Confused newby seeking simple instructions on using Trainz 2019

O

OldSARy

New member
I recently bought Trainz 2019 Platinum, having no past experience of any version of Trainz. I am finding great difficulty in doing basic things like knowing what I can do with the program. Can I only do anything other than the tutorials on driving trains if I find and download other people's work? I have searched the website but can't find step-by-step instructions on using the program.

I am reasonably intelligent, English is my first language, but getting into this program is like wading through waist-deep water. I have been using flight simulators for many decades, so I understand the concept of simulation, but the lack of documentation for Trainz frustrates me greatly, and, having read many forum posts, it seems that I am not an orphan in this matter.

Will someone point me to useful resources for total newbies?
 
A 2 second web search turned up this:
**********************************************************************
Where do I find the manual for TRS19
Posted by N3V Games (Zec) on 18 December 2018 03:06 PM
Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019 does not include a traditional PDF manual in it. Instead you can access out online wiki based manual by clicking on the 'File' menu on the launcher screen, then click on 'View online documentation'.

Alternatively you can access the TRS19 Help Wiki here.\

You can also access function/feature specific help by clicking on the '?' button on the top toolbar, select the 'Click An Object On Screen You Want Help With' option, and then click on the feature/function you wish to find information on. You can also choose from several other options on this page for help with Trainz.
**********************************

And, by the way, you are much better off starting with routes and sessions provided by others. You are trying to go from 0 to 100 mph immediately.
 
Welcome to Trainz!
I recommend running the tutorial sessions. They range from simple start and stop to more sophisticated braking and realistic controls. They even have one for steam. Be aware though that in the latest versions there are some bugs, including tracks broken near a tunnel that can cause derails, and there is one session where the brakes don't release until you use the "D" key to drain the brake pressure as you start out. This tip is not given in the tutorial because it is a bug.
 
OldSARy said:
I recently bought Trainz 2019 Platinum, having no past experience of any version of Trainz. I am finding great difficulty in doing basic things like knowing what I can do with the program. Can I only do anything other than the tutorials on driving trains if I find and download other people's work? I have searched the website but can't find step-by-step instructions on using the program.

I am reasonably intelligent, English is my first language, but getting into this program is like wading through waist-deep water. I have been using flight simulators for many decades, so I understand the concept of simulation, but the lack of documentation for Trainz frustrates me greatly, and, having read many forum posts, it seems that I am not an orphan in this matter.

Will someone point me to useful resources for total newbies?
Click to expand...

its a steep learning curve and the company more or less leaves on to ones own devices apart from the driving tutorials, if you want to get stuck into building, I suggest youtube ,there are some very good tutorials there, ones by a fellow Aussie Colin are really good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsRmMcAcGuc
 
Thanks for replies

Thanks for the various replies. I will persist with TRS19 for a while, but may abandon it if it gets too frustrating.
 
OldSARy said:
Thanks for the various replies. I will persist with TRS19 for a while, but may abandon it if it gets too frustrating.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forums, but don't give up so soon because there's so much to do here and so much to learn at the same time. Unlike a "game", this is more like a hobby such as having a real model railroad except in this case your model railroad can be a whole state or country if you want. There's no limitation, except what your computer can handle physically, to how big your routes can be. In reality, like a big model railroad, a route becomes a forever thing which can be changed and updated all without a mess. I once said to a friend of mine, also a Trainz user, who lives near me - about 9 km from me if that as the crow flies, imagine what it would have been like if we had something like this when we were kids!

Like you we started out as new users. That term newbie is annoying and almost derogatory! You're just a new user. One of the best things you can do is open up an existing routes and look at how things are done. Once you do that, create a blank baseboard, and then experiment. After you've got that, find a route creator you like and use his style as a mentor for your own work. You'll learn a lot about how to do things such as texturing and signaling, and all that other stuff that goes along with route building. There's a big thing to remember here. You can never break anything if you take it apart. If you open up an existing route that you downloaded for editing, you'll be prompted to save a new version should you change something. That new version now is assigned to you and no one else. You can now alter that route however you like, and if you get permission to do so, you can upload that to the Download Station, or as we call it the DLS.

This is in summary exactly what I did nearly 2 decades ago. I started with Trainz TRS2004 in December 2003 and I haven't stopped using the program since. In the end, don't be afraid to ask questions about how to do things. We'll help you with every step of the way.
 
I've been back for a few months and consider myself new regardless. Yes this is a steep learning curve but there is tons of information out there. Sure not every asset is going to work because it's outdated etc. But there is so much that works just perfectly in my opinion. Building has been a pleasurable experience.

