Trains in FSX?

[ryanbatc]

I was flying a freeware FTX airport scenery last night I noticed a static train on the railway. Would it be possible to animate these just like cars in FSX? Has anyone thought about this yet?

[dhl1986]

I'm picturing an A2A cub down low to the ground following a train through some detailed addon scenery... mmm.

Great idea, I have never even thought about trains before. Would definitely be a great addition to FSX.

[Dimus]

Bill Lyons had done that in FS9. An animated train on a given length of track to be chased by his excellent Travel Air biplane. I remember I have enjoyed that chase very much. After that I flew through a barn.:icon_lol:

[Francois]

Burkhard Renk made an extensive trains program for FS5, before he started MyTraffic ! And we had trains running in Lake Wenatchee from Richard Goldstein in FS9.

Nothing for FSX yet.

[warchild]

heh.. i bet a lot of us are now thinking it would be cool to land a plane on a moving flat car :)..

[Daube]

A train can be done. It's like the animals. In fact, they are AI planes that stay on the ground, but still they follow a given route.
Define a route precise enough to follow the railways, design a train as a ground vehicule, and you're good to go.

There's only one problem though: FSX, just like FS9, doesn't know anything about tunnels. So as soons as the railway (or the road) goes into a tunnel, in the game it looks like it goes over the mountain. Your train will probably stay stucked down in the valley, unable to climb.

[Sundog]

There's only one problem though: FSX, just like FS9, doesn't know anything about tunnels. So as soons as the railway (or the road) goes into a tunnel, in the game it looks like it goes over the mountain. Your train will probably stay stucked down in the valley, unable to climb.

If it's just a short route, you could make the train tunnel through the mountain by "flattening" the terrain where the tunnel goes through the mountain, then using the geographic data to make a model of the part of the mountain above the tunnel and model the tunnel through it. Of course, I don't know if you could put autogen trees on that, or if you have to do them manually and you would probably have to make different textured models for the seasons and then just enable the correct model for the season. It would probably take some work, but it could be done.

[vstudios]

Would be interesting to see a pilotable train in fsx

[Snuffy]

I've put my request in to the "former" ACES group and asked for a combined sim with fsx and train sim ... as a first attempt at their breaking into the gaming world.

Think we'll get it?

[Reddog]

I've put my request in to the "former" ACES group and asked for a combined sim with fsx and train sim ... as a first attempt at their breaking into the gaming world.

Think we'll get it?
They could do it but MS probably wouldn't allow them to use FSX.

[Wing_Z]

Aerosoft's Approaching Innsbruck has brilliant trains by Oliver Pabst (of AES fame).
This is from FS9 but if I recall there's an FSX version also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71eBY_uSCqM

[Thog10]

I'm picturing an A2A cub down low to the ground following a train through some detailed addon scenery... mmm.

Could the Cub keep up with a train??? :running:

[Bjoern]

There is a freeware scenery for Erfurt (EDDE) out there that has a moving tram. I think this was done with AFCADs and regular flight plans.

If one could add a new definition to FSX's highway system, getting moving trains wouldn't be much of a problem.

However, I bet that without any proper animations, seeing a 400m+ long train doing a turn is pretty hard on the eyes.

[noshadez]

I done some a couple years ago in FSX for Mission WW1 combat .. In that you can land on an old steam train car plus shoot and blow up the Big gun Hitler train.. I really hated that MS Train sim 2 got cancelled because Aces got laid off.. The whole sim was going to be based on the FSX Engine and would of been compatible with all developers who do FSX modeling and mission tool work...What a shame that Simulation does not sell as well as witchcraft/warcraft type games..Pilotable (railed) trains for FSX are out of the question unless you killed yourself with making endless angled hard surfaces to keep you guided..The best result will be for MS Train simulator 2 to be finished
Pics attached of Abacus mission WW1 combat and a pic off my own HO scale model Railroad in my shop

[ryanbatc]

That's interesting. I just think FSX could use more large ships in the Great Lakes and trains on the railways. That Innsbruck package looks really nice!