Found! TS2009 3.1 Backup copy.

So I was hunting through my archives while setting up Trainz again on my 'new' ex-lease CoolMaster W10 computer and I found a backup copy of TS2009 WBE 3.1 that I'd filed away exactly two years ago. From memory I 'upgraded' TS2009 with the final version patch not long afterwards and it broke lots of things (sound familiar?) and I hated the changes in Surveyor so I deleted it all and got myself a copy of TS2012. And completely forgot about the old backup file on my external archive hard drive.

I transferred the backup copy to the new D: drive on my computer and it worked. Well after I did the compatibility setting thing it did, - but despite that all was good and I took a journey into the past. I cut my teeth with Trainz with TS2009 3.1 and I had a lot of fun with it. I built all kinds of routes with it, - they look very much like naive beginners efforts looking at them now, - but that was where I learned the basics with using Trainz Surveyor tools and those lessons learned have served me well ever since.

I was pleased to find a steam era Uk route in the back up copy where I must've played trains for hundreds of hours and modded the heck out of it to make it be more what I wanted. This had been badly broken by the 'upgrade' so I was glad to find this undamaged copy. Looking at it now I can see the mistakes I made due to inexperience, but it was good to see this old friend again.

So anyway I'm giving this old route a little tidy up and it didn't take me long to settle into using the WBE Surveyor tools again. And naturally I found myself wondering why the ability to turn off those annoying spline circles was taken out in the later versions of Trainz. Being able to see what I've just done or adjusted without a stack of glowing yellow arrows and circles being in the way was a real delight. Not going for a spin on the mouse cursor every time I moved around in surveyor was also a major plus.

While playing trains on what is a layout well populated with assets and fairly well detailed for its era I was getting 85-100 fps with a older but still good GTX660 and everything ran as smooth as silk. If it wasn't for the different lighting, the billboard trees and the low resolution ground textures I might be caused to think that I wasn't in TS2009 at all since all the buildings on the layout are still being used in TS2019 with some of them even becoming payware which is dead daft.

And speaking of billboard trees the old JVC ones on the layout looked really good under 3.1's graphics engine and were nicely convincing. The 'upgrade' that wasn't broke all those and turned them into badly painted cardboard trees.

My CoolMaster computer is where I'm going to keep all my legacy Trainz installs, but it does run my Tinware Classic version of TS2019 where I keep all my favourite updated legacy routes Ok. I wouldn't expect the CoolMaster to run any TS2019 routes with lots of magic stuff though, but that's not what it's for.

It's amazing how improvements in things only make stuff that worked perfectly before awful to use. Surveyor really hasn't changed much since TRS2004, but at the same time it's different perhaps because it's now a mature product and we're used to what it's supposed to do. What I dislike about TRS19 is the rearrangement of what were once easy to get to things like the Bulk replace tool, and the search filter. Hiding those under menus is annoying, and forgetting what the functions keys are to get to them is even more annoying. I always end up clicking on the wrong menu first before going for what I really want!

Last year or so I found an early version of my current creation. This version dated back to TRS2004 SP4 or maybe TRS2006 since it was a backup done in January 2005. I opened the route and found I really didn't do an all that bad a job. The gist of my theme was there, which I've stuck to through and through over the years. The content in the route was limited to what I had on hand with a few things from the DLS, which is pretty obvious by what I used. What made me laugh though was my track laying, texturing, and topology. The landscape was too steep in places and my track laying is atrocious in that route.

I cloned the old route and did bit of fixing up and deleted a bunch of baseboards around the 4 core boards where the route started and I merged that into my current iteration. It took a lot of work to get things mostly up-to-date and there's still a lot more to go to modernize this section. All and all it doesn't look too bad now and it'll only get better as I refine the landscape some more.

Before I forget. there's a way to turn off the spline circles except for what you are editing. Start Trainz its self and go to Interface settings and check Limit contextual information.

Hello Annie
Reading this thread, I realised that I had a completely unaltered TS2009 on my current computer - I never added to it as I bought 2010 at the same time and concentrated on that. Anyway, I just had a romp though 2009 to see what was there and was impressed by the variety of built-in routes, many of course dating from 2004, and all able to be explored in Surveyor to see what assets had been used and how others had achieved certain effects, and so on - unlike T:ANE where it's a case of either spend more cash or do it yourself. Yes, this ability to explore was of course true also of 2010 and 2012. Anyway, it was a pleasant diversion for half an hour or so to see what came straight out of the box - but meant no progress on my latest model!
Ray

I think the great appeal of the older versions Ray is their simplicity and ease of use. You don't need to be an expert software troubleshooter in order to get things working or have to struggle with hidden menus or awkward to adjust settings in order to have fun. I also have a copy of TS2010 I haven't done anything with since I purchased it so that will get shifted over to my new computer as well.

KotangaGirl said:

'Limit contextual information', - thanks for that tip John.
I definitely agree about the menus in TS2019 and things being harder to get at and find. Like you i waste time shuffling through things I don't want before I find the tool I want to use.

It certainly was interesting to see my old route and notice how much better I am at things now. Track laying is something that I'm much better at now too and the other thing that I particularly noticed is that I'm far better now at properly placing signals than I was two years ago.
I'll continue to tidy it up and I might even take it through to TS2012 and then to TANE once I'm happy with it. Overall it's a good route, but there are more than a few untidy bits that don't quite work out in the state they are now. Old layouts can have a lasting influence though. This old TS2009 layout of mine has a lot of coastal sections and my present GER Norfolk layout has a lengthy coastal section too. In fact I think I'd find it difficult to give up having coastal sections on any future layout I might want to build.

Click to expand...

That coastal theme is a big part of my routes as well. My original Enfield and Eastern was based on pseudo-historical railways in my area. I live in southeastern New England about 16 km from the shore so I need to have the ocean nearby. I also have two other routes based around the Cape Ann area located about 30 km from my house.

I am interested in seeing some pics of this route in a before and after if you can. I have some old screen-shots of my TRS2004/TRS2006 era route tucked away somewhere as well.

Some random screenshots. This is the layout with no changes made and it's exactly as I rediscovered it. I built it on a route called a 'A Moment in Time', but I cut the route down by two thirds and I made a lot of changes to it to suit what I wanted.

Sign up for the Newsletter and receive a copy of 2009!

Yes I got my free copy of TS2009 a while ago, but the free version is the final version Build 3.?. I much prefer Build 3.1 since WBE 3.1 Surveyor is much nicer to use and JVC trees don't get changed into badly painted cardboard like they do with the final version. I do wonder though how many new chums to Trainz carry off their free copy of TS2009 happily rejoicing and never come back to buy any of the later versions.

Although its a bit over 10 years, they look nice (especially at its time). Wow, I need to go back and revisit my Trainz games soon - something that I normally do when I'm tired of the modern "features" that breaks the game..
Still, congrats at having your modified route and a copy of TS2009
I would share some of my modified routes, but sadly I don't have the screenshots anymore

KotangaGirl said:

Yes I got my free copy of TS2009 a while ago, but the free version is the final version Build 3.?... .

Click to expand...

TS2009 from N3V is at 3.3 - same as TS2010 SP1 or SP4 - one of the 2

Cheers

Thanks for that, I couldn't remember if it was 3.2 or 3.3.

My old modded route is a bit naive and a little twee in some of its aspects, but I was certainly happy to find it again.
Most of my old screenshots are on a different hosting site to the one I use now and I doubt that I could remember my login details if I tried to find them.

Night scene on one of the small branchlines on my TS2009 layout. It always seemed to me that the night was done better in TS2009.