12 August

Berlin - Leipzig Out Now

12/08/2016

http://store.steampowered.com/app/376943

Originating the 1840s, the railway that connects Berlin to the likes of Wittenberg, Bitterfeld and Leipzig has seen many upgrades throughout the decades to make it the high speed railway known today. Before the wires dominated over the rails, the line was considered as one of the most important of its kind throughout Germany. Be ready at the controls as Berlin-Leipzig is now available for Train Simulator, courtesy of Partner Programme member, Aerosoft.

The Berlin-Anhalt Railway Company was responsible for building many of Berlin’s railway connections throughout the mid-19th Century. Their main railway, the Anhalt Line, ran from Berlin to Köthen via Wittenberg and opened throughout 1840 and 1841. From Köthen, a connection was made to the nearby Magdeburg-Leipzig railway allowing for services to Halle and further to Leipzig. By the late 1850s, various connections were made faster with new, more direct routes.

The Anhalt Railway was quickly established as a major long-distance route, one of the most important in Germany. Express services were departing Berlin daily to destinations such as Halle, Leipzig, Dresden, and even beyond Prague. By the late 1930s, as many as 33 trains a day were on the move between Berlin and Bitterfeld before branching off to multiple destinations. This frequency of long-distance travel was the highest of every other railway in the country.

World War Two was harsh on the Anhalt Railway, many platform and lineside structures were destroyed along the route and only the most essential were repaired. The line also saw some changes in years to follow, the rise of the Berlin Wall meant services from Halle and Leipzig were no longer allowed to enter their former terminus. This would not be rectified until sections of the Berlin Outer Ring were completed, allowing direct connections to continue without approaching the wall. Several compromises had to be made and service numbers suffered.

The reunification of Germany saw the Anhalt Railway lose a portion of its importance, many services ceased following the fall of the Berlin Wall and a new stable timetable was not introduced for some time after. Several years later and even more services stopped operating across the line, with new high speed routes offering a faster connection.

A plan was put into place to upgrade the Anhalt Railway to 160 km/h running, with 200 km/h a distant provision. To achieve this higher speed and increase journey times, all level crossings were to be replaced with bridges and every station would be modernised. By 1995, the journey time between Berlin and Leipzig was only at 100 minutes, but with further modernisation was expected to be under an hour in years to come. Just over a decade later and a majority of the Berlin to Leipzig route was 200 km/h ready. Further upgrades to allow this included the restoration of the old Anhalt route in Berlin, connecting to the new main station for the city and just outside Bitterfeld, the longest set of points in the world were installed; safe for up to 220 km/h operation featuring 59 metre-long point blades weighing in at 120 tons each.

With higher speed allowances, ICE services began to operate between Berlin and Leipzig at journey times of around 1 hour and 10 minutes (non-stop services could travel the gap between the two cities in as little as 57 minutes). The upgrades were a success and ICE passenger numbers alone soared upwards, with regional services also adding to the increasing popularity of the line.

Some reconstruction has taken place in recent years, old metal 'Y-shaped' sleepers from the days of slower running were suffering from rust and needed to be replaced. Speed limits drastically dropped during the period of repairs, and following the initial issue the line speed is currently no higher than 160 km/h, with 200 planned to be re-introduced in 2017. Future projects along the line will see signal boxes replaced by larger signaling centres, with the old structures likely to see demolition after they have lived through their purpose.

Undoubtedly, the line owes its important heritage to the fact that it terminates in the world’s largest railway station by floor area, Leipzig Hbf. This goliath-like transport hub ensured that many passengers would want to travel to Leipzig either as a destination or as a waypoint along their journeys.

With high speed operations, both express and stopping, serving one of the most important lines in Germany’s railway history, the line between Berlin and Leipzig is unlike any other.

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Mixed (191 reviews) - 57% of the 191 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.

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Mixed (8,562 reviews) - 64% of the 8,562 user reviews for this game are positive.

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Posted: 14 August

DLC Purchase Simulator 2016

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I love Train Simulator 2016 because is much Fun :D Best Game 10/10

Posted: 13 August

GAME IS BASICALLY DOVETAIL'S ADVERTISEMENT FOR THEIR DLC'S...

I bought this game because I thought what I was getting was a 30 dollar game for half price...if this was ever a 30 dollar game then I pity those that paid that....this game is hardly worth 15...in fact considering this game solely exists to try to get you to buy all their other DLC's it should be free. I think the simulation is not half bad in of itself, but its designed from the get-go to be a DLC money bait while masquerading as a standalone game with enough content to keep you occupied for more than a day. There are many DLC money bait games, but they don't also insult your intelligence by pretending not to be.

