it's always a good idea to see what other people have already done (as a reference if nothing else) so check out all existing workshop routes by clicking here. Have a look at the comments section for a few of the routes. It will give you a good idea of what is required if your route is to be successful and popular.

In order to begin building your route, you will first need to set it up. If this is to be a real world route in which you can use Google Earth data or other map references to assist in the process, you will need to know the Route Origin. This is expressed as the decimal coordinates in Latitude and Longitude of the location which is to be used as the focal point of the route.

First click on the Build button on the main page.



On the next screen, select the Route tab at the top and then choose New Route near the bottom right.



You will next see the New Route dialogue where you will enter some important information - Route Name, Route Origin (Latitude and Longitude in decimal values) and Ground Texture Set.



First choose a descriptive route name (you can change it later if desired).

Secondly, select from the list of routes available to choose the Ground Texture Set. This not only defines which terrain textures will be available to you, but also a whole range of other assets such as track type, signal sets, buildings, trees, road traffic, level crossings, turntables, traversers etc. It is therefore vitally important to choose the route which contains most (if not all) of the assets you wish to use in your route.

Lastly, enter the coordinates of your Route Origin. You will see these fields have now already been filled with values corresponding to the route origin of the route you have selected from the list. Unless your new route is in the exact same geographical location, you will want to change these values to match your own. Enter them carefully, and then click Create

You have just created your new route and are almost ready to proceed.

The World Editor allows you to start building your new route. It also allows you to expand and make changes to it at any time.

From the main menu, click Build.

Now select your route from the list and click Edit in the lower-right corner.

You can also access the World Editor at any time you are in the game and driving/operating a train (during a Scenario) by using the key combination Ctrl + E, then clicking the world icon in the upper-left panel.

Once you have entered the World Editor, you can use the following keyboard commands to move the camera (your point of view) freely around the route:

• Up/Down/Left/Right Cursor Keys: Moves the camera forwards, backwards and sideways.
  
• Ctrl + Up and Down Cursor Keys: Moves the camera up and down in the y-axis.
  
• Ctrl + Shift + Home: Moves the camera to 1 metre above ground level.
  
• Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse: Pan the camera view.
  
• Scrolling the middle mouse button: Zooms the view in by adjusting the Field of View.
  
• Shift + Cursor Keys: Speeds up camera movements (also works with Ctrl + Up or Down cursor keys as Shift + Ctrl + Cursor Keys).

Saving

Press the F2 key at any time to save your route. You are also prompted to save:

1. When you switch from the World Editor back to driving mode.
   
2. When you open or close the Scenario toolbox.
   
3. Exiting.

Press the Mode Switch button (orange Play Button) at the bottom right of the screen to return to the simulation.

Route builders differ in their recommendations regarding the sequence in which the product should be implemented. Here is my personal recommended order in which things should be done and added.

Constructing the System

1. Import All Terrain
   
2. Add the Water Decals (Rivers, Lakes and Seas)
   
3. Lay All the Track
   
4. Adjust the Terrain Along the Route
   
5. Add the Portals
   
6. Add the End Of Track Signals (Buffer Lights) - But Not At Portals
   
7. Add All the Roads (Including Roads With Traffic)
   
8. Adjust the Terrain Along the Roads
   
9. Add and Test the Level Crossings
   
10. Add the Bridges & Tunnels
    
11. Adjust the Terrain by the Bridges & Tunnels
    
12. Place the Station Markers
    
13. Add the Platforms
    
14. Add the Platform Passengers
    
15. Place the Siding Markers
    
16. Place Any Essential Destination Markers
    
17. Add and Test the Signals
    
18. Set Track Speed Limits
    
19. Add the Speed Signs
    
20. Add Trackside Objects (Fuel & Freight Points etc.)
    
21. Add Lighting Throughout

Test Everything (Daytime and Night-time) and Correct All Errors

Dressing the Route

1. Place Trackside Fences and Hedges
   
2. Place People, Vehicles, Clutter, Benches & Other Small Objects
   
3. Add Nearby Houses, Buildings and Trees
   
4. Add Middle Distance Houses, Buildings and Trees
   
5. Add Distant Houses, Buildings and Trees

Finishing

Create and Test the Quick Drive Scenarios

Before you start to build anything for the Steam Workshop it is vital that you are familiar with the next 6 sections of this guide: -



Steam Workshop Requirements - unless you know this, you could waste lots of effort.

Backing Up Your Route Folder - to safeguard all your hard work.

Using the F2 Key Regularly - to save changes while you edit.

Enabling Automatic Backups - to recover from track corruption glitches.

Publishing Your Route Updates - to enable recovery from complete disaster.

Importing Terrain Data - if you don't do this first, you may have to start from scratch.


You will hopefully save yourself so much trouble later on if you are familiar with these before starting to build your route.

If you wish to publish your route to the Steam Workshop it MUST contain ONLY assets which have been made available via the Steam Store.

If your route contains any 3rd party assets, either created by yourself or downloaded elsewhere, and if these assets have not been made available via Steam, then your publishing attempts will bring up the error message "unrecognised blueprint" which will identify the name of the asset folder(s) in question - and you will not be able to publish your route.



So please, if you wish to publish to the Steam Workshop, do not waste any precious time creating custom station name boards or buildings for use in your route. You will not be able to use any of them.

The workaround is to use assets available from the game to achieve what you want. Sometimes you will need to use assets from several existing Train Simulator routes or official DLC in order to fulfill all your needs.

As an example, my route Hampshire Lines - Steam Era uses assets from 4 items of DLC. I list them here along with the reasons why I had to include them : -

• Riviera Line in the Fifties: Exeter - Kingswear Route Add-On
  - needed for the semaphore signals
  
  
• Woodhead Route Add-On
  - needed for the 1950s animated road vehicles and platforms
  
  
• Doncaster Works Route Add-On
  - needed for the traversers at Eastleigh loco works and freight yard
  
  
• Portsmouth Direct Line: London Waterloo - Portsmouth Route Add-On
  - needed for the 3rd rail asset, as well as various buildings and other useful items

Using assets from any Steam routes or add-ons will require subscribers to your published route to own that same DLC. It is therefore important to limit your route's use of items of DLC as far as possible.

Don't bother to include locos - scenario-makers can add these as and when required.

When building a route, things can sometimes get very messed up - even for an experienced route-builder. Even if that does not happen, a sudden crash to desktop, game freeze, out of memory error or other glitches can suddenly throw you out of your edit session - losing you all your most recent edits.

There are 5 great ways to protect your work.

1. Backing up your route folder regularly

2. Using the F2 key regularly while route editing.

3. Enabling automatic backups of any changes.

4. Publishing your 'Work in Progress' route regularly.

5. Running the World Editor in 32-bit when using the smooth gradient tool on trackwork.

These are described in more detail in the next five sections.

Back up your route folder every session before you start editing - and keep the backups for at least the last 5 sessions.

First, find out how your route folder is identified by the programme. Go to Build, Route and select your route. The information box on the right will state your route's folder identification. It should be a long string of letters and numbers with dashes inside. Familiarise yourself with this string, as you will need to be able to recognise it.

Then find the folder on your computer. It is inside the Railworks directory under Content > Routes.

Make a backup (copy and paste the folder) regularly.

I generally keep the backups in the Routes folder itself alongside the original, but it is also a good idea to keep copies on a removable drive.



If your route is really messed up, for whatever reason, simply go to the Routes folder, find your route and rename it by adding "-bad" at the end of the filename. Then take the most recent backup copy and rename it by removing the "- Copy (n)" part at the end so its name matches the original. Then reload the program and your route will be restored to what it was at the end of the previous session.

While editing, regularly press the F2 key to save changes to your route. I normally do this after any significant editing or complicated track work. It only takes a second and is a real life-saver. This is the pop-up dialogue box you will see in the centre of your screen. Press Yes.



If things go disastrously wrong, leave the edit session and start again from the last save. In this case, do not press the F2 key to save or attempt to exit normally by pressing the Play arrow because the system will force you to save changes to the route and you don't want to do this. Do not answer OK to this dialogue. Press Cancel.




Instead, after an editing screw-up, simply press CTRL+ALT+DEL and use the task manager to close the program. Then restart the program and carry on where you left off.

Enable automatic backup of changes to your route. This is especially important for the tracks.bin and track tiles. You can do this by adding the following command to your launch options: -

--enable-backups

Please note the double dash at the beginning (--)



If your prefer launching your game from a desktop shortcut, you will need to add it to the end of the Target window in the properties flyout.




Now, even if you do not make complete backup copies of the entire route, at least regular backups of any changes are taken - including the tracks.bin and track tiles.

The current versions are located in the Networks folder inside your route folder, and your backups will be saved in the backups folder under your main Railworks folder.



In particular, the tracks.bin file is probably considered the most important file of a route. This file contains all the data of the track as well as all objects linked to the track. These include (but are not limited to) Signals, Speed Signs, Platform and Siding Markers, etc.

The idea of publishing your route when it is nowhere near finished is not such a bad plan. So long as you have a length of track on which trains can run, properly signalled, with a couple of stations along the way, you should be able to publish it as a 'work in progress' (WIP) for others to try out.

The great advantage of doing this regularly while route-building may not be so obvious, but it is fantastic if you ever need to recover from a complete disaster - such as a hard disk failure, house fire or whatever.

All you need to do is subscribe to your own route, and the published version will overwrite what you have on your computer. Remember to unsubscribe afterwards.

As a matter of interest, if you look on your published WIP route's workshop page and select the tab marked 'Change Notes,' alongside every single update to your route you will see a link saying 'Revert to this version.'

So, if your published WIP route needs to revert to the way it was at any time when you updated it in the past, it can be done.

More details on publishing your route can be found later in this guide.

There are times when I would strongly advise running the World Editor in 32-bit. This is when you are using the Smooth Gradient tool on trackwork.

Simply put, there seems to be an issue which sometimes causes corruption of the tracks.bin file when the height of previously laid trackwork is adjusted - especially when smoothing out changes in track gradient using the 'Smooth Gradient' tool.

The issue can cause vast sections of track throughout your route to undergo unintended changes in height - either disappearing underground or floating in mid air. If this happens you will have to restore things from an earlier saved copy of your route.

I don't know the specific cause of this, but I have been told that the 32-bit version of the World Editor is more robust, and it is therefore a good idea to use 32-bit whenever changes of this sort are being made.

If your route is to be based on a real location, before you start it is a good idea to import terrain data so that any track or buildings you subsequently add will be placed at the correct elevation.

The terrain data is normally a series of .hgt files which are placed in a folder called SRTM which in turn is inside a folder called DEM which in turn is inside your RailWorks folder.

So your data will need to be placed be in something like :-
Program Files (x86) > Steam > steamapps > common > RailWorks > DEM > SRTM



If DEM and SRTM do not yet exist, you will have to create them.

The .hgt files you need are specific to the area in which your route is located.

As an example, for the Hampshire Lines route, the .hgt files were obtained from

UKTrainSim[members.uktrainsim.com]

After the .hgt files have been downloaded and placed in the SRTM folder, you can go into the world editor and import your terrain. Make sure you cover the entire route and ensure there are no gaps or holes.

You should only have to do this once for any new route, so make sure you check it carefully afterwards. It is difficult to correct any mistakes later on.

To import your data, select the terrain menu and choose the Import tool: -



The import dialogue box will pop up in the centre of your screen: -



Here you can choose the size of the grid to import. Personally I opted for the largest (19x19) and SRTM to match the type of data. Once this was done I moved around the route to discover how much area had been covered in the first import. Then I moved to the parts which had not changed in height and repeated the operation until the entire route had been covered - plus plus.

CTRL-G

If you are building a route based on a real life railway line, you will want to use the Google Maps Overlay. This projects an image of the satellite image over your route's terrain, corresponding to the route origin co-ordinates you entered when setting up your route.

To enable this feature in Train Simulator, you must obtain an API key from Google, which you then need to enter into the relevant box in the main settings menu.

Note: Although technically this is classed as a 'Paid Service,' in practice I regard it as free. I have been using it extensively for route building for more than 5 years (liberally and without hesitation) and I have never exceeded the very generous quota, nor have I been charged even one cent.

Dovetail Games have instructions on how to get the API key and set it up.

Obtaining and Setting the Google Maps API Key [dovetailgames.freshdesk.com]

You can also go straight to the Google Maps Static API page and get started

Maps Static API Guide [developers.google.com]

Once it is set up, you will be able to toggle the overlay on and off in the world editor simply by pressing CTRL-G

You can always change the configuration of your map overlay via the main setting window. Choose Tools and then Google Maps



Then configure the settings to suit your needs. Here are the ones I use. The top API key has been blocked out with blue colour here. Never share it with anybody.



The zoom level is set via the slider. There are 9 possible positions. I set mine at position 7.

Let's see it in action. Here's a scene in the editor.



As you can see, we already have some of the basic scenery in place, but we need to add more. So we press CTRL-G to enable the Google Maps Overlay. A set of spinning blue circles comes into view, then each is replaced with an image of the ground beneath.



Now we can see the way it actually looks in the real world. After adding a few terrain features, dirt roads, trees and farm buildings etc. we can disable the overlay again by pressing CTRL-G again to toggle it off. Make sure you finish reading the remainder of this Setup section before you start route-building.

Here's a video to show what it's like using CTRL-G in the editor.

https://youtu.be/ibDWFXfETck?si=YhY_041CsLV_ISvU

The World Editor screen has tooltips which appear over various menu item icons when your mouse cursor is hovering over them, To see these labels, you must first enable "hints" in the settings before entering the World Editor. Go to settings in the Train Simulator main screen (top right) and then select Gameplay and tick the box marked "hints."

