MSGSappers advice thread to newbies considering their first layout design project

MSGSapper

Trainz route developer
It seems that hardly a month goes by in these forums that I don't see some newbie posting that they are starting a new massive layout that they are going to build and release. Yet six months later, or even far sooner in most cases, we never hear from them again. Why is this?

First of all, even a modest sized fully landscaped and populated new layout will often take MONTHS of dedicated work to complete, if done right. Newbies being newbies have no idea of the amount of effort involved, and often being impatient, quickly abandon those projects. It is a real fact that good Trainz layouts take a lot time. If you aren’t prepared to devote that needed time and effort then don’t start or you are going to get frustrated quickly!

Second of all, many of the newbies try to design a 100% "mile-for-mile" absolutely prototypical route and find, surprise, that for a variety of reasons it is just not at all practical to do that. Reasons for this might be:

a. Content is not available on the DLS to make that happen. As an example, some years back I thought about building a route modeled after the Panama Canal Route but found that appropriate tropical and specialized Panama Canal specific content like the various locks and buildings content simply didn’t exist in enough quantity to make that possible, so I had to abandon that project.

b. Who wants many miles of scenery you must drive through with nothing of real interest in it? An example might be many miles of desert terrain that becomes rather boring after a while to drive through with your train. And of course, every real mile of that terrain must be designed, landscaped and populated with plants, rocks, structures, etc by you. This problem was faced many decades ago by the model railroading community and the adopted successful solution was “selective compression” which gives the essential look, feel and flavor of the route instead, but in compressed form. Basically, with selective compression you model the interesting bits and delete the non-interesting bits or at least keep them to the absolute minimum. If you must design a hyper prototypical layout, consider the diorama approach instead (more about this below).

c. The workload is just to great and never seems to come to an end anywhere near as fast as you had hoped.

FYI even I fell into the 100% “mile-for-mile” trap myself when I created my Wilsons Mills & Mount Olive route. After about six months of hard work I began to realize that I had bitten off much more then I could reasonably chew, and I had to delete a lot of proposed baseboards in order to finish the project. I almost gave up a few times but once I cut the route baseboards down to a more manageable level was able to finally finish it. Of course, there is nothing stopping me from adding on additional sections should I choose to in the future to that route. This trap is very easy to fall into, especially with a tool like TransDEM, which tends to give you a LOT more baseboards then you might want with your design. One thing I learned with TransDEM is that you have to be utterly ruthless in pruning off baseboards that really don’t add anything to the route you are designing, except for a lot more work on your part.

The best approach I would recommend to any newbie considering their first layout design project is to start SMALL with a project that has only a few baseboards in it. Another option is to tackle the project you envision in stages and expand the layout with additional sections over a number of years. In either case the most important thing for any newbie is to actually complete the project which will give you the experience and confidence needed to tackle a larger project in time.

Here are three forum threads I have posted over the years regarding layout design that I think you should check into before before you take the plunge into creating your first layout design project:

Newbie tip: Try a diorama approach to building your first Trainz layout:
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...approach-to-building-your-first-Trainz-layout

MSGSapper Merge Modules Support Thread:
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?123028-MSGSapper-Merge-Modules-Support-Thread

The How to Design a 1950’s North American themed Trainz layout thread:
https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sh...2s-North-American-themed-Trainz-layout-thread

Also, I would suggest you see this YouTube video called 5 Things You Need to Know Before Building a Model Railroad Layout which I found useful, even if it wasn't meant for Trainz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGug6AspxYk

Many of the tips I am giving you here have been learned the hard way by me over the course of my own considerable layout design project efforts since the early 2000s.

I invite other route designers to post their insights to the design process for newbies as comments to this thread.

Bob (AKA MSGSapper author of 14+ high quality layouts on the DLS)
 
Last edited:
Thanks for those points Bob.

I would only add the following:-

Patience - the more time you spend the better the final result will be. This of course applies to anything in life but we all have deadlines and limits that we must work within. The effects of taking shortcuts simply to speed things up and get the job finished faster will often be very noticeable at the end. The shortcuts you do have to take will not necessarily be time savers.

Persistence - the initial enthusiasm you had for a project will take a battering as the reality sinks in, even for small "doable" projects. If you are a "quitter" then don't start. Which leads to my last tip.

Take Breaks - spend some time away from Trainz and your computer, go skydiving, bungee-jumping, mow the lawn, get out and travel. The break can recharge your batteries and rebuild your enthusiasm and you may even come up with a few ideas for your layout that you had not thought of before.
 
It's probably worth mentioning that there are people who use TANE etc who are content to use other people's layouts. Either as they are or by enhancing them. There are even a few who have an interest in content creation or even a subset of this. Engine specs for example are fairly specialised and there are a few people who specialise in creating them.

Cheerio John
 
There are even a few who have an interest in content creation or even a subset of this. Engine specs for example are fairly specialised and there are a few people who specialise in creating them.

Yes, it is easy to forget that for many people Trainz is more than creating layouts/routes/sessions. There are some who have never created (or at least have never uploaded) a route yet have a huge number of assets credited to their names.
 
Good advice Bob and it's not just the noobs. I've lost count of the grand ambitious plans I've started which have fallen by the wayside as distraction has set in.

One of the key points is to make sure you have real enthusiasm for the prototype, not just build it because a random stretch of railway caught your eye on YouTube or a mapping site (actually that's my biggest failing). Make sure it's do-able within the constraints of what we had in the sim. A recent route I started had a huge number of tunnels along its length. No doubt a very spectacular ride but Trainz and tunnels really still don't get on that well. The odd one here or there which can be blended in easy maybe, but otherwise...

