Train Simulator: Union Pacific Big Boy Loco Add-On DLC

This dlc is one that I purchased when it was on sale, and I can say that I cannot recommend this dlc, especially after the release of Smokebox's Big Boy. (If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you check it out, it is worth it.) The sounds are okay, but there is no challenge or even realism to the locomotive, its almost to simple to use, and isn't worth the $25 price tag, even when on sale.

UPDATE 11-18-2015: Dovetail managed to get the sounds back and everything else that was wrong with her in one patch. Now I could recommend this awesome steam loco. I orignally bought this steam locomotive for Train Simulator 2013 along with the Challanger. She doesn't have any sound, engine, whistle, bell. Updating this big beast would be nice since this is a 2012 add-on and now we're in TS2016 where the game is going to be in a new engine one day.

List of things that NEED to be fixed. 1. Injectors are as useful as a garden hose. 2. Constant blowing off even at regulator and cut-off. 3. Little coal in the tender. 4. Sounds are awful. 5. Brakes are pitiful. 6. No cylinder drain steam or noise. In conclusion you may aswell take your $6.99 and eat it rater than buy this or Challenger. They don't do the real engines justice in any way shape or form. DTG if you read this either fix and/or update Big Boy and Challenger or give it to Smokebox to work on as his FEF-3 makes Big Boy and Challenger look like they where made by a 5 year old with a crayon.

Nice to see DTG up to some of their old tricks, not only have they increased the price on this to make it more expensive then the brand new and MUCH better BigBoy by Smokebox, but on the advert page for this before getting to the main page where it shows what scenario's it has etc they changed the date from 23rd November 2012 to 14th May 2020 to make it seem newer yet on the main page it still shows the original release date....utterly laughable they'd pull a stunt like this to not only show how desperate they are to milk customers of their money, but to blatantly LIE through their teeth about their products too.

So, I purchased this add-on back in 2014 after I purchased the base game. I was extremely happy to have my favorite steam locomotive to drive in game, it worked perfectly, sounded absolutely beautiful, and I would have recommended this to anyone back then. Maybe not so much now, even though I chose no. Now, let me just say that I cannot be the only one that feels this way, especially if anyone else has had this add-on as long as I have, or even longer than I have. After updating the game to Train Simulator 2015, this add-on has become more of a headache to use, in the physical sense, not mentally. I remember when the hissing coming from this train used to be subtle and it had so many other sounds from first loading it up, screeching brakes, pressure building in the brakes after you applied them when going at a very fast speed, things like that, just small stuff. Now, all I hear is constant hissing, drowning out everything else about what used to make this locomotive amazing to use in this game. It starts hissing as the boiler pressure drops from 298 to 294, only to go silent when you are sitting still as the pressure builds back up to 298 before doing it all over again. Moving the train and trying to regulate the pressure does not help, because once it passes 298, it just continues to hiss indefinitely, as I said, drowning out most of the other sounds, and a lot of the old sounds I mentioned are either bugged or just flat out gone. This issue has made me immensely disappointed with this add-on, as much as I love this locomotive, I just cant listen to hissing for hours on end if I want to free roam or do scenarios with it. Please, from all of the fans of this game, please update this add-on and bring back the old sounds, Dovetail.

I'm very disappointed with this add-on. The light doesn't work, the horn sound is really bad. The brake gauge of the HUD doesn't seem to work and I've not yet been able to see the steam pressure in the boiler going down. Cylinder cocks don't seem to work either. I wouldn't recommend to buy it until its fixed, unless at a very big discount.

This dlc doesn't work. The scenario is broken and the train doesn't even run long enough due to water shortage in boiler. Just not a good dlc at all for the real big boy.

Do I like this DLC ? Yes, as a fan of the big boy but that's where it ends. Why would I not recommend it if it's I just said I am a fan of it ? Because I am not a fan of Dovetail Games! They know it's broken, they don't say anything in regards to it getting fixed, and it's really a poor thing to do when it was broken for people who don't even want to update to 2016. Is there any other problems with the DLC ? Yes! Some scenarios are almost impossible to complete! The headlights are a crapshoot on if they work in quick drive or not, and it's almost impossible to drive this train at night! Conclusion Should you buy this DLC ? Depends if you feel paying a company money for missing files you have to get from the community is worth this beast of a steamer. I say I don't recommend it because you shoudn't need to take files that people backed up before the 2016 update! So by all means if you don't mind going deep into the games directory and replacing files than yes it's a good DLC! But being able to be fixed doesn't justify DTG blatant disregard for DLC that's old that they break!

