REVIEW: Suburban Glasgow Northwest: Springburn – Helensburgh route by Rivet Games

Rivet Games recently released their Suburban Glasgow Northwest: Springburn to Helensburgh route for Train Simulator 2021.

This new route from Rivet Games runs from Glasgow to Helensburgh Central with a number of branch lines to Springburn, Milngavie and Balloch for a wide variety of scenarios.

The new add-on is only available through Rivet Games or the Steam Store and includes the Class 320 and Class 158, both in ScotRail livery.

Whats included for the price?

Included in this new route is around 45 miles of track as well as both the Class 158 and 320 as previously mentioned and also six scenarios as standard, though there is an additional Scenario Pack available.

First Impressions

Rivet Games are well known for making routes, and this is a prime example of simple but effective route building and driving. This route has plenty of stations, junctions and branch lines. There are no tutorials for the Class 158 or Class 320, which is a very small negative for this route.

Having said this, the very detailed manual which is found in your file explorer is more than enough to master the somewhat simple controls. The 158/320 trains are simple and intuitive to drive around this route too.

Optimisation and Detail

During my testing and streaming, I had no stutters and smooth experience when playing the route. You will easily see high frame rates, with my mid-tier laptop constantly performing at 50-60 fps.

The liveries on the trains, station features and other details on the route are of high quality, with no pixelation.

For some, the default sounds maybe a bad point to the route, but in my opinion, it is refreshing to have such a detailed route and scenarios with trains included all in one keenly priced package. The sounds are good enough and allow ‘newcomers’ to Train Simulator 2021 to have a great route and a couple of multiple units to drive without spending lots on additional extras.

What’s more, it is easy to swap out the original one for an Armstrong Powerhouse variant if you have those in your collection.

You have hours of gameplay with this route, with the main route plus the branch lines, there are multiple ways to take the different units.

General Gameplay

During gameplay, you will find the graphics up to the usual Rivet Games standard. The countryside feeling one minute turns into suburban Glasgow, plenty of stations keeps you on your toes to keep to the timetable and the intuitive to drive trains make it an enjoyable experience from start to finish.

For those Train Sim Enthusiasts, the standard train cab design may have a few too many buttons to press, but for the newcomer, it is refreshing to see the simple controls, and you aren’t sat for ten minutes trying to work out which is the close door button.

At 45 miles in length, normally I would say this is a route that is a little too long for me, however, with so many stations, the miles just fly by, it is an enjoyable length and you don’t find yourself getting bored.

The route in itself is enjoyable, and it’s available to add whatever train you like, whether it is a steam locomotive or another diesel multiple units, the opportunities are endless.

Any Bad Points?

Throughout my testing, I didn’t notice any issues with this route, everything ran well, stable and looks really nice.

One issue we have found with the Class 158 where there was a small black box in the corner of the cab window – it looks like an issue with the sky, but is visible in the outside camera views. However, Dovetail Games made the Class 158, so maybe an issue with their model rather than the route.

As i said earlier, for the Train Simulator enthusiast, perhaps the stock sounds for the trains could have been improved on, but for me, it is fine for running on.

Final Thoughts?

To round up this review, this new route from Rivet Games is another enjoyable, detailed scenic ride from end to end by driving with the Class 158 or the Class 320.

The route is available for around £28 from the Rivet Games and includes the bonus Scenario Pack. You can buy this add on by visiting the Rivet Games website by clicking here.

You do not need any other DLC to run this route, just TS2021 itself.

I would definitely get this route and add it to your TS2021 collection.

Want to see the route in action? Make sure to follow the RailAdvent Twitch channel to see when I live stream the route: twitch.tv/railadvent

You can view the most recent stream of the route below

Thank you to Rivet Games for providing a copy for review.

As a side note, if you order through Rivet Games, you get the scenario pack bundled with the route, the Steam price does not include this.