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Pepere
December 3rd, 2009, 11:14
What's the best train sim? I have Tranz 2006 but not running it now.

David

IanP
December 3rd, 2009, 11:17
There isn't really a "best" one, because they all do different things...

MSTS is still the most popular and best supported, but looks (very) dated.
Trainz is great if you want to run multiple or very long trains, but is basically a model railway sim.
Rail Simulator is still available, a bit buggy, but looks better than MSTS
Railworks is Rail Sim 2, a little less buggy, add-ons can be a bit expensive, but looks very good.

I'm running the latter, but it really does depend on what you want.

Mithrin
December 3rd, 2009, 12:10
Yeah I'm playing Railworks as I think it's graphically the best one around. It can be fun and relaxing!

Boomer
December 3rd, 2009, 12:11
I have most of them but give the nod to MSTS mainly because of the level of support & add ons. There are things I dont like about it but all around IMO it is the best.

Get it & join the VNERR (http://www.vnerr.com). They are a great group & I was a member for many years before giving it up.

runswithscissors
December 3rd, 2009, 12:38
Hi there, well I am learning trains and have a copy of Railworks installed , and I must say it is very good.

I find it to be quite relaxing compared to flying Heli's.

Doug :icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:

Gdavis101
December 3rd, 2009, 15:15
Railworks!

Javis
December 3rd, 2009, 16:17
One train sim blatantly missing here, blatantly because, atleast at two points it's the best of them all : BVE !

Point #1. : it features train physics and sounds which will have you shove all your other trainsims on a side track for quite some time....

Point #2. : it's free !

Ok, you can't view your train from the ouside, it's typically a 'cab view' trainsim. And the scenery doesn't look half as nice as with MSTS or Railsim/Railworks.

I'm not going to 'highly recommend' BVE for you to try because the physics and sounds will certainly make you enjoy your other train sims a LOT LESS once you have experienced them...... *IF* , by any chance, a new train sim will arrive at the shelves, something like MSTS2 might've been supposed to be, and it doesn't feature the train physics and sounds of BVE, personally i won't even think about buying it...

Mister Mackoy's brainchild shows what a train simulator atleast should *feel* and *sound* like. These two extremely important parts of any sim are still very much underrated in any of todays other train sims.

Well, all imho of course. :)

http://www.railserve.com/Computers/BVE/

( if you DO want to try it despite my 'warning' , watch out with downloading tracks, trains. There have been a LOT of versions, currently 4.2, and not all of them work with this latest version )


Cheers,
Jan

Pepere
December 3rd, 2009, 16:39
Is Railworks as easy to build you own rail systems as Trainz?

David

runswithscissors
December 3rd, 2009, 18:02
I am still at the bottom of the learning trail, but from what I have read it is the more complicated than building with Trainz.

Doug :icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:

IanP
December 4th, 2009, 04:12
Again, it's different than Trainz. MSTS, RS and RW all use a similar system for building scenery, which to be honest is a bit of an @&$£ and I can see why most routes come to nothing. I tried building a goods yard once in MSTS and without using XTracks (an add-on which provides more track options including a lot less restrictive pointwork/switchwork) it simply wasn't possible. I haven't tried for RS or RW, I'll be honest, I've just left it for those that want to.

I used to use BVE with a Birmingham Cross City add-on many moons ago. I went back to look at it earlier this year and although it had come on, it's still very limited, with very limited support. I wouldn't compare it to the others, because it's not really in the same range as the commercial packages.

It's a bit like comparing Flightgear (BVE) with X-Plane (Trainz) and FS9/X (RW). All have their fans for various reasons, but the only way you decide which one your favourite is is by trying all three. ;)

Wild Bill Kelso
December 4th, 2009, 06:56
What's the best train sim?

To be honest:
Nothing comes close to the real thing! :jump:

That's me some years ago, marshalling a steamer that came to visit my club:

Henry
December 4th, 2009, 07:09
I have always been a train nut as well as a mossie lover
both my Grand fathers worked on
the LNER i actually have a LNER clock on my wall
dated 1916.
I did get railworks
but there is not much for East Anglia
and i find it hard to do any new lines myself
i did try other demos
but railworks is the best in my opinion
H

IanP
December 4th, 2009, 07:21
Have you checked out UKTrainSim, Henry? I don't know if there is anything for East Anglia (whose drawing numberinng system is impenetrable and downright stupid) there, but if it is anywhere...?