Take for example the Digital Combat Simulator. You get a very good plane and a whole campaign to start, FOR FREE. I played at least a hundred hours on that free base game before dropping money on anything else of theirs, and by then I fully felt they deserved everything I paid and more.

Take another example...War Thunder... You can play all of that FOREVER FREE, with the option of fast tracking your leveling up or buying a premium plane with some moolah. THOSE are how honest content baiting work, and should work, in my opinion. You know upfront that since the base game is free, they are going to be enticing you to pay for further content. But at least it's honest.

Since what I paid for is supposed to be a 30 dollar game, I really expected much more. I do like the game, but I'm one of those people that hate to give money to people that I feel wronged me, so I will not pay any more money for anything Dovetail. This experience also convinced me to stick with my MicroSoft flight simulator instead of the Dovetail reiteration....

PS (Edit) I also would like to point out that the front "cover" of the game features 2 trains, the American diesel locomotive on the left plus the steam locomotive in the middle, that is not included in the base game at all and is only (presumably) available as a paid DLC.

its amazing. play it now. ruff.

Posted: 12 August

Boring

Cool! But, my computer doesn't handle the lag though, thats the point.

Very pricy and buggy but for now I think youll injoy it very much!

This game has a lot of bugs, for me the game ♥♥♥♥ed up my pc whenever i minimilized and i was forced to restart my computer, but thats just due to the fact i have a bad PC

Just dont buy this game if you dont have atleast some knowledge on trains or if you have a bad hard drive ok

Fantastically modeled engines and sounds, love playing the scenerios, for a train lover this game is a must have.

I do not normally write reviews but i feel that i should in the case of this game.
there are problems, the main problems being that there are bugs everywhere and the programmer has failed to adress them.
ontop of this ..... the frame rate on a top end machine is pathetic. i am runniun gtx 980 titan graphics cards along with solid state memory and top end everything else. The games skips frams like there is no tomorrow and suffers from slowdown. and does not run smoothly.

you dont get a great deal with the basic game. Most of the content you have to pay for in DLC. which normally end up being buggy and in same cases completely unuseable.

The game has huge potencial and its a good idea but the way it is and has been for that matter makes it in my opinion not worth buying.

Most Helpful Reviews In the past 30 days

[VUP] Kenneth

113 products in account

24 reviews

Posted: 31 July

DLC Simulator 2016

Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny

[ λlt ]

1,262 products in account

235 reviews

Posted: 1 August

Stop spamming the "new released" section with these ♥♥♥♥ty dlcs, christ!

Channing Tatum

54 products in account

8 reviews

Posted: 3 August

"Here's a great idea! lets make the customer pay thousands of dollars to get all of the content! We hate our customers!" - Dovetail Games

Bodace

32 products in account

4 reviews

Posted: 16 July

Well its been a few years now and nothing is fixed.. but they will sell you addons no problem.
Sorry cant recomend this

o355

6 products in account

7 reviews

Posted: 8 August

hello and welcome aboard dlctro-north.
get yourself cozy in our dlc 32 train.
we will be departing dlc city shortly.
our destination is dlc haven, and we will stop at dlcford.
we will also be finding some naughty dlcnomes during our train ride.
if you spot a dlcnome during our train ride, you get 1% off dlc.
if you want any dlc, talk to our dlc assistants. you need dlc for that too.
if you want to get off this dlc train, you will also need dlc. and you will need dlc to walk as well.
enjoy your time on dlctro-north!

0/10 would never ride dlctro-north
for real, too much dlc, and you can't do much without it either
also all the dlc in this game totals up to $5700. think i'll buy a used car instead.

DemiGoth

718 products in account

109 reviews

Posted: 28 July

While as simulator it's okay(ish), I'd not recommend to buy it because of the DLC and downward compatibility (or lack of it). In the past I've bought a couple of DLC packs, which over the year have become obsolete with new changes, but the developer does not take the effort to update those DLC packs. With that, the obsolete DLC packs ARE NOT downloaded to the current version of the game, so you CAN NOT make them compatible yourself (I can make a couple of disc DLCs I have compatible with the current version of the game). Also, I've noticed that a couple of old and obsolete DLCs have been readded as new DLC to the store without replacing the old obsolete DLC for the players who have bought it.

snorp08

147 products in account

I installed the game on to my gaming computer, first thing I saw was a crash dump file.

kelvin_smoakin

58 products in account

3 reviews

[NTL Head Of Drivers]Kieran

10 products in account

I bought this game liking model railways thinking I would enjoy this. I was wrong. Its not the games fault I don't like driving trains but it is the games fault that every 10-15 minutes in the editor it crashes and deletes most of my work. Don't blame my PC for "being crap" because it is a GTX 980 and an i7 6700k.