Another Merge Layers Thread

Today i was helping my old man out with his Trainz game.. As he was finding things he could not delete.. So i figured out
he had multiple layers on his map (he tends to merge a few maps into one when his working) so i cleaned the layers up by
merging them all together.. But when i did the first one i clicked "Save As" when i was done

the next two i merged all the layers.. everything looked normal.. So i left him to save them..

i don't know what he did.. i think he may have hit "Save" instead.. But now everything is gone on the two i left him to save..
Just outlines of where buildings and tracks used to be..

When i find the map in content manager i can right click > show dependencies and see all the bits and pieces are still there
but regardless if i load session or route it just brings a map up with outlines of where everything use to be..

Is he screwed?

I'm not sure if he's screwed, yet, but I would first make a backup of the route then check that he didn't edit in the Session-Editor instead of the Route-editor. If you see all the stuff when you go into Edit Session, then merge the content (again) back to the route layer. Save and have a look.

This issue of editing in the wrong place will go away eventually with the changes being made to the Trainz - TRS19-Trainz Plus interface. Instead of having two modes, there will be a single editor from what we've been told. This will make editing a lot 'safer' and easier. Let's hope it does, anyway!

I did all the layer merging within the route editor. (Which is how i've always loaded into his maps, and the only way he knows) But after reading around here i have checked the route and session editor and both editors have the same result.. No objects, just outlines and baseplate. There is now only 1 route layer and 1 session layer in both maps and no amount of merging seems to be bringing stuff back.

I now know after reading up on this that a lot of people avoid saving in route mode altogether and wish for the route editor to die.. Which is handy to know for future anyway..

It seems as though when i saved the first map of his, by pressing "Save As" I was given the option to save a new session and now he can load into that session and everything is still there and perfect.
But when he pressed "save" instead on the other 2 maps it seems to have somehow just wiped the layer the objects were all sitting on..

How and why i don't know.. I walked away after merging the layers because i wanted him to check everything was still there (which it was) and save it when he was happy.. Which he did.. Just the wrong way it seems??