Hey guys MBTA Engineer here; if any of you guys care here are some of my thoughts (I haven't played the Worcester expansion these are just my observations based on Schnauz's video, I used to play a fair amount of TSW while I was a conductor but havent since going through engine school some time ago.) Tried to keep a lot of this vague enough to not give up any trade secrets that would get me in trouble but I think I should be in the clear as most of this is my personal thoughts on the route. -The HSP's look great; the cab layout accuracy-wise is pretty spot on. It's clear that DT had access at some point to some of our loco's as everything is in it's right spot. (Most of my notes will be void of texture/graphics comments as theyre pretty much covered in the video. -Same goes for the Control Car; everything is there and everything is in the right spot; pretty cool. -Sounds sound decent to me, but I dont really have an ear for that kind of thing like some guys on the property do. My one sound gripe is that the ACSES/ATC sounds are nowhere close but thats small grapes. -Pretty Cool that the ODS screen (right hand display) doesn't display the older single level flat cars that we have; a little secret about ODS screens in both HSP's and 1800 series control cars is they literally almost never work properly and are largely disregarded by engineers. The information they display is mostly redundant, not necessary to operation, or can be verified using a variety of other methods. -HSP's really are like rocket ships compared to the rebuilt F-40's on the property. I'm pretty much always walking up to the train hoping its gonna be an HSP at the head end. The F-40's are painfully slow to get up to track speed and their brakestands handle inconsistently from loco to loco which can be annoying for your first couple station stops, but they have the better HVAC system in the cab so theres that. -Something that really grinds my gears and just shows either a severe lack of competency or awareness, or both on Dovetail's part: the consist configurations. There are two main consist types on our property: 1. All double decker sets (anywhere from 4-7 in a set) 2. Mixed consists in the following configuration: Double decker-3/4 single level cars-Double Decker Control Car. There are literally 0 consists on the property that are all double deckers with one single randomly thrown in the middle. Also, all single level car consists are effectively extinct as 500 series bathroom cars were retired in favor of 800 or 900 series cars which are bi-level. DT spent time on the property but somehow couldn't get the mixed consists right. -The Choice by Dovetail to keep the fixed ABS signals in the game doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It's all cab signaled territory on the Worcester Main these days and IMO it would have been easier (and more accurate) for them to replicate that. I get that the route was based off info from 2019 but again, all they would have had to do is scrub the automatics and add some simple cab signal progressions in advance of things like crossover moves at interlockings. Maybe people prefer the automatics as theyre simpler to follow and react to than learning how to use ATC from the ground up? -The speeds are surprisingly accurate which is cool to see; I wonder if they got access to an old timetable or they were walked through it by someone who was qualified on the territory. -The freight staying hot on your tail all the way to Framingham is pretty asinine as Freight speeds on the WML are considerably slower than passenger speeds; If I had to guess he'd probably still be somewhere in Wellesley or Natick. -The trash at Back Bay got a good chuckle out of me lol; it's definitely grungey down there but they did go a little overboard. -I'm very very very impressed with the stations in general. The layouts are dare I say photo realistic and much more accurate than some of the stations on the corridor in Boston/Providence. Even some of the minor station stops like the Newtons that were bypassed at around 44:00 are spot on; Auburndale's placement on the curve is perfect. It's fun that a lot of the landmarks I use as rough braking points are in here (the signal bungalow on the right side of track 1 just before Wellesley Farms is an example.) -I had a whole rant typed out about how disappointing it was that Boston/Providence didn't have 1 car marks west of the mini-hi level platforms on the outbound tracks to properly spot the head double set of doors (where the first two coaches meet). This is a small but really important piece for me as far as immersion goes. One of the most challenging but satisfying parts of