The other two parts of this series are now fully done, if you want to check them out, click on the links below: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/how-to-improve-service-mode-on-the-existing-routes.41891/ https://forums.dovetailgames.com/th...ould-make-great-rush-hour-style-routes.42079/ If there is one thing I have really enjoyed about Train Sim World/Train Sim World 2, it is service mode. I know there are many reasons people play Train Sim World for, whether it would be for Creating Scenarios with the Scenario Planner, actually playing the Scenarios that come with a route, designing liveries in the livery designer or completing multiple scenarios/services with Journey mode (or a combination of all these factors) but for me, service mode will always be the number one reason why I play this game. It want got me into playing this game full time to begin with and where this game I feel is at it's best and sometimes, driving a service isn't even the most fun part about it. For me, the fun is most had when you spawn walking into service mode. There, you can get on an Ai train and ride a service from start to finish while relaxing a watching the world go by in the meantime, you can be a bit more adventurous and go off walking and try and find the collectables dotted along a route, or you can just spawn in at a station, sit back and watch the action unfold around you in real-time. These sorts of things can sometimes be much more fun than actually driving the trains and over the past nearly two years, I have been creating pdf timetables for people to download to order to make the experience of traversing service mode on a route that little bit more enjoyable. Which leads us to the point of this thread. Last month, DTG officially announced a new passenger based DLC called Rush Hour which feature three passenger-based routes that aims to create the feeling of Rush Hour. While one of the big new features will be an upgraded passenger system, the main draw for this DLC for me seems to be that DTG is trying to make service mode a much busier and livelier experience than compared to what we have had in the past and this got me thinking, what could we expect out of service mode with these three routes???? …and that's what we are here to found out! This thread is actually going to be the start of a three-part thread series I will be running on the suggestion section of this forum. How I will be doing this will be something like this: This first part will be about the three routes that are coming with Rush Hour and what could be expected out of service mode with each of them and what is needed to maximise there full potentials The second part will be going over the previous routes that have come with TSW2 and how the service modes on each of them can be improved in order to get the most out of them. The final part will be asking if there are any routes out there that would make great Rush Hour style routes that are not already in TSW2. I will be leaving links to each thread at the top of the page once they are all out. But for now lets dive into the first topic, What to expect out of service mode with the three Rush Hour Routes. How we are going to do this is that I will start with the route that I think is going to have least amount of services and we will work our way up to the route that I fell will probably have the most amount of services. For each one, I will go through the locos that are coming which each of them, what services they would provide and what other routes would add to these routes via additional layers and I will already say that I'm pretty confident on which route will have the least amount of services, not so sure about which one will have the most though, could be quite close. But we before we begin, a quick disclaimer. I do not think there is a single route that looks terrible, Even if this route I feel will have the least amount of services, that does not mean that route will be bad. All three routes I feel have great potential to be some of TSW2 busiest routes, if they are all executed right. So, with all that out the way, lets finally get into the first route which will be..... Northeast Corridor: Boston - Providence: As a quick recap, Northeast Corridor makes it's grand return to TSW after the original version on TSW 2020, along with it's respective add-ons, didn't come over via preserved collection due to it requiring more work than realised to bring it up to TSW2 standard. But unlike the previous version which was set in New York, this version is set on the 49 mile-stretch between Boston & Providence with the Stoughton Branch and the large Southampton Street yard also featured as part of this route. The two locomotives that will be featured as part of this route will be Amtrak ACS-64 with Amfleet coaches making a return to TSW2 alongside MBTA's F40PH-3C with new single-deck coaches and cab car (not specified which ones they are yet). So with service mode, lets start with ACS-64. I think this should be pretty obvious, this will operate Northeast Regional services between Boston & Providence, but I don't think this section of the timetable will