When you first create your route, you will be asked which official route it is to be based on. This will determine the starting point (longitude and latitude), weather, terrain textures, signalling system, track rules etc., etc., as well as the default set of assets which come with that route. It is therefore wise to base your route on one which contains most of the assets you wish to use to build your new one,

There will be times, of course, when you wish to use some extra assets which cannot be found in the one upon which your route is based. It could be a set of buildings, a type of road or bridge. If so, you might know of another official piece of DLC (a route or other add-on) which contains just what you need. If you already own this DLC, you can enable it for your route by using the Object Set Filter: -




Clicking on the little blue box (highlighted above in yellow) will bring up a provider drop-down list on the upper right of your screen: -




Click on the drop-down arrow to see the list of all providers of stuff you own: -




Scroll down this until you find the provider you want and select it. In this case I am looking for the Woodhead Route for which the provider is RSC (the old provider name used by DTG). Dovetail Games (DTG) is a trading name of RailSimulator.com Ltd (RSC)




Now we see the list of all DLC which we own which was provided by RSC, and right down near the bottom we see Woodhead. So we click on that and place a check mark inside the boxes next to it. We can only tick the box on the left and the one on the right. (The centre box is used when we want to enable DLC for a particular scenario only, and so cannot be selected here).

When we have done this, we will see the extra assets we require available in all our menus.

The assets have now been enabled. Just remember that if you wish to publish your route to the Steam Workshop, any assets you enable must be official DLC available via Steam - and also bear in mind that if anyone wishes to subscribe to your route, they will need to own that DLC also, as well as the official route upon which your route is based.

The Out of Memory Error can have a big impact on your route building project - particularly if it occurs before you have saved your work.

The issue can be tackled in various ways, and all can work together to help prevent the error occurring.

1. Enabling Your Dedicated Video Card
   
2. Using Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling
   
3. Adjusting the Windows Paging File
   
4. Automatically Clearing the Paging File on Shutdown.
   
5. Clearing the Cache
   
6. Verifying the Integrity of Game Files
   
7. Turning Windows Game Mode Off
   
8. Dealing With Corrupted Workshop Files
   
9. Closing Memory-hungry Background Programs

There is a separate guide dealing with this:

Fixing the Out of Memory Error

Scenery object Detail Level is perhaps the most important aspect of route building. You must ensure that the detail level of each and every essential object you place in your route is set to a high enough level for that object to be visible to the average player.

Make sure you set the detail level to 10 for each essential object you place in the route.

You place a scenery object by selecting it from the menu, moving the mouse cursor to the position where you want the object to appear, and then left clicking the mouse. What you may not realise is that the editor is designed to set a random detail level for each object placed. That means it may have been given a detail level of 10 (the highest) or it may have any value down to a minimum of 1 (the lowest). The next time you place an identical object, the editor may decide to give it a completely different detail level. After placement, you can change the detail level of the object and raise it to a maximum of 10. But needing to do this is a nuisance, so why does it happen?

The density range of an object (maximum and minimum) is set in the Blueprint Editor when the object is first imported into the game. This is done to help users with less powerful computers enjoy the game without suffering too much of a performance hit by loading all the assets. The default max and min values are 10 and 1, but whoever creates the 3D model and imports the object into the assets folder may (if they so wish) narrow the range to within different limits (say 10 and 8). A player can set the level of scenery detail (or scenery density) desired in the main settings menu. The trade off, of course, is that any players with detail levels set at anything less than maximum will not see all the scenery objects the route contains. Perhaps the worse part about all this is that when users first install the game, the default level for scenery detail level (or scenery density) is somewhere in the mid-range - meaning that unless they change it they will be missing some of the in-game scenery items.

There are two main scenery detail level settings which need to be changed. One is found in the main menu settings, and the other is in the editor. The setting in the main menu governs what you as a player see in-game, and the setting in the editor governs what you as a route builder see in the editor. You should set both of them to the maximum level of 10.

Here is the main settings menu. Click on the Graphics button and then choose Advanced.



Then adjust the amount of scenery shown. It's called Scenery Density. Just slide it all the way to the right. Then click Save.



In the editor, the level is not called Scenery Density - it is called Detail Level but it means the same thing. Make sure it is at the maximum level of 10.




What you will now see in the editor when building is the complete set of all scenery objects placed. This will also be seen in-game by all those players who have their main scenery density setting at maximum.

Here's an example of a scene with all the objects visible in the editor. We can see everything because the orange Detail Level slider is over to the right at position 10.



But if we move the orange slider to the middle, say at position 5, some of the items will not be rendered and will disappear. In the next picture the wooden steps the the platform have gone. So has one of the people bathing in the sea.



If we wanted the steps to always be visible no matter what, we could change that individual object's detail level to 10. We shall see how to do this next.

Suppose we placed a farmhouse in the scene.




We place it and double-click on it to bring up its properties dialogue box.



A closer look will show that its detail level is set at 7. We can increase it here if we wish.




This will be fine for most players. It will be visible so long as their main scenery density level is set to about 4 or higher.

We place another farmhouse.



This time when we double-click it to bring up its dialogue box, we see the editor has decided to give it a detail level of only 6.




In this case, the house will only be visible to those players who have their main scenery density level set to 5 or higher, so those who have it set to 4 will say it is missing.

For route building, I strongly advise making sure that all scenery objects have their detail levels set to at least 6 or higher. Certainly all essential track side scenery objects should have a detail level of 10 and other non-essential but important track side objects should be set at 7 or higher.

TAB while placing

From the asset menu, select the object that you wish to place and hold it over the track. Then press the TAB key and the object will align directly in the centre of the track. Release the TAB key and the object will stay correctly aligned. Left click to place it down. You can then adjust its position as desired.

Here's a short video clip to show how it's done

https://youtu.be/gHhRQs85QBE

Align tool, select A, select B

Suppose you have placed a house or other object at one end of a straight road and have lined it up nicely at the correct angle to the road. You may then wish to place extra houses or objects of various kinds all along the the street. Naturally you probably wish to have these extra houses and buildings all lined up in the same way. The problem is that each time you place one of these items, its orientation will be the default decided by the game - not the one you want.

This is how you line them up using the Align tool: -

1. Click on the Align tool
   
2. Select the newly placed house or object (you will see a red line coming from it)
   
3. Click on the original correctly aligned house or object

The newly placed house or object will automatically rotate to be aligned with the original.

Here's a short video clip to show how it's done

https://youtu.be/eL0HEkwzSR4
It may be that one or more of the newly aligned houses or objects need their orientation adjusted by 90° or perhaps 180°. Fortunately there is an easy way of doing this, as described below.

CTRL while rotating

If you wish to rotate a placed object through 90° or 180° (or any other angle) there is an easy way of doing it.

When rotating an object, hold down the CTRL key. The object will then be rotated in small jumps (the default is 18°), allowing you to adjust its alignment by precise angles, including 90° or 180°.

The incremental angles are governed by the angular rotation box at the bottom of the edit screen: -

There are times when you will wish to make copies of an asset, such as a house, and make the copy perfectly aligned with the original. If you use the copy and paste method, it will not be perfectly positioned. Use the SHIFT-Align method instead.

Press and hold the SHIFT key and click the Align Tool. Do not release the SHIFT key yet.

Now click on the object and you will see a red line appear. Click on it again to create the copy on top of the original.

Release the SHIFT key.

Now when you select the object again and move or rotate it, the copy will remain in place exactly where the original was positioned.

Here's a video to show how it's done.

https://youtu.be/2CtahYtbzvE?cc_load_policy=1

Mouse Selection Filtering

Sometime you want to select an object but, despite your mouse cursor being placed correctly, a nearby object is selected instead. No matter what you do, you cannot select the object you want.



As you can see from the above picture, I want to select the red telephone box and remove it from the forest but whatever I do the surrounding trees get selected instead.

Fortunately there is a solution.

Mouse Selection Filtering
The keys S, T, R, L and E, and the number keys 2 - 8 when held while hovering the mouse over a potential selection filter to a category or choose an alternate selection.

Usage
Right-click to clear any current selection,
then before left clicking: -

• Hold S for just Scenery selection, all lofts roads and track will be ignored.
  
• Hold T for just Track selection
  
• Hold R for just Road selection
  
• Hold L for just Loft selection
  
• Hold E for other special Editor items, like tunnel hole decals, tunnel occlusion volumes, track markers etc.
  
• Hold 2 - 8 to filter the scenery selection to the nth selection, for example while hovering over 2 overlapping groups of bushes if only 1 is ever being highlighted holding key 2 will highlight in yellow the second selection and left clicking with 2 should pick the correct object.

So in this case pressing the number "3" while selecting did the trick.



The red telephone box has been successfully selected and can now either be moved or deleted.


But there are times when some objects still refuse to be selected. A case in point is the notoriously stubborn and difficult "dog" asset.



In the above picture we see the dog happily standing amidst the trees, refusing to be selected.



We can try zooming in as close as we like but it still makes no difference, even when we hold down some number keys while left clicking it. I have seen some references in the forum to instances when the dog is placed but then cannot be selected or deleted. Some people even resorted to using TS-Tools to remove the dog. But this is not necessary. This is the solution.

Simply hold down one of the number keys between 2 and 8 and then select the dog by placing the mouse cursor next to it and dragging it a little way to form a white circle around it.



When you release the left mouse button the dog will have been selected successfully.



Now we can either move or delete the dog as we see fit.

In this next picture we see the dog approaching a sheep on a road. We want to move him a little bit closer to the sheep.



But when we try to select the dog, we merely succeed in selecting the road.



Because the dog is on top of the road, we need to use the "S" key on order to select it.

But holding down the "S"key while left-clicking the dog does not work, so we need to do our trick of holding the "S" key while placing the mouse cursor at the feet of the dog and dragging it a little way to form a small white circle around two of the legs.





When you release the left mouse button the dog will have been selected successfully.





The dog can now be moved and re-positioned closer to the sheep.





Now you can place and move that mutinous dog with complete confidence.

Other stubborn and difficult-to-select assets can be dealt with in a similar fashion.

Sometimes, of course, you may have to move something out of the way temporarily. Here we see the naughty dog, whom I shall call Jasper, has wandered across the tracks of a turntable and is refusing to be selected. This is particularly annoying because the turntable is on top of a tunnel hole decal.



In this case we use selective mouse filtering to move the decal structure out of the way in one go, select and remove the dog, and then move the decal structure back again.

1. Hold the '3' key down to let the mouse select the tunnel hole decal structure and move it.
   
2. Hold the '3' key down and drag near the dog to select and delete it.
   
3. Hold the '3' key down to let the mouse select the tunnel hole decal structure and move it back.

Here's a video of how to do that.

https://youtu.be/QI24azbqsus

Let's assume your route is now taking shape and covers a fairly large area on the map. You might be working in area A and want to jump in the editor to area B which is on a distant part of the route.

Don't bother with the route markers.

Use the 2D map to jump quickly to any place you wish.

1. Press 9 to enter the 2D map.
   
2. Zoom out by using the mouse wheel.
   
3. Centre the map over the new location and zoom in.
   
4. Hold down the CTRL key.
   
5. Left click the mouse cursor at the location you wish to jump to.
   
6. Click the white arrow in the navigation panel at the top of the screen.
   
7. Right click the mouse to exit the 2D map.

You are there.

Here's the procedure in action. Here's where you start.



Press 9 to enter the 2D map.



Zoom out by using the mouse wheel.



Centre the map over the new location and zoom in.



Hold down the CTRL key. Left click the mouse cursor at the location you wish to jump to.

Click the white arrow in the navigation panel at the top of the screen.




Right click the mouse to exit the 2D map.



You are there.

CTRL+SHIFT+HOME

Sometimes when using the world editor's 2D map to navigate to another part of the route, you might subsequently find you are under ground. Getting to the right height again can take time unless you use this handy keyboard shortcut.

Simply press CTRL+SHIFT+HOME. This automatically and instantly adjusts the camera to 1 metre above ground level.

If you find your camera position like this: -



or this: -



Just press CTRL+SHIFT+HOME

Your camera will then be in a position 1 metre above ground level position like this: -

If you are planning to build a route from scratch, and it is based on a real location, you should already have imported your terrain data using the method described in the "Setup" section at the beginning of this guide.

Making further adjustments to the terrain is necessary when constructing railway cuttings or embankments, tunnels and bridges. You will also need to know how to change the appearance of the ground, if necessary.

Basically, you can do everything you require by selecting the paint tool (looks like a brush) from the top left. Then, (tooltips describe what's what if you have them enabled,) you will see that you can choose to adjust height of terrain (first option), raise terrain (second option), lower it (3rd), smooth (4th) and so on.

Okay, so you have successfully laid your first section of track - maybe a few metres long. Now you want to extend it further. Normally you will place the linear object arrow at either end of the track you have already laid, and the resulting extension will be seamlessly added to the original piece. The result will look like this: -



Problems will arise with some track assets, however, it you join a piece of track to another which has been previously laid in the opposite direction. In that case you will definitely have to use the Weld tool. But the result will be less than perfect, and look something like this: -



You can clearly see that the sleeper at the non-seamless join is not rendered correctly, and the rails display a distinct colour mismatch where they join.

This "wrong direction" welding normally takes place when you lay track in one area of your route (say working from west to east) and also lay another section in a different area of your route (say working from east to west). If these 2 track segments grow closer together and you need to join them, you will encounter the problem.