My computer is down because I went to upgrade my graphics card and screwed up by making a rookie mistake. But being new in this if you can't do something one way there are always other ways and things to learn. To cover a manual on everything this program does and every asset is almost impossible. The Wiki is a good help, but it has it's limitations as well.

If the program knocks me down on the way I thought it should work, I simply find a way and move forward. Tons of potential.

Thanks

Sean
 
Another new user

JCitron said:
Welcome to the forums, but don't give up so soon because there's so much to do here and so much to learn at the same time. Unlike a "game", this is more like a hobby such as having a real model railroad except in this case your model railroad can be a whole state or country if you want. There's no limitation, except what your computer can handle physically, to how big your routes can be. In reality, like a big model railroad, a route becomes a forever thing which can be changed and updated all without a mess. I once said to a friend of mine, also a Trainz user, who lives near me - about 9 km from me if that as the crow flies, imagine what it would have been like if we had something like this when we were kids!

Like you we started out as new users. That term newbie is annoying and almost derogatory! You're just a new user. One of the best things you can do is open up an existing routes and look at how things are done. Once you do that, create a blank baseboard, and then experiment. After you've got that, find a route creator you like and use his style as a mentor for your own work. You'll learn a lot about how to do things such as texturing and signaling, and all that other stuff that goes along with route building. There's a big thing to remember here. You can never break anything if you take it apart. If you open up an existing route that you downloaded for editing, you'll be prompted to save a new version should you change something. That new version now is assigned to you and no one else. You can now alter that route however you like, and if you get permission to do so, you can upload that to the Download Station, or as we call it the DLS.

This is in summary exactly what I did nearly 2 decades ago. I started with Trainz TRS2004 in December 2003 and I haven't stopped using the program since. In the end, don't be afraid to ask questions about how to do things. We'll help you with every step of the way.
Click to expand...

Hi John, i particularly liked your comment "except in this case your model railroad can be a whole state or country if you want."
I have this romantic vision of re-creating a peaceful Germany during the Kaiserreich era with its beautiful steam trains. No massive rail roads, but rather single roads connections between the major German cities. A fantasy world with the grandeur of the Orient Express, yet running from e.g. Berlin to Munich, passing through wide country sides and forests, and typical German cities of the 19th century.
Is it possible to use a German country map as the base for such a fantasy?
I appreciate i maybe asking for the impossible, but i need to start somewhere, and your post sounded very encouraging to me.
Thanks!
 
HarleySnowball said:
Hi John, i particularly liked your comment "except in this case your model railroad can be a whole state or country if you want."
I have this romantic vision of re-creating a peaceful Germany during the Kaiserreich era with its beautiful steam trains. No massive rail roads, but rather single roads connections between the major German cities. A fantasy world with the grandeur of the Orient Express, yet running from e.g. Berlin to Munich, passing through wide country sides and forests, and typical German cities of the 19th century.
Is it possible to use a German country map as the base for such a fantasy?
I appreciate i maybe asking for the impossible, but i need to start somewhere, and your post sounded very encouraging to me.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

Not knowing what version you have of Trainz (you show nothing on your timeline), my general comment would be to start small--very small. Pick a sparsely populated area of Germany and create a route running through three or four stations. Say, a total of 40Km. You will be surprised at how much work it takes to create just that one route, so you can then estimate how long it would take to do something like Berlin to Munich. Then, there is the question of true-to-life elevation (topography). Do you use digital mapping to create it, or simply "wing it" with hand-created hills and valleys? A lot of work goes into every single kilometer of the route.

For example, it took 10 of us three and half years to do the 54 mile route of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Just laying the track took me almost four months.

Bill
 
You may want to check the German forum below, and sites like Trainz.de. There may be a route or two out there from that period. I have seen posts of vintage German locos and rolling stock
 
HarleySnowball said:
Hi John, i particularly liked your comment "except in this case your model railroad can be a whole state or country if you want."
I have this romantic vision of re-creating a peaceful Germany during the Kaiserreich era with its beautiful steam trains. No massive rail roads, but rather single roads connections between the major German cities. A fantasy world with the grandeur of the Orient Express, yet running from e.g. Berlin to Munich, passing through wide country sides and forests, and typical German cities of the 19th century.
Is it possible to use a German country map as the base for such a fantasy?
I appreciate i maybe asking for the impossible, but i need to start somewhere, and your post sounded very encouraging to me.
Thanks!
Click to expand...


