Évaluations récentes de ngc

Even 10 years later, the Horseshoe Curve route still holds up pretty well. The default locomotives are pretty well made and the sounds are quite nice by default. The route is very accurate for the PRR era, and the scenery is very accurate to the Allegheny mountains. I highly recommend picking this route up on sale,, and the PRR K4 with it as it makes a nice addition to the route.

My only complaints with the route are the lack of variety with the rolling stock used. Consists really only utilize the boxcar, hopper, and caboose, even though the route comes with a few more pieces of rolling stock that are visually and historically interesting.

Also worth noting that the screenshots used to advertise this route are mostly wrong, you only get the PRR F7 and GP9 included with the route, the RS11 and 44 Ton are seperate DLC.

Absolutely one of the best routes in Train Simulator to date.

Being a native to Pittsburgh, PA, I've been to locations that are on this route in-person, and they're represented very well in-game. The GEVO is pretty well made and the coal gondolas are nice, and the route gives an authentic taste of the western PA railroading experience. Even though the description of this add-on says that the C40-9W is AI only, you can still create custom consists with it and run the locomotive as normal, which is a nice hidden bonus.

One of the largest issues with the route is one of the scenarios being impossible to complete since a C44-9W blocks your path at the very start, and it's impossible to fix due to the career mode scenarios being uneditable.

Even though TheLocoShop fell on their face with the SD70M, I feel like the SD60E was actually a decent addon. Don't expect Searchlight Simulations level of quality, but it does look pretty and the sounds aren't the worst. Small details are modeled very well, and the cab is fairly accurate. It's a nice touch that the horn is determined by locomotive number too.

Just, no.

I had really high hopes for this route, it looked super promising and had a lot of very innovative advancements in the technology of TSW. What we got was a laggy mess. I can barely get higher than 20 FPS on a 100 car train, and thats with my settings cranked all the way down (I get 45-60 FPS on every other route in the game with settings maxed out). Unless if you have a really, really, really powerful PC, your not going to be having any fun on this route just because you'll be watching a slideshow presentation.

The brakes also feel pretty inaccurate, it takes upwards of 5 to 10 minutes just to get them to release, let alone starting the train. I get that it'll take a while because of the length of the train, but it is definately taking way too long on this route.

The only real "positives" I have for this route are the attention to detail on the locomotives, which really means nothing when your waiting 5 minutes for all of the textures to load in and are getting a consistent 10-15 FPS the whole time. The horns are pretty good, but again, the performance means the sounds are stuttery and headache-inducing to listen to. The freight cars are nothing to write home about, and its worth noting that every single intermodal train has the same arrangement of containers.

Is the route worth it on sale? Maybe, but I would honestly suggest the Train Simulator 20XX version of Sherman Hill, not as pretty but you at least can get more than 20 FPS and have a lot more to do...

My first impressions were rather positive. The route looked visually nice, the trains were well detailed and felt really fun to run, and the mass amounts of people getting on and off trains was impressive to see. The sounds were pretty solid too, with custom horns on the MBTA content, which is a nice touch.

but the signals make this route actually completely 100% unplayable

AI trains get stuck at signals, and then other AI trains behind it get cleared to pass stop signals and get super close to the first stopped AI train, rinse and repeat until you have like 6-7 trains lined up in a parade a few yards from each other, eternally waiting for the first train to be cleared. Youll be sitting at a red signal, request permission to pass and be granted permission, and then come across this mess, which makes almost every single service included impossible to finish.

Not to mention the nightmarishly bad speed limits and simulation of ACSES and ATC, you'll be cruising along at 60MPH, be cleared to go up to 90, then 60, then 30, and then back to 60 all within 30 seconds. You'll be lucky if you can complete a service on time from all of the unplanned stops from ACSES/ATC.

I seriously wouldn't even touch this DLC with a 10ft pole. The Cane Creek was a walk in the park compared to this, since you could actually run trains without issue on it.

I really put faith in DTG to hopefully hit a home run with US DLC, third times the charm as they say.
Unfortunately, the third time is not the charm. After only around an hour and a half of running, I was able to pick out a laundry list of bugs/completely incorrect details.

F7:
Headlights sometimes dont turn on
Brakes are completely broken
Radio switches that are interactive in the SD40 do not work in the F7

SD40:
Breakers are flipped (up is off, down is on)
Horn button instead of horn lever
CSX K5LA for some reason
Cab camera is waaaay off center from where the seat is positioned
Fuel pump's position clips through the fuel pipe
Lit numberboard texture has odd vertical stripes
2 isolation switches
2 dynamic brake cut out switches
Spawns in on Sandpatch Grade now for some reason
Horn doesn't play in tunnels
Rear numberboard switch turns on the conductor front numboard and conductor rear numboard
Front numberboard switch turns on engineer front numboard, 5% of the conductor front numberboard, and the engineer rear numberboard

Rolling Stock:
Coal loading animation is a little bit wonky, but passable
If your sitting on the left of the caboose, the character in external view appears on the right (and vice versa)

Etc:
Completely flat out lied about the cameras being movable when in a tunnel, still locked in cab view
Engine starting is completely broken
Tutorials are very easy to break
(As I run this route more, I will try and keep this list updated.)