There are a couple of solutions and workarounds. If the "wrong direction" segment is quite short (a siding for example) you can simply start at the junction with the main track and, piece by piece, simply delete and re-lay the siding until it has been corrected. You can add a dummy piece of track at the end of the siding before you start, so you will be able to replace the last bit exactly as it should be. Then you can delete the dummy piece - and you are done.

Of course, if a track is designed to loop back on itself there is nothing you can do to avoid the issue. The workaround (if the resulting junction anomaly is too noticeable) would be to place a track-side weed or two near the join to disguise it. The same applies if you have laid miles and miles of track in the "wrong direction" in which case re-laying it would take too much time.

Gradient tool, select arrow, L

You know that lowering a scenery object to ground level is easy. Just select the object and press "J." But what about track, roads, fences, walls and other linear objects?

This can be achieved using the Gadient tool and the "L" key.

1. Identify the piece of track you wish to move to ground level.


2. Click the linear Gradient tool

3. Note the yellow gradient arrow

4. Click the yellow arrow to select it (it will turn red)

5. Press "L" and the track will be positioned at ground level

6. Deselect the track and you are done.

The Line Type can be set as either Yard, Main Line, Passenger or Freight.

It is very important to make sure all sections of your track are configured with the correct Line Type. This is because scenario-makers often include AI trains for added realism, and AI trains follow certain rules according to the Line Type.

AI freight trains, for example, will aim to path over track flagged as freight, whereas passenger trains avoid yard and freight track.

The setting can be changed in the Track Properties dialogue, which will appear whenever a section of track is selected using the Highlight Tool.




The setting can also be selected when laying new track. This is particularly useful in instances where space is confined and a greater curvature of track is required. For example, a freight line will have a greater allowable curvature than a yard line. Once the new section of track has been laid successfully, its line type may be changed to the more appropriate setting via the track properties dialogue.

Your route is unlikely to be just a single stretch of track or a closed loop, and that means that you will need to create junctions.

First select which type of junction you want, automatic or manual: -




We shall choose manual by selecting the radio button. Here's what a typical junction should look like. You can see the manual points lever on the right.



And the frogs have been rendered correctly.



Here's how it's done.

We start off with our single section of track. We are using the EK Track Dirty Ballast, and we have selected Main Line as a line type from the track properties dialogue box.






After positioning the cursor over the start of the junction we left click and produce the yellow track arrow as shown above. Now we simply move the cursor either to the left or right and stretch the white track guide lines in the direction we wish the branch to take.



If we look at the bottom toolbar we see that the radius of curvature can have a minimum value of 500 metres.




Now we left click the left mouse button again to complete the track laying operation.



We can do the same with different Line Types (Main Line, Passenger, Yard and Freight) to see how this affects their minimum radii of curvature.





As you can see, different Lines Types can have different minimum radii of curvature. This is decided by the Track Rule for the particular track being used. For the Exeter to Kingswear track in our example, the maximum tightness (minimum radius) of the track is governed according to the figures in the following table.


In general, the gentlest curves are used by the Main Lines - and the possible tightness increases as we choose Passenger, Yard and Freight line types respectively.

Freight line type settings are very useful in locations where extremely tight curves are required, such as dockside railways and approaching entrances to engine sheds etc.

For most junctions, I find Yard to be the most useful and appropriate choice. The particular Line Type for that section can always be changed later on without affecting the curvature of the already laid track.

If we had chosen to lay an automatic junction when we started, the result would look something like this. You can see the automatic points mechanism on the left.



This does not look correct. It would look better in the middle of the track and nearer the junction split. So we shall move it. First we select the mechanism.



Now we drag it between the rails.



Finally we move it along the track to the point where the junction begins. The end of the mechanism should be touching the base of the little red track-join triangle.



That looks much better.



Here's a very short video showing how to reposition an automatic junction mechanism.

https://youtu.be/o_1f5KN3WA0

In the following example, we shall join double track coming from the left with double track coming from the right. This could happen if we had been working on different areas simultaneously before laying all the track. Here is what we have so far.



Although the track has been laid as double, the method we shall use is to connect each track separately. So we select the single track from the linear object menu.




We are using the EK Track Dirty Ballast, with the number of tracks set at 1 and with just the Snap to Track radio button selected. This ensures that instead of the track aligning itself with the terrain, it will try to align itself with existing track in its path.

Then we lay the right hand track so it snaps into position somewhere along the oncoming track on the corresponding side of the distant track.





Then we do the same with the left hand track.





The tracks have been connected, but they have also caused little junctions at the points where they join.



We must eliminate these by deleting them and re-welding the track at the join.

Here we see the little junction on the right, which is highlighted in a thin yellow box after we hover the mouse cursor over it.



We select and delete this little junction track.



Then we weld the join together again.





The right hand track is complete. Now we repeat the operation on the left.









Now all we have to do is level the terrain nicely.



We choose the Painting Tools and Choose the Snap to Track option. Note that we use a brush size of 40 and a cutting angle of 30.




The we use the tool to level the terrain to the track.





We are done. The tracks have been successfully joined.

There are 4 types of markers that you will wish to add to your track at multiple locations throughout your route.

• Platform Markers
  
• Siding Markers
  
• Destination Markers
  
• Portal Markers

Each of these will have a different name which will be used by the system to complete various functions required while running the simulation.

Lets add all four to a piece of track



First, we shall add a platform marker by selecting it from the menu.



Then we place it down on the track



and adjust its length by selecting it and using the orange side buttons.



Now we can name the station/platform by double clicking on the marker to bring up the properties dialogue box.




Then we name the platform by filling in the appropriate box. We shall call it Newtown P1 - meaning the station is called Newtown and this is to be platform number 1.




The same process is used to add siding markers, destination markers and portal markers.

Here is the completed look.



If we bring up the 2D map by pressing '9' we can see how it fits into our route.

Suppose you have already laid a section of track and now wish to electrify it. The procedure is very simple.

Just use the Highlight Tool to mark the section of track.




A fly out menu will appear on the right. Select the Electrification Icon.




A dropdown menu will appear, from which you can select the type of electrification you need (Overhead, 3rd Rail or 4th Rail).




All that remains is to add the cosmetic changes to make everything look right (wires or 3rd or 4th rail linear assets).

You can also use this method to change the speed limit on a section of track.

Once you have electrified a section of track for 3rd rail, you will need to add a suitable linear object asset to make it look realistic.

Here is the track without the 3rd rail.



The assets you have available in your route might not include the 3rd rail linear object. Fortunately there is one in the Academy. If you do not already have a 3rd rail, simply enable the Academy assets under DTG - Academy.

Now to add the rail we must first use the Highlight Tool to select the electrified section of track.



Then we use the offset tool




and select an offset of 1.1




Next we select the 3rd rail from the menu. We choose TSA - UK 3rd Power Rail





Then we add it by clicking on the yellow cube at the side of the track.



The result shows the 3rd rail has been added



And we are done.

You will probably want to change the sound made by the track whenever your train passes over it on special sections - for example when going under a bridge, through a station or over an embankment. The procedure is as follows.

Use the Highlight Tool to mark the relevant section of track.




The fly out menu will appear on the right. Select the Track Bed Rumble Icon.




A dropdown menu will appear, from which you can select the type of sound you need.




The choices normally include the following

There is a track property called Special Collision.

You will see it in the track properties dialogue box which pops up when you highlight a section of track.






Its function governs what a player will see when a collision at speed occurs between the Player train and something else (such as an AI train, a blocked junction path or an end of line buffer). After the collision, the game will be over and a message box will appear to confirm this.

By default, Special Collision is Off, and a Player Train derailment will be displayed in all its glory as part of the simulation, with rolling stock leaving the rails in a spectacular fashion.



The camera circles round the derailed train until the Game Over message appears.



Turning Special Collision On will prevent the aftermath of the collision from being shown. First we highlight the section of track where we wish this to be the case.



Then we change the Special Collision property from Off to On.




Now when a train has a 'Game Over' collision on this section of track, it will remain in position over the rails, along with its entire consist, and the simulation will end immediately with the Game Over message. No post-derailment activity will be displayed.



This is useful when a collision might occur within the confines of a station or other busy area, where the sight of a train cutting through a building, platform or other such scenery object without damaging it would look rather unrealistic.

These two videos compare the difference. You can make your mind up as to which you prefer.

First an ordinary collision with the buffers at Portsmouth Harbour station.

https://youtu.be/MZW3ILVO2_4

Now for the Special Collision at the same spot. Note that the train still cuts through the platform slightly before the simulation ends.

https://youtu.be/RNdtDiZzWdA

Personally I am slightly more inclined to use the ordinary settings rather than the Special Collision - unless there is a very good reason for using the latter. But at least you now know what Special Collision is used for.

Debug rendering will show various special track ribbons.

This is enabled by pressing the spacebar any number of times according to the following table


This feature is very useful for checking the track for various speed limits, for example, or to check that the correct sections of track have been electrified.

Here's a video showing the effects of the spacebar presses.

https://youtu.be/3uRVighaTDQ

CTRL+Join

This is used to seamlessly merge two segments of a linear object - otherwise known as ribbons. They can be sections of track, road, wall, fencing, platform etc. and the operation will join them together so that they function as a single piece. This is a step further than the Weld tool which is used for joining two segments of track but which is rarely seamless.

The method is: -

1. Hold down the CTRL key.
   
2. Select the Join tool.
   
3. Click on part A of the ribbon.
   
4. Click on part B of the ribbon.

Please note that the ribbons must have the same direction I.e have been laid in the same direction and be of total length less than 500m for merging to be possible.

This can be quite useful, not only for cosmetic reasons but also to improve functionality. A platform's passenger ribbon, as a prime example, needs to be functioning as a single piece - otherwise when a train attempts to allow passengers to board and alight, some of the doors will not open because that particular carriage is straddling a functional break in the ribbon. The ribbon needs to be in one piece.

It is also useful for tracks. Here is a section of track in which 2 segments have been joined using the Weld tool: -



As you can see, although the Weld tool has joined them so that a train can pass over the join, it is hardly seamless. Just look at the sleeper near the join which has been crudely split down the middle and is half missing. Also, if this part of the track is highlighted and then the Offset tool is used, the result will still be segmented, just like the original track, instead of in one piece. This means any platforms laid using the Offset tool will also be segmented.

The solution is to use the Ribbon Merge tool - CTRL+Join

Before using it we must split the track at the join into 2 segments again: -





Now we hold down the CTRL key, select the Join tool, and then click each segment of track. The result is that the segments are now seamlessly merged as in the picture below: -

Split, Undo - or Split, Weld

The frog is the crossing point of two rails. The term frog is taken from the part of a horse's hoof it most closely resembles.

Sometimes you will have created a crossover between two tracks and when you inspect the result you notice that the frogs have not been rendered correctly, as in the following images.






The remedy is really very simple, and easy to perform. First use the Split Tool to separate the track at the existing joint in the centre of the crossover.





After using the tool you should see this



Notice that the frogs are all now rendered perfectly.

Now first try using the Undo Tool. This often corrects the problem with the frogs remaining in their perfectly rendered condition.

If the 'Split-Undo' method doesn't work, all you need to do is to use the Weld Tool to join the tracks once more and produce the finished result.



Sometimes, after using the Split Tool, you may notice that although the frogs on both tracks have now rendered correctly, part of one of the tracks appears to be invisible.



In this case use the Undo button and try splitting the track closer to one of the frogs.

If you still get an invisible bit of track no matter where you do the split, then simply perform the following steps.

First delete the section of track with the invisible part



Now use the Undo button to undo the deletion and place the section back.



The frogs are still all perfect, so use the Weld Tool to join the track once more to see the finished result.



You can use the above simple trick to correct any badly-rendered frogs anywhere on your route.

Here's a short video showing how to correct a badly rendered crossover frog



And here's a short video showing how to correct a badly-rendered diamond frog

Sometimes, after laying sections of track containing junctions, you might decide to change an automatic junction to a manual one or vice versa. The procedure is very simple.

First select which type of junction you want, automatic or manual: -




Using the Split tool, divide the track at the exact join of the junction itself. Then use the Weld tool to re-connect the track. The desired junction type (either automatic or manual) should now be in place.

The Split tool and the Weld Tool: -




Here's a very short video to show how it's done.

Sometimes a track marker, such as a destination marker or a station marker, will behave badly when it is placed on a certain piece of track.

It will sometimes refuse to be stretched properly to cover the desired length of track.

This normally happens if the piece of track has not been laid in the normal fashion but instead by using the offset tool.

The only way to remedy this is to delete the troublesome section of track and re-lay it in the normal way.

This should solve the problem.

Lets assume you have laid a piece of track and wish to place a home (starter) signal somewhere along it. When a train has advanced past this signal it will change from green (go) to red (stop) warning any train following on behind that the track is occupied and it is not permitted to pass. Here's the track: -



Now to choose a signal we need to select the Track Infrastructure Icon. It is on the left hand menu and looks like a semaphore signal: -




Then we scroll down and select the signal we wish to use - in this case EK Sig LQ 2A 4' Arm.
This means Exeter to Kingswear signal lower quadrant two aspect four foot arm. It does not have a number of tracks attached, indicating that it is a home (or starter) signal.




We click on that and we can now place the signal on the track. We do that by holding down the TAB key while positioning the signal over the track. When we release the mouse button, the signal will have aligned itself with the track precisely. Click the left mouse button again to place the control arrow at the same position and we are almost done: -



Now we need to move the signal to the side of the track, so we select it again and use the move arrows to drag it into position.



