Welcome to Dovetail Games’ Season of Reveals 2025! A month-long event, starting today, to end off the year with a celebration - featuring all new updates and reveals from our teams, and our wonderful third-party development partners for Train Sim World.
Whether you're new to the TSW community, or familiar with our seasonal event from last year, we hope you're looking forward to amazing announcements throughout the month, weekly community giveaways, brand new mastery to earn in-game rewards, and live events you can join to hear more from our teams before we enter the holidays.
For 2025, we're shaking up the format of our reveals, and replacing our usual roadmap with three weekly "drops" across the month, starting today and happening every Monday (December 1st, 8th and 15th), with multiple reveals and updates inside new articles. We'll then follow-up with more events you can get involved in each week, with Discord Q&As each Tuesday, community competitions every Wednesday, Dovetail livestreams every Thursday, and special giveaways you can enter for free on Fridays and over the weekend!
With so much happening, we hope you're able to enjoy the celebrations with us. The first reveals are included below, but keep reading for even more details about our next upcoming patch for TSW this week, bringing Birmingham-Crewe improvements, as well as core updates to German TSRs and more, as well as our involvement in Jingle Jam 2025, and a link to our new Train Sim World Winter 2025 Survey.
More reveals will also be arriving soon, so stay tuned and be sure to follow us on our social channels and community groups for the latest information as soon as it’s shared.
Season of Reveals 2025 - Week 1 Drop
Announcing: Rhein-Niers-Bahn from FolezzWorld
Arriving as our very first new announcement for Season of Reveals 2025, we're also introducing a brand-new developer into the TSW scene: FolezzWorld!
Discover the Rhein-Niers-Bahn: Duisburg – Mönchengladbach route, a beautiful scenic route over 100 years old, with large stations and big cities, to open field and foliage - this route has it all.
For the freight fans - get ready for a strong focus on freight operations, especially in and around the Chempark area, and journey across the historic Hochfelder Eisenbahnbrücke, where the scenery becomes increasingly industrial!
We've reached out to their team as they share the news of their first reveal:
Nour: "Hello my name is Nour - some might know me as Folezz from youtube, discord or the Forums and I'm glad to introduce you to FolezzWorld! I have been given the great opportunity to develop Routes and Rolling Stock for TSW with a group of very talented Individuals! and I'm glad to Introduce you to our first great project, the Rhein-Niers-Bahn, Duisburg to Mönchengladbach. A lot of time and hard work has gone into this route and I can best talk about the Art perspective. I've had the pleasure of laying scenery throughout this beautiful route which is over 100 years old!"
"We've all had a lot of fun with development and can't wait until we can talk more about this route, this is just the start! I'm very excited for what we have planned in the future!"
Matin: "Hello! My name is Matin — some of you might know me from my YouTube channel TrainSimPlay or from the TSC Discord Server — and I had the pleasure of contributing to the development of this route. My main role was assisting with research and gathering reference material for the developers."
"I’m incredibly excited to finally be able to talk about the Rhein-Niers-Bahn! This route has a strong focus on freight operations, especially in and around the Chempark area. But my personal favorite part of the route is driving across the historic Hochfelder Eisenbahnbrücke, where we once again cross the Rhine and the scenery becomes increasingly industrial."
"I hope you’ll all enjoy driving this route as much as we enjoyed creating it. And fear not — this is only the beginning!"
Dion: "Hello, I'm Dion. You may know me from my work in the Infrastructure team at Dovetail Games, from other 3rd-Party routes for TSW, or from my community projects in Train Sim Classic. I really enjoy helping out others with their route projects, especially with infrastructure, which is what I was responsible for on the Rhein-Niers-Bahn: Tracks, signals and overhead lines. But for this route I even got the fun chance to do the timetable."
"Before I started working on the route, I didn't expect it to be that busy. The traffic is quite heavy and although there is no S-Bahn line running the route, the section between Duisburg and Krefeld in particular feels like typical S-Bahn experience. I highly enjoy building all the Infrastructure for the route and can't wait to see it completed for release in the coming months."
Thank you to the team for sharing your thoughts, here's a first look at the overall route map for the route, featuring the 14 stations and additional 9 POIs (Yards, Depots and Sidings) across the line.
