Some advice please-where to start?

BVM

New member
I have had a model railway for over 60 years moving from a very small room to much larger rooms and finally to half a small study. However we have now made our final (?) move into a retirement village and into a compact cottage, which is suitable in every respect except that there is absolutely no room for a model railway!

So I have been investigating options like Trainz but have no experience with such systems. So I need some advice and this seemed to be the best place to seek it.

1. I haven't downloaded anything yet so the first question is which version? (Cost isn't an issue as I sold my railway for several thousand pounds.)

I spent the last half of my career in the computer industry so I am confident with IT.

I have an Apple MAC desktop computer with a 21 inch monitor currently running MACOS Catalina and I have plenty of hard drive type storage as well as separate backup storage.

2. Once I have downloaded whatever, what is the best way to start-any tutorials etc recommended?

3. There seem to be a lot of add ons-are any of more importance than others?

4. I am not entirely sure how I would use the system, I have always been keen on operations so might in the first instance favour a yard with shunting type operations-are there any "layouts" already assembled that one can add on and play with?

My name is Brian and I have an engineering background and live in Hampshire in the UK.

Regards Brian
 
Hello Brian,

You've come to the right place if you want to recreate your layout in the virtual world of railroading. The current version of Trainz is Trainz Railroad simulator 19, or TRS19. If you want to do strictly driving with all the routes prebuilt for you there is a UK company called Dovetail Trains where you can drive several routes. However I don't think you can build your own. I've been with Trainz Railroad Simulator since the beginning in 2001 and have been happy. The good thing about TRS is you are not limited by space. The route I am currently working on is 160 actuals miles long and takes several hours to drive at track speed. I don't know anything about Mac computers, so I don't know what your specs mean. There are other Mac users that will be glad to talk to you about their experiences. I am sporting an AMD Rysen 9 3900x with an RTX 2060 graphics card if this will give you an idea of a decent computer for the simulator. It will operate just fine on lower end computers as well. You just have to set your game settings accordingly. I hope this helps your decision making process a bit. This forum is a great place to come together with other Trainzers to ask and answer questions and generally have fun.

Jacob
 
Your options are basically Trainz which has a lot of end user created content or one of the others that rely on payware. End user content varies so there are some gems on the DLS and one or two items you'll want to avoid. The DLS content is free but I recommend a first class ticket to be able to download at speed.

I'd go for TS19, it is very GPU dependant and Windows machines are cheaper for the GPU. Middleton for laptops or Middleton with canal, you'll find them on the DLS download the session, they will give you a feel without needing extra hardware. Be aware they don't have trees on them, trees are available but need more processing power. Middleton in particular is interesting if you watch the session. You don't see fly shunting often on a model railway. It's rare you see operating narrow boats on canals with operating locks on a model railway as well.

You don't say which time period or which region you're interested in.

Have a browse at http://www.trainz-carriage-wagon-works.com/ it doesn't have all the latest assets but it does list a fair few. jatws.org is mainly UK based but does have downloadable content.

Content creation can be interesting. You can start by repainting or reskinning existing items. For example borderreiver is interested in LNER so if you look on the DLS you'll see a number of assets that have been reskinned by him. Research as always takes up 30% of the time so if you have plans and photos you might well be able to coax someone into making something for you. Perhaps the biggest difference is numbers. In the model railway world a scratch built wagon is unique, in the virtual world it isn't unusual to see a thousand downloads which means a thousand copies are running around somewhere.

Currently LB&SCR seems popular, the brighton circle is a group that currently meets virtually and is into serious model railways, they also are quite happy to accept members who work in the virtual world. GWR has an enormous amount of assets available. EDH6 is currently turning out steam locos with PBR for TS19. You can search for his thread in the forum.

There are also groups within trainz that come together to create content etc.

Welcome to the world of Trainz.

Cheerio John
 
It is difficult to create a great looking route when you first start (and maybe never for some of us). Start by downloading some of Philskene's model RR layouts and sessions. You can modify then as you wish, or enjoy then as is. Work up from there.

Just noticed you are in UK. But advice still is good for downloading existing routes before attempting original design work.
 
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Welcome BVM! I too recommend trs2019 ultimate. The best place to start is probably the built-in tutorials. They start with simple start and stop, move on to signals, and include using realistic In-cab controls, dynamic braking, etc. There are more than half a dozen tutorials, most only take a few minutes to complete. There are videos out there for route building and as you get familiar you may find you can actually re-create your old layout in Trainz! That is fairly advanced however. All the help you need is a available, and great folks here on the forums for personal help. Again, welcome!
 
