Here are 2 snippets (from N3Vand me ) from my successful efforts to sign on.
The patch installer will accept my login, but the Trainz Settings dialog will not.
I took your suggestion about the 3 ports that needed to be opened. For some reason, Windows 7 Home Premium firewall will not allow at least one of those ports through, but is not reporting the blocking. I made new incoming and outgoing rules for these ports using the Firewall Advanced Security facility (which is actually the MMC snapin). I still could not log in at that point. However I then used netsh commands to reset winsock, ipv4, and ipv6, and I can log on now.
Please also check that your modem/router or ISP are not blocking some outgoing ports that our software requires. You must be able to contact our servers on TCP ports 80, 443, and 11443.