We can't wait to share more from their team over the coming months, and we look forward to seeing how development progresses with new screenshots and details in our roadmaps ahead.
Southern Pacific Ore Lines: Hayden Branch from High Iron Simulations
Let's hear it for our friends over at High Iron Simulations, with a huge announcement of their first route for TSW, and a brand-new US add-on - the Southern Pacific Ore Lines - Hayden Branch!
HIS: "Legendary among North American enthusiasts for its heavy-haul and tough railroading amid dramatic Western desert scenery, Southern Pacific’s Hayden Branch linked the great, sprawling open-pit copper mine at Ray, Arizona, to copper smelter and mill facilities at Hayden, Arizona. The ~20 tortuous route miles between Ray and Hayden served as a 24/7, always bustling steel artery over which the railroad lugged millions of tons of copper ore from mine to mill, and, in return, hauled finished copper metals outbound. The Hayden Branch connected at Ray Junction with the remainder of the Southern Pacific system via SP’s Tucson Division."
"As currently under active development by High Iron Simulations, the TSW6 route will be set circa 1980 as a Southern Pacific property (today, the railroad remains vital and busy as the regional Copper Basin Railway)."
Among the compelling features of the upcoming route will be:
The famed western rail route making its way through “cactus country” and along the Gila River from Ray via Ray Junction to Hayden and Winkelman, Arizona, passing through the rugged, remote, and dramatic scenery of the American West and over unforgiving grades of up to 2 percent.
Authentic re-creation of the sprawling and historic open-pit copper mine and adjoining servicing facilities at Ray, Arizona.
Highly detailed and realistic re-creations of the mill, smelter, yard, and ore unloading facilities at Hayden. The route will include a range of interactive loading/unloading features.
Yard and junction (with SP’s Tucson Subdivision) facilities at Ray Junction.
The route will include a wealth of authentic equipment and rolling stock, including:
Southern Pacific’s gray-and-scarlet-dressed Electro-Motive GP35 diesel road-switcher as was regularly employed on the Hayden Branch.
Distinctive and interactive Magor-built ore-hauling gondola.
43-foot acid tank car (acid being a byproduct of copper mining).
Southern Pacific 56-foot anode flat car (for outbound ore ingots).
Southern Pacific C30-4 bay-window steel caboose.
Select additional freight equipment for manifest freight.
Bringing the Hayden Branch – and its remarkable operating challenges – to life will be an extensive range of timetabled services and scenario-based gameplay, including:
Loaded, 6,000-ton copper-ore train movements from mine to the Hayden unloader.
Empty train movements (50-55 cars) from Hayden returning to Ray Mine.
Loading and unloading switching duties at Ray and Hayden.
Acid traffic handling inbound and outbound.
Hayden smelter and mill switching assignments.
Mixed manifest and outbound ore movements via Ray Junction.
Let's now peek at the route map planned, stretching across the rugged landscape of Arizona!
HIS: "This upcoming route will bring to TSW6 for the first time one of America’s most renowned and historic Class 1 railroads – the Southern Pacific – and promises to deliver a remarkably diverse and challenging heavy-haul, round-the-clock railroading experience!"
Gameplay Showcase for The Tadami Line from Union Workshop
Of course, it wouldn't be a TSW announcement event if the Tadami Line didn't join in - but today we've got something extra special from the Union Workshop team, with a full gameplay showcase of what you can expect from the new add-on, featuring multiple clips of the Kiha-40 DMU in it's three classic liveries as it explores the scenery and stations you'll encounter on TSW's first journey to Japan!
Union Workshop: "The Tadami Line runs along the Tadami River, and its charm lies in the magnificent scenery of the changing seasons. The train passes through many bridges and tunnels heads to Oku-Aizu. The scenery outside the window is refreshing. Many domestic and foreign photographers come here to capture this breathtaking scenery. It was even selected as the top of the "Top Ten Most Beautiful Autumn Leaves Railways" by a national media."
"Kiha40 series diesel cars were designed in 1977 to replace the aging vehicles on suburban and rural services. A total of 888 vehicles were built from 1977 to 1982. From the northernmost Hokkaido to the southernmost Kyushu, they have been widely operated all around Japan. The Kiha40 is powered by an inline 6-cylinder diesel engine outputting 220 horsepower. The power performance is far from powerful, making it quite challenging to drive on the slopes."