And then press the "J" key to place it snugly on the ground.



Now we must check that everything is as it should be.



It looks okay - but a closer inspection reveals something wrong: -



Lets zoom in a bit more.



As you can see, the white cube attached to the control arrow is straddling the join between two segments of track. This means the signal will not function correctly. So we must either drag it forwards a little: -



or we must drag it backwards a little: -



In either case, the signal will work as required. The important thing to remember is that the white cube part of the arrow must be on a single segment of track.

Let's start with the simplest track there is - a straight piece with a set of buffers on each end.



Of course, normally the stretch of track would be much much longer than this, but we are condensing everything for the purpose of this guide so you can see what's happening.

Now let's place the simplest signals of all - home (or starter) signals. We shall use 4' semaphore lower quadrant signals, as used in DTG's Riviera Line in the Fifties route.



We shall add 3 of these signals as shown in the following picture: -



We have effectively divided the track into 4 sections or "blocks" and the purpose of the signals is to let trains know when they are permitted to move into the block ahead of them.

One very important signal needs to be present at the ends of all tracks, except possibly where marked by a portal. Unsurprisingly, these are usually known as "end of track" signals - but in Train Simulator they are also frequently called 'buffer lights."

The End of Track Signal sends information back along the track that the next section is occupied (actually it doesn't exist). The previous signal (if 3 aspect or higher) will now show caution (yellow) instead of green. If it is a 2 aspect signal it will still simply show clear (green).

Some sections of track at the extreme edges of a route may lead past the point where player trains are intended to be driven. They lead into areas not covered by the route itself, and are there to indicate the existence of a real-life track continuation and/or as a way of allowing AI trains to disappear into portals without being seen by the player. If running AI trains into such obscure portals, you will not wish them to be hindered in any way, and in this case you should not place the End of Track signal.

The End of Track Signal (or buffer lights) can be visible, as shown in the following picture: -



But they can also be invisible. For this guide we shall use the invisible EK-UKPro Buffer Lights supplied with the Riviera Line in the Fifties : -



After selecting from the menu, add the signal while holding down the TAB key. This way the cyan cube will be nicely lined up with the track and at the right height. The cube will be invisible when a scenario is run.




The control arrow should be pointing towards the end of the track. If it is not pointing in the right direction, as is the case here, simply drag it while holding down the SHIFT key so it faces the right way. Then adjust it nicely so it nestles neatly inside the cube like this: -



Make sure you always add these "end of track" signals at the ends of all the tracks on your route. The only exception is when the end of the track is marked with a portal, in which case you should not add the "end of track" signal.

We can now save the route using F2 and test the signals by going into the scenario editor and adding a couple of locomotives. Then if we run the scenario we should see this: -



As we can see, the leftmost locomotive, Locomotive B, is seeing a red stop signal indicating that it is not permitted to enter the block ahead, which is occupied by Locomotive A. Now lets move Loco A forward into the next block: -



Now we see that that Loco B is seeing a green go signal indicating that it is permitted to enter the block ahead, which is now unoccupied.

Watch the signals change as we move the locos forward: -





Now lets add a third locomotive, Loco C: -



Loco C is seeing a red stop signal, so we shall move Loco B forward again: -



Now Loco B is seeing a red stop signal, while Loco C is seeing a green go signal. Here's what this looks like in the 2D map: -



In practice, these signals will be spaced out over several miles. As already stated above, their main purpose is merely to let trains know when they are permitted to move into the block ahead of them - and these blocks can be as long as needed in your particular route.

For the purpose of this guide, I am using the excellent set of semaphore signals supplied with the DTG route Riviera Line in the Fifties.

Here's the junction: -



Next, choose the appropriate signal. We need an F1 feather (2 tracks) which we select from the asset drop down box.



We then place it next to the track, just before the point where the junction begins.




On the first click you should place the signal post at the side of the track. Your 2nd click should place the signal's primary control arrow which goes on the track just forward of the signal but before the junction begins branching.




On the 3rd click you need to place a control arrow somewhere past the frogs on the left branch - and on your 4th and last click you should place a control arrow somewhere past the frogs on the main branch.





You will note that the first placed control arrow has no number, but the control arrow past the points on the left branch is labelled "1" while the one past the points on the main branch is labelled "2"

The signal will not work until we have entered some field values into it. To achieve this we must double click on the signal post to bring up the field value box.




The control arrows which are numbered will be listed in the lower rows of the box. Initially they values will be blank, so we have to enter a value of 1 in the box for control arrow 1, and a value of 0 in the box for control arrow 2.





The principle behind this is that the main branch is always given a value of 0. An F1 branch is given a value of 1. Likewise an F4 branch is given a value of 4.

if the signal happened to be an F4 feather we would, working from left to right have placed control arrow number 1 on the main branch and control arrow number 2 on the right branch. In this case, after opening the field value box, we would place a value of 0 in the box for control arrow 1 and a value of 4 in the box for control arrow 2.




Bringing up the 2D map by pressing key 9 will show the signal south the junction, but we also need to add signals in the other direction on the northern side so that oncoming trains will know whether the points are clear or not.




For the northern side we need to place two standard 1 track signals - one on each track.









As these are both 1 track signals, there is no need to fill in any value in their field value boxes, so we are done. Don't forget to save your work by pressing F2.

Remember to make sure all the control arrows (the important part is the white cubes attached to them) are positioned either before the junctions or past the frogs as in the areas marked in this picture. Also make sure the white cubes do not cover any track joins or welds.




After placing any new signals, it is always a good idea to run a scenario to check that everything is working properly. With signals, it is vital to restart the game from the main menu so that the signalling system is re-initialised properly. Otherwise the signals probably will not work.

If you are already familiar with how to signal a single track junction (see ablove section) then you may also wish to do the same for a double track junction.

Once again we shall use the set of semaphore signals supplied with Riviera Line in the Fifties.

You will already be familiar with how to place the three semaphores we used for the single track junction, so we add those first as shown n the following picture: -



As you can see, the signals are fine for trains travelling forwards along their correct routes - but what about trains reversing or travelling in the "wrong" direction?

For these trains we need to add ground signals. First we will select a double ground signal (2 tracks) which we select from the asset drop down box.





We then place it next to the track, just before the point where the junction begins.




As we did previously with the semaphore signals, on the first click you should place the ground signal at the side of the track. Your 2nd click should place the signal's primary control arrow which goes on the track just forward of the signal but before the junction begins branching. On the 3rd click you need to place a control arrow somewhere past the frogs on the left branch - and on your 4th and last click you should place a control arrow somewhere past the frogs on the main branch.

The signal will not work until we have entered some field values into it. To achieve this we must double click on the signal bracket to bring up the field value box.




As usual, the control arrows which are numbered will be listed in the lower rows of the box. Initially they values will be blank, so we have to enter a value of 1 in the box for control arrow 1, and a value of 0 in the box for control arrow 2.





Ground signals are governed by a slightly different set of principles. For a double ground signal the leftmost branches are always all numbered 1, while the other branches are all numbered 0. For a triple ground signal, where the branches are split into 3 main groups - "left," "ahead" and "right" - the above still applies except that control arrows in the right-hand group are all given field values of 2.


For the northern side we need to place two standard 1 track ground signals - one on each track.








As these are both 1 track signals, there is no need to fill in any value in their field value boxes, so we are done. Don't forget to save your work by pressing F2.

Remember to make sure all the control arrows (the important part is the white cubes attached to them) are positioned either before the junctions or past the frogs.






As we can see from the following 2D map, all tracks are properly signalled: -




After placing any new signals, it is always a good idea to run a scenario to check that everything is working properly. With signals, it is vital to restart the game from the main menu so that the signalling system is re-initialised properly. Otherwise the signals probably will not work.

Now for something a little more complex, but the rules are very simple. We are going to signal the lines going into Portsmouth Harbour station.



We shall start where the two main lines diverge into six as we approach from the east.



You will notice that in the above two pictures, all the signals have already been placed. We shall now go through them one by one to explain the function of each and show how we place them.



As can be seen, there are a few points (or switches in American terminology) as well as a couple of crossovers before the lines reach the platforms and the spur line to the right, but we can ignore these. The points which are to be ignored are marked with white boxes. The only thing we are interested in is the two possible starting positions for trains entering the terminus (yellow boxes A and B) and the six possible destinations for them (yellow boxes marked SPUR and P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5). We shall come to the piece of track with a cyan box GUNWHARF later on.

Lets look at the track with yellow box marked A first: -

A train using this track will have only one possible destination - Platform 2.

So we shall use a simple 4-inch arm one-track signal: -






When we place it, the control arrow 1 should be just inside Platform 2.


Here we see it in close up.

Now lets do the signalling for the right hand track: -



A train on the right hand track will be able to reach 6 destinations - Platforms 1 to 5 plus the spur line (Queen Victoria's dockyard viaduct).

So we shall need a 6-track route indicator signal: -






As we place this signal, control arrows 1,2,3 and 4 are placed just inside Platforms 5,4,3 and 2 respectively: -



While control arrows 5 and 6 are placed just inside the approach to Platform 1 and just inside the spur line: -



Don't forget to double click on the signal post so we can enter the correct values in the Field value popup box. The correct values are shown in the following two images: -




What these values do is to create a short line of text which is illuminated in the signal's display box, describing the destination path. Here's an example: -



It can be configured according to the following table: -



Now we have placed the signals for trains entering the terminus, we need to also place the corresponding signals for those leaving. We shall start with the spur line and then do Platforms 1 to 5. For the spur line we shall use a siding signal. These are mainly used inside yards and at points of entry and exit from them. A siding signal looks slightly different from an ordinary one. It has a white ring over the red stop bar to indicate its status: -



We select it from the list: -




And place it on the spur line just before the exit: -



Its control arrow 1 should be positioned at the location where we placed the 6-track route indicator signal.

We do very much the same for Platform 1, but this time using a standard 4-inch arm one-track signal.



For Platform 2 we need to use an F4 feather signal (two tracks) because there are two possible routes away from the terminus.



We place it at the exit from Platform 2 with its control arrows 1 and 2 positioned at the locations where we first placed the 6-track route indicator signal and the original 4-inch arm one-track signal respectively: -



Don't forget to double click on the signal post so we can enter the correct values in the Field value popup box. The correct values are 0 for control arrow 1, and 4 for control arrow 2: -




Platforms 3 and 4 both need a standard 4-inch arm one-track signal.



And Platform 5 requires an F4 feather signal (two tracks) because there are two possible routes - one away from the terminus and the other into the Gunwharf siding.



Again, don't forget to double click on the signal post so we can enter the correct values in the Field value popup box. The correct values are 0 for control arrow 1 and 4 for control arrow 2: -




It's so easy to forget to enter these values, but if you don't enter them the signal will not work and you will be left wondering why.

Because an extra line is now involved (the Gunwharf siding marked with a cyan box on the aerial picture) it will need a signal to guide any trains exiting from it. This time a simple Ground Signal (one-track) will suffice: -



We select it from the list: -




And we place it down by the exit from the Gunwharf siding: -



It's time to press F2 and save our work. Then we can load a scenario to check that everything is working as it should. A quick look at the 2D map shows a train in Platform 2 waiting to depart. Its path is clear and it is seeing a green go signal.: -



When doing complex junction signalling remember the golden rule. The only thing we are interested in is all the possible starting positions for trains and all the possible destinations for them. The area in the middle (provided trains never change their path while transiting) can be ignored.

In general, yards do not need to be signalled in the same way as the rest of the route. Normally, the only signals necessary for yards are the entry and exit signals. Once inside the yard, the points (switches) are usually changed manually as necessary and are not governed by the simulator's signalling system.

The exception is whenever there is a major path through the yard. In this case the major path may be considered as part of the route proper, and the deviations from it within the yard can be thought of as 'sub-yards' or 'mini yards.' Signalling should then be applied to the major path, while the 'sub-yards' would merely need their individual entry and exit signals.

Sometimes a train may find itself inside a yard and facing a red (stop) signal even though the path ahead is clear. This can happen for two possible reasons.

1. The scenario started with the train inside the yard, and beyond the bounds of the signalling system.
   
2. The train entered the yard at one location and is about to exit via an alternative yard exit.

In either case, a red (stop) signal is quite normal and a player would simply request permission to proceed from the despatcher by pressing the Tab (or Shift-Tab) key.

Coloured light signals have been around for decades, and early versions were certainly common features to be seen for a significant part of the steam era.

In Train Simulator, coloured light signals are governed by very similar rules to those governing semaphore signals - which have already been covered in this guide. But there are notable differences, particularly in the use of Theatre Box and Feather signals.

Theatre box signals look like this



As you can see, there is a letter 'B' illuminated in the signal's upper display box




Theatre box signals are used to indicate the destination of the track which is clear for use. In this case the signal is located at Havant station, and the route to Brighton is clear so the letter 'B' is used to denote 'Brighton.' You will also note that the signal has a letter and number on its post. This may be configured to match those used in real life. This post has HT 24 written on it. The letters are usually the first and last letters of the nearest signal box (in this case Havant so the letters are HT) and the numbers are unique identifiers used in sequence (even numbers on one side of the track and odd numbers in the other).

In our example we have placed a coloured light theatre signal UK Pro L3A TH3.




The '3A' bit means it is three-aspect (red, yellow, green) and the 'TH3' bit means it is a theatre signal with 3 destination tracks.



After placing it (use exactly the same method as you would for a semaphore signal) we can configure the field values accordingly.




First fill in the Signal name 'HT 24' and then add the destination abbreviation letters according to the three possible routes. These are Waterloo, Brighton and Hayling Island, so we use W, B and H. Here's what the signal looks like according to how the points have been set.