learning to run commuter passenger trains is being able to cook 80 down a main line and spot a train perfectly and smoothly with the car mark right outside your window. The overlays for stop accuracy were always in the wrong spots as well and that was pretty annoying for me personally. Even though Sean made no effort to properly spot the mini-hi platforms it seems that DT got their act together and put some 1 car marks in there this time around (except for Back Bay for some reason.) I'd be curious to see how accurate the marks are and if you were to spot the marks outside your window if the head double would line up with the mini-hi. HSP's are actually a little longer than F40's so you gotta go past the car marks by about 10 feet to spot the head double squarely in the middle of the platform. -I saw the penalty hit leaving Boston Landing coming a mile away and watching Shawn try to recover from it gave me a chuckle and reminded me of my first PCS hit. -Sean runs like a Grandma lol, when leaving a station put that throttle in 4 until you hit 10mph and then yard it out to 8 will ya?? Just kidding, kinda. -The line you were looking at at about 1:16:18 is the Framingham Secondary which goes all the way down to Walpole, Foxboro/Gillette Stadium where the Patriots play, and eventually Mansfield on the Northeast corridor. All dark territory until Walpole, freight only on that stretch. -1:25:23 Opening the door in motion would have thrown you right into a PCS hit thanks to traction interlocking...nitpicking but moreso thinking outloud. -This isn't a commentary on the route itself but moreso TSW as a whole: it'd be cool to see a greater emphasis on slack action and train handling, its hard to do in a sim but if they somehow found a way to punish you for not properly managing slack (Sean liked to go to idle to cruise alot, kind of a no-no but it obviously doesnt matter) or making shitty stops i.e. grabbing way to much air at once, going in and out of blended brake, taking brake kicking it off and throwing it back on. It would probably require a more in depth tutorial and might have to be an option you could choose to disable in the menu for more casual players, but having the sim score you on train handling would be a very cool addition. (I realize this will never happen because Dovetail sells a lot of software without having to put in real work into the game but alas.) Cool to see another MBTA line on here; without having played it and just on first look I think I prefer this one to Boston-Providence...IMO the WML has more character than the Corridor and overall this release just seems more accurate to the real thing than Boston-Providence. Overall it looks like DT did a pretty good job. I'd buy it to take it for a spin but I'd be lying if I said that doing the real thing hasn't ruined train sims for me. 60 dollars just to scratch the itch to see if the car marks line up accurately is a little much so i'll probably wait for it to go on sale lol. Thanks for the walkthrough Sean and hope some of you guys found this commentary somewhat entertaining.
Thanks for your insights. I do find when stopping at the 1 signs my first passenger car (or least part of it) is well past the platform. I'm curious from your experience if the 1 signs are accurately placed.
Hope you like the freight, Sean! Joe and I worked pretty hard on making sure it all worked out to be as accurate as possible. The reason for so many DLCs for freight is for accuracy. I'm a stickler for accurate looking trains. So I was originally gonna have Joe do just Horseshoe, Sand Patch and Cajon. And for intermodal, that's all you really need to get that working. But for manifests, we decided to make them look real for once. DTG is not great at making manifests, and I've been complaining about that since Train Sim World 2 when freight car substitution was ripped out. I so wish it you guys didn't need to own so much. I spent days going back and forth on whether to cut it all down for new players or go for accuracy. The original plan I had was just Cajon and Sand Patch, if anything at all. But I added Horseshoe Curve because I'd kick my own ass if I left out TOFC (Trailers On FlatCars). (I should clarify I did not work on the timetable directly, that hard work is all Joe. I just gave data) I think personally some of the cars should have been included in this route as to reduce what you needed to buy. If I was working with DTG directly, I would have totally pushed for that.
The lack of long routes really sucks in TSW. Commuter services are the only ones okay to play. High speed and freight are just very unnatural to play due to the length and lack of freight destinations.
