Train Sim World 5’s first Add-on is soon to arrive and we’re aiming to hit this one out of the park! Get ready to catch MBTA Commuter: Boston – Framingham/Worcester on 29th October.
Free Starter Pack – Offer Extended!
If you missed our October Roadmap, we’ve announced an extension for the Train Sim World 5: Free Starter Pack on all platforms.
This means if you’re still playing an older version of TSW, you can update to the latest core game for free and unlock the ability to purchase new TSW5 Add-ons, like MBTA Commuter!
The offer will now end in early 2025. We’ll communicate a specific end date at a later time.
Train Sim World Add-ons
Continue Your Journey
If you’re new to Train Sim World 5, this may well be the first Add-on that you decide to add to your collection. Adding extra route and locomotive Add-ons gives you more routes to explore and more trains to operate. In some cases, they can also bring more services and gameplay to routes already in your collection.
You can see just some of our 100+ Add-ons on our website!
Or if you’re playing on Steam, you can view the entire Add-ons list from the Steam Store Page!.
For more information on downloading Add-ons for your chosen platform, head over to our FAQs.
MBTA Commuter
The first Add-on for Train Sim World 5 will take players to the east coast of the USA and the culturally rich city of Boston, MA! Below we’ll cover the locomotives, the route and the gameplay elements you can look forward to upon release.
The Locomotives
MBTA HSP46 Diesel Locomotive
New to Train Sim World is the sleek, modern HSP46 Diesel locomotive which is unique to the MBTA fleet. Having first entered service in 2014, the HSP46 has been increasingly used on services out of South Station, replacing the older F40PH.
Its large windows and curved nose not only make for a more aerodynamic journey, but an easier one for engineers, with a spacious cab layout that has more in common visually with some of the German locomotives in Train Sim World, than the American ones. This includes an interactive digital display, which players can zoom in on to interact with easier as part of Train Sim World 5’s core feature update.
Powering the unit is a GE GEVO-12 powerplant that meets more stringent emissions targets for use in urban environments, as well as a smoother sound when powering up to depart stations. There is also an Automatic Stop/Start feature, which temporarily shuts down the engine after 3 minutes with the Throttle in Idle and Reverser in Neutral. The engine restarts when those and several other controls are interacted with.
Safety Systems ATC and ACSES are both available to use as per other American locomotives but in-game these are not enabled by default.
All of this is packaged up in a refreshed livery that was voted for by the public, still displaying the bright purple colors of its commuter rail brand.
Audio for the HSP46 was recorded during a dedicated research trip to Boston. You can view photos of the team at work in the October Roadmap.
MBTA F40PH-3C Diesel Locomotive
Players will also be able to take up the familiar helm of the F40PH-3C first seen in Northeast Corridor: Boston – Providence. These iconic locomotives, seen in other F40PH variants across the United States, still work a large proportion of services out of both North and South Stations in Boston, including the Framingham/Worcester Line.
The cab may feel more familiar to players of other American Train Sim World routes and locomotives, with ACSES and ATC display top-right of the engineer’s position along with throttle, reverser and braking handles set up similar to how they are in older freight or switching locomotives. The F40PH’s safety systems have been updated for MBTA Commuter.
You can read more about the extensive history of the real-world F40PH locomotive in the We Are Railfans article: A Masterpiece in Many Colours.
The MBTA F40PH-3C diesel locomotive is included in the MBTA Commuter route Add-on. Players do not need to own previously released content to access this train.
BTC & CTC Coaches (Bi-level & Single-level)
Two different styles of coaches will feature in the consists of trains heading along the Framingham/Worcester Line.
BTC & CTC bi-level cars are new to the route, representing stock seen across many of the MBTA Commuter Rail lines. Though visually these may be similar to those seen on San Bernardino Line, unlike those they have the cab car available to operate to facilitate return journeys from Worcester or Framingham, back to Boston.
Like the HSP46, these cab cars also have an interactive digital display screen and the passenger areas will have operable door controls for use in Train Sim World 5’s new Conductor Mode!
Conductor Mode will see you play the role of an MBTA Conductor, checking passenger tickets, clearing the aisles of baggage and operating door controls to ensure passengers alight and board safely.
Also included are the BTC & CTC single-level cars previously seen in Northeast Corridor: Boston – Providence. These will also have Conductor Mode functionality in MBTA Commuter and have had the safety systems updated to match those found in the HSP46 and bi-level cab car.
