Great Western: My review

[158881]

Hello,

Today I recieved my copy of Great Western by Europeanbahn. Once opening it I was slightly dissapointed by there being no manual included inside (other products have had manuals in) and has had the information printed on the back of the cover sleeve. Once installed I was quite suprised to see the Class 66 locomotive included (it is not mentioned on the back) so that was a bonus point that it was included. Now I decided to boot it up and test out the Class 165/166. I am a bit dissapointed about the quality of this model with the lights being above the light clusters (now corrected in a patch) and the sounds are modified 158 sounds from Leeds loop. The sounds are quite noisy for a Turbo when moving and basically sound as if it has been switched off when you come to a halt. Now onto a more positive note, the Class 43 HST is of good standard and despite us seeing the cab and sounds in most of their previous products it is still a decent model however it is a bit rushed with the skin appearing a bit blurry. The Class 66 is in EBRail livery which is a fictional livery created by them (possibly due to a copyright issue) and it isn't a bad model to be honest. The sounds are fairly good although i'm unsure if the cab is life like it feels a bit "empty". Compared to Midland Mainline i'm a bit let down by this product but I will make the most of this product and maybe even release some activities if I feel like it!

Note: This review does not require a few hundred EB slating posts please!

and also I hope people do not mind this review being put on here!

[kieranhardy]

Somewhat confused how you can review a complete addon without actually mentioning the route at all.... i also see no mention of rolling stock.

[158881]

Somewhat confused how you can review a complete addon without actually mentioning the route at all.... i also see no mention of rolling stock.

I've driven a bit more of it now and will carry on with the route. The route is very much countryside and seems not very detailed compared with their previous add ons. Also I seem to notice that the stations are branded in First Great Western (when FGW wouldnt of even existed at this point) which I find disappointing. The stations do represent the real life ones well however Didcot looks pretty basic with all the track scattered around where the railway centre should be. Its a great shame there is no electrification at Paddington for the Heathrow Express & Connect services but there is 3rd rail at Reading, rarther strange really. Paddington is finished off quite well but in some of the activities is rather empty (from my experience it is never empty). On a more positive note it does hold some fun with a mixture of freight, commuter and express activities which all feature the main rolling stock.

Back onto discussing the rolling stock now...

The class 165/166s acceleration seems to fast as they seem to take off like a rocket sometimes on this add-on whereas they dont take off that quick in real life. It is of note that the Class 158 horn is used on this train and so is the interior. Now surely they could of built an interior for this unit or at least used the WCE 321 interior which has Network Southeast seating covers and the 158 horn doesnt really match the horn of a Turbo. We then move onto discussing the Class 66 locomotive. Possibly the one ive drove the most since I got the add on. I like the sounds of this as they do match the real thing but as I said above i'm not too sure of the cab weather it is very realistic or not. The EBFreight livery is fictional but does add a different twist to things I suppose (although as I said it was due to copyright issues why they don't provide a real livery on this) but i'm not complaining really.

The HST model is rarther fine but the skin is a bit blurred and could of been improved on. I like the Cab/Sounds but theyre standard to the HSTs from ECE,WCE,MML but i'm rarther used to driving this so it'll probably be the least one that I use. They have also changed the red seats from their default HST to some sort of black seating which is different but i'm not sure what is the point of this change.

The patch to this add on does improve things and will make me want to drive it more now they have sorted the inital errors plus I might complete some more of the activities when I get the chance.

This is all I have to say about it really, I felt their could of been more done to the add on to improve its state and I would of preffered a British Rail scene with NSE Turbos and a Swallow HST but nevertheless the GWT HST does add some variety I suppose

[energize]

I agree with you. From what I've read from this and other posts I'll save £20 or so and not bother. Interestingly enough it's more expensive when ordered from EB's own website than from Amazon .

The only other EB route I have is London South Coast. Sorry to digress but when I got it for my 17th birthday last year, I was disappointed with the scenery. For instance, most of the Portsmouth Harbour - Portsmouth & Southsea section is on a viaduct, NOT an embankment, while the scenery just consists of lots of tower blocks. OK they can't reproduce every single building since that would take too long but they could have made the scenery representative. In Dorset Coast v6 which includes Portsmouth at least the area around Portsmouth Harbour looks representative. It does get very monotonous looking at tower block after tower block! The use of third rail track is very sporadic - much of the time it seems that they couldn't be bothered to lay the correct track. However the rolling stock was pretty good. The 377 was well modelled, while the 421 included that distinctive chattering sound effect produced after it's just stopped.

[JunGRail]

I played the route with an HST which is the same HST in all their products. Not slating EB because West Coast Express merged with Cross City is by far their best work. London South Coast is fun as well, i do enjoy that route.

But in London South Coast. They were advertising Great Western Mainline? My guess is the copyright issues didn't allow them to go forward with that route, when they were actually making an effort with their products. Great Western must be just what they started and decided to finish just to round off their products for MSTS.

[david1]

Very disapointed with this route, apart from the station which are quite good I find this route very poor value for money, on leaving Paddington the only sceanary is trees and fields and the odd building thrown in, and this poor lack of detail continues right through to Swindon. this level of detail was in the first freeware routes when MSTS first came out, only things have not moved forward from the makers of Great western. I can only hope they up there game when they produce routes for Railworks. Other route builders just raise the bar each time they make a route we thought Great Eastern set the standard but North Wales Coast moved the bar even higher.

[energize]

They didn't even bother to put in Didcot Railway Centre: where it should be there's just more trees. At least on the RS Paddington - Oxford route a fairly faithful depiction of the centre was added.

[JunGRail]

I totally agree with that i was going to say RS did a better job with the Paddington to Oxford route. Im not one for 3D-design, it doesn't sit well with me but for the genius' that can create routes for Rail works were patiently waiting.

No disrespect to EB but someone should talk to them i feel. Tell them not to rush for deadlines and take time.

[lateagain]

Note: This review does not require a few hundred EB slating posts please!!

did you read your own review before you posted it?!!!

If that was a good one..... I'd be keen to see one of your bad ones

[158881]

Note: This review does not require a few hundred EB slating posts please!!

did you read your own review before you posted it?!!!

If that was a good one..... I'd be keen to see one of your bad ones

They wouldnt be allowed to be shown on here