Route Building Tutorial

Aim - is to teach railroad enthusiasts the basic skills to build a railway route that can be operated in the Open Rails Train Simulator.

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Index

Introduction

Train Simulator Route Explorer

Route Building Tutorial Instructions

Route Building Support Documents

Useful References


Introduction

The Route Building Tutorial will guide you through the steps required to build a small railway route. The tutorial route will be modelled after a historic short branch line of less than 10 miles, between Matakana and Mt Hope (Australia). Building the tutorial route will allow you to practice your route building skills and to gain the knowledge of the different tasks, tools and actions that you need to build a route of your own desire.

During the course of the demonstration tutorial, the builder will undertake the following different tasks:

The Route Building Tutorial, including all resources needed to build your tutorial route and research information on the historic Matakana to Mt Hope route are stored in a resource pack. Download instructions for the OR Route Building Tutorial resource pack can be found in the Route Building Tutorial Instructions section below.

Train Simulator Route Explorer (TSRE) is the main tool that you will use to build the route. See the Train Simulator Route Explorer section below for more details and how to download and install the route editor.

The Route Building Tutorial assumes that you have already installed the free Open Rails Train Simulator game engine that can be downloaded from the Open Rails web-site. The Open Rails Manual is a great reference with instructions on how to use the simulator and to get an idea of all the features that Open Rails has to offer. It is recommended that you install and run the Zig Zag Railway in order to verify that your Open Rails installation is operating .

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Train Simulator Route Explorer

TSRE is a free route editor created by Piotr Gadecki (who goes by the name of "Goku" or "GokuMK" in the forums). The downloaded package contains a Route Editing Tool, a Shape Viewer and a Consist and Activity Editor.

TSRE Route Editing Tool

Notes

TSRE Consist Editor

You can assemble trains out of locomotives and wagons into consists with the TSRE Consist Editor. The editor can be started by opening the Consisteditor.bat file in your (C:)/TSRE folder.

TSRE Activity Editor

With the TSRE Activity Editor you can create activities (operating scenarios) for your trains. Examples of activities are: a scenario to operate a passenger train according to a time schedule or a scenario to pick up freight cars in a train yard and drop them off at an industrial branch line on your route. The Activity Editor can be opened within TSRE by selecting "Activity" in the TSRE Tools menu. This TSRE Activity Editing Manual will help you with using the Activity editor.

TSRE Shape Viewer

The TSRE Shape Viewer lets you preview tracks, roads and other static objects like trees, houses, stations, etc. that you can use to build your route. The shape viewer can be opened within TSRE by selecting "Shape Preview" in the TSRE Tools menu. The shape viewer can also be started up as a separate application by opening the Shapeviewer.bat file in your (C:)/TSRE folder.

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Route Building Tutorial Instructions

Download the Open Rails Route Building Tutorial pack. Running the EXE file will create a folder in the root of your hard drive called Open Rails Train Simulator - Mt Hope. Within this root folder there will be the folders needed for the demo route (Global, Routes and Trains) and a folder called Route Build Resources where you will find the following documents:

Route Building Tutorial Instructions (Compiled in collaboration with Henk De Jonge)

The example route "Mount Hope Railway - Example Route" is a basic unfinished demo of the Mount Hope route that you can use to practice your route building skills and study the potential outcomes. This route will provide all the resources needed when building your own route, per the instructions in the tutorial. The Mount Hope example route has interactive (moving) objects for demonstration purposes.

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Route Building Support Documents

TSRE Default Keyboard controls- v2 (Compiled by Henk De Jonge)

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Useful References

The following links will take route builders to forums that might by doing searches and studying might answer some questions that they have.

Trainsim.com Forum - Route Editor

Trainsim.com Forum - Consist Editor

Open Rails Forum - Route Editor

Open Rails Forum - Consist Editor

Goku's Forum - Route and Consist Editor

Youtube searches for TSRE

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