We're hoping to start sharing much more information as we enter the new year, and seeing how far the development from the Union Workshop team has come, we can't wait!
If you fancy catching up on our previous posts for the Tadami Line, why not dive through our latest roadmap updates:
That wraps up our first weekly drop, so get ready for a full week of celebration and cheer, and here's what you can expect coming up in our next drops:
Week 2 Drop: Expect 2 New Add-on announcements, 2 Add-on Updates
Week 3 Drop: Expect 3 New Add-on announcements, 2 Add-on Updates
Train Sim World 6 Core Update - Coming This Week
Alongside our holiday event and reveals, we also have key improvements for community-flagged core issues, as well as a range of updates for the Birmingham-Crewe route from All Aboard Studios that we talked about back in October.
We're aiming for this update to go live tomorrow, and we'll keep you updated when we've pushed this to each platform. We greatly appreciate the community feedback for these changes, and we're continuing to direct your reports to our teams to address key issues, and ensure patches go out as smoothly as possible.
Please see the full changelog below:
Core
Fixed an issue causing Temporary Speed Restrictions not to trigger PZB correctly.
Fixed an issue causing loco names to disappear from debrief screens.
Fixed an issue causing loading screens not to update correctly.
Birmingham–Crewe
Added arrival times to all timetable services.
Optimised assets at Smethwick and Crewe for greater stability and performance.
Improved the German voice over volume.
Adjusted route announcements to deliver a more consistent experience.
Updated the Station announcements at Wolverhampton
Fixed several timetable issues to prevent service-ending concerns, including AI SPADs and derailments.
Class 350
Adjusted BR Class 350 on-board announcements for greater consistency.
Adjusted the suspension on the BR Class 350.
Adjusted the braking performance of the BR Class 350.
Adjusted audio of the BR Class 350 door-closing sounds.
Aligned BR Class 350 subclasses to a cab and exterior configuration representative of the 2019 era.
Fixed an issue with the vehicle numbering of the BR Class 350/3.
Class 390
Fixed an issue with BR Class 390 formations.
Thank you for your patience waiting for these improvements, the All Aboard Studios team have worked hard to address community feedback, as we'll continue to monitor player feedback to support the content further into the new year.
Train Sim World - Winter 2025 Player Survey
Help shape the future of TSW with the Train Sim World Winter Survey 2025!
This survey will aim to give our teams a greater understanding of our players and use data alongside your suggestions to guide us forward. It will cover your thoughts on Train Sim World 6 features, recent Add-ons releases, and then we'll look ahead to get your input for the type of content you want to see in the future!
In the past these surveys have helped us bring Creative tools, Training Center, Conductor Mode - and recently for TSW6, Random Events and Train Faults, directly from the result of your survey responses in the past, which is why your feedback is so important to us!
Our teams constantly get involved across community spaces to gather your feedback and thoughts for new suggestions, however, the survey we've shared below will directly tie those useful opinions to many more statistics, such as preferred platforms, region of the world or time spent playing in a given week. This lets us build an understanding of every type of player who plays Train Sim World, and how we can make the best experience with features you want most.
We've also spent time this year to localise our survey into German too, so that it better supports our german-speaking audiences when submitting answers to questions.
Head into the Train Sim World Winter 2025 Survey
Please note, everything asked in our survey above is designed to gauge how players feel about new content, and about our games as a whole - it is worth nothing that the inclusion of content/features in the survey is not confirmation that we are developing these, or if it'll happen in the future - this is why we're asking you first how you feel about it.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your thoughts, the survey should take around 30 minutes to complete in total and will close on midnight, December 14th 2025.
As part of this survey, we are also offering 20 lucky entrants a chance to win a TSW Add-on of their choice. We will contact the winners based on information submitted when completing the survey as an optional final step as a thank you for helping us build the future of Train Sim World. (Competition Terms and Conditions).
December 2025 Monthly Mastery - Live Now!
Starting today, we have our next set of December Monthly Mastery challenges ready - Let's take a look!
