Who is a good third party vendor for paid diesel-electric locomotive content?

JonMyrlennBailey

Well-known member
K&L Trainz is great for steam engines, but I want classic American GM/EMD engines like GP-38, GP-7/9, SD40/45, F7 and E9.

I like the steam locomotive and tender I bought from K&L Trainz. It had nice, dark shadows beneath the underbody on overcast days unlike many locos and traincars packaged with Trainz or from the DLS. I loved the fact I also had the privilege to modify it by changing out the hornsound, for example. Norfolksouthern37 won't let me change out hornsounds on any of his engines. Neither will most "payware" locos packaged in more premium editions of Trainz.

Many diesel electrics packaged with Trainz or from DLS lack traction motors in the bogeys. You have bare axles and wheels, like freight cars do, that look like some little boy's toy car. Norfolksouthern37 did a bang-up job in that traction motor department with his SD40/45 series locos. Crisp and detailed bodies and such to boot. I just wish they had dark shadows underneath and the ability of the end user to change out the hornsound.
 
There is Justin Cornell's (Norfolksouthern37) Jointed Rail www.jointedrail.com

You can purchase most if not all of the same content that's available as payware from the N3V's online store. Some of the older models may even be available as freeware. In fact, I recommend checking that out too for lots of ogles of goodies.

The other highly recommended payware site is RR Mods. https://rrmods.com/ Adam and Guido have done a fabulous job with their selection of rolling stock and locomotives. Their quality is right up there with Jointed Rail.

For older content, meaning period and not so much Trainz version, there's Trainz Forge. www.trainz-forge.com There's lots of freeware and some really nice payware items as well. both steam and diesel.

There are a lot of other sites too such as The Erecting Hall. https://n8phu.wordpress.com/ with lots of nice models worth looking at.

And many more.
 
There is Justin Cornell's (Norfolksouthern37) Jointed Rail www.jointedrail.com

You can purchase most if not all of the same content that's available as payware from the N3V's online store. Some of the older models may even be available as freeware. In fact, I recommend checking that out too for lots of ogles of goodies.

The other highly recommended payware site is RR Mods. https://rrmods.com/ Adam and Guido have done a fabulous job with their selection of rolling stock and locomotives. Their quality is right up there with Jointed Rail.

For older content, meaning period and not so much Trainz version, there's Trainz Forge. www.trainz-forge.com There's lots of freeware and some really nice payware items as well. both steam and diesel.

There are a lot of other sites too such as The Erecting Hall. https://n8phu.wordpress.com/ with lots of nice models worth looking at.

And many more.


Thanks, John. I visited some of those sites and downloaded some content to give it a whirl. Some of the paid content at RR Mods doesn't allow for end-user modifications. If I pay for an engine content with my money, I would like the privilege of putting in my own hornsound and such.

Some stuff at The Erecting Hall by n8phu sparked my fancy but some of his stuff has faults. A couple of his GM/EMD F-series carbodies showed faults when loaded into TANE SP4.

This was his Gulf, Mobile and Ohio F7A/B as well as three of his Illinois Central Gulf FA3's. These are "missing dependencies" which CM lists as "unknown asset" as follows by an author named "7007":

<kuid2:74779:7742187:1>

I don't know how to fix those.

Here is a Norfolk Southern GP40 by n8phu I like a lot better:

<kuid:473973:102018> GP40-2 NS (ex CR) Late #3000-3070

I can change the parameters in config txt so I can assign permanent running numbers to this loco. I deleted the "extensions' block with high number and low number range.
Otherwise, the numbers would keep involuntarily getting changed each and every time Surveyor or Driver was opened. I can swap out engine and horn sounds as well.


Over at the Trainz Forge, jacksonbarno has some Illinois Central E7/8 carbodies, but they too are plagued with one "unknown asset" under their dependencies as well.

<kuid:376853:105498> by jacksonbarno
 
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Make sure you download any and all dependencies from Trainz Forge. There are links on the pages for the dependencies to make it easy.
 
Make sure you download any and all dependencies from Trainz Forge. There are links on the pages for the dependencies to make it easy.
Thanks once again, John. You are correct. I had to download the separate bogey for the jacksonbarno Illinois Central E7/8 content from the Forge site. It's all good now! ;)

I did notice this message from Mr. N8PHU at the Erecting Hall explaining why some of his loco content is faulty in TANE:

The Erecting Hall​

07/23/2024

Its been awhile since we had an update here. Family and work come first, then your hobbies. Keep an eye for for a couple of releases we have planned.
Updating parts of the site continues. Links are being fixed as I go.
Any content with a red “Legacy item” has some issue in Tane/19/22 and will be fixed and updated.

People often ask how to open .7z files. https://www.7-zip.org/ It is free and handles zip and rar files too.
 
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