Blackpool Branches Review ~ Train Sim World 4

in stark contrast to the lazy and pathetic Arosa Aggregates pack which was the subject of my last review before this one I now have a truly good trainsim World product up for review this one wasn't made by dovetail but rather another third party [Music] developer just trains have already made a name for themselves in train simulator classic thanks to their large selection of roots and locomotive add-ons they've made over the years examples include the class 220 and 221 voyages Western mainlines in vaness to Kyle of Lal mire and the LMS Patriots 460 in her original condition although in my opinion maena and the Patriots haven't aged well at all in November 2023 JT released their first trainsim world route it's a small but nonlinear section of track in the northwest of England set in 1986 which happens to be one of my favorite years for music despite not holding a candle to the likes of Heat of the Moment Only the Lonely Telegraph Road red skies and other songs from 1982 this route was a long time coming so let's see if this was worth the wait the add-on costs 57 New Zealand do at full price go figure and just just when I thought we were done with roots being that expensive of course I'd rather see the Myriad of problems in this game fixed instead of seeing the devs releasing new DLC over and over again but the chances of dovetail games prioritizing the player interests over making as much money as possible are so low that I'll probably go to Nashville and refriend Brett Cooper before DTG ever changes their ways Preston is kind of like the main Hub of the route with branches going to Blackpool North blackpole South Burn and msir the total route length is only 48 miles this pack is already looking somewhat promising just from the route concept alone I won't discuss every single station but there are two that I think are worth mentioning here Blackpool South used to be a much larger station as the line once continued a little further to Blackpool Central until this Station closed in 1964 Regional trains from Manchester Liverpool and London were all diverted to Blackpool North in 1970 then in 1985 the booking office and waiting rooms up on watero road were all demolished leaving just one little shelter on the former Northbound platform the station is still in operation as of 2023 and it's currently served by Northern class 150 or6 dmus running hourly services to and from Preston with most of the land next to the one surviving platform now being occupied by a car park and the yeden way Road arms Kirk station opened in 1849 and in TSW it's depicted in quite an unfamiliar condition to younger rail fans back in 1986 the station still had two platforms and a Crossing Loop although only one track was still in use it is a Terminus for br Diesel and Mery rail Electric syst Services which both use the same platform where the track has been split with buffer stops in the middle I don't know why this station is arranged in such a bizarre way besides all the stations there are some important landmarks throughout the route these include but are not limited to the large power pylon visible from Blackpool North as well as the roller coaster at Blackpool pleasure Beach and descend walberg's Church in Preston I don't know if I pronounced walberg's right someone's bound to correct me if I'm wrong the controversial class 142 Pacer is included with this route I initially thought we were only going to get this unit in the British Rail provincial blue Livery but as you can see here we also get the so-called Skipper chocolate and cream as well as gmpte orange I always appreciate it when the divs include multiple liveries take notes dovetail for some historical context the Pacer trains were introduced in the mid 1980s at a time when British Rail needed a cheap means of replacing older first generation dmus on lightly used rural lines the class 142 was the second production Pacer behind the class 141 of 1984 with 96 of these little two car units being built between 1985 and 1987 the 142s were built by British engineering limited and British Leland sharing many common traits with the Leland National bus as a result amongst other things Pacers were Infamous for their atrocious ride quality and earsplitting flange squal with both problems having been caused by the use of fixed four-wheel underframes with a long wheelbase to boot instead of conventional bogeys they had collapsing doors typical of 80 buses and to an extent even buses today and the large Step Up From The Doorway to the passenger Salon meant they couldn't easily take on prams and wheelchairs controversially the 142s remained in service well past their intended lifespan with the final units not being withdrawn from service until December 2020 out of the 96 units that were built a staggering 35 have been preserved interestingly you get three different engine and transmission combinations with the 142 and TSW but these different mechanical layouts are accurate to the real units if my research is correct they were originally built with leand tl11 prime movers and self-changing gears R5 transmission but in the early 1990s they started to be upgraded with c's LTA 10- engines and vo T 211r hydrokinetic transmission whatever that means naturally the Leland and engines sound completely different from each other [Music] the inclusion of the western region Skipper liy and TSW seemed very strange to me at first but I have since found a photographic evidence to prove Pro that some 142s did run to Blackpool while They Carried this Livery only 13 of the class 142s ever carried the skipper Livery numbers 14215 to 14227 and they were allocated to Plymouth Lara Depot for services on the branch lines