New to Trainz - Where to Start?

C

CrazyQuickDraw

Genesee & Wyoming - HCRY
Hello everyone. I am a veteran to MSTS and have come to the conclusion that I need something new now, something with more spice. After having a long look at Railworks and Trainz, I settled on Trainz (due to the amount of money needing to be spent on Railworks... its ridiculous).

I've have had Trainz 12 for about a week now... but I'm not to sure where to go. There is SO many routes, trains, content! Its crazy! I'm not very interested in the default routes at all... and well, I was wondering if the community could help me go in the right direction.

What does everyone recommend in there opinion? I'm looking for Canadian-American routes (hopefully, with a fair amount of scenarios), and also old-time Steam routes. I'm starting to get the hang on the Content Manager, so that's going good. But, don't even get me started on the DS... there's so much!

Thanks
-CrazyQuickDraw
 
Welcome to the forums, CrazyQuickDraw! :)

There are so many routes to choose from on the DLS and on third party sites, I really don't know where to begin.

If you are interested in payware, visit Roystrainz at: www.roystrainz.com These are some truly spectacular western Canadian routes.

For free-routes, there are many, many to pick from ranging from the Ozark region, Great Plains, New England, and anywhere for that matter in the world. Here are some nice ones I can recall off the top of my head. On the DLS, look for Dave Snow's Ozark Valley. For Kentucky coal country, you need to venture off the DLS for Deremmy's (Andy Turnbull) East Kentucky Coal http://www.checkrail.com/east_kentucky1.htm, and for a Great Plains route check out Jointed Rail's Midwest Grain 3.0 (www.jointedrail.com)

Jointed Rail also sells awesome payware locomotive and supplies some really beautiful freeware as well. It's important to note too you do need to sign up (free) to their site in order to download even the free stuff.

Unlike MSTS/Railworks you can run anything you want on any route. There is no tie in on activities (we call them sessions), and you can go as far as running British steam on an Canadian route if you wish, and there is no limit to you modifying anything to suit your own tastes.

Again, there is so much that can be done well beyond just running other people's creations. The combination of the DLS (Download Station) with Surveyor, and you can build your own world. In fact I live in Surveyor for most of my Trainz time. If you ever want to venture into creating a realistic DEM-based terrain, we recommend a third-party program called TransDEM. This has a bit of a learning curve but the end results are worth it.

Getting back to the DLS... If you haven't done so already, we recommend purchasing the First Class Ticket or FCT as we call it. The FCT will give you unlimited download speeds and no daily download cap. The small price of $22 per year is worth it in the long run and is considered by many of us as a worthy investment.

In summary Trainz is more like a combination of a railroad simulator and model railroad. You can run and drive trains in a semi-realistic simulated environment, but at the same time there is the creative aspect of model railroading. Using Surveyor you can build your own unlimited world, not bound by the size of a house or building, but only by your imagination and computer capabilities. There are the kitbashing abilities through reskinning and buildings being placed together to make others on routes. There are the scripting capabilities for various activities, industries, signals, and other things which involve a whole programming language. This is akin to the wiring I suppose in a model railroad.

The thing is don't let the limitations get in your way. If you come across anything you need help with, post here and someone will help you.

John
 
Another crazy Canuck? Hey there friend, you can also have a peek into the "Canadian Thread" in the screenshots section. I think there are a few modern era routes, free and payware. You should also look in the freeware area of the Jointed Rail site (Steam Transition). There you will find some really great Canadian (and US ) rolling stock. At first I thought there was little hope for Canadian steam fans...things are really looking up now a days!

Welcome aboard, cheers....Rick

Hee, hee, sorry for repeating any info John suggested. I AM a very slow typist, but this time I can blame a phone call from the father in law!
 
Last edited:
Hi Crazy --

Welcome to Trainz.

Hmm - routes plus sessions. You will soon find that one of the "features" of Trainz is/are missing dependencies for routes and sessions - assets that are needed but are neither built-in nor from the Download Station.

Some of us do use only built-ins and DLS content; some provide external download links; but in some cases you will need to hunt to the far corners of the Universe for that elusive missing dependency. Just be warned.

