Train Simulator: Cologne-Dusseldorf Route Add-On DLC

I recommend this route - just. Some well-known sites like the Cologne Cathedral and Hohenzollern Bridge are represented very well, and there is lots of nice German architecture on display as you go between the two cities. However, there are also some annoying "invisible" speed limits, i.e. speed limits not shown on the HUD or even on the track itself, which will catch you out when you first play the route. For example, just after you leave Cologne (or just before you enter it), the speed limit is supposed to go from 30 to 60, but instead it only goes from 30 to 40. Then when you're approaching the Leverkusen-Mitte station, the speed limit changes from 160 to 120 with no warning when you're about 0.27km away from the station on the Cologne side. Last but not least, on the final approach into Düsseldorf, the speed limit plunges from 80 to 40 with no warning at the final signal before the station. It's very easy to be heavily penalised for speeding with these sudden and unexpected speed limit changes, especially when you're driving an ICE high-speed train. However, after playing the route a few times, you can work out where they are and adjust your driving accordingly. Once you've done that, you can do pretty well in the career scenarios. But the speed limit issue somewhat spoils what is otherwise a very nice little route.

Too many mistakes and bugs on this route. You can't complete some of the scenarios. For example, even if You full stop on the station and passengers get in the train, task has been marked as failed on the task list. Also from time to time You get error and Train Simulator will be closed. I don't recommend this route.

Unplayable, broken signals, missing speed limit indicators, scenarios fail for no reason, unattached bridges, appallingly aligned track. In fact the entire thing is cack, worthless, don't even take it if it's free as it is an object lesson in incompetence and utter disregard for the customer. It's routes like this that really expose the mindset of the folks that run DTG "gi' us yer money and get lost", just about sums it up. Utter rubbish!

It's old, short, not very good visually, often crashes to desktop. May be ok at a deeply discounted price, but I would definitely recommend Hamburg-Hanover or even Ruhr-Sieg (despite malfunctioning PZB) over this one.

I would never say anything like "it's cheap so pardon those bugs". Selling something at a low price does not legitimize irresponsiblity. This map is HORRIBLE. It's extremely poorly made. In other words, it's crap. Sorry, AeroSoft, but I truly think so. You will see large portions of tracks in mid-air with foundations below missing. You will see unbelievably misaligned tiles. You will see invisible speed limits haunting you. Who cares about the Cologne Cathedral? Don't embarrass its people by attaching their city name to such a gross map. Whoever permits the release of this DLC should be fired and never hired by anyone at all. The lack of respect for customers is stunning.

I got this route as part of the German collection. At a sale like it is on now. And that is the right setting for this route. The stand alone route is just too expensive. Maybe when they do a complete update. You can tell that this route makes use of somewhat older techniques. More recent routes perform better at the same settings. And the first scenario I tried missed the whole sky. Everything was gray in color and everything that can be regarded as skyline had a blue line drawn around it. The environmental settings where spring, clear skies and ~09:30. So I did a quick drive using the same settings to see if it was the route itself or maybe my Linux system. But no problems there. Clearly a scenario issue. Other scenarios work just fine. One speed issue I found was just before the Leverkusen station. Just when you are doing 160 km/h or 99 mph you get a non-advertised restriction to 120 km/h or 75 mph. You kind of have to get to know the route. One surprise that I really liked was the speed restriction near the end of one of the first scenarios. This one occurs in the form of a sign instead of a signal. You have to acknowledge it with the PZB Wachsam key -or the page down key- otherwise you will get a Zwangsbremsung. You see the PZB magnet next to the sign. Not sure whether it is realistic but it got me busy. The second one is quite at the end of this scenario where you get multiple signals, all yellow but only the last one needs to be acknowledged and you have to loose speed at quite a rate when you're not ready for it. The scenery itself is quite good. I enjoyed it. Too bad about the lack of performance. In conclusion, I do recommend this route although in the before mentioned pack and at a sale. TFK

As someone who lives in this area and takes a lot of trains on this line I gotta say most of the small stations are inaccurate af and scenery is very inaccurate aswell not recommended this dlc is old af anyway

Please don't buy this route! The quality of this route is so bad, after about one hour of playing, I handed it back. I live in the broad region, where this route is located, and I am very disapponted. The scenery is horrible and physically not very wide, even compared to other Train Simulator DLC. Considering the track layout, the absolute minimum is done, after junctions and the two central stations the tracks just continue for a few meters before they stop. Again, even less than on other routes. The route is not very smooth, inclines and declines start and end very abruptly. The rolling stock is also bland. There are two locomotives (which are also in other packs, so nothing new), then there are three types of carriages (one from other packs, two newly designed ones), they're all terrible. Mosttrains are outdated and do not even drive on this route anymore (like for example the InterCity-Waggons, they hadn't driven there for a long time). The stations are very bad as well, with no details whatsoever (not even a lot of people). The two main stations at each end (Cologne and Düsseldorf) are reasonably well done, but on the exterior it is the same spiritless, ugly mess like on the whole route. They did not even care enough to design the next (very nice and distinctive) bridge upstream or build any sort of embankment/promenade on the riverside in Cologne, just more lazyness. By the way, you can drive through every red signal you want, they do not even activate the brakes. This is certainly not realistic at all. Last, but not least, the graphic quality of everything that is there is very bad (e.x. the Cologne Cathedral is not very accurate, but it is indesputably the biggest monument on the whole route and it is located directly next to the main station). Summing up: I strongly suggest not buying this route, because you can see that nobody has put any love or any detail in this route, there is no spirit and it is just awful. It is just a handful of wasted money, and I hope I'll get mine back soon!

Pls. note after purchasing this route I instantly applied the available community patch. Never played the route without it, so I do not know that the route is fairly usable because of its own or by the patch. Anyway, it is not worse than other routes available to the sim. Oldie but goldie, ugly at some places and has the same type of invisible speed limits than the other dozen dlc-s. Nothing extraordinay. Not worse than others.

If I was not mistaken, this route could have been made in MSTS from 2002. It is very dated and the textures are very poor quality to the point on a high end PC, they are very fuzzy and the route isn't very long either. I don't know if there is a community made update to boost the quality of the textures but if you really have to get this add-on. I would suggest getting it in a sale or one of the bundle deals. It really is a dated route and others that are better and newer than this dated mess. Koln to Koblenz from 2016 is even better made that this one. This is just my observation and the choice is yours.