in Cornwall such as liscard to Lou and St Earth to St Ives but they only lasted 3 years in the southwest as their long fixed wheelbase resulted in excessive Flame squeal on the tightly curved Branch lines not to mention the units being underpowered for the Steep inclines these days class 150 stroke 2 sprinters are the dominant M of power on the Cornish Branch [Music] lines I was using the old AP wagons 142 with a reskin made by Vulcan productions for these scenes and before anyone asks yes I am aware of the new class 142 pack that Armstrong Powerhouse released for TS classic about a month ago no I will not be trying it out anytime soon because I cannot justify spending £30 on that thing £30 is an outrageously high price for a train simulator add-on regardless of how good it may be bite me Fanboys in its default State the 142s horn sounds a little off because it doesn't have any Reverb however there is a patch on the trome Community website that fixes this small issue here's what the modified horn sounds [Music] like besides the class 142 Pacer this route also includes the class 08 and class 47 stroke 4 diesel locomotives although the 47 was already available with the West Somerset Railway and Northern Train trans P9 routes while the 08 was first included in the BR heavy Freight pack and later the teas Valley Line as well the Rolling Stock is also reused from ntp and the heavy Freights pack but at least a new livery for the Mark 1 BG is included in the form of all over blue fortunately there have been some improvements to these locomotives something dovetail is almost never bothered doing whenever they rehash the br1 185 stroke 2 BR 363 and a class 66 for yet another route for starters the class 47 model has been altered to include a high-intensity headlight and it comes with two new liveries British Rail large logo blue and into City the Blackpool version also has 49 newly modeled 3D name plates made by Matthew Wilson while the original ntp 47 has never had name plates meanwhile the class08 has an improved BR blue Livery as well as a new livery depicting locomotive number 8744 Wigan TMD this one was allocated to Wigan Springs branch in 1986 and often used as a shunter in Preston I like the addition of this engine because she adds a little bit more authenticity to the route and shows that the divs have respect for the source material thinking back to the stock standard be blue Livery here is a comparison of the BR heavy Freight and Blackpool versions of the class08 with the latter being based on O8 that were overhauled at crew Works timetable mode has 99 playable services for the class 142 Pacer 112 for the class 47 and only six for each variant of the class08 you also get five scenarios for this route two for the class 47 two for the class 142 and one for the class 08 I tried two of them for this Review called Blackpool illuminations and put a grank on it the former is pretty boring just a short non-stop run from priston to Blackpool North with a class 47 while the second is a little more interesting because it involves shunting coaches at Blackpool North with a class08 outside of scenarios the normal BR blue class08 is used at Blackpool North while 8744 Wigan TMD is used exclusively at Preston in the case of the 142 the list of services is the same across all variants rather frustratingly the 142 does not layer onto the te's Valley Line despite the fact that this model has destination options for tvl stations and Pacers were running on the real line in 1989 the time period in which the tvl add-on is set other Motive Power will also layer onto this route which makes it feel more lively but provided that you own those other addons of course you will see the class 101 d muu from teas Valley whose playable services are the same as the 142 as for other locomotives these are the class 20 class 31 class 40 class 45 and for whatever reason the stania 8f steam locomotive from the mind-numbingly boring Spirit of steam DLC which I put on blast in May 2023 the class 142 Pacer is used on local Services throughout the entire route apart from the now Freight only Branch to burn and a most of her Services cover the priston to Blackpool North section with only 20 of them including the branch down to ormskirk as for services to and from Blackpool South there are only 22 of them as for the class 47 she is primarily used on locomotive Hall passenger trains between Preston and Blackpool North coming in from London Houston Glasgow Central stran Rea and other stations throughout the country she will also do some shunting at Blackpool North or you can use her to haul a freight train up to burn n but this service only runs once in each direction throughout the entire 24-hour timetable I didn't know it was going to be that in frequence besides the services to ORS Kirk or blackpole you will also see West Coast Mainline services at priston although the electrification from crew to Glasgow had been finished by 1986 the class 87 electric locomotive does not appear in TSW another form of motor power that's not included is the class 507 emu which you would have seen on the other side of ORS Kirk station in 1986 and even as recently as 2023 to boat but to an extent it makes sense for the developers to not model a train or locomotive if it would only be seen in a very small area of the route but then again rivet games actually went to the effort of doing those AI only tram models for Edinburgh to Glasgow which you only see running parallel to the main line for the relatively short section between Edinburgh Park and Edinburgh Hay Market for this review I tried driving the PESA on a few timetable mode services with the first one being 2 F14 from Preston to msir you get a reasonable 2 minutes