Seriously you need to list out you PC specs in order for us to help you. Remember we're thousands of miles away in many cases and can't see what rig you're running.
There are many causes for Trainz to crash and many of them are hardware related. Believe me, I found out the hard way like you did. Trainz is a very hardware intensive program because it taxes many of the system components unlike many other programs written today. It isn't all about the graphics although graphics play a big part in the game/program experience. With the multiple I/O functions and muliple-CPU threads running, this can cause your system to work extra hard. Before you go blaming the program, I suggest that you check the following components:
- Power Supply:
This will cause your systm to fail if it is flaky. Your video card will draw extra poiwer when it's working harder, therefore you'll see a drop in output if in particular the 12V is a bit dodgy. The 12V rail drives many other power-rails in your system including the +5V, which is split off of to +3V for your RAM and CPU. If the 12V rail drops under load, this can cause all kinds of problems. Your hard disks will become unstable as they draw on the 12V directly, your video will become flaky because of the above, and the rest of your system will go nuts as it loses power. There maybe enough to keep the components running, but sometimes there is enough of a glitch to cause bits to flip in memory and this will cause the program to crash.
- Video card:
Ensure your're running the latest drivers. Also make sure you have enough power. If you don't have enough, or your PS is faulty (see above), this can cause program crashes. What card do you have? NVidia are recommended by Auran for their program, but ATI will work. This is important because you may need to run in DirectX mode instead of Open/GL and possibly make other tweaks and adjustments. I have an Nvidia product so I don't know too much about what to do with the ATI cards.
- Memory (RAM):
Make sure your RAM is not faulty. It's hard to believe, but it's true and I found out the hard way. I had a brand new system that had faulty RAM. The system would work fine on every thing else. I was able to run Command and Conquer for hours without crashes. The Sims II without issue, but as soon as I ran Trainz 2004 and 2006, the system would bunge out and crash to the desktop. Sometime this would happen after exactly 1/2 hour of running a route. After much troubleshooting, and a power supply replacement, which didn't work, I ran Memtest86 and sure enough the memory was bad. I had a bad DIM, which was replaced under warranty. The system has since been replaced, but lives on as a main system used by someone else in the house.
CPU cooling:
Make sure your CPU heatsink is properly attached. As CPUs heat up, they slow down (Intel) and the system can crash (AMD). Remember Trainz is pushing the components and the CPU plays in important part in this process and more so than in other programs other than a 3D modeler or CAD program, which will push a computer to the limits as these programs calculate polygons and arcs.
Motherboard:
The system maybe the fastest and newest system on the market, but there have been QC issues with some motherboards. The capacitors have been a bit dodgy and have exploded and leaked. This has caused the boards to fail outright or be flaky and unreliable particularly under load. Look at your motherboard for capacitors that have pushed up and possibly have gooey brown stuff around them on the motherboard. You can either replace the caps yourself. There's a company that sells the replacements, or your can replace the motherboard if it's under warranty.
System Cooling:
As Trainz operates, your components heat up. This can cause all kinds of failures as the system components reach their critical failure point. For some components (high quality), this level is quite high, but for others it's not so high particularly if the board manufacturer cut corners and used components from a B or C-grade supplier. Ensure that your system has adequate cooling to avoid this issue. Are your fans spinning? Do you have enough fans? Check the in-case temperature and the ambient temperature that the computer is running in. Make sure that the fans and case are free from dust, animal fur (if you have pets), spider webs - Yes, I've found them inside a person's PC once or twice, and anything else that can clog fans. Make sure your heat-sinks are properly attached and have a proper amount of thermal paste. As a computer ages, the paste can dry out and have less a cooling affect on the components. Periodically I've removed heatsinks and renewed the thermal paste under them. This has ensured that the components that use them are adequately cooled.
There are also software problems that can cause Trainz to crash. What do you have running in the background? Have you run an anti-malware scan recently (Virus, Trojan, spyware) scan recently? Are your pattern-files up-to-date? Are you running a proper firewall and is it configured properly for Trainz? There are somethings required by the program to attach to the Internet so you need to ensure that the program is allowed to do so otherwise there are problems.
For Trainz in general, check that the content isn't faulty. If you try to run some faulty content, the program will crash. With TS2009, this doesn't seem to be as much of a problem for me because the program won't load it. With older versions, such as TRS2004, the content would load anyway and cause crashes and performance issues.
At this point, these are the things that I can think of that can cause Trainz to crash. Again, in order for us to help you, we need the complete specs on your machine. You may think it's the fastest machine on earth and capable of running the program, but as I've stated above there are a lot of things that can cause this program to crash that would otherwise allow the program to function pretty well without any known issues.
John
I Think i am about done with this crap