Sadly, I have a feeling John is no longer with us in the Trainzing world, but I'll put in my thoughts here so that other newcomers searching for information will fall upon this thread and hopefully not feel as lost.
Trainz is one of things that's not really a game in the sense of shooting aliens and running around, or chasing goals, although goal-seeking is possible if you want to. Trainz is more like a gigantic model railroad that you, the end-user, gets out of it, what you put into it. The program can be frustrating and there have been more than a few instances where everything does seem as if it's working against you, the user, but for the most part once issues have been worked out, things go pretty well. Providing details regarding issues, saying it's broke and I quit isn't helpful, but real details usually will get the problems ironed out in short order. (This is where John wasn't helpful.)
The program is as I said more like a gigantic model railroad with the ability to sit in the cab and drive your own or someone else's routes with the ability to build prototypical-sized routes. Thinking back to when I was a youngster and to my father putting together my N-scale Aurora Postage Stamp model railroad for me, and what we have here, it's like night and day. Having the ability to build something that goes well beyond the 2 x 4 piece of plywood on a frame that fit under my bed to a world with virtually unlimited bounds is still today for me amazing. This really is something that only dreams are made of, and many times as a kid oh so many years ago, I dreamt of something like this.
As a product, Trainz is divided into modules or sections.
Surveyor is like building the benchwork. We can sculpt the landscape, place objects, and lay the track. If we run out of room, we can add more. For some, this is where they remain and rarely drive around on their routes. Building a route in Surveyor, is akin to going down into the basement or out into the shed and working on a huge model railroad except at 1 to 1 scale. Many of us have spent hours working on existing routes or creating new ones. Like the model railroad, we fiddle, fix, update, and create as the hours while away into the past. Unlike a model railroad, there's no mess meaning no plaster and sawdust or glue and paint to clean up. There's also the ability to undo things without doing any damage. We can cut in a siding and decide it doesn't work and remove it. Using the power of the computer and the undo-keys CTRL+Z, it's as if the track was never cut and the siding was never there. With the model railroad, we've got the expense of new track, turnouts, and the risk of breaking these expensive parts. Switches today are not inexpensive and losing one because we messed up is heartbreaking at least.
Driver is where we go about running the layouts (routes) and divided into two parts - session-creation and driving.
Session building is a combination of puzzle-solving and wiring to make the trains run as they should, and building sessions takes patience not only for the program but for oneself. This process can take a very, very long time and even then, there are quirky things that occur especially on large complex routes. Once a session is put together, the bugs need to be worked out. Many times, the AI drivers do what we tell them to do through the commands we give them and not what we thought they were supposed to do, meaning we put our own self-inflicted bugs in there. What do you mean they don't work on telepathy? I can't count how many times I blamed the computer drivers, infamous AI drivers, for my own errors!
Here you can set up goal seeking if you want, such as delivering so much coal to a power plant, or some other thing such as 100% on-time performance when driving a passenger train. With Trainz, you don't have to do that if you don't want to. On some routes, including those created by others you drive, you can do nearly anything you want including taking over and driving a train yourself or even sitting back and watching the world operate in front of you. On some days, this is what I'll do with some of my routes. I let the drivers do their thing and watch them from various locations as if I am out rail fanning along the right of way. Sometimes, I'll catch a screen image but not always. It's great seeing trains meet with signals changing aspects and drawbridges close as trains approach.
Then there's script writing and content creation. Script writing is like the wiring that makes all the parts work and this can be an all-consuming hobby all its own. This is an area that many of us are not familiar with, or are familiar with it to be dangerous and break things. There are programming skills required here to write the code to make things work.
And finally, content-creation.
With Trainz, we have a nearly unlimited number of assets available built-in, provided by the community on the Download Station, and from third-party websites. Most content is free and there is quite a lot of payware with some payware being relatively inexpensive.
Content-creation is putting together the objects we place on our routes or the trains we drive. Like script-writing, this too is an all-consuming hobby alone for some people. In fact, some never do anything else except make the objects we put on our routes because they like doing that. We have full libraries of beautiful objects that we should be grateful for because without them, we wouldn't have what we have today.
The thing is, with Trainz's complexity, the best way to go about anything is to take it in small steps. Building that dream route is no different than building that aft-forementioned model railroad. Working in small parts, experimenting, and improving skills are part of the game. Working slowly and carefully, and not being afraid to do things over is the only way. Remember, nothing can be broken here. Throwing yourself into a big route full feet and body too, only causes discouragement, frustration, burn-out, and usually a canceled project.