be particularly busy. If you go a look at Amtrak's timetable for the Northeast Corridor, you will that most Northeast Regional services heading Northbound terminate at New York Penn with a few more heading on to Boston. This varies between one train an hour to one train every two hours, these services do make two stops along the way at Back Bay & Route 128/University Park. While I don't think there will be many of these services, I still think they will be a fun experience as they are some of the fastest services to come with this entire DLC, but what will probably be the most interesting Amtrak services are actually what happens when Northbound Amtrak services terminate at Boston South and have to turn around. I did some research and I found out that after reaching the end of the line, Amtrak trains do something know as a 'Scrub & Shove'. What happens is that first the train is reversed out of the station towards Southampton Street Yard, the train then goes through the train wash, goes round the turnaround loop and then is shoved back into Boston South ready to go back in the other direction. This sounds like it could be quite fun in TSW2 and I look forward to seeing whether it can be pull-off correctly. For the MBTA services, this where the bulk of the services will lie as there are a lot of these services that run on this section of the NEC. The first most obvious service are the Providence/Stoughton Line services, there are usually two of these services per hour, one that goes to Providence and the other that goes along the branch line to Stoughton. There are more services that go to Providence at peak and some even go beyond Providence to a place called Wickford Junction, which won't be represented in the route, but will still provide some more services to drive during rush hour. Alongside this service, there are also three other services that also run along this part of the route. These are: Franklin Line: Goes as far as Readville before turning off towards Forge Park/495 and sometimes Foxboro for special events. Needham Line: Goes as far as Forest Hills before turning off towards Needham Heights. Framingham/Worcester Line: Only does the first section to Back Bay before heading off towards Framingham/Worcester. Although a small service, would still be vital for creating a busy environment around Boston South. The remaining services that go out of Boston South I expect will be AI, but there is one service that although I don't think will be represented in this route, would still be quite interesting to see as it does follow this section of the route and that is the Fairmount Line. You see, this service does go the Readville, similar to the Franklin Line, but it doesn't go there via the NEC, but rather travels down a double-track line that takes it past Talbot Avenue & Fairmount before terminating at Readville on the higher level platform. Although it would quite fun to see this on the route seeing a train on the higher level platform at Readville, I doubt this section of the route will be represented. For Depot/Storage services for all lines, I expect the following two places will be used to store trains along this route. One is at the aforementioned Southampton Street Yard and the other is at a place called Pawtucket Layover which is a small yard on the approach to Providence. For additional layers, the only thing I could think of from the top of my head is freight via Sand Patch Grade. For what I could gather, most of the freight that's runs on this route are local services run by CSX and the majority of them take place down in the Providence section of the route. However, CSX does sometimes run further up the line towards Route 128 or Canton Junction. For locos, even though the GP40-2 is used on these service, we don't have that in TSW2 right now (well we did in TSW 2020, but it didn't come over via the Preserved Collection along with the original Northeast Corridor and SW1000R that came with it) so we will have to make do with the GP38-2 for now and it's usually Box Cars that you see running on this section of the route, but there have been other types of cars seen stored along the route such as Covered Cars and Center-Beam Flats, which would lead to a nice idea to have some freight cars stored on some of the yards along the route, just to give them more life and not have them feeling empty and dead. Overall, while I do think this will probably have least amount of services of the Rush Hour trio, I do still think this will be the busiest USA route we have had by far and not even close. This will be a route that gets busier the closer you get to Boston which will probably be busiest part of route with lots of services arriving and departing out of South station heading out either along the NEC towards providence or out towards some of the suburbs that surround Boston. But regardless of how service mode for this route will turn out, I say that hopefully this turns out better than the original NEC set in New York as that timetable is completely inaccurate to what it is in real-life, mainly for the Amtrak services. Anyways onto the next route which will be... Bahnstrecke