I have been a Model Railroader wannabe for ten years now. Collected a few items but have sadly accomplished no work. This year changes that. I am working on a small savings account for my bench work supplies and have purchased a few beginner books on N scale. In order to become better affiliated and familiar with trains and sit-ups prior to building, I would like to pick up a Train Simulator or builder game for my PC. There used to be quite a few out in the market but now that I need one, they are hiding from me!
Any tips for which one(s) to buy and where I can purchase them at would be greatly appreciated! I have windows 7 so they would have to run on that os.
If your goal is to watch 3-D trains passing through computer-generated scenery, then one of the Train Simulators is a good choice, but they will do nothing to help you prepare to build an actual model railroad (if that is your ultimate goal).
If your goal is to try out arrangements of track that will be enjoyable to build and operate as an actual model railroad, then you probably do not want a simulator.
Trainplayer is a program for MS Windows that lets you try out different layouts (your own and from a library) in a 2-dimensional view from overhead. It’s fairly easy to use.
Trainplayer is not itself a to-scale model railroad CAD (Computer-Aided Design) program. The track plans you may build in Trainplayer aren’t plans that you can build from directly But it does import files from a program called AnyRail, which is a moderately-featured and relatively easy-to-use model railroad CAD program.
If you build a track plan in AnyRail and run it in Trainplayer, it will fit in your room as drawn. If you build a world in one of the train simulators, it will have more interesting 3-D graphics, but will have no relation to what will actually fit as a layout.
I’ve not yet played Run 8 but I have played the others.
MSTS is the oldest of the bunch so there’s literally tons of content payware and freeware. MSTS has to be updated before you can play it though, to update it you must go to the MSTS site and get the patch. once the game is up and running you have some routes to choose from as well as locomotives and rolling stock. The two american routes are marias pass and the NEC. BNSF is on MP, and amtrak is on the NEC. I downloaded BN and pre BN stuff so my roster reflects alot of western railroading. The pack represented in this video I bought from belanger locomotive works and it’s the Amtrak empire builder set.
Trainz, is a good simulator I enjoy the Ipod version of the game quite a bit. the most popular railroad in the game for the US is ATSF, there is other north american stuff so you could make plenty of trains. the route building is by far the best and easiest of the three games. I was working on a freelanced western washington route before my gaming computer went down. there is also quite a bit of extra locomotives and rolling stock available on the web. the problem is you must ensure that they’re usable on TS12 or you’ll be unable to use it. the amount of rolling stock is amazing in the base game itself so you may not have to add more.
Railworks, is probably the best of the three I’ve played graphic wise. there are plenty of routes and locomotives available. the most recent US ones being a great northern Empire builder set(incomplete?) and marias pass. fair warning though, this game is geared primarily for british railroading. The DB is also another railroad included in the game. since the recent version came out uploading non game studio DLC has been pretty hard. you have to go into your program files, then the railwork files, then to the content uploader. from
As on of those “tech savvy guys” i hope i can help for once. For it to work you need more than the same operating system, you need RAM, graphic card and processor. If it was not designed to run on your current OS then there is Windows compatibility mode, but seven will run just about anything. if you could tell us the type of PC you run that could help with suggestions. there is also sights like this http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri just search for your game and the sight will spoof the game to test your machine
THLORIAN: Would be interested in reading YOUR EVALUTION of each of the PC simulations which you tried, as well as giving us your choice. Thanks in advance…JWH
Feast your vulcan squinties on the Steamlines Green River simulation which uses Microsoft Train Sim. Streamlines are add on packs that let you run trains that look like what the add-on pack offers.