Some signalling systems allow for the use of Double Theatre Signals, such as those supplied by Just Trains. If you have purchased one of their routes via Steam, you may have the signals required. They display two characters instead of one.

Here's how to configure them. Suppose we have a junction and we wish to signal the line ahead as "Up Fast" and the line branching off to the left as "Up Slow." In the theatre box these would be represented by "UF" and "US." Here's the junction.



We select the signal. We shall choose Large Post, Bulb 3 Aspect, Two Links, Theatre Box Double Character - or JTMS B3A 2T THD W




We place it in position as usual, with arrow 1 to the left and arrow 2 straight ahead.



Now we double click somewhere on the signal to bring up its field dialogue box



In the field dialogue we enter the symbols according to the proper codes.




Well, this shorthand jargon is pretty straightforward

DF means Down Fast
DM means Down Main
DR means Down Relief
DS means Down Slow

UF means Up Fast
UM means Up Main
UR means Up Relief
US means Up Slow

So we enter '>' in box 1 to show 'US' for the branch to the left,
and then '/' in box 2 to show 'UF' for the branch straight ahead.




Now when we go back to the game and restart we will see the signals display according to how the points have been set, either to the left or straight ahead.

Multiple arm signals are used when there are multiple tracks diverging off from the main line.

Multiple arm semaphore signals are like a standard signal but will have multiple arms on one post or a gantry.

Multiple arms have to be used to indicate the feather positions.

In a semaphore signal, the most important track will always be linked to the highest arm(s).

On the left hand side, the arms represent feather positions 1, 2 and 3.

On the right hand side, the arms represent feather positions 4, 5 and 6.

This is illustrated in the following diagram.





Your selection of feather signal will depend on your track configuration.

For example, if your track has a main ahead line plus two branches to the left and two to the right, you would probably wish to select a 1245 feather signal.



This requires a 5-track feather signal such as the following. For this example we shall use a coloured light signal.




Place the signal in the usual fashion.



Once the initial 0 marker has been placed, the conventional way of placing the other markers is in order from left to right - in this case 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.



Now we need to double click the signal to bring up the signal properties box.



This must be filled in correctly, or the signal will not work properly.




As you can see, the boxes are ordered vertically from 1 to 5 ( corresponding to how we labelled our 5 branch tracks from left to right).

The corresponding feather positions however, are 2, 1, 0, 4, 5. (see the above diagram). So these numbers are what we must enter in each respective box.

The signal should now work flawlessly.

The same principles apply to semaphore signals, and the properties boxes will need to be completed in precisely the same manner following the same rules.

When you double click on a junction signal, a right hand fly out will appear, and some important options become available. These are : -

Identity
Character
Speed Limit
Approach Control
Limited Aspect



Identity



Here you have the option of giving the signal an identifying name, for example HT 41. This signal name will be visible in the 2D map in-game. On some signals it will also be visible on the signal itself. In the UK, the historical convention for naming the signal was to enter the first and last characters of the controlling signal box, followed by sequential numbers as they were placed along the line. So the signals placed near the box at Havant, for example, would be named HT, followed by a set of numerals. Usually odd numbers were used for one side of the track while even numbers were used for the other side used by trains in the opposite direction.

Character



This is where you enter the digits corresponding to the intended function of the respective control arrows on the track. Examples may be seen in the sections relating to 'Signalling a Junction' above.

Speed Limit



This may be used to create a temporary speed limit on a branch of a junction signal which will show on the HUD while the train travels over it. This speed limit will be active on the section of track between control arrow 0 and the control arrow corresponding to the branch which it covers. It will override the speed limit entered in that section's track properties until the train clears the signal.

Approach Control



Approach control may be used at certain locations requiring a large speed reduction, such as the final signal governing entry into a terminus station or yard. Approach control, when implemented for a particular path at such a signal, affects the preceding signal so that it will show a Yellow "caution." On a series of preceding signals, the driver will be "checked down" with a normal signalling sequence (green, double yellow, yellow for a four-aspect area). With some coloured light signal systems, the last signal before the final junction signal will show as a flashing yellow. You may set this in the signal properties dialogue box by ticking the "Approach Control" box.

Limited Aspect



Limited aspect affects the entry signal itself. When implemented for a particular path at the signal, it forces a Yellow "caution" for that path. It is used where the path leads into the terminus or yard, and where there will be no further signals except perhaps for the 'end of line' buffer lights. You may set this in the signal properties dialogue box by ticking the "Limited Aspect" box.

On various sections of your route, you will want to implement certain speed limits for both passenger and freight trains. Sometimes both passenger trains and freight trains are governed by a single speed limit.




Sometimes they will each have to obey their respective speed limits as indicated by a differential permissible speed indicator (referred to in Train Simulator as a Double Speed sign). With this sign, for example, passenger trains have a speed limit of 65 mph and goods trains have a limit of 40 mph.




Here's how to correctly configure your system to handle the speed limits.



The speed limits (Primary and Secondary) are dictated by the 2 fields in the Track Properties dialogue. Primary applies to passenger trains, parcel & postal trains, light locomotives and specials, while Secondary applies to all other trains.




To illustrate this feature, we shall assume a double track Main Line has already been laid with a primary speed limit of 65 mph and a secondary limit of 40 mph.



One way of checking the speed limits already in use is by highlighting a section of track and then reading the figures in the Track Properties dialogue box which pops up.



You will see that the Primary Speed limit has been set at 65 and the Secondary at 40. Highlighting the crossover section produces the same result. This example therefore is displaying a maximum permissible speed of 65 mph (110 km/h) for passenger trains, parcel and postal trains and light locomotives, in addition to a maximum permissible speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) for all other trains.






We want the crossover to have a speed limit of 20 mph imposed, so we simply change the field values in the two speed limit boxes.




We can check the speed limit visually by using the Track Debug Rendering feature. The speed limit ribbons are produced by pressing the spacebar 3 times in succession.



The above result shows the new 20 mph speed section marked with a red ribbon. However, the change has also affected the speed limit on part of the Main Line track. This must be corrected.

First we use the Highlight Tool to select a section of the Main Line which will overlap what we have changed.



Then we change this back to 65 mph and 40 mph.




The resulting ribbon looks like this.



The other Main Line track is then corrected in the same way.

Next we must provide the trains with a track-linked speed sign to inform drivers of the new 20 mph crossover speed limit. In this guide we shall use a sign from the Portsmouth Direct - London to Portsmouth route. As it is to be placed in the small space between tracks, we shall choose a small left speed sign.




And we place it down in the appropriate place, positioning the arrow on part of the crossover.



We also should put a speed sign on the Main Line track so that once the train has passed the crossover, the HUD will display the speed limit has reverted to 65 mph. It's not essential but it can be useful.

For this we can select a full-size double speed sign (double because the Main Line Primary speed limit differs from the Secondary).



We place the other two speed signs for the other direction in exactly the same way, so the result looks like this. (You will need to press the spacebar 6 times in succession to get back to the default view.)



Now we shall see what happens when a train approaches the junction to the crossover.



The two yellow markers on the HUD indicate the 2 speed signs. First 20 and then 65.



As it crosses the crossover, the 20 mph speed limit comes into play.



We can now see the limit shown as 20 with the 65 mph yellow marker still ahead.



After the train has cleared the crossover, the speed limit reverts to 65 mph.



Here's the HUD



Of course, if the locomotive had been configured as a goods train, the Main Line speed limit on the HUD would show up as the Secondary speed limit - namely 40 mph.

When adding speed limits to areas of track always remember the golden rule.

Add the slowest speed limits first, followed by the other speed limits in ascending order of speed. The go over the sections of track and restore the higher limits by overlapping where necessary.

This avoids unexpected breaches of speed limits where there should be none.

Speed warning signs should be provided on Main Line tracks whenever there is an upcoming reduction in permissible speed of a third or more, and are placed at the service braking distance before the start of the lower speed section of track.




Often, but not always, there is an AWS magnet placed before the indicator to give an audible warning to the train driver.

Service Braking Distances can be determined by using the following chart.



Suppose, for example, our Main Line speed is 65 mph.

The service braking distance for a train travelling on level track at 65 mph is 1,116 metres.

Let's now place a speed warning sign as an example. Suppose there is a speed sign of 40 mph coming up.



Pressing the spacebar 3 times reveals how the track speed limit changes.



If the line speed is 65 mph, 40 mph is a speed reduction of more than a third and we need to place a speed warning sign 1,116 metres (the service braking distance) back along the track.

First we place the speed warning sign next to the original speed sign.



It is showing the correct speed, but we will need to move it back along the track 1,116 metres. For this we shall use the Measure Tool.




We place the cursor at the sign and then left click and drag along the track until the reading on the toolbar at the bottom of the window reaches 1116.





Make a note of this spot by placing an object there. In the example we used a 2nd brick chimney. This can be removed later.

Now go back to the speed warning sign and drag it to its new location.



When we release the mouse cursor we see that the signal has been placed correctly.

All the European routes modelled in Train Simulator (excluding some historic routes, for obvious reasons) have some form of train warning system that sounds an alarm in the train cab and/or applies the emergency brakes if you drive past a signal without acknowledging it, exceed the track speed limit or pass a red signal. And all of the routes' signals also include a check for "SPADs" or Signals Passed at Danger.

Systems Usage

ATC 1906 - 1959 (subsequently named WR AWS and used until 1970s)
AWS 1959 - present
TPWS 2004 - present

History

The principal forerunner of today's Automatic Warning System was the Great Western Railway's "Automatic Train Control" (ATC) system, which it introduced in 1906. Originally known as "audible cab signalling", it rang a bell in the driver's cab if the distant signal was 'clear' or sounded a siren if it was at 'caution'. The driver could silence the bell or siren by lifting a resetting handle. The system's name was changed to ATC around 1910, when it was modified so that the warning siren was accompanied by an automatic brake application. The brakes were released when the driver lifted the resetting handle. Around 1916, a further modification was made so that the bell would only ring for a short duration, no longer needing an action from the driver to silence it.

The GWR ATC system relied on physical contact between the trainborne equipment and a ramp mounted in the 'four-foot'. The ramp was electrically energised when the associated distant signal was 'off'. The system did not lend itself to use on single track railways, as complex arrangements were necessary to avoid unwanted indications being given to trains running in the opposite direction to which the ramp applied. Apart from a couple of early exceptions, single track railways were not fitted with ATC.

The ramp was normally situated 440 yards (402 metres) on the approach to the distant signal but was positioned immediately ahead of any signal that carried stop and distant arms on the same post. Placing the ramp beyond the signal meant that a train passing over it after having been detained at the stop signal would receive the appropriate indication according to whether the distant arm was 'on' or 'off'. The same principle was not followed in areas of continuous colour light signalling, where every running signal acted as a stop signal as well as a distant signal for the next signal ahead. If the ramps had been positioned ahead of the signals, the usefulness of ATC in alerting the driver of the approach to a signal during fog or falling snow would be lost. For colour light signals, the ramp was therefore positioned on approach to the signal but at a reduced distance of 200 yards (183 metres) to allow for signals being closely spaced.

In 1945, the GWR devised a modification to produce a distinctive audible indication for a double yellow aspect, comprising the sounding of an air horn together with the normal siren. The modified system was put on trial on the Henley branch in January 1946 and later between Reading and Maidenhead, and although it was successful, it was never used in normal service.

The Hudd (or "Strowger-Hudd") system had been developed in 1930. The track equipment comprised a permanent magnet followed by an electro-magnet about 50 feet ahead, both fixed centrally in the 'four-foot'. The absence of physical contact between the track equipment and the train made the system more suited to high-speed running than the GWR ATC system. The 'clear' indication was a short horn and the warning indication was a long horn. An additional feature of the Hudd system was a visual indicator inside the driver's cab. The first operational trials of the Hudd system were carried out on the Southern Railway at Wraysbury, and later at Byfleet. The LMS installed the system on the London, Tilbury & Southend line (where fog was a problem) in 1937, but widespread fitment elsewhere did not take place, due in part to the outbreak of war.

Following nationalisation in 1948, British Railways set about developing an improved ATC system to become the new standard for use across the whole network. The project was given added urgency by a terrible crash at Harrow & Wealdstone on 8 October 1952. The BR system incorporated the best features of the GWR and Hudd systems, i.e. the distinctive audible indications (bell and horn) of the former and the magnetic track equipment of the latter. After years of extensive testing and refinement, the British Railways standard system of Automatic Train Control was approved by the Ministry of Transport in November 1956. It was retitled as the "Automatic Warning System" (AWS) in 1959, and the ex-GWR ATC system was correspondingly redesignated as the "Western Region Automatic Warning System" (WR AWS).

The Railway Safety Regulations 1999 mandated fitment, by 1 January 2004, of a train protection system on all Britain's passenger railways. On the mainline network, the chosen system was the TPWS. Fitment was completed in 2004. Whilst not possessing all the benefits of a full Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, TPWS addresses some of the shortcomings of the AWS, which it supplements.

Automatic Warning System (AWS)

The AWS or Automatic Warning System is used on Train Simulator's modern British routes. Approximately 180 metres before most signals there's an "AWS ramp", which is placed just like a signal except that the ramp goes in the middle of the track instead of next to it. Like a signal, it has a link, which in this case goes right above the ramp or just in front of it. When a train drives over the ramp it passes that link, triggering the OnConsistPass function in its script.