Riesa - Dresden: This will be the biggest route to ever come to TSW/TSW2. Although the main part between Riesa and Dresden is only 34 miles, this route features a variety of branches which includes the S1 Line to Meißen Triebischtal, the S2 line to Dresden Flughafen and the Line that goes to Großenhain which inflated the total length of this route to 65 miles, the longest TSW route to date. This will also have the most locos of the three routes coming with Rush Hour, even if they are all for the most part reused. These are the Dresden-Leipzig version of the DB BR 442, the DB BR 143, the DB BR 146 & the MRCE BR 185.5. So with service mode, starting with the DB BR 442, this will be doing the majority of the services out towards Riesa. according to my research, this operates on the following services in the area out of Dresden: RE 50: This is the main service that travels out towards Riesa and then on towards Leipzig, happens once every hour. RE 15/18: These are the two services that head out towards Großenhain and then on towards Hoyerswerda for RE 15 and Cottbus for RE 18. These happen once every two hours but these services switch round every hour. So one hour will be an RE 15 and the other will be an RE 18. There is also one other service this train operates but that would depend on whether the section of line it runs along is represented in this route and that is RB 31. This route, like RE 15/18 goes between Großenhain & Dresden but instead heads via Dresden-Stetzsch before re-joining the main route on the approach into Dresden Hbf. Now I don't know whether DTG have already confirmed that this section will be represent for not, it wasn't in the original version of this route on TS classic, but in hope this time it will be as not only it would help maximise the services along this route by have RB 31 included but there's also a massive siding at Dresden-Friedrichstadt which would also help with the freight operations on this route, but more on that later. Next is the DB BR 143 & 146. I'm doing these two locos together as these are the locos that serve the S-Bahn services in the area. There are a total of three lines that make up the S-Bahn Dresden network, one that will be represent in AI and the other two that will be drivable. The one AI service will be S3 heading out towards Freiberg (already confirmed in the article discussing the making of this route) and the two drivable services are S1 and S2. Like I mentioned earlier, S1 goes towards Meißen Triebischtal and S2 goes towards Dresden Flughafen. From what I could gather, S1 is operated by both the 143 & 146, but both S2 & S3 are exclusive to the 143. Now comes what I think will determine whether this route has most amount of services of any TSW route and that is the freight operations. We know that this route is coming with the MRCE BR 185.5 from Rhein-Ruhr Osten, but what kind of freight do we expect it to be pulling along this route? Well, I watched a couple of railfanning videos from around the area of this route and found that the following freight services run on this route: Intermodals: We kind of already know this coming as it was confirmed somewhere that ONE containers would be featured with this route. Mixed Freight: This would use whatever available rolling stock you could find. Car Transporters: This would use the Laaers 560 car transporter wagon, maybe this time in a different livery? Tankers: This would use the Zacns tanker wagon Coil Trains: These use the Shimmns-TTU 722 coil wagon. So as you can see, there is great potential for a great variety of freight traffic along this route and there could be even more via layers from other routes if so allows. Speaking of other layers, this is something we do know is coming as it has been confirmed that there will be IC & ICE services using the DB BR 101 from said add-on and the ICE 3M from Schnellfahrstrecke Köln - Aachen. From my research the 101 will operated on IC 55 services and the ICE 3M will operate on ICE 50 services. Both of these services operate between Riesa and Dresden while making a single stop at Dresden-Neustadt. There also one other ICE service that could be represent and that is IC 17. Along this service would only be driveable between Dresden and Dresden-Neustadt, this service then goes out via Großenhain and with that being represented in this route, it would make sense to see more traffic out in that direction of the route. For depot services, there is a siding down by Dresden-Reick which would provide a place for IC to turn around if it was represented, but if not there is a large yard, depot just around the corner from Dresden Hbf on the S3 line heading out towards Freiburg which would provide a place for S-Bahns and REs to the stored overnight. Overall, while most of the rolling stock coming with this route may feel reused, this route looks like a lot of fun. This route will just be fun to explore the multiple branches that this route has. But the reason I put this at the second most amount of services is because I feel like while it has a lot of services, especially with the IC/ICE layers, it won't be like a route that busy all the way up