Rail Simulator files will also work with Railworks apparently, but how well I can't say. I've not tried it.

Javis
December 4th, 2009, 07:52
I wouldn't compare it to the others, because it's not really in the same range as the commercial packages.

That sure is true in a sense that *all* commercial packages emphasize on eyecandy where BVE is build around real train physics and sound. Mind you, i LOVE eyecandy ( doesn't make you fat for one thing ) that's why i got most of the commercial train sim packages, but if you want to 'get a feel' of what it's like to drive a train, BVE is on top of them all.

With all commercial train sims you get the feeling of your train being stuck to the track, as if it was a monorail train... Can't get any more unrealistic than that, if you ask me... Only the wheels/undercarriage of a real train are stuck to track, the train structure itself rocks and sways above it because of the spring suspension. And that's exactly what you experience with BVE.

Mackoy makes that happen by letting 'the outside world' rock and sway about, just like what we see with a flight simulator. Not with any of the commercial train sims outthere alas..... it's all 'monorail physics' with a ton of eyecandy to make up for that.

It's 'taking the easy way out' imho, seems like nobody is complaining apart from the odd BVE aficionado..

Ok, i'll jump off my soup kettle and get my goat.. :)

cheers.
jan

Bjoern
December 4th, 2009, 13:44
To be honest:
Nothing comes close to the real thing! :jump:

That's me some years ago, marshalling a steamer that came to visit my club:

That engine and rolling stock looks familiar.

Similar configurations were quite a common sight in the GDR up until the late 70s. Technologically sad, but pure bliss for the rail fan.

empeck
December 4th, 2009, 20:50
I have Rail Simulator, doesn't work on Vista 64bit :kilroy:

I'll probably buy RailWorks in next month.

IanP
December 5th, 2009, 01:07
That's exactly what I was running it on, empeck, without any problems at all... I'm now running both Rail Simulator (using the EA Download Manager) and RailWorks (using Steam - how appropriate) on Windows 7 64 bit.

Wild Bill Kelso
December 5th, 2009, 01:16
Moin, Björn!

That engine and rolling stock looks familiar.


It should. :icon_lol:

This 52 8029 (built in 1944) is owned by a club originally based at Röbel/Müritz:
http://www.hei-na-ganzlin.de/site10a.htm

She came to visit our home in 2001, and of course we rode their track too:
http://mkb-berlin.de/bogen6.htm

michael davies
December 5th, 2009, 02:11
Moin, Björn!


It should. :icon_lol:

This 52 8029 (built in 1944) is owned by a club originally based at Röbel/Müritz:
http://www.hei-na-ganzlin.de/site10a.htm

She came to visit our home in 2001, and of course we rode their track too:
http://mkb-berlin.de/bogen6.htm

You cant beat a good Kriegslok for functionality and usability :), I saw some in the 80s whilst transiting the Berlin corridor, whilst steam is old and dirty the Kriegslok is a wonderful piece of engineering built to last with minimal maintenance, compared to the then current diesels in the GDR, steam was still a good viable source of motive power and lasted into the 90s I believe, even in West Germany it lasted much longer than the rest of Europe, certainly later then the UK where it was removed with indecent and expensive haste.

I think the Kriegslok class is the most abundant class of steam engine ever built if you include all the classes, over 13,000 I read somewhere, don't think that even includes the ones re gauged for Russia. Virtually every country occupied by German in WWII had a batch of Kriegsloks given to them as repatriations so they served far and wide through out Europe and helped many ailing infrastructure rebuild post war.

Personally I prefer the Baureihe 43 and 44 with their bigger boilers, much more imposing, I wonder if any one makes one in 7mm O gauge ?, would make a nice large model, not virtual of course but a nice piece of modeling none the less.