I have a suggestion for you.... not sure if running a Model Railroad would be your cup of tea, but, I have recently released a period German MRR layout on the DLS, called KleinStadt Model Railroad
<KUID:521966:101076>

and it's accompanying session Kleinstadt MRR - Mixed Session with AI
<KUID:521966:101643>

The layout covers Era 1-3 as far as locos and stock are concerned. Set in the late 50s, early 60s, includes a mix of old/mid era German buildings… lot’s of Fachwerk (timber truss) buildings in town, and German suburban cottage homes. I have also setup scenes all over the layout that you can enjoy looking for.

The session has 4 passenger consists (2 steam, 2 electric) running a folded figure 8 route, in opposing directions, and 2 opposing portals emitting varying freight consists at 7 minute intervals. All use commands from a schedule library. Fully signaled layout with blocks.

There are 12 locos on the route: 10 in the roundhouse, 1 fast diesel shunter and one tiny yard tractor.
There are 24 pieces of rolling stock, of varying cargo types for shunting.

There is a fiddle yard, unconnected, mainly for building your own consists, and 2 display shelves for consists/locos by euromodeller.

If you're wanting to try it out, go here > https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...e-KleinStadt-Model-Railroad-German-period-MRR


Rico


 
I concur with the author. I bought this game in July 2020 and really its left me cold. I had Trains for a while and it had all the rolling stock I was inyterested in. Ive asked around where the Older Canadian Pacific engines might be had but nothing really pans out. . I think I have a platimum acct but dont know how to check that either. I agree that the developers leave you cold after the purchase. I tried to dl from them but I dont have time for a 4M/sec download only to leave it overnight to find it has failed sometime during the night. So I use the rolling stock and the layouts the game came with, which makes it impossible to play in the community. So Oldsary I feel your pain.


OldSARy said:
I recently bought Trainz 2019 Platinum, having no past experience of any version of Trainz. I am finding great difficulty in doing basic things like knowing what I can do with the program. Can I only do anything other than the tutorials on driving trains if I find and download other people's work? I have searched the website but can't find step-by-step instructions on using the program.

I am reasonably intelligent, English is my first language, but getting into this program is like wading through waist-deep water. I have been using flight simulators for many decades, so I understand the concept of simulation, but the lack of documentation for Trainz frustrates me greatly, and, having read many forum posts, it seems that I am not an orphan in this matter.

Will someone point me to useful resources for total newbies?
Click to expand...
 
HiBaller said:
Not knowing what version you have of Trainz (you show nothing on your timeline), my general comment would be to start small--very small. Pick a sparsely populated area of Germany and create a route running through three or four stations. Say, a total of 40Km. You will be surprised at how much work it takes to create just that one route, so you can then estimate how long it would take to do something like Berlin to Munich. Then, there is the question of true-to-life elevation (topography). Do you use digital mapping to create it, or simply "wing it" with hand-created hills and valleys? A lot of work goes into every single kilometer of the route.

For example, it took 10 of us three and half years to do the 54 mile route of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Just laying the track took me almost four months.

Bill
Click to expand...
Thanks for your swift reaction Bill. I have ANE, but i am so new to all of this, that i even don't know how to add this to my profile.
I really appreciate your insights and guidance about what to expect when someone like me has (way too) ambitious plans.
My intend was not to recreate true-to-life topography in a virtual world. Though i did intend to use an elevation map of Germany to have an idea of where the north east lowlands in Germany transform into the upper states, and finally to Bavaria. Then choose the major cities, the train would run by, followed by laying the track and finally add the scenery starting from the railway up to, i do not know how far away from the railway.
You made it very clear, i was too naive, thinking i could start all this by downloading and importing a country map and then "build the cities" and create the land and forests the train would run through.
I will take your advice to rethink whether i somehow can create this fantasy of a 19th century Germany that never really existed.
 
I started small. A simple, one-board route with a station in the middle. The board was oriented N/S. This is an important point when you create your routes. The initial startpoint is oriented E/W and you must manually rotate your viewpoint so it is the direction you wish. If you don't do this, you run the risk of starting a route and have no way to rotate it once you get it populated with content other than a highly-labor-intensive procedure. I also suggest you start with your altitude at the default value - 0.00 height. All measurements in Trainz are in Meters and the baseboards are not quite a Km square. Make it as detailed as you wish and, once you get it where you like it, save it and begin another one-board route with another station on it. When you get several of them made, then it is possible to Merge them into a larger route, inserting boards between your stations as needed. The merged boards would have nothing on them but tracks to connect your stations. You can add boards in any direction N, S, E, or W.