and down, but rather a route that has lots of services that all branch out and come around to one point, which is the section between Dresden-Neustadt and Dresden. But even still, this would provide a much more interesting service mode experience than most routes out there that have a similar amount of services. But now moving onto the final route and the route that I feel like will have the most amount of services will be... Brighton Main Line: This route is the 50 mile main line between London Victoria and Brighton, serving the suburbs in the Southern part of London and Gatwick Airport, two versions of the Electrostar will be featured with this route. The Southern Class 377 and the Gatwick Express Class 387/2. Starting with the Gatwick Express Class 387/2, these service are currently suspended due to the COVID pandemic, but when they did operate, they operated four trains a hour at off-peak, two went to Gatwick Airport and a further two went all the way to Brighton. More trains run to Brighton at peak times and make additions stops at places such as Haywards Heath & Hassocks (Half-Hourly) or Burgess Hill, Hassocks & Preston Park (Half-Hourly). But the real meat of this timetable will come with the Southern Class 377 and let me tell you, there is amount of services this could provide with this route is massive. From my research, this train operates on the following services along this route: London Victoria-Brighton London Victoria-Preston Park (Turns off towards Littlehampton) London Victoria-Wivelsfield (Turns off towards Eastbourne/Ore) London Victoria-Three Bridge (Turns off to either Bognor Regis, Portsmouth & Southsea or Southampton Central London Victoria-East Croydon (Turns off towards East Grinstead) London Victoria-Redhill (Continues to Reigate which is just around the corner) All of these services combined could make for a very busy Brighton Main Line especially when many of the Southern services just listed are 2 trains per hour which, along with Gatwick Express running 4 trains an hour, would result in a total of 14 trains an hour running on this route, with the busiest section being the first section of the route between London Victoria & East Croydon. For depot services for both 377 & 387, there are three places for these trains to be stored out of peak or overnight: Stewards Lane TMD (This is where the Gatwick Express services are stored) Selhurst Depot (On the junction where the lines from London Victoria & London Bridge meet) Brighton Lovers Walk Depot (Was featured in East Coastway and will definitely will be featuring again in this route. Three Bridge Depot is also sometimes used to stored Southern trains, but that tends to be more a Thameslink depot than a Southern depot, which on the subject of Thameslink, I don't think Thameslink services will be featured at release. Unless DTG uses the 387 as a stand in, I would image they would save those services for a full blown Thameslink add-on whether that would be the 319 or the 700 (preferably the 700). But onto the subject of layers, this is why I put this as the Rush Hour route that will likely have the most amount of services as this route has more layering potential than any of the other routes coming with Rush Hour. From looking at what is currently available in TSW2, this route has the potential to add additional services from not one, not two, not three, but four other routes. How I tackle the layers is that i will dived them in two categories, Passenger and Freight. Starting with the passenger layers, we have Southeastern High Speed which would add AI Southeastern services in and out of London Victoria involving the Class 375/9 available with the route along with the Class 465/9 from it's respective add-on. I also put this it add drivable services to and from the depot at Grosvenor Road just around the corner from London Victoria, just you could drive these trains some distance on this route even if it is just to the depot and back. The next passenger layer is a bit of an essential, rail tour services using Northern Trans-Pennine. If I was DTG, I would put three rail tour services with this route, two that are London Victoria-Brighton and back again and another that goes from London Victoria as far as Haywards Heath before turning off at Wivelsfield down towards Eastbourne for a reason I will get into later. These services would be operable using the existing BR era locos that are currently available from add-ons such as NTP, TVL plus there respective add-ons and the Class 52 from Diesel Legends of the Great Western. The final passenger layer would come from Great Western Express which would add GWR services between Redhill and Gatwick Airport using the Class 166. This may be a small service, taking only about 9 minutes to complete, but it would still add a bit more diversity in terms of the passenger trains that run on this route instead of just being Electrostars all the time. For freight layers, we have it coming from two routes. The first of which is East Coastway, which would add freight services using the EWS Class 66 and JNA Wagons running between Clapham Junction and Haywards Health (or