This loco... Last year DTG updated the loco supposedly based on user feedback. The fixes were minor, such has correcting the headlight, giving it new chuff sounds, and some other graphical things on the freight cars that come with the loco. Now for what they didn't fix or made worse. I'm about to get AVGN up in this business: The boiler is "too happy"; it raises steam WAY to fast and if you're working hard up the hill there is no way to fill the boiler. Water goes in, but because of the overactive boiler it's gone in like 2 seconds and the boiler continues to deplete its water supply. Before long you're in danger of running dry. The only way to fill the boiler is to close the throttle all the way so that steam production is cut down enough for the injector to catch up to the boiler which slows you to a crawl in the meantime. The engine is so powerful it's broken. No joke! In real life the Big Boys produced 135,375lbf. How much does it develop in Train Simulator? 190,000lbf! No convention steam engine in history has EVER developed that kind of tractive effort! That's more than a modern ES44AH, which is closer to 189,000lbf starting. It's absurd. It's too slow. Back in the 40s ALCO designed the engine to travel at a maximum of 80mph in order to warrant incorporating certain safety features into the design that would prevent it from knocking itself to bits as it thrashed down the line. In Train Simulator the top speed i closer to 60mph. Now while in service dragging freight across the Wasatch they never made it to 80, but they were still CAPABLE of 80mph, and to make the locomotive slower than its prototype detracts from the realism even further than it already has. Even when the tender is full of coal, the coal animation is so low that the engine constantly looks like it's going to run out of coal! The screenshots above are misleading; cylinder cocks don't work because in the simulation file they're set up as "automatedcylindercocks". This can easily be corrected by opening the simulation file and putting "eFalse" in the automatedcylindercock statement, but doing so makes it so that you can't use it in Career scenarios because the loco is considered modified and Steam thinks you're cheating by using the engine in the scenarios (not that they're worth playing anyway). Also the particle emittors for the turbocharger, safety valve, whistle, cylinder cocks, and sander are all present BUT DON'T WORK unless you go into the particles folder and in each corresponding file set the iParticleEmissioRollOffRate to 0 (for some reason it's set at 2). And like before if you implement said fix you can forget about using it in Carrer scenarios and publishing scenarios to the workshop. Better get used to seeing an engine with steam only coming out of the smoke stack. Each of these issues were already problems before DTG updated the loco last year, and their update completely ignored all of these giant "elephant-in-the-room" sort of problems. And then there's the scenarios. I don't play them. Here's why: The scenarios are episodic and are set during the modern era. Now if they featured 4014 which is currently being restored to operating condition that'd be okay, but this pack was developed BEFORE Union Pacific reaquired 4014 for restoration. The premise of the scenarios is that Union Pacific is in the middle of a fuel crisis so they brought a bunch of Big Boys out of retirement. Here's what's wrong with this set-up, especially for a simulator: 1) There are only 8 Big Boys left. Would the addition of 8 very old steam engines REALLY turn the tide in a fuel crisis? 2) Each Big Boy is coal-burning, and time and time again UP has gone on record saying that they have no interest in running coal-burning steam locomotives. That's why 844 is oil-burning. That's why 3985 was converted to oil-burning. That's why 4014 is being converted to burn oil. I'll stop there. 3) The scenario writer(s) doesn't/don't seem to realize what goes into restoring a steam loco, making it seem like it's as easy as putting water in the boiler, firing it up and it's ready, but it's not that simple. Take 4014. UP had to go out and survey each of the 8 remaining Big Boys to determine which was in the best condition for restoration. Next it spent months negotiating with the Rail Giants museum in Pomona, CA before it could reaquire the engine. It then took several days of dragging it from California to Cheyenne at 25mph before they could start work. On top of this, it projects spending millions if not billions to essentially rebuild the whole thing from the ground up. The earliest date that we can hope to see 4014 on the rails again: 2020, which at the time called for about 5-6 years of rebuilding. That's just 1 Big Boy. DO YOU SEE UP DOING THIS 8 DIFFERENT TIMES IN ORDER TO SOLVE A FUEL CRISIS???? What were they thinking? By the time they got one ready to go the crisis would probably have been over, making the whole effort POINTLESS. All in all, it looks great cosmetically, but physically it's awful, and the complete disconnect from reality in the scenarios is frustrating and personally gives me no reason to play them. It's your choice whether or not you want to spend the $6.99 to buy it, but personally I think it needs to be pulled from the store for a second time and completely rebuilt in order to addess some of these issues. I'm the guy that usually steps in when a critic gives a particularly harsh review of DLC and tries to defend the product, but this particular DLC has no defence that I can give it.

I've bought the Union Pacific Big Boy loco in 2012 as soon as it was released. On Railworks 3 (the old name of Train Simulator) it was amazing. I think it was my favourite add-on and I played a lot with it. It used to be very real, and moving 120 cars for hundreds miles with its power was an astonishing and rewarding challenge. Time has passed and now, on Train Simulator 2015, this add-on is really disappointing. The first thing I did as soon as I tried it after 3 years, was to go to Steam shop and search for the real Big Boy addon, "This must be the cheap version, there must be the right one somewhere" I thought. But I was wrong, this was the only one available. I think it's because of the new game engine of Train Simulator 2015, and because the add-on hasn't been updated, but now the Union Pacific Big Boy looks like the worst amatorial locomotive available in the whole game. Sound component is just ridiculous, the train moves like a toy one, and half of the original cockpit commands still works under Train Simulator 2015. I'm still hoping for a new version, one updated to the new game engine, one that does justice to the magnitude of the real, glorious Big Boy.