't Hart Van Nederland V2 - And Other Great Freeware Routes

Another Italian route I like is FSM Torino - it has not been updated since 2018 though
https://www.codadeltreno.com/en/tag/railworks-en/

 

749006

SFM Torino Reloaded

https://rail-sim.de/forum/filebase/entry/9904-sfm-torino-reloaded/

 

Thanks Peter,

I will reinstall that route

 

A new route each day. Today, I've installed MÁV 29 (Székesfehérvár-Tapolca).

 

Can you confirm where v2.1 is?

 

http://www.rotabili-italiani.org/sito/itinerari-reali.html

 

Next route, from Hungary to Czechia - Trat 292 ("Silesian Semmering")

 

I am going to struggle to keep up once I finally can get that new computer. LOL

 

Don't worry Cyclone. You can never see all routes TSC has to offer... But each one unlocks the next few...

This is MÁV 54 Zselic (Kaposvár-Szigetvár), same requirements as MAV 29.



When you go to Build > Route, this is what you see at the route origin which is a bit off map:


Back on Trat 292



Amazing scenery details, the route really feels alive. Top notch route builders.

 

Spikee1975 - have you got the MAV V63 Electric?
From here - click on the name of the asset
https://sites.google.com/view/ts-hungary-ideiglenes-weboldal/vonatok/vontatójárművek
I have it and it looks ok but there is something in the machine room that needs doing that I have not got my head round

Further down the page is a M41
Had a double take a few years ago when taking a picture and noting down the loco I had travelled behind

 

In the pipeline, Peter

 

Trat 292 is a great Czech branch line sadly no progress for at least 3 years now. it needs extending to Lipova Lazne or better still to Jesenik.

 

Problems on this route trying a Quick Drive from Asti to Torino with the HRQ ES46U4 Taurus
The LZB starts as you leave the station but then above 40kmh it dumps the brakes even though the LZB shows 180.
I swapped it to the HLE 13 - no LZB so it drives ok.

At some locations you are running on clear signals and you go from a Green to a Red but it does not TAB and the map shows the signals as clear. Some Speed changes are missing and you drop without warning.

At Trofarello one of the tracks in in the air and attempting to pass the station makes the train go in to a big hole and derail.





Peter

 

Can't imagine this being released in such a state. I'm checking, I have it installed but not played yet. Missing speed warnings can also mean missing assets / trackrules on your end.

I've checked, it's broken on my end too. Well, a gift horse. Shall remove it again.

Found an interesting discussion on the matter in general. It seems to be a bug in the editor that raises tracks in a different area after you've modified loft heights anywhere. Only solution for the author is to revert to a backup (if there's any) - fixing the tracks again, using the height tool, splitting and welding again is extremely tedious it seems and largely dismissed by the pros.

https://rail-sim.de/forum/thread/41146-abgehobene-gleise/

As it stands, the old SFM Torino does it for me. I'll now check the the V63 and M41 I downloaded.

The unique thing is the loco script which allows you to walk inside the loco using Shift+WASD. Isn't it amazing what people accomplish on that "old" game engine?

This pro loco is gonna take me a while, I'll let the PDF auto translate


Thank you DeepL. "Password"


The manual links to a Youtube tutorial:

 

I'll stick with my fav 749 atm. Love the old loud Diesel workhorse. Now leaving Usti nad Labem travelling to Cheb. Getting the assets for this one from Sasule opened up another four routes I can install subsequently. All four routes in the Podkrusnohorska_Magistrala pack have alternate tracks.bin files for 3D tracks.

The region northeast of Usti was famously recreated by devs "Bohemia Interactive" in the game ArmA 2 and its mod offspring DayZ, called Chernarus. (The town Povrly is called Elektrozavodsk in the game.)

The route comes with Eastbound and Westbound QuickDrives.

 

No payware routes to be seen



Next one in the pipeline

 

I left a comment on the thread about the SFM Route and the Author is not sure why it is doing that.

I also have the line to Cheb installed and it is a very good route.
Back in 2005 I went down the line with the train swapping locos at Kaden as the line was not electrified then

Karlovy Vary looked different then
https://peter749.piwigo.com/picture?/29677/category/335-october_2005
https://peter749.piwigo.com/picture?/29697/category/335-october_2005

749008 and 749100 were a couple of locos I used to find on my trips to the Czech Republic
749.008 at Týniště nad Orlicí - 05 July 2005

749.100 Ceske Budějovice - 01 July 2007

Peter

 

I've now mastered the 15x - unbelievable this is all freeware. Absolute pro range scripting and functionality. And beautifully modelled and textured, exterior as well as cab.





