I'm trying to find the best simulator for me?

Once you've installed it, don't forget to register it. One of the links in the thread in my signature is a tutorial on how to register serial numbers with N3V.

Shane
 
Oh so true ... You will move into the dimly blue lit basement ... your kids will say: "Where's Daddy" ... The wife will go on vacation, leaving you home alone ... and you will not even know that she was gone ... Your neighbors will hate you, and call the cops, complaining that there is a train station operating right next door ... Your dreams will no longer be of vacationing in Tahiti, and instead your dreams will now be in Trainz surveyor, laying track in your sleep, and fixing config files while in your daydreams ... And when you see a beautiful sunset, you will remark: "That looks like Pomme Sky13, or Electro Sunset".
 
Last edited:
Content Updates

Oh so true ... You will move into the dimly blue lit basement ... your kids will say: "Where's Daddy" ... The wife will go on vacation, leaving you home alone ... and you will not even know that she was gone ... Your neighbors will hate you, and call the cops, complaining that there is a train station operating right next door ... Your dreams will no longer be of vacationing in Tahiti, and instead your dreams will now be in Trainz surveyor, laying track in your sleep, and fixing config files while in your daydreams ... And when you see a beautiful sunset, you will remark: "That looks like Pomme Sky13, or Electro Sunset".

I'm already finding that out quickly :). Luckily I have a job that allows me to play anytime. Down with work! Hopefully I'll learn how to show everyone my progress. Do I need to do the 1,000's of Content Updates found on the main menu page? Or only the ones I choose to use?
 
Welome aboard!
I find that a small stocked refrigerator and a small microwave oven compliments Trainz very well!
If your using the routes included with TS12, it's best to upgrade their content to avoid performance issues later.
 
Once you start to use Trainz kiss goodbye to normal life. You will never be the same again.:hehe:

Regards Dave.


Also welcome to Trainz ,

There's one "but " it chanched the relationship with my wife .I'm hooked to Trainz now.
But i'm 35 years married and as you know (i hope) the conversation is not as it was when we were 20.

Suppose we had young children they would say "who is that man cutting the meat"?

Again welcome
 
I'm already finding that out quickly :). Luckily I have a job that allows me to play anytime. Down with work! Hopefully I'll learn how to show everyone my progress. Do I need to do the 1,000's of Content Updates found on the main menu page? Or only the ones I choose to use?

I would personally advise doing as many as you can - you can minimise the Content Updates mini-window whilst it is downloading the assets and do other things on Trainz.

Shane
 
Welcome aboard, Andy!

I'm glad you made your decision. You'll be in for years and years of enjoyment.

A word for the wise though. Please back up your complete Userdata folder and backup often. This is everything you've downloaded, worked on, repaired, updated, etc.

John
 
Welcome to TRS :) & well for me i like to have 100% boxed versions to me a downloaded version is worthless it's only deta not a DVD that you can hold in your hand!!! i do not surport downloaded versions & never will
 
As a former model railroader myself, I highly endorse Trainz. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better simulator and the support here on the forums is top notch. I'd still like to have a model railroad for that hands on experience; however, who has a house big enough to build a 100 mile or larger layout. This you can do with Trainz and really get the feel of operating a railroad. Go for it, you can't go wrong.
Do you recommend starting with an available layout and "editing" to my liking as a better way than building a complete layout from scratch? I am worried that landscapes (hills, mtns, rivers) will be a little overwhelming at first. i.e. - practice makes perfect.
 
If there a route that is build-in,and you like it then go to content manager right click on the route and session and clone them.
They will be yours and you can do what every you want to them with out missing up the arigenal.
Sorry for your family having you disapear. Well to Trainz.
 
Do you recommend starting with an available layout and "editing" to my liking as a better way than building a complete layout from scratch? I am worried that landscapes (hills, mtns, rivers) will be a little overwhelming at first. i.e. - practice makes perfect.

Andy,

You are going about this the right way. Take things one step at a time rather than plunging in knee deep into the mud! Seriously, when working on your first route you don't want to dig yourself into a project that will kill your enthusiasm instantly.