It really feels like DTG just doesn't have a quality control team at all. Major things broken, incorrect, incomplete, flat out wrong. It is completely inexcusable for a game studio to release content like this without even remotely hinting at a "day 1 patch". The only real thing the route has going for it is eye candy, the actual simulation and fine details is really where the route starts to fall apart.

Overall: 4/10
TL;DR Has good eye candy, simulation is very, very poor

Pros:
- Nice model that surprisingly has a majority of details correct, including the cab interior
- Most of the textures are very well made and look very nice and prototypical
- It's more content for Sandpatch, and another GE widecab to run, which is a nice refresher from the same 3 locomotives

♥♥♥♥:
- Same old craptastic default horn
- Handbrake doesnt work
- HOTD doesnt work
- the 74V power receptacle on the stand is completely untextured
- Some minor model discrepancies, like the fan grill on the AC unit being flat, no AC unit vent in the cab, backwall close but not completely accurate, lighting in the cab, etc
- 2 independent brake flow control valves for some reason
- Alerter sound isn't even remotely correct, and there isn't any visual indication of the alerter
- DID panel doesn't even show basic information
- Sounds are recycled from the AC4400
- No front brake hose, and the anglecock is in the wrong place
- No collisions on the steps, so you can run right off of them while at full speed
- No bell animation
- Horn sequencer is able to be pressed down, but no actual horn sequence plays
- Scenarios are very basic point A-B scenarios, with one involving you running around your train for no reason other than to just do it.
- It does include a lot of timetable services, however the majority of them are already existing services with the Dash 8 put in them.
- Incorrect antenna array on the roof

I really am conflicted with how I feel about the C40-8W. It's nice to finally have something other than German content, while also having new mainline GE power to run on Sandpatch. The overall details are nice, but when you look at it further it really starts to show how badly made this locomotive is. My breaking point was the 74V receptacle being completely untextured however, as it really baffled me for a $20 locomotive to have parts that are flat out untextured. I wouldn't reccomend this locomotive in its current state, but I would reccomend picking it up if it goes on sale for $10-15.

Something also worth noting, outside of the US the Dash 8 is roughly USD$15, while on Steam in the US its USD$20, which tips me off to maybe something fishy going on behind the scenes at DTG to try and rip the "schewpit" Americans off.

EDIT: After a few more hours of exploring the Dash 8, it actually gets even worse. Heres a small addition to the list from what has been discovered:
- Multiple unit headlights don't work
- Brakes are very broken
- CFM gauge stays at max flow for waaay longer than it should
- Brake pipe gauge freaks out when brakes are applied/released
- When going downhill in snow, applying even a small bit of train brake causes the wheels to lock up completely
- The "jog" position on the isolation switch doesn't stay in the position
- Very clearly it was rushed to release, and the version that was released is a beta release
- The template files for the AC4400 are still in the DLC file

EDIT 2: Another item to add to the list of things, and this one is pretty big.
***ITS LITERALLY THE SAME PHYSICS AS THE AC4400***
So not only does it have all the problems listed prior, it has the same exact physics as the AC4400. This means it simulates an AC traction 4400 horsepower locomotive, when in reality the C40-8W is DC traction and 4000 horsepower. This DLC is seriously a joke, 0 effort was put into it and it shouldn't have been released in it's current state.

EDIT 3: The engineer isn't even properly sitting in the engineers seat, he floats above it by like 2ft. No quality control at all from DTG now. Absolutely shameful and greedy, stuff like this shouldn't become the new norm for NA DLC.

T̶L̶;̶D̶R̶,̶ ̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶v̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶w̶s̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶g̶o̶ ̶f̶u̶r̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶ ̶d̶e̶t̶a̶i̶l̶s̶.̶ ̶I̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶w̶a̶i̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶a̶l̶e̶.̶

TL:DR, Wait until DTG updates it to fix all of its major flaws. Until then, its not worth the money, even on sale.

One of the most realistic train sims out there (I personally think Run 8 is more realistic), this is definatley a must for any railfan.

The DLC provided in the steam store isn't that great, I reccomend getting third party DLC, like Searchlight Simulations (cheaper, more realistic)

Geralds Modification