If the signal ahead is clear, a bell rings in the train's cab to let the driver know he's clear to proceed. If the signal ahead is blocked or showing some kind of warning, a warning sounds in the cab until the driver hits a button to acknowledge it. If the driver doesn't press the button soon enough, the train applies its brakes automatically.

Here's how to place the AWS ramp for a signal on your route. It doesn't matter whether the signal is a semaphore or a coloured light version. In this case it is a semaphore.



The correct position for it AWS ramp will be 180 metres back along the track. We use the Measure tool to find the correct spot.



Now we select the AWS ramp from the menu.




We place it on the track, using the Tab key to line it up nicely, with the placement arrow pointing forwards.



Then we just use the J Key to position it at ground level.



That's it. The AWS for the signal has been placed correctly and should work flawlessly.

If the signal ahead is clear, a bell rings in the train's cab to let the driver know he's clear to proceed. If the signal ahead is blocked or showing some kind of warning, a warning sounds in the cab until the driver hits a button to acknowledge it. If the driver doesn't press the button soon enough, the train applies its brakes automatically.

Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS)

The TPWS or Train Protection & Warning System is an additional system which is used on Train Simulator's modern British routes.

Like AWS, it requires a separate object to be added to the track, in this case, a "TPWS Grid" which is placed just before the home signal it protects. Like the AWS ramp, this grid has a link which should be placed directly above it (making sure that a train going in that direction will pass the grid's link before it passes the home signal's link 0), and the grid's script contains an OnConsistPass function which checks the state of the home signal just in front of it when a train drives past that link.

Unlike the AWS ramp, as well as checking whether the signal ahead is blocked the TPWS grid also checks if the train is going faster than the speed limit for this bit of track. If it is, it sends a message to the train, which causes it to automatically apply its emergency brakes.

TPWS track equipment is configured to function either as a 'Train Stop System' (TSS), an 'Overspeed System' (OSS) or a 'Permanent Speed Restriction' (PSR). Every TPWS-fitted signal has a pair of TSS grids placed near the signal, and most also have one or more pairs of OSS or PSR grids some distance (between 25 and 450 metres) to the rear.

The decision as to whether or not an OSS (or PSR) should be provided depends on the effectiveness of the TSS. In the majority of cases, the TSS on its own would not be able to stop a train travelling at the maximum attainable speed within the safe overrun distance, thus requiring the addition of one or more OSS or PSR grid pairs.

Each pair of grids (whether it be TSS, OSS or PSR) are mounted between the running rails. All pairs consist of an 'arming' and a 'trigger' grid. The first pair of grids (TSS) are mounted back to back at the protected signal location. The second pair (either OSS or PSR) are positioned back along the track on approach to the signal.

Instructions on how to place the TPWS grids on your route will be added to this guide very soon.

Sometimes you may wish to create a tunnel for your route, either because you are reproducing a real-life route or creating a fictional route with interesting terrain features.

It is very easy if you follow the steps in this guide.

You will start by laying the track, of course. in our example you can see the track disappears as it goes into the hillside and reappears on the other side. The track exists, but is hidden beneath the terrain.



The very first thing we must do is to tidy up the terrain near the tunnel entrances and level the ground near the hillside.

First select the Painting Tool and then choose the Snap Tool.




Then we choose the correct setting for the brush. We are going to use a brush size of 40 and a cut angle of 60 degrees. Make sure the radio button next to the track icon is selected.




Now we use the mouse to level the ground to the track near the hillside. A single click should be sufficient in most cases.



Now we place the tunnel entrances, so we shall select a standard one called EK Tunnel Entrance



Before placing it, hold down the Tab key so that it aligns perfectly with the track. Here it is in position.



Next we shall places the walls of the tunnel themselves. First we use the Highlight Tool to select the section of track inside the tunnel proper and then, using the Offset Tool, we add the tunnel walls.



Go inside the tunnel and place the highlight block on the track just inside the entrance.



Then stretch it to the other end of the tunnel and left click.



Now press the Offset Tool. And enter an offset number of 2.1




You should see one of the two offset cubes is positioned exactly between the two tracks. If it is not, just adjust the offset number until it is.



Now we can add the walls. We shall select PDE Tunnel Oval Loft 2.




Click on the yellow cube in the middle of the tracks to place the walls.



Now is a good time to make any fine adjustments to both the vertical alignment of the walls and the tunnel entrances to make sure they are in perfect alignment with each other and also the track.



That's fine from the inside of the tunnel, but how do things look from the outside? As you can see, the tunnel entrances are still blocked with terrain texture.



To correct this we use the Tunnel Hole Decal asset, which will hide the terrain and reveal anything behind it.




Place it on the tracks near the tunnel entrance (don't forget to hold down the Tab key so it aligns neatly)



Then raise it vertically a bit to expose the yellow selection tabs.



Now move it along the tracks and just inside the tunnel.



Save everything by pressing F2 (you should have been doing this after every major step anyway) and go into the game by pressing the orange Play button at the bottom right of the screen. You will see that although we can see through the tunnel, there are still sections of terrain which have not been hidden.



Go back into the editor by pressing CTRL-E. Then select the Tunnel Hole Decal once more. This is where most people encounter difficulties because the tunnel entrance keeps getting selected instead. But there is a simple trick to solve this. To select the Tunnel Hole Decal, press and hold the 'E' key while selecting.



Now, using its yellow tabs, resize it sideways so it nicely spans the tunnel entrance. Then go inside the tunnel and resize it backwards so it goes just far enough into the tunnel.



Now we look at the results in-game again to see what remains to be fixed. There are bits of grass (procedural flora) floating in the air just inside the tunnel.



And we can also notice a gap in the hillside because the Tunnel Hole Decal is revealing too much.



Go back into the editor by pressing CTRL-E. Then select the Tunnel Hole Decal once more. (Remember to hold down the 'E' key). Then rotate it a little so it avoids impacting too much of the hillside.



You can play around with it by resizing it (using its yellow tabs) until you get it just right.



Check the result by going into the game.





Go back into the editor by pressing CTRL-E. Our final step is to deal with the floating grass issue inside the tunnel entrance. For this we use the Painting Tool, choose Paint Terrain and select Grass without flora.




Using a brush size of about 40, we simply paint over the texture for the area inside the tunnel where the floating grass appears.

After repeating the Tunnel Hole Decal operations at the other end of the tunnel, we are done, We can now go into the game and check our work.



Adding some trees and shrubs can complete the picture.



What else is there? After mastering the above you can go on to add tunnel occlusion (to make the tunnel realistically dark inside) and change the track properties so that the proper sounds are produced when a train passes through the tunnel.

Now your tunnel is in place, you will want to make it realistically dark inside and change the sound made when a train is running inside it.

For the first step, we use the Tunnel Occlusion asset. You will find this in the Miscellaneous menu.




Place the asset on the track near the tunnel (remember to hold down the Tab key so that it aligns perfectly with the track)



Now select it (hold the 'E' key down to do so if necessary) then lift it up a bit and use its yellow tabs to stretch it out so it overlaps the tracks on both sides.



Now stretch it out back along the track so it is longer then the tunnel.



Now move it up against the tunnel entrance and size it perfectly using the yellow tabs so that it easily overlaps the sides and roof of the tunnel. Make sure also that the ground is completely black.



Next use the standard movement control arrows to slide the occlusion volume into the tunnel so it protrudes from both entrances.



Then use the yellow tabs again to size the occlusion volume so that it just fits inside each tunnel entrance. When you press Play to go into the game it should look like this. The tunnel is now nice and dark inside.



Now for the sound. We need to select the section of the two tracks which lie inside the tunnel. Use the highlight tool and place it on one of the tracks just inside the tunnel and, without letting go, drag it over the second track so that you have yellow boxes in both.



Release the mouse button but do not click it yet. Drag the highlighted section of the tracks the entire length of the tunnel (you will need to navigate inside).



Then click the mouse button to bring up the track properties dialogue.



Select the Track Bed Rumble property and choose Under A Tight Bridge.




Now whenever a train enters the tunnel, the sound will change to match the confined space thereby adding realism to the simulated experience.

Your stations on the route will need the section of track running through them to be marked as platforms so that trains may stop at them and allow passengers to get on or off. So the first thing we need to do is to add the Platform Markers. You select the tool for doing this from the track objects menu.




Then you click on the track to place the marker and stretch it out to fit the station using the orange pointers in both directions.



How long should a platform be? If you are duplicating a real life route (either current or historical), simply match the length of the actual real life platform. Otherwise, it will depend on the length of the trains you wish to run on the route. The easiest way to find out the length of a train is to use the Measure Tool.




Just place the mouse cursor at the front of the train, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the rear of the train. The measurement will be shown on the bottom toolbar.

You should give your platform a proper name so that it may be identified in-game.

Let's suppose we have a single track with just one platform to be added at a station called "Myrtle-On-Mud." We double click on the marker to bring up its properties dialogue and then type in "Myrtle-On-Mud" in the first of the two name boxes. This is the "friendly name." Its unique system identifier is in the second box (beneath the first) and should not be altered.




If the station had several platforms we would need to add a separate marker for each one, in which case we would name the platforms "Myrtle-On-Mud P1", "Myrtle-On-Mud P2", "Myrtle-On-Mud P3", etc.

Now trains will in theory be able to pick up and drop off passengers providing the train itself is within the section of track marked as a platform. However, they will need passengers adjacent to that section of track in order to do so. In most cases, the passengers will need a scenery object platform to stand on.

As an example, let's create a curved platform with passengers. Here's the track with the platform markers already added.



My advice is to first add the scenery object platforms with no passengers (some platform loft items of this type are marked NP) and then add the passengers afterwards (select an invisible platform loft item marked INV). The platform is invisible but the passengers are not. This provides more flexibility later on.

First we highlight the track to cover the portion where the platforms will be placed.



You will se that we have allowed extra room for the sloping parts of the platform at both ends.

Then we use the offset tool to bring up the offset control arrows.



Initially, as can be seen in the above picture, both sets of arrows point towards the track. We need to change this on the side where we wish to place the platform so that the arrow points away from the track.



Now we have to adjust the offset distance to about 4 metres.



Then we choose our "non passenger" platform from the list. In this case I have chosen the Woodhead 5m L NP platform.




After selecting this, we click on the offset control arrow and the platform appears adjacent to the track (and level with it).



Now we need to raise the height of the platform by exactly 1 metre by using the gradient tool.



Platform surfaces must be completely smooth for passengers to walk the length of them accurately without sinking or floating, so we delete all the gradient arrows except those at each end. We do this by selecting the unwanted ones and pressing the delete key.



Now it is simply a matter of raising the level of the gradient arrows at each end by exactly 1 metre and the platform will be at the correct height.






Next we create the sloping parts of the platform at both ends. We do this by adding a gradient marker to the point where we wish the slop to begin. This locks this part of the platform to the desired height. Usually I find it best to place this marker about 5 edge tiles from the end. Then just lower the end gradient marker to ground level.





Do this at both ends to complete the process.



Now it is time to add the passenger ribbon. We do this by using the offset tool - not on the track, but on the platform surface itself.

First use the linear object highlight tool along the length of the platform where the passengers are required. By default, the passengers will spawn at the starting point of the passenger ribbon and walk along it and away from this point, so bear this in mind when choosing the initial position of the highlight tool. Start dragging the highlight along the platform.



And bring it all the way to the other end.



Then use the offset tool to add the invisible platform. Choose an offset of 0.5 metres.






Please note: If there are breaks in the platform itself, the resultant passenger ribbon will be segmented also and will not function properly for train boarding. It must therefore be joined properly.

The easiest way of doing this is to place an extra piece of passenger ribbon at the end point of the segmented ribbon. Then, starting at the beginning of the segmented ribbon, move along until you see a join and delete the segment ahead. Then use the same invisible platform loft item to lay the missing piece back in place, making sure to use the the tool in the same direction as used initially. If you have the "snap to track" option selected in the editor, this should be really easy. Then do the same thing for any other joins you may detect ahead. Finally you can delete the extra piece of passenger ribbon we added earlier - and voila, your passenger ribbon is now fit for purpose with no breaks or visible joins.

Platform passenger behaviour can sometimes be rather odd, to say the least. These are some of the things which may cause erratic behaviour among the assembled personnel.

1. Collision Volumes. I know these are meant to guide passengers away from areas where they should not go, but sometimes they produce the opposite effect. I once witnessed a lady passenger walk in circles on the platform, then wander right across the tracks (floating in mid-air), continue walking along the opposite platform until she reached the ladies' waiting room (actually the ladies' toilet) - whereupon she quickly disappeared inside. On another occasion the mere proximity of a collision volume prevented any passengers from appearing at all. So avoid using collision volumes if possible. Use the blue passenger movement guide pegs instead. They do work (most of the time).
   
   
2. Platform Entry/Exit gates. These are useful and in many cases essential, so by all means use them. Just be careful where you place the gate box frames. If possible, place them somewhere on the passenger ribbon itself. This will avoid passengers leaving the gate and walking in a straight line through all manner of obstacles in order to get to whichever part of the ribbon they have decided to make for (it isn't always the nearest section). If they are already on the ribbon they will (or should) stay within the area defined by the blue movement pegs. Same goes for passengers leaving the train and making straight for the Exit Gate.

Okay, we have mentioned the blue passenger movement pegs so we had better know how to make them appear. First select the passenger ribbon at any point. Then SHIFT-double-left-click to bring up the passenger generation dialogue. Make any necessary changes and then press the "generate" button.




This will produce the blue passenger movement pegs.



You can drag these around to change the area in which the passengers will normally walk. This is useful to avoiding any objects they may encounter, such as platform benches etc.