As an example, pick one of the stations in the suburbs of Munich and create it on a board, oriented in the proper direction. Populate with with all sorts of content adjacent to the station. Google Earth and Google maps will help you to add whatever you need--especially in street view. The reason I advise a suburban station is the Munich Hauptbahnhof is huge. I'm not sure if it exists on the Download Station (but probably does). Once finished, move on down the line to the next station and put it on a single board, etc., etc.

View distances can very according to the power of your Graphics card. Trainz settings allow for adjusting the "View Distance" so it will render items within that distance. In my current TS2019 installation, I have it set to 10Km. This is a huge distance and probably isn't necessary as content viewed at that distance tends to be nothing but dots on the horizon.

If you get stuck, you have a huge membership right here to give you a hand.

Shameless promotion: I have a route on the DLS named "BDS Shoo-Fly NS" and "BDS Shoo-Fly EW (T-03)." They are single board routes. Download them and take them apart to figure out how things work. It is a single-track that makes a detour (called a shoo-fly in railroadese) past a bridge being rebuilt. That's it. Just the one thing, but it could serve as a basis for travel between two stations as an added feature.

Bill
 
Last edited:
HiBaller said:
I started small. A simple, one-board route with a station in the middle. The board was oriented N/S. This is an important point when you create your routes. The initial startpoint is oriented E/W and you must manually rotate your viewpoint so it is the direction you wish. If you don't do this, you run the risk of starting a route and have no way to rotate it once you get it populated with content other than a highly-labor-intensive procedure. I also suggest you start with your altitude at the default value - 0.00 height. All measurements in Trainz are in Meters and the baseboards are not quite a Km square. Make it as detailed as you wish and, once you get it where you like it, save it and begin another one-board route with another station on it. When you get several of them made, then it is possible to Merge them into a larger route, inserting boards between your stations as needed. The merged boards would have nothing on them but tracks to connect your stations. You can add boards in any direction N, S, E, or W.

As an example, pick one of the stations in the suburbs of Munich and create it on a board, oriented in the proper direction. Populate with with all sorts of content adjacent to the station. Google Earth and Google maps will help you to add whatever you need--especially in street view. The reason I advise a suburban station is the Munich Hauptbahnhof is huge. I'm not sure if it exists on the Download Station (but probably does). Once finished, move on down the line to the next station and put it on a single board, etc., etc.

View distances can very according to the power of your Graphics card. Trainz settings allow for adjusting the "View Distance" so it will render items within that distance. In my current TS2019 installation, I have it set to 10Km. This is a huge distance and probably isn't necessary as content viewed at that distance tends to be nothing but dots on the horizon.

If you get stuck, you have a huge membership right here to give you a hand.

Shameless promotion: I have a route on the DLS named "BDS Shoo-Fly NS" and "BDS Shoo-Fly EW (T-03)." They are single board routes. Download them and take them apart to figure out how things work. It is a single-track that makes a detour (called a shoo-fly in railroadese) past a bridge being rebuilt. That's it. Just the one thing, but it could serve as a basis for travel between two stations as an added feature.

Bill
Click to expand...


Thanks a mil for this info. I will use it to my advantage.:D And i will certainly check the "Shoo-Fly" boards!
 
No problem. You need to go to the "My Trainz" menu item (top of the page) and register your game so everyone knows you have one.

Bill
 
I agree with the comments above. My learning experience was based on downloading a few routes and then taking them apart to see what made them tick.

The advantage of small one or two baseboard routes is that several can be completed within one person's lifetime. Mega-routes tend to become intergenerational.

I've done quite a few smaller model layouts. See, for example:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...l-railroad-quot-The-Port-Loleta-Railroad-quot

There are several more on the Download Station.

Enjoy your Trainz experience. It's worth the effort.

Phil
 
If you want to know about Trainz then I recommend the YouTube channel Approach Medium. Watch a some of his (more recent) videos and you'll learn a lot. I got a lot of what I know from him.

https://www.youtube.com/c/ApproachMedium/videos

Separately, I wouldn't recommend trying to build massive routes right off the bat. What works for me is I find inspiration via YouTube, Google Maps/Images, the Trainz Gallery and pretty much anywhere I can find a picture of a train. Then I build a 2-3 baseboard (the big floor grid square you start on) scene copying whatever inspired me.

And I'll warn you about something that happened to me; getting demoralized that my routes don't look as good compared to others. What I was building looked way worse than what I was seeing on YouTube, Jointed Rail and the routes included with the game. It's a hard rut to get out of but I'll tell you this; if it happens to you, take a break, keep building routes of your own (the more the better) and don't compare your stuff to stuff made by other people. That sounds SO cliché, but it's true. Have fun!
 
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