I still love the updated F40 sounds. New horn, air brake sounds and a very faint HEP sound. The main engine sounds( idle notch up sounds etc) are recycled from the Boston sprinter F40 and Caltrain F40PH-2CAt
Hey schnauz! Vossloh I think is from Spain I can’t remember. They’re the same people that made the BR class 68 My biggest gripe with the F40 is that they got a new horn sound but not new prime mover sounds. The old Caltrain prime mover sounds are good but they’re outdated, new sounds would’ve been good…. Btw I fell asleep at 42:19 haha. The first dtg loco to actually make me fall asleep cause it sounded good… that’s a first
Vossloh is a German company who mainly specialise in Hydraulic transmissions. They used to have a large rolling stock factory in Spain, which is now owned by Stadler.
Little update if you've been keeping up with TSW since they released this route, but DTG implemented new prime mover sounds to the F40 as of last week (it was actually in the game this whole time but went unused due to there being no simugraph data to accurately play the enginesounds)
These are the best sounds I've ever heard from DTG. At first I didn't even believe it was them, until the last moment I thought it was third-party developers
18:00 i really dont understand why people are saying that the rail shadows are fixed. you can literally see it in this very video that the shadows are popping in constantly right in front of you
@@TBoy205 To be fair the single levels are not the focus of the dlc its the bi levels and HSP. They could have pulled a DTG and just make you have to own boston sprinter to have them.
@@blackking7512 they probably weren't able to access them which is why they aren't in tsw. It is whatever is available and allowed and what they can do with deadlines
The fact there wasn't even a release sale doesn't fill me with confidence there will be much sales for this DLC at all. Therefor.. given the rather "all over the place" quality of the US routes (some very meh, some very good), is this worth full price? I mean, normally you would say wait for a sale, but after the BNSF shenanigans of a couple of years ago, I hate taing risks with DTG when it comes to available DLC. And yeah, Vossloh is at least partially German, I know it had a Spanish branch as well but I think that was bought by Stadler. The railway operator in my country (NS, the Netherlands) uses some 6400's from Vossloh.
While I don't think the route is worth the full price, I think the route is still very good, imo my third favorite TSW route behind San Bernardino, and Penninsula Corridor. If they ever put it on sale soon (which knowing DTG they won't until TSW6 comes out) I'd reccomend buying it
I dont own all the freight routes to get the layers but the dumbest thing is having 3 flatcar's to simulate a track geo train when all they had to do was make a set with 2 btc an amfleet and the ctc3
I really don't understand why everyone thinks the geo trains are using flat cars, I built them to use the MBTA coaches. So I don't know if something has gone wrong but they need the cab car as they reverse a lot. The MBTA locos hauling flat cars are extra moves that I put in based on RUclips videos that were moving super long sections of a rail.
@@-Joethefish- The one int eh stream and some other videos was a couple flat cars with a loco on each end. Then one train in blu's stream was 3 locos (mbta,csx,mbta) with like 20 flat cars. Not sure if thats intentional
hey man, im curious on what your thoughts are on Trainz coming to series x soon. They are currently looking for beta testers, so i expect it will release soon. From what ive seen, it looks pretty damn cool, way better looking US stuff than DTG.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey guys MBTA Engineer here; if any of you guys care here are some of my thoughts (I haven't played the Worcester expansion these are just my observations based on Schnauz's video, I used to play a fair amount of TSW while I was a conductor but havent since going through engine school some time ago.) Tried to keep a lot of this vague enough to not give up any trade secrets that would get me in trouble but I think I should be in the clear as most of this is my personal thoughts on the route.
-The HSP's look great; the cab layout accuracy-wise is pretty spot on. It's clear that DT had access at some point to some of our loco's as everything is in it's right spot. (Most of my notes will be void of texture/graphics comments as theyre pretty much covered in the video.
-Same goes for the Control Car; everything is there and everything is in the right spot; pretty cool.
-Sounds sound decent to me, but I dont really have an ear for that kind of thing like some guys on the property do. My one sound gripe is that the ACSES/ATC sounds are nowhere close but thats small grapes.