Wivelsfield) and then going on towards Lewes. Does this sound familar? Because this is the service that would eventually form the freight services that run between Lewes and Newhaven Aggregates on East Coastway and going back to what I saying about the rail tour services earlier, you have already the first half of these services in East Coastway, with the freight services, you run from Lewes to Newhaven Aggregates, Load up at Newhaven and run back to Lewes which form there, joins the Brighton Main Line at Wivelsfield and follows it all the way to Clapham Junction before off towards Acton Yard and with the rail tour service, I would assume it starts at London Victoria and then you would pick it up at Lewes and run it down to Eastbourne before it goes on along the coast to Hastings. So now you have that first half in East Coastway, go and do the other half in Brighton Main Line. Even if the two routes are not going to be merged any time soon, it would create a bit of the link between the two routes by having services from both routes. On a related note, I also found out that the JNA are used on another service on this route, this service runs between Clapham Junction and a place called Crawley Aggregates which is located between Gatwick Airport and Three Bridges where there is a small siding used to presumably load up JNA wagons before taking the back to Clapham Junction. The other freight layer comes from Great Western Express which would use the DB Class 66 and the red DB HKA Hopper wagons available with that route. These would operate on two services, first is from Clapham Junction to Haywards Heath and then down the branch line to Ardingly Aggregates, if that is represent in this route of course and the other is from Clapham Junction to Purley Aggregates and in some cases, going on to Redhill before turning off towards believe it or not, Hoo Junction, another location represented in TSW2. I would use the HKAs for these services because not only does it tend to be hopper wagons that are used on these services, but also it would provide some much need use out of those hopper wagons because apart from one scenario and two services on each direction (One in the early morning and one late in the evening) they get little to no use in Great Western Express. Overall, Brighton Main Line is a route with huge amount of potential with both what is coming with the route and what could be added via additional layers. If DTG executes this right, this has the potential to be the busiest route in TSW2 full stop. Also, I don't think this route will have an issue of some stations looking empty because as I've just mentioned, the rolling stock exists to try and fill some of those empty platforms. The only place that I feel will suffer this problem is Clapham Junction as currently, there is no South West Railway/South West Trains DLC in TSW2 and as a result only at best, 6 platforms will see use during the day. But maybe when there is a DLC that features SWR/SWT, when can then have that be an AI layer running trains in an out of Clapham Junction, similar to the Southeastern AI layer around London Victoria All in all, this has been a very long thread, probably the biggest I have ever done, but I hope this gives you an insight into what could be expect out of service mode with the three routes coming with Rush Hour, and this is just the beginning, the next thread I plan to do will go into the existing routes and what can be done to improve the service mode experience with each. Expect that to come out in the next few days (probably sometime after the preview for Cane Creek). By the way, if you there are any more services that you think could be added to each the three Rush Hour routes, do let me know the replies below. That's all from me and I'll see you in the next thread.
Can’t wait for this dlc, looking forward to BML the most and Riesa - Dresden (idk I spelt Riesa right) the least. I doubt any will be bad it’s just my personal preference
You're right ✅. It's both CSX and Providence and Worcester providing freight services in this stretch. And on BML, I think in addition to ECW and GWE providing ballast trains, there might also be container trains and oil trains etc.
Not completely accurate in terms of representing every service pattern but here's a generalised schematic of what might be represented on BML that I made:
Nice one. Something to look forward to. BML is definitely gonna be the busiest of the three. Heavy freight, commuter and express passenger trains will make things fun. Especially if container trains are added.
For Brighton Mainline I'm expecting something like this you separate an 8-10 car 377 train first 4 or 5 car to Brighton but the rear portion is to East Coast way Lewes this happens at Haywards Heath. Boston Providence expect heavy delays on South Station to Attleboro section if there's a Providence Train terminating at Gillette Stadium at Mansfield.
Part 2 of this series is now available for reading. Took me about 5 days to write this one, so I hope you enjoy reading: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/how-to-improve-service-mode-on-the-existing-routes.41891/