A selection of services will contain mixed sets of single- and bi-level coaches, with the majority of trains formed of uniformed sets. You will of course be able to create your own consists of locomotive and coaches in Formation Designer!
Both bi-level and single-level stock is included in the MBTA Commuter route Add-on. Players do not need to own previously released content to access these cars.
The Route: Boston South Station – Worcester, MA
Train Sim World is back in Boston! This northeast, New England city plays host to plenty of commuter and long-distance railroad traffic from two large stations: Boston North and Boston South. This route Add-on features services running out of Boston South.
From here, services head off in a variety of directions serving wider towns and cities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as well as heading over the border to Providence, Rhode Island along the iconic high-speed Northeast Corridor, which is covered in the previously released Boston – Providence route Add-on.
Players that own the previous Boston route will be able to use Train Sim World 5's new Route Hopping feature to switch between this and MBTA Commuter at Boston South Station.
Framingham/Worcester Services share this route for a small part of the journey, running alongside I90, through the cosmopolitan Back Bay area to Back Bay Station, before splitting off and heading to the second stop at Lansdowne. It’s here where commuter rail baseball fans alight to head to Fenway Park, the USA’s oldest baseball stadium, to see the Red Sox do their thing as they have done there since 1912.
It’s then all west to Worcester (pronounced: ‘Wooster’), saying goodbye to the city center beyond Boston Landing and heading through a collection of smaller settlements and communities at Natwick, Ashland, Westborough and Grafton. Roughly halfway along is the City of Framingham, where some services terminate before heading back to Boston. For a long time, this settlement was the largest town in the state, before becoming a city in 2018.
At the western end of the line, the impressive Worcester Union Station greets passengers alighting at the second largest city in Massachusetts. Here engineers climb out of the cab of their locomotives and head down to the cab car of their train to make the home run back to Boston. A small yard also stables passenger trains whilst not in use.
Timetable, Service Layers and Gameplay
Like the previously released Boston – Providence route Add-on, MBTA Commuter is set in 2019 so that content from both route Add-ons can interact with one another.
Loco-hauled services will face out of Boston toward Worcester, with cab cars leading the way for the return journey back to Boston.
We’ll go into more details on the timetable courtesy of Joe in a future Dovetail Live article, prior to release, so stay tuned!
Scenarios
There are 5 Scenarios in MBTA Commuter, which feature:
- An extra revenue service from Boston South to Framingham to pick up fans after a baseball game.
- Starting up a service to take passengers to the Boston Marathon
- Taking a doubled-up revenue service to Boston before splitting the train in the yard
- Run a reverse set (where the loco is facing towards Boston South) through a snow storm
- Yard work in Southampton Street Yard
There’ll also be those Collectibles to hunt down! Standard route maps, warning signs and posters are out there to find, along with something baseball-themed.
Finding it tricky to get to all the locations during your session? You can of course cheat (sort of) by using Train Sim World 5’s new Fast Travel feature to immediately go back to locations where you may have missed a collectible.
Mastery Challenges
Mastery Challenges require you to perform certain tasks on a route, like completing certain Scenarios or travelling a certain number of miles in a specific locomotive. Tier 1 Challenges unlock Decals for use in Livery Designer. Tier 2 Challenges unlock toggleable Scenery Tiles.
For MBTA Commuter, the Scenery Tile will place a static, non-operable Red Line train to represent the ‘T’ trains that also form part of Boston’s real-world mass transit network.
Keen to start completing challenges before MBTA Commuter is released? If you’re already playing Train Sim World 5, we have a selection of October Mastery Challenges live which unlock badge decals upon completion!
You can find out more in our October Mastery article.
Release, Pricing and Preview Stream
Train Sim World 5: MBTA Commuter: Boston – Framingham/Worcester route Add-on will release on 29th October for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Epic Games Store, and Steam for $39.99/€35.99/£29.99
Stay tuned for our Preview Stream of MBTA Commuter also on 22nd October from 1100 PT / 1300 CT / 1400 EST / 1800 UTC / 1900 BST over our YouTube and Twitch.
Find out more about Train Sim World 5 by following @trainsimworld on [url=
https://twitter.com/trainsimworld]X/Twitter[/url], [url=
https://www.instagram.com/trainsim/]Instagram[/url], [url=
https://www.facebook.com/trainsimworld]Facebook[/url], [url=
https://www.youtube.com/user/RailSimulatorDotCom]YouTube[/url], [url=
https://www.twitch.tv/trainsimworldofficial]Twitch[/url] and [url=
https://www.tiktok.com/@trainsimworldofficial]TikTok[/url].