Found a nice video with awesome tech footage of the loco

 

One of the locos on the website is 363.076 but the body is wrong and should either be a 263 or a 371/372


So with the help of Gary Padley a couple of years ago I have a 371

 

So the screenshot with the links I posted above has led me to an updated version of Ostrava - Zilina, with lots of added tracks.



It seems this one is the "mother" of czech routes, because it contains the full set of "CS_Addon\KaMat\Morava" assets (which you will find partially in lots of freeware routes), and is almost exclusively using these assets (and Kuju\RailSimulator). It's like Altenburg-Wildau, or Köblitz which is a basic pool of assets used on freeware routes.

I was a bit suprised checking its RouteProperties (I have a routine of installing everything to a temp folder first, removing junk files like *.dds from the Terrain\textures folder or .bak files.

This route was only preloading "CS_addon\KaMat". But still it took very long to load.

So I decided to let it run through TSTools to give me a list of all providers used (You must do a full check, the button in TSTools to list all Providers\Products is only taking the info from RouteProperties.xml - which doesn't have to be correct necessarily).

So I found additionally "CS_addon\Hekl" and "Kuju\RailSimulator" are used, but not preloaded.

I've added them to the BlueprintsetPreload in RouteProperties.xml, which improved loading times noticeably.

Which leads me to this theory:

As long as you are referencing Geos from other asset folders and they are not moving (e.g. road traffic), it's no problem not preloading them.

But, if they are NOT preloaded, it seems TS cannot use the blueprints.pak cache (which it loads based on RouteProperties preload list), therefore having to search and manually load the required assets, leading to long loading times. Adding all used folders to the RouteProperties supports this theory, which loading times have shown for me.

This problem is only present if the author is manually removing entries from RouteProperties (can only be done manually, as to place an object onto the route its Provider must be ticked in World Editor which writes the entry to RouteProperties.



That's how the RouteProperties.xml came, below the corrected version:



I always thought fixing this was just OCD geek stuff on my end, but it actually has an effect. After cleaning up the route files, they always end up in a MainContent.ap. LocoSwap will automatically extract scenarios from there and make a copy outside in case you need to swap stock, and the original files will be preserved.

I had found the route via this textfile containing links to the most commonly used freeware files, I've attached the file.

 

Currently working on the MAV 70 Vac-Szob line.

This has a large amount of "missing" assets only because the author decided to throw his favourite assets into the Kuju folder (biggest crime in TS routebuilding). Now needs restoring all correct dependencies.

 

Done. Now that route correctly uses the dependencies. All issues eliminated



Cleaning up the dependencies and correcting the preloaded packs in RouteProperties.xml also has these strange sudden crash to desktop issues disappearing after editing a scenario and clicking Play. TS is stable when data is correct. All that's left in LogMate is some network syncing stuff, which TS can handle. The route initially took minutes to load from my SSD, just correcting the paths and preloading the correct cache paks makes it load in under 20 seconds now. Amazing.

Cleaning up the BlueprintSetPreload section:

 

A bit of work to amend the RouteProperties.xml in each route.

 

That's not needed everywhere. But it makes a huge difference. Non preloaded assets will massively increase loading times and lead to instabilities as TS will not load the blueprints.paks (which are kept in memory).

I've even finished with unused assets preloaded which I could remove. That was a very special case. I like doing this sort of stuff. Because it taught me more about how TS is working. I was seriously wondering why some routes take that long to load. Because each asset is fetched from the drive if its pack is not declared in RP, instead of loading the cache index and access assets only when needed on the visible tiles.

That's rooted in the game's history. Initially, there wasn't even ScenarioProperties with a preload section. I'm sure nobody expected the game to grow as it did, though choosing 128-bit GUIDs instead of route scenario names was very wise. The game would just scan scenario.bin, loading each asset it found and then enter the game. Caching and preloading made everything much faster, but the backward compatibility was kept.

 

Where did you get this route from and are there other Hungarian routes?


I need somewhere to run the BR Class 86

 

trainsimulator.hu

 

An extended route came on to the Dutch scene yesterday - Randstad_West
https://dutchsims.nl/viewforum.php?f=125
it only appears to have 84 scenarios

 

Fine. All requirements already here. (This was formerly known as De Oude Lijn)

 

Not sure if I like the route or not as it does not go in to Amsterdam CS just Amsterdam Zuid
The line to Zandvoort aan Zee is included but the service came from Amsterdam CS and beyond so it is just a shuttle now.

 

It's very well crafted.

 

What a wonderful Xmas present. Another free route from 3rd party!

 

That is a lot of scenarios. Granted, one of the Lincolnshire routes I think had over 100.

 

Achterhoek- en Twentelijnen V5.1
https://dutchsims.nl/viewtopic.php?t=422&sid=2e74a349efd701dccd95e4dc2d6c7ff5

 

They're permanently adding This route has been out for a long time, not sure if all are still compatible though.