Welcome to the world of Trainz, Brian. I've been using this simulator for 18 years now and have mostly enjoyed it the whole time. You must start out with simple familiarization with the software, as in all new software. But once you get into it, the bug will bite and then the fun starts. As you are in the UK, there are an abundance of route featuring that geographical area. If you're interested in other places, real or imaginary, then Trainz is for you. We even have a great deal of MARSZ-based routes. Others have given you some usernames who build fantastic routes. Some come with the simulator as "built-ins," and others are able to be downloaded from the Download Station, or DLS. You should purchase a First Class Ticket, or download speeds will be in the 15-20Kbps range, while a FCT will give you megabytes per second speeds.

Nothing is more satisfying than re-creating a physical model railroad in Trainz. I've done it myself. Only, instead of making station stops every thirty seconds (usually to the same three or four stations) you can expand your own route to real-world distances. The best part of the whole thing is any route you can imagine can probably be constructed. Many third-party software suites, such as TransDEM, allow one to use geographical sources (Google Earth, web sites, etc) to generate accurate geographical areas from mountainous areas to the seashore, then populate them with tracks wherever you want to built them.

But, once again, walk before trying to run. If you get stuck on a problem, don't hesitate to come here and we should be able to help.

Bill
 
Hi Brian --

I see that my name has been mentioned above. I have several model railway layouts on the Download Station. This is the latest:

https://forums.auran.com/trainz/sho...w-gauge-model-railroad-The-Jenn-Erik-Railroad

To find others do a search of the Download Station with "philskene" as the author.

I do a reasonably detailed posting about layouts as I upload them to the Download Station. One or two might appeal to you, even if you do prefer UK themed layouts.

Phil
 
Welcome Brian to Trainz and to the forums.

Like the others here, I too recommend TRS19. There are multiple versions, but for most users the Platinum version appears to be best bargain with the included assets. Without reiterating what has already been said here, I will say that for me Trainz has given me a hobby that I can enjoy without breaking my bank account completely.

Trainz has also been my go-to place when things happen much like that trip up to the hobby room in the loft when things go a bit south as they say. When I lost family members, pets, jobs, suffered health issues, I powered up my computer and Trainzed the day away. I found it relaxing and as an escape as I worked on my routes and fiddled about with various projects.

I discovered Trainz in the early 2000s, but didn't have a computer to support it. Eventually, as time went on, I saw the program grow and then it went on sale locally and I purchased it after I upgraded my computer. I still have that copy today and it still operates if I want to install it from CDs. At the time I had a good-sized model railroad, but with a young nephew living at my house breaking things, cats, and some health issues preventing me from doing things with fine motor-skills, I found I was spending less time at the layout and more time doing other things.

My purchase of TRS2004 in December 2003 was well above and beyond what I could ever imagine. For me Trainz was a gigantic model railroad that only existed where dreams were made of. With its unlimited building capabilities, only held back by our imagination and our computer hardware, we can build empires as large or as small as we want. With that in mind, I started my first epic route based on my model railroad I once had running. This was a simple mill city to the shore with towns in between except this wasn't crammed into an L-shaped 3 x 6 times 2. This is a real-world representation of the area I wanted to model. The first go at the project was rather comical, but since nothing gets wasted except for time, I went about this a few times and eventually was able to get what I wanted. This is a nice virtue of this virtual world - there are no wasted materials. In the real model world, there's nothing like building something then have to rip it up. The track, switches, wires and all that gets tossed, and that doesn't count the mess that our family complains about. We don't like it, we can start again or throw it away and we only waste our time.

My humble beginning of four 720 x 720-meter squares set up to make my world come to life went through a couple of trials, but eventually it came together. This portion, along with a few others of this original route, still exist in my current iteration in TRS19. These portions went through some renovations and rebuilding, but the core is still there with another 190 miles of railroad currently in operation.

The thing is, Trainz is what you want to make of it. We're given the program to do with what we want. There's the Surveyor module where we build and edit routes, and edit sessions in the Session editor where we setup the operations and configure things. There's Driver where we drive and operate our routes that we created. Seriously, there's nothing like seeing our hand-built world come to life and to be able to sit in the locomotive cab and look out the window and see our world as we created it! For me, it was this that sent my N-scale model railroad to its plastic crates never to see light again. Building and driving sessions is only a small part. If you are up to it, you can make models, or even write scripts for various functions. The scripting language is a combination of C++ and Java at the same time. If you are familiar with these languages, I recommend taking a look at the scripting capabilities as well. This may become your hobby too.