This new Mastery comes with two rewards, split into two tiers that you can work through in the month, adding more challenge and goals to complete!
Tier 1 - Unlock December Mastery Decal
Complete 4 Scenarios/Timetables with a temperature under 5oC/14oF
Exceed 150 MPH / 242 KPH
Tier 2 - Unlock December Mastery Poster
During a single timetable, find a collectable and successful complete the session
Complete 300 Objectives during scenarios or timetables
Drive 250 miles / 402km
Be sure to head in-game now to start unlocking this month's rewards!
Christmas 2025 Challenges - Starting Next Monday!
Get your hot chocolates ready! Additionally this month, we’ll be running a special Christmas event, which are separate from December Mastery Challenges. This special event will come as 3 separate challenges (with rewards around three regions - United Kingdom, Germany and United States of America).
Here's a first look at the new posters you can unlock:
There will be a new set of mastery challenges that unlock these seasonal posters above, separate to the December Monthly challenges, and once unlocked these posters will be available across any UK, US and German routes. Together with our December mastery, you'll be able to dive in with lots of in-game seasonal missions before the end of the year!
Each challenge is locked to a specific region. To unlock a poster, you must complete a challenge on a route in that region, but once unlocked, you will be able to display the posters on any route regardless of region. This means that a US region unlocks the US poster, but then you can display it in UK or German routes once completed.
We'll confirm the goals required when they release in our Season of Reveals Week 2 article on Monday December 8th.
Don't miss our Frankenbahn: Stuttgart - Heilbronn Preview
Discover more details in our Frankenbahn: Stuttgart-Heilbronn Coming Soon article we shared last week.
Join us for Jingle Jam 2025!
We're delighted to announce that Train Sim World is part of the Jingle Jam Games Collection for 2025! From today to December 14, grab the Train Sim World 6: Jingle Jam Bundle - with the TSW6 Free Starter Pack, LGV Méditerranée, MBTA Commuter: Boston - Framingham/Worcester, and Holiday Express: Runaway Elf, and support some amazing causes, including one of our Partner Charities, CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). Perfect to play with your little ones this festive season, gift to the railfan in your life, or, treat yourself (we won’t tell)! All the proceeds from the bundle will be split among the charities and causes taking part.
Whilst we'd love you to donate what you can to support - and get some amazing games in the process - if you'd like to swing by some of the things we'll be doing over the next couple of weeks and say hello, that's absolutely fine too. We'd love to see you.
Join the Yogscast team on Friday December 5th, 2025 from 11-2PM UTC as they play Train Sim World 6, hosted on the official Yogscast YouTube channel during the event.
Additionally, join us on the Train Sim World channels on December 3rd 2025, where our Executive Producer of Trains, the wonderful Matt Peddlesden, will be live to promote our new Jingle Jam bundle in TSW6, and additional help raise money for the event.
You can find out more about Jingle Jam' and their charity partners on the Jingle Jam 2025 Website.
Last Chance on Black Friday Sales!
Don't miss out on current offers on Train Sim World 6 across our platforms, ending today, with 20% off TSW6: Deluxe Locomotives, up to 80% off TSW compatible route add-ons, further discounts on our latest releases, and festive offers for the season ahead!
Fina out all the discounts and deals in our Black Friday 2025 article.
Sales end at different times for our various platforms, so use the below as a guide:
Steam Black Friday Sales: Ending December 1st at 6pm UTC
PlayStation Black Friday Sales: Ending midnight of December 1st (Europe) and December 2nd 8am UTC (SIEA).
Xbox Black Friday Sales: Ending December 3rd 2025
Join us in the Community!
We have plenty of fantastic communities to get involved with for Train Sim World, from our Dovetail Live forums, our new official Discord, and community-led spaces that we are active in – be sure to check this out below and talk directly to our teams!
If you're looking to get involved in our weekely screenshot competitions every Wednesday this month, with special rewards and add-on key giveaways, be sure to join our Dovetail Discord (via http://discord.gg/dovetailgames), as this is where the events will be hosted.
Find out more about Train Sim World 6 by following @trainsimworld on Twitter/X, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and Discord
We hope you're excited to get involved and excited over the month, and we'll be back with another drop on Monday next week - Happy Holidays!