By the way, always ensure that the passenger ribbon is at exactly the same height as the platform itself. Use the yellow gradient adjustment arrows.





This will ensure that standing passengers always have their feet firmly on the ground.

For the purpose of this guide, we shall use the classic UK gated crossing and road as supplied with the Woodhead Route. If you are using the more modern crossings, the principles and methods are the same.

First we select the Woodhead's basic 2-lane narrow road with traffic and lay it across the track: -





To make it more realistic, we shall add a pavement (sidewalk in American terminology) to both sides. We do this by selecting the road with the Highlight tool: -




Select as much of the road as you need to have the pavement: -



Then use the Offset tool and select a width of 3.8 metres: -









Then for the pavement we use the Woodhead's 1-lane road: -




Then clicking the yellow arrows will add the narrow road to both sides of the main road (under it) making it look like a pavement: -



Now we need to add something over the track where the road crosses over it, to make it look more realistic. In this case we shall used the Crossing filler supplied with the Riviera Line in the Fifties. First we select the length of track we wish to cover (using the Highlight tool): -



The we use the Offset tool, choosing a width of 0.01 to place it in the centre of the track: -



Now we choose the Crossing filler from the list: -




And when we click on the yellow arrow (it doesn't matter which one) the filler goes into place: -



It is now time to add the level crossing, so we choose it from the list: -




Left click on the centre of the track to place the centre grey square in position: -



Then left click again to add the control arrow for the trains: -



Then right click to bring up the vehicular control arrows: -



Position the mouse cursor on one side of the track on the road surface at the point where the vehicles should stop, and left click to place the control arrow: -



Then do the same on the other side of the track: -



Now right click to finish the operation.

Now select the crossing again (gray box) to view the control arrows in place.



As you can see from the above picture, the control arrow at the top is pointing away from the track. This is the wrong direction, so we must correct it. Deselect the crossing by right clicking, then select it again. Now hold down the SHIFT key while selecting the arrow which needs to be corrected: -



Then drag the arrow slightly and it will point the other way: -



Release the mouse button and then release the SHIFT key: -



As you can see in the above picture, all the control arrows are now positioned correctly.

Now is the best time to adjust the height of the gates, which are currently too low and touching the top of the rails: -



Just select the crossing again and adjust the height so they clear the track comfortably: -



All we need to to now is line up the gates with their correct starting position across the road: -



Select the crossing's gray box and rotate everything to bring the gates closer to where they should be: -



The select each pair of gates separately and slide them into position nicely: -





Now press F2 to save, and then click the orange Drive button at the bottom right of the screen to run the scenario: -



You will see that doing this has changed the state of the gates from "closed to vehicles" to "open to vehicles." Although they are functioning, there is a bit of a gap where they meet in the centre of the track and so it is a good idea to adjust their distance.

Enter the World Editor again by pressing CTRL+E: -



We can now select the gates in pairs and move them closer to each other: -





Test it out by pressing Drive again and run a train over the crossing: -



As the train passes, the traffic is queueing up behind the gates: -



As soon as the train has passed a fair distance away from the crossing, the gates will open again, allowing the traffic to move across: -



There will be times when you want the gates to open sooner than that, for example when the train stops at a platform just beyond the crossing. For the Woodhead Route level crossing you simply have to move the train control arrow back along the track a distance of 100 metres before the final crossing gate. Other level crossings may require different distances, so experiment until you get the result you need.

We are all done, but if you wish you can add fences (or whatever) to make the whole thing look more realistic: -

Join tool, select traverser, select track

If your route includes a yard, you may wish to add a traverser. The question is 'how do you add a traverser to the end of a section of track which has already been laid?'

Here is the answer.
Place the traverser fairly close by. Then use the Join tool to snap the traverser to the end of the track.




The method is: -

1. Click on the Join tool
   
2. Click on the traverser (any section of its track, visible or invisible)
   
3. Click on the piece of track where you wish the traverser to join onto.

Here's what that looks like: -









The traverser should snap in place.






We are not done yet, because the grass terrain is covering the inner part of the traverser. We need to make that grass invisible so we use the tunnel hole decal asset.





Place it down near the traverser and make it with a size which will just fit inside the outer perimeter of the traverser.




While playing around with this and placing it over the traverser, you will invariably have a problem re-selecting it to move it outside again. The traverser will keep being selected. There is a handy solution. In this case I held down the "E" key before selecting and, instead of the traverser, the tunnel hole decal asset was highlighted and successfully selected. (See the section in this guide on Selecting Elusive Objects).


Move the decal to fit over the traverser : -




Now press the orange play button at the bottom right of the screen to see the result.

Join tool, select turntable, select track

If your route is to be used by steam-powered locomotives, you may wish to add a turntable or two. The question is 'how do you add a turntable to the end of a section of track which has already been laid?'

Here is the answer.
Place the turntable fairly close by. Then use the Join tool to snap the turntable to the end of the track.



The method is: -

1. Click on the Join tool
   
2. Click on the turntable (any section of its track, visible or invisible)
   
3. Click on the piece of track where you wish the turntable to join onto.

Here's what that looks like: -






The turntable should snap in place.





We are not done yet. We have extended the track and added some scenery nearby but the grass terrain is still covering the inner part of the turntable and needs fixing.



We need to make that grass invisible so we use the tunnel hole decal asset.




Place the decal down and then move and resize it (using the top and bottom yellow tabs) so the top and bottom edges lie just outside the turntable hole and then resize the left and right hand sides (using the left and right hand yellow tabs) so the yellow corner tabs lie just inside the turntable surround.



Then drag the decal to the side so you can work on it. If you ever have trouble selecting it just hold the 'E' key while doing so.



Now we shall use the SHIFT-Align method to make three extra copies of the decal on top of itself. We do this by holding the SHIFT key down while we click the Align Tool and (keeping the SHIFT key depressed) we then click on the object 6 times. Then release the SHIFT key.

Rotate one copy by 90 degrees and the other two copies by 45 degrees - one to the left and the other to the right. (see the section on Rotating Objects)



Select all four copies at once and drag them all back over the turntable hole.



Now press the orange play button at the bottom right of the screen to see the result.



Here's a video to demonstrate how it's done.

Very often, after you have imported terrain into your route (in a real life simulation) you will need to add water to those parts which require it. For this, you will need to choose a suitable water decal asset.

Here is a scene which lacks the required water decal.



We shall choose our favourite, which is the RL Water Reflective asset, which is included with the Riviera Lines in the fifties route.




Just place it down somewhere.



Then, using one of the yellow corner tabs, drag it out to its maximum size.



Adjust the height so the water is at the correct level.



Then double click on the decal and make fine adjustments using the decal properties dialogue.




Adjust the height to exactly match any adjoining water decals.



You don't need to worry if the decals overlap, provided they are exactly the same height.



Sometimes, further inland, the water level may increase. So the height of the decal must be increased.



But this will mean a jump in the terrain where the two different height decals meet.



Normally, as in the above picture, this is not too obvious and can be disguised in various ways. with trees or other objects.

Further inland still, the watercourse may become nothing more than a stream. In this case we can switch to a linear object water asset, such as a generic river loft.




It is laid in the same way as a road. Again, the join is rather obvious and will need to be disguised with something.



The generic river loft asset can be quite realistic, and is easy to use.



There is a variety of linear object water lofts to choose from.



Some of them have banks on either side.



Others are flat against the terrain.



You can lay them in any fashion you choose.



And some of them can be re-sized to make them wider or narrower as required. This is achieved by selecting each section and dragging the width selection arrows either outwards or inwards as needed.

Area markers are placed by route builders as temporary reminders of where important buildings or other objects need to be added.

You select the tool for adding an area marker from the track objects menu.




Then place it on the 3D map in the desired position.



Each marker, once placed, may be resized by using the yellow tabs on its perimeter.



It may also be named with a descriptive term for clarity, for example "cattle sheds."

To do this, bring up the properties dialogue box by double clicking the area marker.




Now, when you press F6, the name will be visible on the 3D map.



Later on, when a suitable 3D object has been put in position, the area marker may be removed by simply deleting it.

• CTRL + E: Enters the World Editor from any TSC scenario while in game. Press the Mode Switch button (orange Play Button) at the bottom right of the screen to exit and return to the simulation.

• F2: Saves the route at current edit state (this cannot be undone).

• CTRL + ALT + DELETE: Forces the World Editor to exit without saving (via the task manager).

• CTRL + Up and Down Cursor Keys: Moves the camera up and down in the y-axis.
  
• CTRL + SHIFT + HOME: Moves the camera to 1 metre above ground level.
  
• Up/Down/Left/Right Cursor Keys: Moves the camera forwards, backwards and sideways.
  
• Hold the right mouse button and move the mouse: Pan the camera view.
  
• Mouse Wheel: Zooms the view in or out by adjusting the Field of View.
  
• SHIFT + Cursor Keys: Speeds up camera movements (also works with CTRL + Up or Down cursor keys as SHIFT + CTRL + Cursor Keys).
  
• SHIFT: Initialises camera speed to default.

• Left click mouse button: Selects a single object.
  
• Double click left mouse button: Opens the properties dialogue box.
  
• CTRL + Left click mouse button: Selects multiple objects.
  
• Hold left mouse button and drag: Selects multiple objects within an area.
  
• Right click mouse button: Clears selection.
  
• Select + J: Lowers an object to ground level.
  
• Select + V: Raises an object upwards.
  
• Select + B: Lowers an object downwards.
  
• Select + N: Moves an object horizontally nearer to camera position.
  
• Select + C: Moves an object horizontally further away from camera position.
  
• Select for rotation + G: Rotates an object clockwise.
  
• Select for rotation + F: Rotates an object anticlockwise.
  
• CTRL while rotating: Rotates an object by a specific angle.
  
• Select + DELETE: Deletes an object.

• TAB while placing: Aligns an object to the track.
  
• Align Tool, select A, select B: Aligns one object with another.
  
• SHIFT + Align Tool: Copies an object on top of itself.

• Gradient Tool, select height arrow, L: Adjusts height of linear object (eg track or road) to ground level.
  
• CTRL + double click left mouse button on a junction: Opens the junction properties dialogue box.
  
• CTRL + Join, select A, select B: Seamlessly merges two segments of a linear object.
  
• Join, select turntable, select track: Snaps a turntable onto the end of a piece of track.
  
• Join, select traverser, select track: Snaps a turntable onto the end of a piece of track.

• Hold S + click left mouse button: Scenery.
  
• Hold T + click left mouse button: Tracks.
  
• Hold R + click left mouse button: Roads.
  
• Hold L + click left mouse button: Lofts.
  
• Hold E + click left mouse button: Editor items.
  
• Hold 2 - 8 + click left mouse button: Scenery to the nth selection.

Spacebar (number of presses)

• 0: Normal rendered track (default)
  
• 1: Line Type (Yard, Main, etc)
  
• 2: Directionality
  
• 3: Speed Limits
  
• 4: Sounds
  
• 5: Electrification
  
• 6: Superelevation
  
• 7: Unevenness (wobble)
  
• 8: Track Linked Objects
  
• 9: Return to Default (0)

• CTRL + G: Enables the Google Maps overlay.
  
• F6: Displays names of track markers, portals and transfer points.
  
• F12: Takes Screenshot.

• 9: Enters the 2D map.
  
• Mouse Wheel: Zooms the 2D map in or out.
  
• CTRL + click left mouse button: Enters coordinates on 2D map into navigation panel.
  
• Click right mouse button: Exits the 2D map.

A right mouse button click on any menu item will have the following effect.

• 1st click adds the item to the red favourites list.
  
• 2nd click moves the item to the green favourites list.
  
• 3rd click moves the item to the blue favourites list.
  
• 4th click removes the item from all favourites lists.
  
• a right click on any item within any favourites list removes the item from that list.
  
• a right click on any coloured favourites tab: Removes all favourites from that list.

• F9: Reloads 3D object assets. Useful for developers to test blueprint changes.
  
• CTRL + ESC: Displays Windows Start Menu on Desktop.
  
• ALT + TAB: Allows access to other currently running apps.

The full list of keyboard and mouse controls for the editor can be found also in the following guide:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2940948768

The area at the bottom right of the screen provides two functions.



The Lock (padlock icon) and the Mode Select (orange arrow play button)




The lock icon allows you to lock certain functionality to prevent you accidentally changing items in a route that will prevent the functioning of pre-existing Scenarios. Once locked, you will be unable to select any linear objects. The menu linear object icon will be greyed out, along with the one for editing the scenario.




To lock the route, click the lock. To unlock it, click the lock again.

The Mode Switch icon (orange play button) takes you back to driving mode. If you are editing a route directly or in Free Roam mode and have not selected a train then the camera will remain detached when you return to driving mode, allowing you to fly around the route and view it with the correct lighting and effects. If you entered the World Editor from a Scenario or had already selected a train in Free Roam Driving, you will be returned to the locomotive when switching to drive mode.

To keep temporarily a list of the most useful assets during a route building session, the editor uses 3 favourite lists, Red, Green and Blue.



There are two sets of these coloured lists. One set will save any 3D objects such as houses, cars and trees, while the second set will save any linear objects such as tracks, roads and fence lofts.

Unfortunately, these two sets of coloured lists are not saved permanently after each editing session and are retained between sessions only so long as you do not load anything else (either a different scenario to play or different route to edit) or clear the cache. At least you can exit the editor and come back later and still use the favourites. You can also exit the editor by using the play button, select and run a train in the default freeroam scenario, and then go back to editing again by pressing CTRL-E without losing the favourites.

