In order not to further hijack this thread about model railways, I’m bringing the discussion I started about virtual railroading over here. Sapo and Happy Wanderer asked me some questions about it, so I’ll answer those here, and also any other questions other dopers may have.
“What’s a virtual railway/railroad?”, I hear you ask…
It is to rail what flight simulators are to aviation. It’s a way to allow your inner engineer to be Casey Jones for a day. There are several different rail simulators out there, but I’ll talk about the most popular, and the one I use, and that is Microsoft Train Simulator, or simply MSTS as it is known in the rail simming community. This product was more or less abandoned by Microsoft about five years ago, and well, frankly, it shows. Even at the time, it wasn’t that flash, so it has a bit of a 1999 feel about it (although the official site is now saying there is a new one coming). But don’t let this put you off. The package comes with half a dozen or so routes, and once you’ve used these a few times, you’ll find they are pretty ordinary - however add-on routes provided by third parties are often, much, much better, and the same can be said for third-party trains. Some of these routes and trains are payware, but most are freeware. Some download sites have limits and require registration, but others do not. I tend to only run Australian routes, and my knowledge of US ones is a bit thin, but I can point you all towards some good sites.
This site has a huge library of routes, locomotives, and rolling stock. You need to register. It’s free if you don’t mind having to try over and over to get a place in the download queue, or you can pay for easier access. There is also a forum.
As you would imagine, this is as above, only British.
Steam4me
This is an Australian site, but even if you’re not interested in Aussie routes or rolling stock, I’d recommend this site for its excellent range of downloadable utilities and tweaks. It’s an easy download site with no registration nags or long download queues (though it is known to crash sometimes).
Now then…
In the other thread, Sapo asked if designing routes and scenery is easy. Well, I think the short answer is ‘no’. Long answer is: I am terrible at it, and I gave up early in the learning curve, however I have no 3D virtual modeling experience, and I just don’t have that sort of brain anyway. For the people who do it, they still find it demanding, but they get right into it and they seem to love it. It is possible to do this stuff with the set of editing tools that come with the main program, but apparently, most of the serious designers use other software. I’m not really up to speed on all that stuff, but if you look at the various sites I’ve linked to (especially Steam4me and the forums at UK train sim), the people there will be able to point you in the right direction. I believe somebody has even written a book on the subject.
Happy Wanderer, I’ve kinda already answered your question about where to find all this stuff. I’d recommend for you that after you install MSTS, and before you start installing add-on routes and trains, you download and install the following utilities: “Xtracks” (this is to trainsim what finescale track is to modeling, and some routes won’t work without it - the Microsoft rails are ugly), “NewRoads” (this is for enhanced AI road traffic - needed for some routes), and “MSTS-bin”, which is a major tweak to the MSTS code, and does a lot of great things to what is now an old program (be warned though - there are some issues with steam locomotives when using MSTS-bin). All of these are available free at the steam4me site.
And the inevitable screenshots:
At the controls of an American locomotive which is a little bit lost and is hauling a 5000 ton coal train to Sydney.
Driver’s view from a 1920s style (no, really) electric commuter train negotiating a set of complex flyovers.
Driver’s view from an evening suburban train
I’d post some steam shots, but my hosting service is misbehaving…
You can just run about in “explore route” mode, in which there is no other traffic, and no railroading rules, or you can use one of the many activities out there (or make your own, which is pretty easy). A typical activity might be running a commuter train and trying to keep to timetable with the signals against you, or hauling an steam train with your water running low, or even just marshalling freight cars in a yard. Every era from Stephenson’s Rocket to the Shinkansen is represented (the Channel Tunnel is fun). Driving steam is interesting - it’s a bit like sailing a boat compared to operating a motorboat in that it keeps you busy and you are forever adjusting strange, arcane little levers and such. Electric urban stuff is fun in its way - trickier than it looks, and the massive freight trains are probably the most demanding - and rewarding.
All in all, it’s a good hobby, and you can get into it for $10.