Anyway, what I described here only scratches the surface of what can be done. With nearly 650,000 assets available for download, the above-mentioned First-Class Ticket (FCT), many third-party websites, built-in content, your own imagination, scripting, and 3d model creating, there's really no end to what can be accomplished with Trainz.

Anyway, I hope I didn't chaw your ear off and gave you something to think on.
 
Many thanks for the thoughtful responses to my questions I appreciate you all taking time to assist me.
Regards
Brian
 
Another welcome

There is a "Trainz Mac" forum section - I'm not sure if you can access it yet) - they will certainly help you with the Mac version of TS19 - and hardware assessment.

The PC version can be run on different levels of hardware/graphics cards - lower quality graphics for the less expensive machines.
I'd recommend a subscription to TS19 (or maybe TS22 available next year?).
The base game comes with a number of ready made routes - each route has a "session" which is a set of locomotives, carriages, wagons and instructions. One route can have many sessions.

You will want to have access to the DLS (DownLoad Station) using a FCT (First Class Ticket) - there's no limit to the quantity you can download and there's no speed cap (without the FCT you'll have a limit and a very slow download!)

The only problem I find with the DLS is that it includes all the content from the earliest version of Trainz simulator to today - hte quality of modelling has changed oveer the years.

Colin
 
I'm a hard core Mac user. However, I tend to use re-furbed Macs because I mostly do websites, text editing, and such and I don't have high hardware demands (such as video editing, etc) - I have three old 2013 iMacs and a MacBook Pro. TRS19 was my first Trainz game, I believe that was three years ago. After using TRS-19 on my old Macs for a few months I decided to go Windows. Incorporated into my decision was the fact that I also need a Windows machine for some work related tasks that needed to stay on Win platform. So I built a "mid range" gaming machine and I now run all my sims on it.

What model Mac do you have? (You mention a 21" desktop) - I can tell you after running TRS-19 on my Windows machine I cannot go back to running it on my Macs. The Mac's I have are simply not designed for gaming. If you read the Mac forum you'll see that great results can be obtained, but you have to "buy" a Mac with your game in mind. Reading the reports in that forum you'll see that the new M1 Macs seemingly can run TRS19 pretty well if setup properly. But the new hardware is out of my range of personal knowledge.

Also, if you are in to beta testings and such, know that beta updates and new feature always come to Windows first.

Also, learn the "Content Manager" well. Being able to smartly maintain your content is important.

As for "Content Manager" ("freeware", "DLS") consider some of the "philskene" (author) model railroad routes to begin with. Keeps settings on low and see how they run on your Mac then you can adjust settings and routes. Keep in mind that the routes are designed by users. Some builders concern themselves with CPU and GPU demands, some don't. Assets are all different also. For example, yards with lot's of tracks would bring my MacBookPro to it knees. Even at lowest settings I'd have a lot of stagger. Large maps would also be a killer when viewing the maps.

Again, Good results can be obtained (according to others) but you must have the "right" Mac hardware..
 
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What model Mac do you have? (You mention a 21" desktop) - I can tell you after running TRS-19 on my Windows machine I cannot go back to running it on my Macs. The Mac's I have are simply not designed for gaming. If you read the Mac forum you'll see that great results can be obtained, but you have to "buy" a Mac with your game in mind. Reading the reports in that forum you'll see that the new M1 Macs seemingly can run TRS19 pretty well if setup properly. But the new hardware is out of my range of personal knowledge.

[/QUOTE]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85)][FONT=&quot]3.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB

Trust this will cope?

regards
Brian
[/FONT][/COLOR]
 
What may give you the most trouble will be the lack of RAM on your video card. 512Mb is not a lot. I had 1GB on my Nvidia GT750 and it barely coped with T:ANE, much less TS2019, which relies on the GPU mostly for rendering. Now, if some of that 16G of system RAM is shared, maybe.

Bill
 
My core iMac: 27" Late 2013 - 3.2 GHz i5 - 24gb 1600 MHz DDR3 (ram) - SSD drive - NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1 GB.
As I said above, after running Tane and TRS19 on my Windows machine I can't deal with running it on this Mac.
Again I stress, my Mac's were not purchased for gaming.. The WIN machine was built with all "gaming" components. It's not a fair comparison.
 