Regarding rail sims, I did a lot of work for MSTS a few years back under the Blue Arrow banner, it was limited to poly counts and used a dreadful 24bit, or less ?, color rendering system, you could work around the poly limits but the shoddy texturing made it hard work and ultimately disappointing to me, it was like CFS1 textures in FS98, there were work arounds but all just glossed over the fact that the graphics render engine was old.

Railworks looks attractive and post Xmas I'll take a look, like any game modeling takes time to learn but the render engine looks good and yes the dynamics might not be as good as BVE, its a shame BVE doesn't do outside views, I've been waiting for years for that WCML route to be finished, when done well the lighting in BVE can look stunning. For me it must look good and must sound good, the dynamics I can live with so maybe Santa will bring me a copy of Railworks, I believe that has the US content included these days ?, but it'll be the Euro stuff that I'm most interested in right now.

Kindest

Michael

empeck
December 5th, 2009, 02:13
That's exactly what I was running it on, empeck, without any problems at all... I'm now running both Rail Simulator (using the EA Download Manager) and RailWorks (using Steam - how appropriate) on Windows 7 64 bit.

I have Vista Home Premium 64bit. Rail Simulator out of the box runs fine, MK1 patch too, after MK2 patch it doesn't start at all. Funny thing, it ran perfectly on Vista 32bit (on the same computer).

Wild Bill Kelso
December 5th, 2009, 04:00
You cant beat a good Kriegslok for functionality and usability :), I saw some in the 80s whilst transiting the Berlin corridor, whilst steam is old and dirty the Kriegslok is a wonderful piece of engineering built to last with minimal maintenance, compared to the then current diesels in the GDR, steam was still a good viable source of motive power and lasted into the 90s I believe, even in West Germany it lasted much longer than the rest of Europe,

Quite right, Michael!

In the GDR "Reichsbahn" , the last regular steam engine service ended in 1988, wheras the last steamer of the west-german "Bundesbahn" quitted in 1977.
The Bundesbahn class 52 Kriegslok were struck off in the mid-fifties, due to severe boiler damages (some of those hasty welded boilers simply blew off...), but the east-german Reichsbahn couldn't go without them. So they were fitted with new high-perfomance boilers and some other refinements and were classified as 52.80.

With 52 8177, we have another survivor of this class here in Berlin, operated by another club, and this one visited our yard too:
http://mkb-berlin.de/bogena.htm
(guess who's this guy at the steamer's front spoiling pic #67... :engel016:)

michael davies
December 5th, 2009, 05:08
Quite right, Michael!

In the GDR "Reichsbahn" , the last regular steam engine service ended in 1988, wheras the last steamer of the west-german "Bundesbahn" quitted in 1977.
The Bundesbahn class 52 Kriegslok were struck off in the mid-fifties, due to severe boiler damages (some of those hasty welded boilers simply blew off...), but the east-german Reichsbahn couldn't go without them. So they were fitted with new high-perfomance boilers and some other refinements and were classified as 52.80.

With 52 8177, we have another survivor of this class here in Berlin, operated by another club, and this one visited our yard too:
http://mkb-berlin.de/bogena.htm
(guess who's this guy at the steamer's front spoiling pic #67... :engel016:)

Thanks for the info, I've got several books on German locos, mostly the Eisenbahn Journal series, I can hardly read / speak German (something I want to begin to learn next year) but the pictures are great as are the technical drawings sometimes supplied, I have to say that the German books are the most concise and detailed books in all my collection, far better than most UK or USA stuff, expensive ! bit for an engineer and modeler they're just excellent, sadly the only Kriegslok book I have is the EK Verlag which details the Baureihe 42 and 50 Crosti boiler variants. As an aside and you might know being in the railway industry as such, does the 95 use the same boiler as the 44 and some of the 01 / 03 types ?, it seems the builders decided on a pretty standard boiler pretty early on and kept to it.

Kindest

Michael

IanP
December 5th, 2009, 05:15
I have Vista Home Premium 64bit. Rail Simulator out of the box runs fine, MK1 patch too, after MK2 patch it doesn't start at all. Funny thing, it ran perfectly on Vista 32bit (on the same computer).