Anyway, I have a few routes and sessions, mainly smaller switching routes that follow prototypical North American railroading practices. The last three have been "model Trainz", like:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...rainz-the-Port-Loleta-Railroad-Company-layout

Just search the DLS with "philskene" as the author.

I have also posted a few "how to" tutorials on youtube. Again, search with "philskene".

Enjoy your time with us.

Phil
 
philskene said:
Hi Crazy --

Welcome to Trainz.

Hmm - routes plus sessions. You will soon find that one of the "features" of Trainz is/are missing dependencies for routes and sessions - assets that are needed but are neither built-in nor from the Download Station.

Some of us do use only built-ins and DLS content; some provide external download links; but in some cases you will need to hunt to the far corners of the Universe for that elusive missing dependency. Just be warned.

Anyway, I have a few routes and sessions, mainly smaller switching routes that follow prototypical North American railroading practices. The last three have been "model Trainz", like:

http://forums.auran.com/trainz/show...rainz-the-Port-Loleta-Railroad-Company-layout

Just search the DLS with "philskene" as the author.

I have also posted a few "how to" tutorials on youtube. Again, search with "philskene".

Enjoy your time with us.

Phil
Click to expand...

Thank you! I also love the Model Trainz, I'll sure look for your routes!
 
Hi, and welcome to our wold of trainz. If you like old steam routes and Narrow gauge, download my North Bay NG30 route. (original Route By Steamrodder - http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=263816) or the updated version by (Train Buff - http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=337670) For some outstanding 30in. gauge equipment go to - http://www.steammachine.com/bdaneal/. OR just type in NG30, 30in., or 30ng there is quite a number of ng stuff out there. So have fun and enjoy! -Robert- a.k.a. steamrodder:wave:
 
I would check out http://checkrail.com for sure. Jointedrail has a couple good routes you could play on all day. Another awesome place is http://trainzforge.weebly.com/. We got some nice little routes here at http://trainzdivide.weebly.com/. Always good to take a few peeks at the DLS as well, I've seen a couple good ones like Kingstonflyer's North American Grain Shortline.....

Welcome to Trainz as well
I hope you have as much fun with it as I have had. I've been playing Trainz since the 2004-2005 timeframe.. That's how Addicting it is once you get all of the program's features figured out. And always remember, there is a community here ready to help when you need it, so don't hesitate ever to ask a question! I hate being a promoter at this time, but I think this will show you some of the capabilities this program has, http://railfan-photoshop.weebly.com/

And as always,
Have Fun!
Chris/Enzo1
 
steamrodder said:
Hi, and welcome to our wold of trainz. If you like old steam routes and Narrow gauge, download my North Bay NG30 route. (original Route By Steamrodder - http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=263816) or the updated version by (Train Buff - http://www.auran.com/TRS2004/DLS_downloadasset.php?DownloadID=337670) For some outstanding 30in. gauge equipment go to - http://www.steammachine.com/bdaneal/. OR just type in NG30, 30in., or 30ng there is quite a number of ng stuff out there. So have fun and enjoy! -Robert- a.k.a. steamrodder:wave:
Click to expand...

Wow! Thanks! I'll sure look into the narrow gauge equipment.

Enzo1 said:
I would check out http://checkrail.com for sure. Jointedrail has a couple good routes you could play on all day. Another awesome place is http://trainzforge.weebly.com/. We got some nice little routes here at http://trainzdivide.weebly.com/. Always good to take a few peeks at the DLS as well, I've seen a couple good ones like Kingstonflyer's North American Grain Shortline.....

Welcome to Trainz as well
I hope you have as much fun with it as I have had. I've been playing Trainz since the 2004-2005 timeframe.. That's how Addicting it is once you get all of the program's features figured out. And always remember, there is a community here ready to help when you need it, so don't hesitate ever to ask a question! I hate being a promoter at this time, but I think this will show you some of the capabilities this program has, http://railfan-photoshop.weebly.com/

And as always,
Have Fun!
Chris/Enzo1
Click to expand...

I've been looking at Checkrail quite a bit, and I also came upon TrainzForge- Pariot River Lines looks really good too! Thanks for all the links.
 
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