Looking through rail-sim.de there appears to be a lot of freeware routes. I’m trying to get a more complete portfolio of the German rail network. Excluding anything purchased (Steam, RSSLO, Aerosoft) are any of the freeware routes recommended? Thx
Hey kilt46 As I´ve been in German TSC for over 10 years now, I can definitly narrow things down for you. Railsim has a huge section of Freeware routes, but most of them are beginner projects, betas or very out of date kuju style routes. I´ll give you a list of "must have" and a few others worth checking out. Must have German freeware: 1. Bremerhaven-Hannover by Pushing Tin: an amazing freeware effort with well over 100 miles of route including fully functional Bremerhaven docks area (check it out, it´s massive!), Bremen Marshalling yard and Seelze (Hannover) Marshalling yard. This route is a major freight corridor in Germany, has loads of regional traffic and ICE services between Bremen and Hannover. It´s requierments list is also kept low. Only downside: the author used 2D Vegetation along the whole route. Otherwise it´s masterpiece that beats most payware efforts. 2. Rodachtalbahn V3.1 by Schienenbus a network of unelectrifid routes in the north of Bavaria set in the 1990´s. Includes Hof, Marktredwit, Kronach and the famous "Schiefe Ebene" route going to Neuenmarkt-Wirsberg. The most unique thing about this network are a bunch of small branchlines. Two of them are fictional, but 80% of the network is based on real life in the 1990´s. Includes a massive bunch of self created assets and signals, but is a little heavy on requirements 3. Thüringer Wald by EZY and OH78. A network of fictional routes set in DDR days. Very well made and considered one of the community favourites, even though it´s fictional. 4. Nachteburg-Rannstadt and Bad Altburger S-Bahn by Team EZY two fictional routes that connect to each other in the Style of Im Köblitzer Bergland. But unlike IKB the technical aspects, signaling and trackwork for these routes are top notch. Once again fictional routes, but community favourites because of the high quality. There are also backdated DDR "Spin Offs" of these routes to be found. 5. Harznetz 2000 DISCLAIMER: I was a major part of this project. I don´t want to sound arrogant by saying it´s must have, I´m just going from others in community have said. The real life Harz network set in the year 2000. Includes Goslar, Vienenburg, Bad Harzburg, Salzgitter and Langelsheim. On Top of that we added the branchline from Langelsheim to Altenau, that was closed in 1976 and considered one of Germanys most scenic routes. 2000 was a changing point for the whole area, so it´s possible to run old German Bundesbahn rolling stock or more modern DMU´s on the line without any of the two looking out of place. 6. Preßnitztalbahn Wolkenstein-Jöhstadt 2.43f a beautiful narrow gauge railway in Sachsen set during DDR times. The scenery work on this route is STUNNING and it´s getting an extension in the future. check it out. A couple of other routes worth checking out: 1. Wetteraunetz 90 by Steuerwagen Schmiede a collection of branchline routes north of Frankfurt set (once again) in the 90´s. If you know Niddertalbahn from TSW, this is kind of the TSC Version of it. 2. Bedburg-Horrem by Ali and Tom87 once again, I was involved with this one. A branchline in Nordrhein-Westfalen set in modern times. Worth checking out, if you run out of German stuff to do. 3. Projekt Freiberg Sachsen V2.1 by kstdija Mainline Chemnitz-Freiberg-Tharandt including all branchlines around Freiberg set in DDR times. If you have TSW, you will know this one. But in TSC it´s set in DDR times and has a massive network of branchlines around Freiberg. Very enjoyable route and still highly acclaimed in the community. Sadly phase three to Dresden never got finished and the route is showing it´s age now. It was published in 2016 and includes a lot of Kuju assets. 4. Regio S-Bahn Bremen by Malkondo A spin off from Pushings Tins Hannover to Bremerhaven, but only including the S1 line in Bremen and extending it to Farge. The Author is working on further extensions. Conclusion: The Germans seem to love branchlines and fictional stuff. Hannover-Bremerhaven beeing the only real and long mainline modern day freeware route. Another important thing to know: most German DTG routes have revamps and upgraded versions on Railsim. The Germans spent more time on revamping DTG routes rather than building new ones.
Fully agree. Freiberg is especially great because it's Tharandter Ramp in the GDR era. All assets have been recreated, and matching stock is available for these. Harznetz is probably the most ambitious project ever for TSC, and it shows. But they're all great work of art.
As far as I´m aware this routes relies heavy on kuju and the UKTS freeware packs... it does not include too many custom assets. Remember, this route was started in Rail Simulator days and phase one must of come out in 2013 or so. The author did the upmost he could with the means he had at the time. So no one knocks this route... it´s a classic. The author had plans to upgrade the route with more modern assets and extend it to Dresden. Sadly, he stopped showing up on Railsim a couple of years ago.
Then take a look again. Stations, clocks, boards, rail infrastructure and signals are farily prototypical.
I don´t have the route anymore... just downloaded it and looked in the asset folder. It only has custom signage and 2-3 station buildings done by Ice. Looks like he used default assets and put signage on them.
Erm, it's got a lot of dependencies (Schienenbus and such, the DR infrastructure) The only thing which is probably hard to achieve is the brown coal facades all the houses had back then. Of course not all assets can be rebuilt, you have to make a compromise making it 100% (and maybe never released, or a good compromise which reproduces the "feel" of it.) (Just thought to play this with some more typical GDR smog-like fog)
Indeed. That's a VirtualRailroads thing. Gotta run the texture through paint.net and add a little blue and remove some yellow.
If your talking new BR 143 version, here is a repaintpack with all colours you could ever wish for. https://rail-sim.de/forum/filebase/entry/9572-rdf-rs-br143-repaintpack-v2-update-auf-v2-11-04-2024/
Thanks, I'm talking about the DR 243 with the old cab instruments. It had a Bordeaux blueish finish irl, but vR made it sort of traffic red, probably matching the old Kuju skies better which automatically tinted everything in blue. Most VR stock is fairly old. In that case it's enough to load the main texture into paint.net and move the Hue into the blue range. Three seconds, done. But then in the GDR it seems they were not that strict with RAL Codes. They were using a much more reddish paint on the V180, and it seems they took what was there with each loco looking a bit different. Before judging contemporary photos, be aware that east german colour film manufacturer ORWO had a terrible tint, and you must use software to restore the colours and white point first. But I'm sure they all were a bit different. Corporate design was not taken that seriously.
I don't have that many 143s as I don't drive them that much. Give me a 103 or a 111 or a 120 or even a 181/2
