Touchline to Railway Line - Photos and Words
My Wife talking to her Brother about a family issue… “There’s only the 2 of us working” Me… “Oi – I’ve driven Sacramento-San Diego, San Diego-Phoenix, Phoenix-Yuma and Yuma-Gallup today – what d’ya mean there’s only the 2 of you working!” 😉
Just a very brief post tonight. Here are some more shots from American truck Simulator as SCS drop a heavy hint that Utah will soon be joining the list of states in the game!
As mentioned in the previous post, SCS Software released the Washington DLC for American Truck Simulator on Tuesday. The immediate impact of that was to push ATS to the top of the ‘best sellers’ list on the Steam store as the community mobilised to buy the latest map addition. It means that ATS for a couple of days outsold games like Witcher 3 and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, which is quite an achievement for a niche game and that earned ATS a news piece in the media – including The Independent; a UK national newspaper! SCS were quick to once again thank their community 🙂 Washington brings a sixth state to ATS and SCS have hinted that work is already underway on the seventh although, as usual, they’re not about to tell us which it will be! There are also new trucks on the way and the hope is that two of these will be released before the end of the year 🙂
With all the driving in Europe, I haven’t really done a lot in ATS since the Oregon DLC was added, so lets do some sightseeing in Oregon and Washington 🙂
Climbing away from the Vantage Bridge after crossing the Colombia River east of Yakima…
Night time and a drive past the Convention Centre in Spokane…
Crossing the Pioneer Memorial Bridge in Kennewick…
Running along I-84 in Oregon beside the Colombia River near Willow lake…
Northbound on Highway 97, passing Ken’s Sporting Goods in Crescent…
Climbing away from the Sam Hill Memorial Bridge after crossing the Colombia River at Biggs…
Running alongside Peshastin Creek on our way down into Wenatchee…
Crossing the Wenatchee River on Highway 2. Some artistic license here – the mountains are correctly portrayed for this crossing but there is no Cafe here, only a small parking area…
More artistic license on Hwy 2 – Crossing the South Fork Skykomish River in Stevens Pass above the town of Skykomish – the railway doesn’t actually cross the river at this point but it has a similar bridge further down the pass below Skykomish…
That’s a few shots from these two northern-most American Truck Sim states and I’m sure I will have more to follow 🙂 Keep the shiny side up – drive safe everyone!
In a flurry of last minute driving in American truck Sim v1.35 Beta I made it to level 13 and had more than enough money to buy the truck I wanted. In fact i had so much money that I could immediately add some glitz to the truck. The vehicle I’ve chosen as my first in this new profile is the Peterbilt 579 with the stand-up sleeper cab. I’ve specified the PACCAR MX-13 455HP engine and the Eaton-Fuller 13sp gearbox with retarder. The chassis is 6×4. This will be a good truck for general haulage work with loads up to around 45000lbs.
The biggest dilema with a new truck, for me anyhow, is the paint scheme. There are factory standard colors, factory special metallics and some custom paint jobs. I sometimes go with the latter option but a truck like the 579 actually looks very good in a simple color or metallic finish. I think custom paint is more suited to classic trucks like the Peterbilt 389 or the Kenworth W900.
I looked at the standard and metallic options and I think my favorites amongst these colors were the Deep Black and the Dark Red Metallic. Both of these look really good with the chrome mirrors and sun visor. In the end I decided to have a go at making my own metallic mix. Remembering a Gold scheme I had on a Kenworth W900 in the past, I tried that idea first. It didn’t really work for the 579 – Rolled Gold will have to wait for that Kenny or perhaps for a 389! Then I tried creating a metallic black – this was much better with the chrome and gave a more glossy appearance than the Deep Black standard paint.
We set our on our first job into the night with a load of Cement from Bakersfield to San Francisco…
Overall I was quite pleased and on a later run the truck looked wonderful cruising through Sacramento with a petrol tanker – if only every company trailer livery was so suited to black!..
I was still pondering the red option though. One nice anomaly in the game is that once you have chosen a paint scheme where you choose the colors yourself, you can alter them at no additional cost. So back at Bakersfield i decided to try creating my own Red metallic. I was very pleased with the result and decided to keep the truck red for a while.
Remember the loadsamoney situation I mentioned at the start? I decided that I would buy myself a trailer. I went with a 53ft Dry Van and painted it in one of the special schemes where you can choose the colors. I think I’ve got the red or black versions of my truck covered with this one!..
Here we are passing through Weed, CA… 
Inside the cab I have fitted an SCI wheel which picks up the truck color and looks nice in red or black…
Here we are grinding up a grade on Highway 20 in Oregon with the sun behind us – notice how it picks out the highlights of the metallic paint…
So that’s my first truck in the resurrected Republik of Bakersfield profile and my first owned trailer in ATS. Which do you prefer, Black or Red???
ps – ATS v1.35 went live late yesterday afternoon and this evening we get the new state – the Washington DLC. Can’t wait for that 🙂
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