Game or Train SIMULATOR?

It seems that the Trainz forums are more populated with graphic design than "railroad" appearance and operation. The DLS has a lot of routes that seem to exhibit a distorted view of railroading. Endless discussions of the latest graphic design tools, and searches for display elements. I see little to no information on how to place the stuff and use it. It seems that information is more available in model railroading sources.

So, I am grappling with a problem of "my railroad" being a regional in North Central Pennsylvania. I am assuming that it is fed with traffic to/from Philadelphia on the East and Pittsburgh on the West. Actually, there are several cities on both ends that may also feed it. My issue is getting traffic to/from these cities. The simple way seems to be to just assemble a train in my yard and have the other line pick it up, or deposit a loaded consist.. However, it seems that is not ever done due to an unfamiliar crew operating in my railroad yard.

The obvious, and possibly the only, approach is an exchange area near the yard. Portals are used to/from the other railroads via the exchange tracks. Is that true or are there other acceptable methods?

boleyd said:

It seems that information is more available in model railroading sources.

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To be fair, Trainz was originally marketed as a "model railroad builder," and since much of the community is now focused on locomotives and freight cars, the information about how to reskin, model, kitbash and etc. is more readily available than say how industries are placed.

To answer your question, you would want a medium sized interchange yard with an engine facility (shop, wash rack, fuel hoses, etc.) and a track to your regional railroad. This yard would be connected down the mainline by portals. There would also be a couple industries within the yard itself such as a scrap metal plant or simple industry. Have a couple dedicated drop-off tracks for mainline railroads to drop cars in, and a couple pickup tracks for crews to pick up cars. The rest of your tracks would be used for storing cars or building up a train to go onto the regional railroad. Having only a couple tracks for the mainline crews to use would mean they wouldn't need to be as familiar with the yard.

Hope this helps! Good luck on your railroad!

THANKS !!! Nice detail. This will keep me busy!!!

I've seen people refer to Trainz as nothing more than a screenshot creation program.

Unless you're into scripting and such, the simulator aspect of railroading is better left to the imagination in Trainz. AI does things that would get them fired in a real world situations. Signals and dispatching? What's that?

On the other hand, Trainz probably wouldn't be so popular if it wasn't so open ended. Simulators with rigorous operating sessions and steep learning curves usually get put into the dust bin for lack of interest or frustration. Sure, it would be nice if a small mistake resulted in serious real world like consequences, but most people wouldn't put up with that for very long. Being able to make up your own world and use it the way you see fit is a sure fire way to keep em coming back, time after time. And judging from the timelines here in the forum, that's exactly what happens!

Not that there is any lack of frustration in Trainz.

True. I wonder if real railroads lay track in the direction they want the train run. You know, so the engineers don't get scared of going the wrong way down the track.

I have continued my project and finally gave up on exotic connections to other roads. I reverted to the "standard" local road runs a 90 degrees cross over a mainline road and use loops for connections. Works.
Now, back to the yards and the adaption to the suggestions above....

I am using a payware route based on the town of Centralia, PA. where the coal mine continues to burn and the whole town had to be moved!

My Gloucester Terminal Electric route works similar to how you want your operation to be. I have two portals located on either end of the through mainline to represent the connections to the outside world. In real life, this Gloucester Branch of the former Eastern Railroad, later Boston and Maine, terminates at Rockport where there was a small reverse loop for the passenger trains and small storage yard. Today, that's a parking lot with a couple of sidings to store the commuter trains. In my world, Rockport is a big port with containers, long freights, and commuter trains. The opposite side, the southern side, is the connection to Boston. The through freights, controlled by AI drivers, continue on their way from Boston to Rockport, or vice versa. The commuter trains stop at West Gloucester and Gloucester and continue on to Rockport when coming from Boston and do the reverse order inbound direction.

Located in Gloucester is a decent sized freight yard and wye connection to the mainline. The yard also has a loop track to bring longer trains in and place to cut off the engines and store them near the engine house while a switcher pulls the train apart. Sometimes, I'll put a string of freight cars on the wye lead and do some manual switching in and out of cars on a through freight as if the train had orders to pick up or set out some freight cars on the interchange track.

Also located near the yard, is the repair shops and leads for the GTE trolleys that run under wires, thus, the "electric" part of the name. I have about a dozen AI drivers plying the route with their trolleys which run from Gloucester, where there's a stub ended line for the trolleys and station, to West Gloucester, or out the other way to Eastern Point, Rocky Point, Smith Cove, and other locations. The local freights share this trackage on their way to the small yards located along the route where they switch out industries and the docks. Also located on what I call the Mall Branch is a quarry operation. This small, switching operation bring its loads of blocks from the open cut mine located up on the hill over to a processing center where the blocks are shipped out cut up shipped via boxcars. Also on the quarry branch is a cement company that ships out covered hoppers of cement. This line runs alongside the mall which is located at the terminus of the Mall branch. There's a reverse loop at the end of this line as well as the carbarn for that end of the route where trolleys for Eastern Point, and that region are serviced.

With the AI going about their business, I'll do some switching in the yard and take care of the various industries and docks including the brewery and other industries located on what I call the Riverside branch. This operation can keep me busy for many hours and I have only had to intervene a couple of times due to one stupid AI driver which manages to race ahead and end up on the wrong track, so I need to do some investigating to see what's up with that particular driver.

Despite its bugs sometimes, faulty assets in newer versions, and crashes, Trainz is a better substitute for a physical model railroad when you don't have the money and room for one. And you can have much longer and bigger virtual routes, and there are also model railroad routes and a separate program which focuses on model railroad routes, TMR.

crazytrain said:

True. I wonder if real railroads lay track in the direction they want the train run. You know, so the engineers don't get scared of going the wrong way down the track.

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You know that is only so that when placing signals and other trackside objects, they face the correct way. Otherwise you have to manually rotate them one at a time.

martinvk said:

You know that is only so that when placing signals and other trackside objects, they face the correct way. Otherwise you have to manually rotate them one at a time.

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I have found though that this helps when laying double track to keep the bending from getting weird when aligned curved track. Having the track laid down in the direction of travel does make placing signals and other track objects so much quicker.