to set up your train at the start of a service the frame rates in Preston weren't as bad as I thought they would be averaging 46 frames per second this train had to stop at the abandoned M Hall station for a token exchange then make passenger stops at cron rufford and burow Junction before ending her run at Arms Kirk it took me 30 minutes and 21 seconds to cover those 15.2 Mi of track and once you leave the mainline at farington Curve Junction the line is single track all the way to wsir apart from the crossing loop at rufford driving the class 142 is a high quality experience on par with the BR 628 stroke 2 from the nid Taliban although the 628 design has nothing to do with buses I was pleased to see that the Pacers iconic or perhaps Infamous lurching and swanging was accurately simulated although it's partly because of the improved suspension physics and TSW 4 I was genuinely yet obviously not Lally Blown Away by just how much the unit was swaying about it's no wonder why the 142 is a nickname to nodding donkeys and I can only imagine how uncomfortable it must have been to ride on a Pacer in real life especially if you had to do so as part of a daily commute to and from work Northerners you have my sympathy [Music] when I was accelerating away from a station stop I noticed the engine power briefly cutting out when the train got to 17 mph and this happened again at 27 and 43 M hour this was on the variant marked 1985 to 1991 by the way I used to think that the 142 was diesel hydraulic but now I see that she's actually diesel mechanical with automatic trans Mission I guess you learn something new every day and for reference the unit's top speed is 75 mph when I started exploring the stations on foot the first one I went to was msir and I thought we were off to a good start you spawn in the waiting room which looks very nicely modeled as does the whole station I also noticed what is meant to be a Royal Mail van in the car park with fictional branding to get around licensing issues and I like how you can also explore the staff room at the station I was surprised to see that one of the Collectibles is a poster talking about the construction of Blackpool pleasure Beach station which didn't open until 1987 this reminds me of the freeway East London line in TS classic where you can see posters on the stations that inform passengers of the upcoming closure of shage station prior to the line's conversion into a branch of the London overground one thing I noticed at Preston and Blackpool North was this funny little cart the sort of thing that took luggage trolleys around the platforms oddly enough this thing reminds me of a segment in a live action episode of Mr Bean in which he was trying to weasle out of buying a ticket at St panr station just like what river games did at Braiding on the islands line 2022 route just strains modeled the Interiors of at least two signal boxes on Blackpool branches I like this because although you can't move the levers just being able to explore buildings other than those at stations adds that little bit more to the imersion in this case I spawned at swick at 1300 and watched two trains going in the same direction less than 5 minutes apart from the signal box better call Soul work station itself is quite unusual in the sense that there are no facilities here apart from the canopy and you don't even get bches the setup here reminds me of what little remains of Denberg station on the pon North to NAIA line where All That Remains of the original station is the canopy thinking back to to swick I was surprised to find out that this station is still open today albeit with only three trains a day in each Direction and annual passenger numbers averaging only around 1,400 continuing with the theme of stations looking deserted or abandoned I was quite surprised to see that since ANZ on the sea station looks like an absolute dump the section west of this station up to the Terminus at blackpole South had been reduced to single track in 1982 with the section East to Kirk and wisham not following soit until 1986 shortly after the fact the old buildings and canopy at St ANS on the sea were all demolished and a smaller structure was built on the former down platform to house a ticket office Boon na station lies on the former Fleetwood branch which lost its passenger service in 1970 freight trains continued running this up the branch until 1999 in order to serve the ICI plant fortunately a preservation group called The pton and wire Railway Society is working on restoring the Old Branch from pton leil to Fleetwood as well as a class 108 dmu for service on the [Music] line I take my hat off to just train for making a truly great add-on something we don't see all that often in tssw these days especially if the recent antics of rivet games are anything to go by although it's somewhat lit down by the inconsistent frame rates I still think the class 142 is really well made I appreciate the improvements to the class 47 and it's fascinating to see a route that's still open today as it was 27 years ago [Music]

Channel: The Trainspotter From Tauranga

Views: 14,341

Keywords: the trainspotter from tauranga, train sim world 4, train sim world 4 blackpool, train sim world 4 blackpool branches, just trains, just trains blackpool, train games, train videos, British Rail, british trains, Class 142 Pacer, TSW4 blackpool, train sim world 4 dlc, train sim world 4 review, train sim world 4 class 142, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Blackpool england, blackpool south station, blackpool illuminations, Class 142 train sim world 4, Class 142 DMU

Id: fB8W2X-cKWY

Length: 24min 7sec (1447 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 25 2023