-Pretty Cool that the ODS screen (right hand display) doesn't display the older single level flat cars that we have; a little secret about ODS screens in both HSP's and 1800 series control cars is they literally almost never work properly and are largely disregarded by engineers. The information they display is mostly redundant, not necessary to operation, or can be verified using a variety of other methods.
-HSP's really are like rocket ships compared to the rebuilt F-40's on the property. I'm pretty much always walking up to the train hoping its gonna be an HSP at the head end. The F-40's are painfully slow to get up to track speed and their brakestands handle inconsistently from loco to loco which can be annoying for your first couple station stops, but they have the better HVAC system in the cab so theres that.
-Something that really grinds my gears and just shows either a severe lack of competency or awareness, or both on Dovetail's part: the consist configurations. There are two main consist types on our property: 1. All double decker sets (anywhere from 4-7 in a set) 2. Mixed consists in the following configuration: Double decker-3/4 single level cars-Double Decker Control Car. There are literally 0 consists on the property that are all double deckers with one single randomly thrown in the middle. Also, all single level car consists are effectively extinct as 500 series bathroom cars were retired in favor of 800 or 900 series cars which are bi-level. DT spent time on the property but somehow couldn't get the mixed consists right.
-The Choice by Dovetail to keep the fixed ABS signals in the game doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It's all cab signaled territory on the Worcester Main these days and IMO it would have been easier (and more accurate) for them to replicate that. I get that the route was based off info from 2019 but again, all they would have had to do is scrub the automatics and add some simple cab signal progressions in advance of things like crossover moves at interlockings. Maybe people prefer the automatics as theyre simpler to follow and react to than learning how to use ATC from the ground up?
-The speeds are surprisingly accurate which is cool to see; I wonder if they got access to an old timetable or they were walked through it by someone who was qualified on the territory.
-The freight staying hot on your tail all the way to Framingham is pretty asinine as Freight speeds on the WML are considerably slower than passenger speeds; If I had to guess he'd probably still be somewhere in Wellesley or Natick.
-The trash at Back Bay got a good chuckle out of me lol; it's definitely grungey down there but they did go a little overboard.
-I'm very very very impressed with the stations in general. The layouts are dare I say photo realistic and much more accurate than some of the stations on the corridor in Boston/Providence. Even some of the minor station stops like the Newtons that were bypassed at around 44:00 are spot on; Auburndale's placement on the curve is perfect. It's fun that a lot of the landmarks I use as rough braking points are in here (the signal bungalow on the right side of track 1 just before Wellesley Farms is an example.)
-I had a whole rant typed out about how disappointing it was that Boston/Providence didn't have 1 car marks west of the mini-hi level platforms on the outbound tracks to properly spot the head double set of doors (where the first two coaches meet). This is a small but really important piece for me as far as immersion goes. One of the most challenging but satisfying parts of learning to run commuter passenger trains is being able to cook 80 down a main line and spot a train perfectly and smoothly with the car mark right outside your window. The overlays for stop accuracy were always in the wrong spots as well and that was pretty annoying for me personally. Even though Sean made no effort to properly spot the mini-hi platforms it seems that DT got their act together and put some 1 car marks in there this time around (except for Back Bay for some reason.) I'd be curious to see how accurate the marks are and if you were to spot the marks outside your window if the head double would line up with the mini-hi. HSP's are actually a little longer than F40's so you gotta go past the car marks by about 10 feet to spot the head double squarely in the middle of the platform.
-I saw the penalty hit leaving Boston Landing coming a mile away and watching Shawn try to recover from it gave me a chuckle and reminded me of my first PCS hit.
-Sean runs like a Grandma lol, when leaving a station put that throttle in 4 until you hit 10mph and then yard it out to 8 will ya?? Just kidding, kinda.
-The line you were looking at at about 1:16:18 is the Framingham Secondary which goes all the way down to Walpole, Foxboro/Gillette Stadium where the Patriots play, and eventually Mansfield on the Northeast corridor. All dark territory until Walpole, freight only on that stretch.