Yup. That's exactly what I was running before switching to Windows 7.

Stupid question. You don't just have to reset the graphics settings before going in do you? I seem to remember reading something about that on the forums at railsim.

Bjoern
December 5th, 2009, 17:35
Personally I prefer the Baureihe 43 and 44 with their bigger boilers, much more imposing, I wonder if any one makes one in 7mm O gauge ?, would make a nice large model, not virtual of course but a nice piece of modeling none the less.

ROCO has 43s and 44s for H0.
http://www.roco.co.at/index.php?id=130&Anfangsposition=27&artikelnummer=62320
http://www.roco.co.at/index.php?id=130&Anfangsposition=27&artikelnummer=62321

Back in the day I had a 56 series for TT. Got used quite much, but in the end I always preferred E-Loks.





This 52 8029 (built in 1944) is owned by a club originally based at Röbel/Müritz:
http://www.hei-na-ganzlin.de/site10a.htm

Noted for the next visit to the Müritz. Haven't been there in years.

Wild Bill Kelso
December 6th, 2009, 03:36
Noted for the next visit to the Müritz. Haven't been there in years.

You may get dissapointed!
Due to the fact that the track from Ganzlin to Röbel is cut off yet, only ruins and crab are left at Röbel.
Their active rolling stock now is based at Berlin-Lichtenberg!

@ Michael:
I completely agree to your judgement on the EK-Verlag books!
In my eyes, their releases about the specific engine classes are the best available, and we were proud to contribute some details and photographs of our Diesel-Kleinlok Kö 0128
http://mkb-berlin.de/details/mkb_01.htm
to their awesome book about the class of those tiny shunters:
http://www.ekshop.de/shop/article_00000217/Die-Einheitskleinlokomotiven-%3Cbr%3ELeistungsgruppen-I-und-II-%3Cbr%3EHorst-Troche-_-Peter-Gro%C3%9Fe.html?shop_param=cid%3D167%26aid%3D00000 217%26

Concerning the boilers:
The class 95 (former prussian classification: "T20") was built in 1922-1924 and their boilers were unique. They kept them (partially equipped with oil burners) until drawn out of service in 1984.
The later Reichsbahn classes 03 and 41 ('medium' 18t weight per axis) shared the same boilers with slight differences (such as sandboxes).
The boilers of the classes 01 and 43/44 ('heavy' 20t per axis) had much the same dimensions but weren't interchangeable.

When the GDR Reichsbahn started their boiler refitting programme in 1958, the boiler type "39E" was built to refit the classes 03, 39 and 41, a second type "50E" dedicated to the classes 50.35, 52.80 and 58.30.
A third boiler type "01E" was used to refit the 01 class, afterwards named 01.5. Although it was planned to fit the 44 class with those boilers too, high-performance Diesel engines replaced them in the heavy freight train services.

Bjoern
December 6th, 2009, 03:42
You may get dissapointed!
Due to the fact that the track from Ganzlin to Röbel is cut off yet, only ruins and crab are left at Röbel.

Dang!

Ah well, I still have Lärz as a place to go if I want to drool over old technology. I wonder if they still have their Su-22...


Their active rolling stock now is based at Berlin-Lichtenberg!

Lichtenberg...one of the creepier parts of Berlin. :icon_lol:

Wild Bill Kelso
December 6th, 2009, 04:04
Lichtenberg...one of the creepier parts of Berlin. :icon_lol:

:angryfir: Mind your words, mate! :173go1:
I'm living there... :d

Bjoern
December 6th, 2009, 07:20
:angryfir: Mind your words, mate! :173go1:
I'm living there... :d

"Uh oh" if Plattenbau; "fair enough" if anywhere else. :d

(<- Ex-Prenzlauer Berg and Treptow)

empeck
December 6th, 2009, 09:30
Yup. That's exactly what I was running before switching to Windows 7.

Stupid question. You don't just have to reset the graphics settings before going in do you? I seem to remember reading something about that on the forums at railsim.

I've reinstalled everything and now MK2 works fine :) It seems I had wrong version of PhysX installed.

I have to move to Railworks anyway.