What area do you plan to model? There are a whole bunch of routes up there on the DLS and I don't want to go too far and make any recommendations because what I like may not be what you do.

What I did way, way back when I purchased TRS2004, is to download various routes and then open them up in Surveyor to see how they were built. Some were really, really, bad while others were awesome. I experimented with adding on tracks and other stuff before I started my own routes. When I did start my own, I used some of the techniques I had learned while poking around the downloaded routes. Eventually, these early routes became what I have today as my main route. This route, like any model railroad or artistic creation, is never complete and probably never will be finished. We will always find areas to improve and redo. In fact these renovations have happened a few times already as my modeling techniques improved over the years.

John
 
Andy,

You are going about this the right way. Take things one step at a time rather than plunging in knee deep into the mud! Seriously, when working on your first route you don't want to dig yourself into a project that will kill your enthusiasm instantly.

What area do you plan to model? There are a whole bunch of routes up there on the DLS and I don't want to go too far and make any recommendations because what I like may not be what you do.

What I did way, way back when I purchased TRS2004, is to download various routes and then open them up in Surveyor to see how they were built. Some were really, really, bad while others were awesome. I experimented with adding on tracks and other stuff before I started my own routes. When I did start my own, I used some of the techniques I had learned while poking around the downloaded routes. Eventually, these early routes became what I have today as my main route. This route, like any model railroad or artistic creation, is never complete and probably never will be finished. We will always find areas to improve and redo. In fact these renovations have happened a few times already as my modeling techniques improved over the years.

John

I would like to have similar and towns/cities of the B&O Railroad. But I am not looking to duplicate the railroad entirely.
 
And it's industries.

Not as difficult as it seems...

What you need to do is develop a theme and then stick to it. Having a history behind the railroad helps too to keep stuff in perspective and consistent. You may modify it as you go along, but keep the theme pretty consistent as I just said because that will help you keep the industries the towns plausible. This will ensure that you have the kinds of industries you want and similar looking, doesn't have to be exact, cities and towns. If you want, merge in some of the DEM files from the region where the B&O is running, and use that as a basis for your topography. You don't need everything, but enough to get the feeling of the area. Now keeping that in mind, you can then choose names of different cities and towns and then match them to your own city. That is what I've done. It makes things a lot easier than trying to replicate the cities exactly. You can do that if you want, but that can become very difficult especially if you know the area. Trust me on this. I am going through that now on my route which I'll explain about below.

When I built my route originally, I planned it to be a spin-off of a former Boston and Maine railroad branch. The story about the city and the railroad is similar to the Providence and Worcester, and maybe the New Haven and Boston and Maine combined.
The area modeled is kind of sort of, but not really, like eastern southern New England where I live. If you are familiar with the area, you'd say that such and such a place looks like this or that, but it's neither this or that. It's all from my head. As I built the route, I took names from a map of the region. Over time I've decided to make the landscape more realistic, and I've now started incorporating actual DEM files of my area. Over time this will make the route more of what I wanted in the beginning, but it will contain fewer and fewer sections that I handcrafted myself. In the beginning, I also merged in routes made by other people. This can be done, and done well, but for some reason I never feel right about these areas. It's as though I've cheated the system and they never feel like mine. At this point, I have removed all but two of the routes. One of the sections is so intertwined in the original core that it will time some real picking and splitting to pull it out because the removal and insertion of route-sections can be done but awkwardly.

The biggest issue you'll have when building will be to keep up the enthusiasm. I say this honestly because after laying miles upon miles of tracks you'll feel like you slogged in hundreds of miles. This is why I suggest building a little chunk at a time, doing some research, landscaping, and once there's enough track laid give the route a drive. This will break up your time at the building part and make the hobby fun.

Anyway, keep the questions coming. You might want to move this topic to another thread, perhaps in the Surveyor's forum where it would be more appropriate and won't get lost as quickly.

John
 
Back
Top