3.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB

Trust this will cope?

regards
Brian

Unlikely it would run on a 512 MB GPU I'm afraid and the minimum specs were IMO way to low and are basically a slide show.

From here:https://support.trainzportal.com/in...ifications-for-trainz-railroad-simulator-2019

PC
Minimum:

  • OS: Windows 7 64bit, Windows 8 64bit
  • CPU: Intel i5 3Ghz 64bit processor (or equivalent)
  • GPU: NVidia GT 430 or ATI 5550 or better, at least 1GB dedicated VRAM supporting DirectX 11
  • Memory: 4GB
  • Hard Drive: 50GB free space
  • Soundcard: DirectX-compatible
  • Internet connection required
MAC
Minimum:

  • OS: MacOS X 10.12
  • CPU: Intel i5 2Ghz
  • GPU: Radeon Pro 555 or better with 1GB VRAM supporting OpenGL 3.3
  • Memory: 4GB
  • Hard Drive: 30GB Free Space
  • Internet connection required

Most of us are using at least 4GB GPUs many are using way higher spec GPU's.
Can't find a more detailed info hardware v performance for Mac but this breakdown for Windows will give you a better idea. TRS19 is massively GPU dependent, CPU is not that critical.

https://www.trainzportal.com/blog/view/trs2019-hardware-requirements
 
What model Mac do you have? (You mention a 21" desktop) - I can tell you after running TRS-19 on my Windows machine I cannot go back to running it on my Macs. The Mac's I have are simply not designed for gaming. If you read the Mac forum you'll see that great results can be obtained, but you have to "buy" a Mac with your game in mind. Reading the reports in that forum you'll see that the new M1 Macs seemingly can run TRS19 pretty well if setup properly. But the new hardware is out of my range of personal knowledge.

[/QUOTE]
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.85)]3.1 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 512 MB

Trust this will cope?

regards
Brian
[/COLOR][/QUOTE]


a GT 650M will just about run middleton for laptops. 3 D score is 1188 and 10,000 is about the minimum you want. Intel integrated graphics iris hits 2,800 for comparison. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
For what I think you'd like to do I think something of 16,000 would be reasonable. An RTX 2070, an RTX 3060 TI sort of thing. You can run it on a laptop but heat is the great enemy so I prefer desktops and keeping it cool will be the challenge.

pick up Middleton for laptops and TS19. Get a feel for it. Performance varies with the content you're running. Then expect to spend between £2,000 and £4,000 maybe a little more. The alternative would be a dell refurbished workstation, £500 then drop in an RTX 3060. https://www.dellrefurbished.co.uk/computer-workstation The downside is win 11 probably won't run on it and it depends what they have in as to what is available. It takes a bit of knowledge to work out if something is worth while but the power supplies are good and there is plenty of room of a GPU inside. One of the fancy nmve SSDs in a PCIe adapter helps a little as well.

Cheerio John
 
Option: just build a gaming PC and your whole gaming world opens up. Three years ago total on my build was around $1k. I did grab a used 1060-6 GPU from eBay (checked out the seller well) but that includes monitor, OS (Win 10) and all gaming components. I don't regret it a bit. And again, I'm a Mac guy. But so many games are not even offered for Mac.
 
Regarding pc specs:-
I'm using an i-5 4670k (3.2 GHz overclocked to 4.2 GHz & water cooled) with an RTX 2060.
That's quite happy running TS19 at high settings - the occasional drop in FPS if I get into complicated scenery areas.
My previous GPU was a gtx 770ti which managed medium settings quite well until it produced a multicoloured random pattern on the screen...
You can start with a mid-level GPU and upgrade later - hopefully when you prices & availability are better!
If you're building or customising a PC, make sure the power supply has sufficient output for later upgrades!

Two other notes:-
Running Trainz from a SSD is highly recommended - the program loads objects dynamically so faster disc reads increase the experience.
Add the Trainz program & data folders to your virus checker exclusion settings - otherwise every file loaded will pass through the antivirus software which will produce a slide show effect.

Cheers,

Colin
 
Thank you for the advice and comments on the hardware requirements.

As a newcomer and just looking at the Trianz site for downloads none of this information is readily apparent and I think I have paid for and downloaded stuff that will never run. Currently it hasn't even managed to install and I am in contact with technical support about that.

There is no way I am going to get a Windows machine - sorry guys!!

I may look into replacing my MAC as it is 6 years old otherwise I think I will be giving up on this.
 
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