Common Practice? Always Clone/Copy Downloaded Route

TRS19 Downloaded Routes

After a couple of months, I've started to immediately clone a copy, after a short review.

[sidebar: Naming convention is to take the first word of the Route and change the last letter to 'z,' and add 'Edit XX' to the title
(i.e., 'Quirkyland Short Line' would save as new Route 'Quirkylanz Edit XX'). Then the copy shows in the bottom scroll right after the original.]

Four different current forum subjects are related to this: "Can't just save session," "Layers," "Signals," "Value of UDS." I have not been trying to merge or modify or build routes, only making some sessions using portals, rules, environment, etc. I found that some routes would react differently, or so I thought, to simple session saves, so I make it a practice to start with a copy. Still learning how the program reacts, maybe not always necessary.

Any thoughts or finer points from the community?

Always a good idea to work on a clone when learning the ropes as is making backups of anything you are working on.

C_Blabsky said:

After a couple of months, I've started to immediately clone a copy, after a short review.

Click to expand...

The sessions for the route will not be useable until you clone and adjust them also.

Backup Backup Backup

Yes, have an outboard SSD just to backup the extra drive that has the data. (Nice NG stuff! props!)

Aye aye, SailorDan. Experimenting with modifying the built-in sessions was an early step in learning the process. Progress so far is the ability to make a little session that has a few consists and operates around a route; expanding into portals and seeing consists on route layers prompted me to just clone a copy right away.

If I decide to keep a downloaded or installed route for my use, I'll clone it and put my initials and date at the end. The Cotton Belt becomes The Cotton Belt --- 03-03-2020 -- JAC. TRS19 is good in that you can actually see the KUID of the route as well if you hover over the route icon. This ensures you are editing the right one!

To move over a session to a cloned route, oh we wish it was a bit easier, it takes a bit of cloning in Content Manager.


1) Find the original route and session.
2) Find your clone of the route and write down the KUID number. You will need this later.

3) Clone the session by highlighting and pressing CTRL+D (to duplicate the session).

4) Change the filter to Open for edit.
You'll see New Asset.

Verify it's the right one by checking the creation date of the new asset in case there's a few of them in there.

5) Right-click on the New asset, and choose Edit Config.txt file

This will open up in your favorite text editor. I use Notepad++, for example, otherwise it will probably be Notepad. Never use Word or Open Office because that'll add in non-text characters and all 'ell will break out!

6) Look for Username.

Edit the information inside the quotes like adding in your information as you do when you cloned the route. I sometimes add in a version number here too. Name-Date-Version-initials. ALWAYS KEEP THE SAME FORMAT, SPACING, ETC.

6) Look for Map Kuid.
7) Using Search and Replace, put in the original map KUID as selected and replace that with the one you wrote down. The reason for this is it needs to be replaced in two locations so it's easiest to do it this way.

Once the search and replace is done:

Save the config.txt.

8) Back in Content Manager, right-click on the open for edit New Asset and choose Submit.

Fingers crossed, there should be no errors. If there's a fault, check your work. In my experience, it's usually a typo in the map-kuid.

If successful, you have now matched up an original session, cloned, and lined that up with your cloned route and ready to go at it yourself without impacting or touching the original.

Note: This process only works for third-party or DLS downloaded routes. Built-in and Payware don't allow this unless the author allows editing.

Knew I could count on y'all to pitch in, with practices and explanations.