-1:25:23 Opening the door in motion would have thrown you right into a PCS hit thanks to traction interlocking...nitpicking but moreso thinking outloud.
-This isn't a commentary on the route itself but moreso TSW as a whole: it'd be cool to see a greater emphasis on slack action and train handling, its hard to do in a sim but if they somehow found a way to punish you for not properly managing slack (Sean liked to go to idle to cruise alot, kind of a no-no but it obviously doesnt matter) or making shitty stops i.e. grabbing way to much air at once, going in and out of blended brake, taking brake kicking it off and throwing it back on. It would probably require a more in depth tutorial and might have to be an option you could choose to disable in the menu for more casual players, but having the sim score you on train handling would be a very cool addition. (I realize this will never happen because Dovetail sells a lot of software without having to put in real work into the game but alas.)
Cool to see another MBTA line on here; without having played it and just on first look I think I prefer this one to Boston-Providence...IMO the WML has more character than the Corridor and overall this release just seems more accurate to the real thing than Boston-Providence. Overall it looks like DT did a pretty good job. I'd buy it to take it for a spin but I'd be lying if I said that doing the real thing hasn't ruined train sims for me. 60 dollars just to scratch the itch to see if the car marks line up accurately is a little much so i'll probably wait for it to go on sale lol. Thanks for the walkthrough Sean and hope some of you guys found this commentary somewhat entertaining.
Great insights!
Thanks for your insights. I do find when stopping at the 1 signs my first passenger car (or least part of it) is well past the platform. I'm curious from your experience if the 1 signs are accurately placed.
Hope you like the freight, Sean! Joe and I worked pretty hard on making sure it all worked out to be as accurate as possible.
The reason for so many DLCs for freight is for accuracy. I'm a stickler for accurate looking trains. So I was originally gonna have Joe do just Horseshoe, Sand Patch and Cajon. And for intermodal, that's all you really need to get that working. But for manifests, we decided to make them look real for once. DTG is not great at making manifests, and I've been complaining about that since Train Sim World 2 when freight car substitution was ripped out.
I so wish it you guys didn't need to own so much. I spent days going back and forth on whether to cut it all down for new players or go for accuracy. The original plan I had was just Cajon and Sand Patch, if anything at all. But I added Horseshoe Curve because I'd kick my own ass if I left out TOFC (Trailers On FlatCars).
(I should clarify I did not work on the timetable directly, that hard work is all Joe. I just gave data)
I think personally some of the cars should have been included in this route as to reduce what you needed to buy. If I was working with DTG directly, I would have totally pushed for that.
Good work both of you , and a thank you for making the freight layer awesome
I really like this route. Only criticism i have is that there are no used needles under the i-290 bridge at Worcester Union.🤪
I love all the knowledge you shared during the ride about Boston and Worcester. Thanks for that!
Was waiting for this one, just in time for me to come home from work.
The lack of long routes really sucks in TSW. Commuter services are the only ones okay to play. High speed and freight are just very unnatural to play due to the length and lack of freight destinations.
That’s why you make your own train in formation designer
1:21:45 I think that's a K3L or K3HL. idk my horns that well but I do have a somewhat musically trained ear.
Raised letter K3H
Very nice! Thanks for sharing.
I still love the updated F40 sounds. New horn, air brake sounds and a very faint HEP sound. The main engine sounds( idle notch up sounds etc) are recycled from the Boston sprinter F40 and Caltrain F40PH-2CAt
In the game files there is a whole new sound set that was recorded recently.
interesting. I wonder if they will patch it in?
@@nhbrailoh???
@@easternroutemainlinevideos6823 yeah, i found them. there's also a new comet horn and bell that never made it too.
@CTSLRailfan any chance you can mod those in?
