more TSC stuff as well).
Good to see 3rd-parties showing up a bit more. I'm less concerned about their prior TSC work- TSW is a completely different engine so i'll try to judge it on it's merits, not reputation. I really hope they're successful because i'm not sure we're ever seeing another US route from DTG.
I mean having traveled to the east coast in the last days, the Orange county line by Metrolink would be soooo cool! It runs along the sea most of the time, sometime only a few meters away from the water! Adding a new Amtrak train, the pacific coastliner, would make this a really really cool route I guess
Searchlight Simulations isn't exactly fast in releasing its licensed/converted Jointed Rail stuff. Neither the payware locomotives, which are excellent, nor the free car packs, which are also excellent. Whatever the reason, and lack of communication thereof, I think there isn't that much money to be made to make the conversion process worthwhile as the DTM/HIS monopoly is closely embedded with DTG and perhaps thereby has a licensing advantage. still, many GP and SD locomotives could use a high quality makeover by more invested in quality developers.