In spite of the shortcomings, during a lengthy editing session it can be very useful to use the favourites lists to save a bit of time navigating between various sections to repeatedly retrieve your favourite tree, house, vehicle, shed, bench or whatever.

To add an asset to the list is very quick and simple.

When browsing it from any section (houses, stations, clutter or whatever) right click on its name to add it to one of the lists.

You can choose which list to add it to by repeatedly right clicking on the name to cycle through the red, green and blue lists.

• Right click once to add it to the red list
  
• Right click twice to add it to the green list
  
• Right click three times to add it to the blue list

To open a list, first select the correct object menu - either 3D or linear, and then simply left click its coloured button.




To select and use an object from a list, open the list and then left click on the object.

To remove an object from a list, open the list and then right click on the object.

To clear all items from a list, right click its coloured button. You will be prompted for confirmation before that list is cleared.

Remember, if you play a different scenario, edit a different route or clear the cache your lists will disappear next time you open the editor - but they are useful if you are doing a lot of work in a particular string of successive sessions which require the repeated use of a selection of assets from various diverse categories. Just don't clear the cache - or you will clear all your lists.

I recommend adding each asset you use to a list as you go, so that if you need that asset again it will be easy to find.

Remember that railways operate in the hours or darkness, as well as during the day, so your route must have sufficient lighting to allow the player to see what would normally be visible at night.

You can add station platform lights, street lighting, yard lighting, flood lighting etc. throughout the route to make driving at night conform to the expected conditions.

At some point you will need to test whether the route looks okay at night, and you can do this by changing the time of day in the world editor. However, this may result in it being too dark to see what you need to see to make any necessary edits.

Fortunately there is a solution - the Torch Function

The torch function will illuminate the area where you are located.

Adding static vehicles in various suitable locations is fairly straightforward. But there are some static vehicles which are named as being "parked." So what does this mean, and what is the difference?

A "parked" vehicle differs from an ordinary one in that its lights never come on - even at night - whereas an ordinary unparked vehicle's lights will be turned on during the hours of darkness.



As you can see, the car on the left is an ordinary one, whereas the car on the right is parked and does not have its lights on.

If you select a placed object and then double click on it, a pop up box will appear at the top right of the screen with various options.

The first of these is a check box for the Global Object function.




Placing a tick in this box will force the game to make this item visible from greater distances.

Normally a placed object will be visible within the game at anything up to a distance of 1,500 metres.

If Global Object is enabled, this distance can increase to 4,500 metres (this distance varies).

This is useful when certain prominent landmarks need to be seen from a greater distance as a train approaches.

Naturally, this function does use more processing resources - so use it sparingly and only where distant landmarks and prominent objects really do need to be seen from far away.

One thing you may wish to note is that once an object has been made "global" it will be locked in size and position. If you wish to resize it or lift it up a little, first uncheck the "global" box. Otherwise your changes will not be saved. Once you have finished resizing and repositioning the object, you can make it "global" again.

The field value box normally pops up when you double click an item which has already been placed.

When changing the value of a field such as co-ordinates, brush size or brush speed, hold the SHIFT key before clicking the right-side end of the field. This automatically highlights the entry in blue and enables you to either delete or overwrite it with a new value.




It saves you the trouble of highlighting the old value via the mouse or keyboard and in the long run it will also save you time.

Sometimes you highlight an object, hit the delete key and nothing happens.

The solution: - Use the Delete Function: -




This function is often overlooked, but sometimes very useful.

It may help to understand the files/folders of a Train Simulator Route:

• MixMap - Terrain texturing data
  
• Networks
  
  • Loft Tiles - Lofted object data
    
    • Loft.bin
  • Road Tiles - Road placement data
    
    • Roads.bin
  • Track Tiles - Track placement data
    
    • Tracks.bin
• Scenarios - Individual scenario data
  
  • Scenarios.bin
• Scenery - Scenery placement data
  
• Terrain - Terrain height data

There might be a good reason for you to directly edit one or more of the files contained in your route folder. For example, if your route is already halfway finished you might decide to change the route's origin - that is the coordinates used as the default starting point when editing your route (when it has only the default free roam scenario). It is also the starting point for scenario-makers who select 'route origin' from the main menu when creating a scenario for your route. Most files can be edited by using a simple text editor. Exercise caution and always make a back up of anything you wish to change.

Other reasons you may have to edit files include the need to change certain values contained in some of the scenery files. For example, you might have already laid hundreds of scenery items only to discover that the detail level for many of them has been set at level 1. Players with their main menu scenery density setting set to maximum will notice nothing wrong, but anyone else will experience missing scenery items on your route - some of them important buildings etc. You can change these one by one in the normal world editor, but it is a long and laborious task and rather hit-and-miss. A better way is to edit the .bin files in your route folder using 'find and replace' for the detail level setting of 1 in each of the relevant files, changing the value to 10.

The best way of editing the .bin files is to use a 3rd party free utility called TS Tools (formerly RW Tools) by Mike Simpson.

You can download the latest version here:

TS Tools[www.railsims.com]

As always, exercise caution and always make a back up of anything you wish to change.

If you are aiming to create a route based on one which actually existed in the UK in a bygone era, then you will need to find data on the track configurations of the day.

The National Library of Scotland provides side-by-side maps to help with this.

NLS Side-by-side Maps[maps.nls.uk]: -



You may find the above direct link rather confusing and difficult to find what you are looking for.

Fortunately there is another site which can help.

Old Maps Online [www.oldmapsonline.org]



Most of the maps you find there will be Ordinance Survey maps from the early 1900s, the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Many abbreviations are used on them and it is useful to know what these mean. Fortunately there is an excellent resource which lists them all.

Here is the link.

Abbreviations - Ordnance Survey mapping in Scotland, England and Wales [maps.nls.uk]

When you publish your route to the Workshop, you will be required to include an image which must be placed inside your route folder within the RouteInformation sub-folder. This should simply be named image.png and can be anything you like.



As this will be a route rather than a scenario, it is probably best to use a map of some sorts so that people immediately know it is a route just by looking at it. Here is an example of such an image.



This was created by taking a screenshot of the 2D ingame map and (using PhotoShop or similar) making the image transparent except for the track itself. Then this was superimposed over a Google Earth map of the area so that the track was lined up in the correct position. Station labels and markers were then added, along with large text identifying the title of the route.

One very useful item to include with your route is a schematic map detailing all passenger and goods destinations, along with the locations of water and fuel points. Here is an example of such a map.



The best way of creating these maps is in Google Drawings [docs.google.com]


Okay, so now you have made your schematic map. But how do you include it with your route?

First make both a PNG image and a PDF version of the map (you can do this by downloading a copy of it from Google Drawings as a PNG image and then another copy in PDF form).

Next, place a copy of both the PNG image and the PDF file in your route folder inside the "en" subfolder of the "RouteInformation" folder.



You can give these image and PDF files any name you wish. For my route I named them "Hampshire Lines Schematic.png" and "Hampshire Lines Schematic.pdf"

Edit the html description file called "Description.html" inside this folder to either include the map's PNG image or a link to it, and also a link to the PDF file. Or you could make the PNG image clickable and point it to the PDF file, as in the following code example: -

<a href="Hampshire Lines Schematic.pdf" ><img src="Hampshire Lines Schematic.png" ></a>
<br>Click on the map to see the PDF version

Now, after they have subscribed, users can access this Description file inside the route folder and gain access to the map - plus any other information you may wish to share with them about the route.

You could even include a second geographically correct version of your route map against a black background. Then users could refer to this map in-game, either via a second PC screen or on their smartphones.

It is always useful to know where to access the manuals for the content you own, If your route is using assets from several items of official DLC, you may wish to refer to the manuals for each.

You can find the manuals already on your computer in the following folder: -

Program Files (x86) / Steam / steamapps / common / RailWorks / Manuals / EN



If you are looking for the manual for Riviera Line in the Fifties, for example, and you own it, you will find its manual here.

If you would like to see a complete list of Route Manuals, please see the following link: -

TS Routes and Manuals [www.railsims.com]

Last, but by no means least, here is a link to the official DTG Train Simulator Developer Documentation for the World Editor: -

Train Simulator Developer Documentation[tscdevdocs.co.uk]

I am sure you will find it helpful.

There is also a series of "How to Use" PDFs inside your RailWorks folder: -

Just navigate to Program Files (x86) > Steam > steamapps > common > RailWorks > dev > Docs



Just in case you don't have these files. here are copies: -

• HOW TO USE Train Simulator 2012 Technology [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator 2013 Technology [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator 2014 Technology Part 1 [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator 2014 Technology Part 2 [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator 2015 Technology [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator Engine Scripting [sites.google.com]
  
• HOW TO USE Train Simulator Scenario Scripting [sites.google.com]

Lastly here is a link to the complete set of user manuals of the base game: -

Base game user manuals 2008 - 2023 [www.railsims.com]

Publishing a route to the Steam Workshop means sharing it so other users can view it and try it out. While you are still building your route, if you have made some reasonably good progress, you might wish to publish it. This is not the same as making it final, and you will still be able to make as many changes as you wish before finalisation. It will be regarded as a "work in progress" so that other people can subscribe to it and give you some feedback. This feedback will provide invaluable help in completing your route successfully, after which you will want to make it final so that people can publish scenarios for it.

Please note, you should not subscribe to your own published route while still building. If you do, any changes and improvements you make will simply be overwritten by the published version every time you start the game. If you do need to subscribe to your own route for some reason, such as a need to restore a working copy of your route, just remember to unsubscribe again afterwards.

To publish your route, select Build from the main menu: -



Then select the Publish tab at the top: -



Then select your route from the list: -



You will see from the above picture that the system will check your route to see if it meets all the requirements: -

• A file called image.png must be in the folder RouteInformation (size 256x128)
  
• A file called description.html must be in the folder RouteInformation\en
  
• At least one Quick Drive template scenario is required.

The image file can be based on a screenshot from your route if you so wish, but it can just as easily be any picture you choose. It will be used as the thumbnail for your route when people see it in the Workshop. It should be twice as wide as it is high, and the recommended dimensions are 256 x 128 pixels

The description file can be whatever you like to describe your route but must be written in HTML format.

The Quick Drive scenario should ideally allow players to choose any station on your route as a starting point and allow them to drive trains to any of its other stations. The following link will guide you in the creation of a Quick Drive scenario.

Link → How to Make a Quick Drive Scenario ← Link

One other message may appear if you have used any third party assets which are not available via Steam: -



If you wish to publish your route to the Steam Workshop it MUST contain ONLY assets which have been made available via the Steam Store.

If your route contains any 3rd party assets, either created by yourself or downloaded elsewhere, and if these assets have not been made available via Steam, then your publishing attempts will bring up the error message "unrecognised blueprint" which will identify the name of the asset folder(s) in question - and you will not be able to publish your route.

Note: Nobody will be able to publish a scenario for your route on Steam until it has been made final.

After your route has been completed to your satisfaction, you will be ready to make it final. This is an important step because afterwards you will not be able to make any further changes to it. The main advantage of making your route final is that it will allow other people to publish their scenarios for it. To be made final, it must have received at least 30 positive votes.

Here we see a route which is technically ready for finalisation: -



It has the required 30 votes, and if desired, the author can click the Make Final tab at the bottom.

After your route has been finished, published and finalised (made final), there are some important things you should do so that others may enjoy it to the full.

Edit the route description on its Workshop page and add a few lines to:

1. State that it has been made final.
   
2. Invite people to make and publish scenarios for it.
   
3. Provide a single dynamic link to all the route's scenarios.

To make the dynamic link, you will need your route's unique id number.

This can be seen in the Build menu of the game when you select your route.

Here's how to find the route id for Hampshire Lines - Steam Era (ws preview)






As you can see the route id is 4ae2bb13-bab5-446a-81d7-a65d4bfbe291

Yours will be different of course.

Simply replace the "x"s inside the curly brackets in the following code with your route id.

[url=https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/workshop/browse/?appid=24010&excludedtags%5B%5D=route&requiredtags%5B%5D=%23rtdp{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}&browsesort=totaluniquesubscribers] Workshop Scenarios for This Route [/url]

Your link is now ready, and you can place it somewhere prominently in your route's description section.

You might also wish to make an announcement elsewhere saying that your route has been made final. This should be posted in the forum under the "Content Creations Discussions" section.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/24010/discussions/7/

Last, but not least, place a message in the comments section of this guide letting me know. I will then add your route to the list of finalised routes in my TS Workshop Menu.

TSC Workshop Menu[www.railsims.com]

This guide may not be able to answer all of your questions. The good news is that there ar many other members of the TS community who have put together helpful guides and videos.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/24010/guides/

For signalling using the JT signals, try this clear, concise and informative series of videos.

JustTrains Signal Tutorials (UK Modern)

We have written a range of guides for Train Simulator Classic

Click the link below to access them all:

Warwick Rail's TSC Guides

Here are the top 10.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2739089566
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2365689194
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2577919604
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2361991441
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2364751070
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2205267954
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2222378782
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2297125586
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2373171986
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2940948768

If you have found the above advice and information useful, please rate this guide by giving it a thumbs up - and of course don't forget to add it to your favourites.

I would just like to say a very big thank you for the 36 kind awards people have bestowed on this guide - especially the very generous people who gave it 1,600 Steam Points. Your kindness is most encouraging and all the awards are very much appreciated.

This guide © Copyright Warwick Rail 2020-2025, all rights reserved. This item is not authorised for posting on Steam, except under the Steam account named Warwick Rail.