Don't go to town and lay 50 or 60 km of track before touching the scenery. That is the biggest way to find a daunting brick wall in front of you.

As regards Transdem, again good advice. You need to leave sufficient tiles/boards in place to disguise the edge of the world but beyond 2 - 3 km from the track these can be painted with a neutral terrain colour to represent distant hills. For a flat route 2 to 3 km from the route is probably sufficient anyway.
 
I would add to what has already been written by suggesting you also get your head round the basics of Portals at the earliest opportunity. A portal at each end of a piece of track however short can turn a passive creation into a very busy active route by generating and absorbing trains effectively on demand. There isn't even the need for stations and/or industries in between they can be added later as ability and confidence grows. Peter
 
Don't overlook backdrops to visually frame the extent of your route. Up close they may look odd but at the proper distance they save work. The Coal Country route is a good example of their use. Even inside a forest they add variety.
Dick
 
This is all great advice here. I can't count the number of projects started and moved to the dust bin myself as I've gone along the route building path. It's due to many reasons, but mostly to realizing that some of the projects became bigger than expected on first looks.

Taking frequent breaks is probably the best advice here. Building a route or doing other creative non-Trainz stuff, needs inspiration and a free mind. If we get ourselves bogged and rush to get the project done, we lose that creative side and stuff looks forced, besides, you'll burn yourself out and lose the willpower to continue on that project.

How one goes about their projects is their own methodology for doing things. For my Trainz route-building, I work on small chunks as I build up and complete a baseboard or two, adding the bigger details in those sections, then move on to another baseboard or two. This is a slow process and I admit it's best not to focus on how much needs to be done, but more on what has been completed and what the end result will be. I will say it's quite amazing how much can be accomplished using this approach. With the completed section, this gives me something too to show off what's been done other than open terrain with topographic maps painted on the surface, which looks well and good to the uninitiated, but for those working on the route it's an awful big open land that needs covering.

With larger routes, it's best to divide these up into sections and merge them into the larger result at the end. The reasons are many, including avoiding a crash and losing the full project. The other too is a sense of accomplishment. A goal set to finish up Section A, like a piano sonata having its movements, makes the project more doable, and less of a bigger project. This also works well for collaborative work as well if there are many people working on the same route, each one can focus on their own area and then one user can then merge all the segments together. What needs to be done, however, in this case is to establish a consistency about the route so that the route doesn't look like multiple sections, unless of course that's the intention.
 
Another question that often comes up when creators, both newbies and old hands, start thinking about building a new route - should it be fictional, prototypical or a mixture of both? If prototypical do you go with the current line or historical?

Different creators have different preferences here. One recent thread dealing with this question (and others) can be found at https://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?144125-Project-Suggestions.

I started out creating purely fictional routes and sessions. They can be rewarding and the fact that no-one can criticise your "lack of accuracy" is a bonus. However, you have to know when to stop building.

All my recent efforts have been based on real lines (historical). Most of these lines have been either fully or partly closed or even removed entirely, which creates problems when it comes to modelling them. My most recent layout is a line that is now a mere shadow of its former glory - half of it was removed 30 years ago along with all the sidings, stations, loops and all but one of the industries that existed on the half that still remains. So the ability to find and search through historical documents, old maps, track diagrams and to communicate with local historians and historical societies, is a must. Of course, you will never find on the DLS (or elsewhere) the exact buildings, roads, fences, trees, etc that will perfectly match your chosen region and era.
 
I would add to what has already been written by suggesting you also get your head round the basics of Portals at the earliest opportunity. A portal at each end of a piece of track however short can turn a passive creation into a very busy active route by generating and absorbing trains effectively on demand. There isn't even the need for stations and/or industries in between they can be added later as ability and confidence grows. Peter

Keep in mind that when a Portal emits a train, that train does not become "live" until the last car is nearly out of the portal track. So, if you plan on running 100 car trains, make sure you have enough distance between the emitting end of the portal track and the first signal, trigger, track mark or speed restrictor.

David
 
Bumping this thread up for the benefit of some newbies out there....

Bob

Perfect timing. I'm one of those who have never built any routes myself, but I do sometimes tinker with what others have done. I've been using Trainz for a long time, since 2005 I think, and have been content just enjoying the works of others, yours especially. But there are a few things route wise that I'd like to see. One is the 1960's-'70's New Jersey era, especially up north, with the Jersey City CNJ Terminal, the Weehawken yards and the Seatrain terminal. I grew up there and have a lot of fond memories of the era. That is a bit much for a first project of course, but maybe someday.

I have your Yard Merge Module, which is really nice, I'm thinking of using that as a jumping off point for my first foray into route building. Do you have any other modules planned?
 
I have your Yard Merge Module, which is really nice, I'm thinking of using that as a jumping off point for my first foray into route building. Do you have any other modules planned?

Not at this time. My next project is already on the schedule and involves upgrading my 14 routes to TRS2019 standards. That will take a long time since I intend to add all the new scenery bells and whistles that comes with the new version of Trainz.....

Bob
 
Thank you Bob, I think this is a handy thread to have around. Do you think there is any possibility we could have them make it sticky?
 
Thank you Bob, I think this is a handy thread to have around. Do you think there is any possibility we could have them make it sticky?

That is something only they can do. I have no idea what criteria they use in making something a "sticky".....

Bob
 
Back
Top