Hey schnauz! Vossloh I think is from Spain I can’t remember. They’re the same people that made the BR class 68
My biggest gripe with the F40 is that they got a new horn sound but not new prime mover sounds. The old Caltrain prime mover sounds are good but they’re outdated, new sounds would’ve been good….
Btw I fell asleep at 42:19 haha. The first dtg loco to actually make me fall asleep cause it sounded good… that’s a first
lol i fell asleep 2 then reloaded to read the comments, super tired from work.
Vossloh is a German company who mainly specialise in Hydraulic transmissions. They used to have a large rolling stock factory in Spain, which is now owned by Stadler.
Little update if you've been keeping up with TSW since they released this route, but DTG implemented new prime mover sounds to the F40 as of last week (it was actually in the game this whole time but went unused due to there being no simugraph data to accurately play the enginesounds)
These are the best sounds I've ever heard from DTG. At first I didn't even believe it was them, until the last moment I thought it was third-party developers
18:00 i really dont understand why people are saying that the rail shadows are fixed. you can literally see it in this very video that the shadows are popping in constantly right in front of you
Rail shadows dont work at junctions for technical reasons. There's a lot of maths involved
They’ll fix the shadows at junctions in TSW7 🙂
They got freeway signs by the freeway
Can't wait to purchase this game content to my PS5 console
I don't understand why they didn't make the comet coaches, which are more common to see used as single level coaches than the CTC 3 coaches.
Because they already had the CTC 3 coaches and they reuse as much garbage as possible and resell it as new content
@TBoy205 Imagine taking the time to travel to Boston to get sounds and not being fully accurate to the rolling stock. Even if it's one simple car.
@@TBoy205 To be fair the single levels are not the focus of the dlc its the bi levels and HSP. They could have pulled a DTG and just make you have to own boston sprinter to have them.
@@gtasandman regardless of the focus, they should be accurate to the real route. Especially when they can access the trains.
@@blackking7512 they probably weren't able to access them which is why they aren't in tsw. It is whatever is available and allowed and what they can do with deadlines
The fact there wasn't even a release sale doesn't fill me with confidence there will be much sales for this DLC at all. Therefor.. given the rather "all over the place" quality of the US routes (some very meh, some very good), is this worth full price? I mean, normally you would say wait for a sale, but after the BNSF shenanigans of a couple of years ago, I hate taing risks with DTG when it comes to available DLC.
And yeah, Vossloh is at least partially German, I know it had a Spanish branch as well but I think that was bought by Stadler. The railway operator in my country (NS, the Netherlands) uses some 6400's from Vossloh.
While I don't think the route is worth the full price, I think the route is still very good, imo my third favorite TSW route behind San Bernardino, and Penninsula Corridor. If they ever put it on sale soon (which knowing DTG they won't until TSW6 comes out) I'd reccomend buying it
Looks fairly decent I will admit. I'm hoping and praying sooooo badly they do the Fitchburg Route from North Station next.
I dont own all the freight routes to get the layers but the dumbest thing is having 3 flatcar's to simulate a track geo train when all they had to do was make a set with 2 btc an amfleet and the ctc3
This is dovetail games. You really expect them to make accurate shit? lmao
I really don't understand why everyone thinks the geo trains are using flat cars, I built them to use the MBTA coaches. So I don't know if something has gone wrong but they need the cab car as they reverse a lot.
The MBTA locos hauling flat cars are extra moves that I put in based on RUclips videos that were moving super long sections of a rail.
@@-Joethefish- The one int eh stream and some other videos was a couple flat cars with a loco on each end. Then one train in blu's stream was 3 locos (mbta,csx,mbta) with like 20 flat cars. Not sure if thats intentional
Does one need Boston to have the csx trains? What other routes can you drive those
You need all the American freight routes to get freight services. There are no back layering
hey man, im curious on what your thoughts are on Trainz coming to series x soon. They are currently looking for beta testers, so i expect it will release soon. From what ive seen, it looks pretty damn cool, way better looking US stuff than DTG.