 

I have placed this loco on the track but I have a bright light outside and inside the loco - same with the E645

Any ideas?

 

Missing dependencies. Check the website again. The scripts might have been an extra download, or another loco was the requirement. I had that too but got it resolved, everything's there.

 

I've spend my time in the penitentiary by re-installing Windows and spooling back my most recent backups of the sim.
I'll need a 4TB SSD now, since the 2TB is cramped almost full, as I have made an allowance 5% Over Provisioning to give the SSD hopefully a longer operative lifespan. Still, I'll keep making weekly backups, but these take hours to complete with so many folders and files so I'll let those run at night. I also make more use of .ap files and symbolic links to keep Europe, UK and US centered assets in their respective installs and only have the appropriate rolling stock showing in the Quick Drive screens, making the assets are available but not the rolling stock.

I've found out it is best not to enable the beta Use Unicode UTF-8 setting in the System Locale settings for non-Unicode programs screen, because it completely messes up Railworks' language support. I now keep it at the default English (United States) for maximum compatibility and only have the User settings configured to my liking.
TS-Tools clearly isn't complaint with foreign code pages, so it is best not to use it to edit French, Czech or any other language's asset paths etc.

Instead of wasting good money on DTG's of late rather bland/mediocre and even poorer HIS' US content, part of my Christmas allowance went into the purchase of some 200 worth of AP, TSRS, Kiski Trains, SimExpress, Precision Dev, Caledonia Works and MachineRail latest or discounted wanted items, developers who actually care about the quality of their products and are keen on maintaining good customer relations.

Besides Run8's latest and greatest Norfolk Southern AGS District and additional locomotives and MoW cars, SimRail's DLC and lots of free RailRoader mods, including an awesome Southern LHF GP38, new steamers, freight cars, industries and what else. Railroader will soon move out of Early Access, and has desirable features like AutoEngineer using waypoints, capable of switching even, a proper operating timetable editor. These devs clearly know their stuff and how to implement it and the modding community is very much alive also.

For those European routes from this thread I've downloaded some 50 GB of asset collections, mostly containing one the the same assets from those freeware providers, but somehow still this or that asset keeps eluding me. One should be careful not to mix versions by just dumping the whole collection into your game, so adding new assets is a slow process with checking file size and timestamps. Afterwards using Edit Route, Scenario and RailVehicles databases often to see if they complete without errors in the Logmate.Still, there is texture corruption once in a while, which is a PITA to eliminate.

In my opinion going slowly and carefully is the only way to keep a clean and free from corruption install, but it starts to take more and more time to boot up as the number of folders and files grows and .pak files need to be parsed shared by different installs across these symbolic links.

JMY has developed a nice 'missing asset' pointer, much more convenient than those diminutive milk bottles or even the tall pink chimney, since it is clickable and shows you the missing asset in the right hand side fly out. Not the Provider, but with TS-Tools's report and the tile coordinates one can easily find what actually is missing.

There still is a problem with scripts in foreign languages I think with SimExpress's Corail coaches and somehow I cannot get JYM26's SCNF_TIVLU signals to work properly. They only work with an older collection, as soon as I update these speed indicators to the latest version, the sim won't switch from editing into playing mode and keeps hanging on the black screen after the second 'pop' when it's supposed to initialise the signals. Running LogMate will give a constant stream of script errors resulting into millions of lines in the logfile.

Haven't started yet on installing, checking and cleaning up the Czech, Hungarian, Romanian and Spanish routes recommended here in this thread. Best keep progress manageable with all this Dutch, German and French stuff first before starting on the next new country.

 

Thanks for pointing this out - I saw a picture somebody had posted but I did not know where it was obtained from.

 

Though probably not as easy to click on in the right spot, the "milk bottle" marker does that.

 

The big and colourful pointer is much easier to use, and a good incentive to finally clean up that TS-Tools Missing Asset report.
No need to find the tiny (x,y,z) under the milk bottle or pink chimney
Just double click to big pin and presto, the fly out appears. At least I find it much easier to use, but your preferences may be different.

I've gotten into the habit of just deleting missing assets out of the line of sight, unless it is a building or such that could be visible from the cab.

Most of these freeware routes have been years in the making and obviously, during their development, assets go missing or the blue cube gets unticked so the Provider disappears from the RouteProperties. Even more common in redundant or deleted/obsoleted assets still being listed in RouteProperties. I sometimes could clear 30-50, even up to a 100 references from a route by comparing the RP.xml against what TS-Tools found. Some developers repacked their assets, Pawerybs for instance, reducing the number of collections.

Spikee has left us it seems, but he also pointed out the importance of proper referencing the assets in actual use, so they can be pre-cached and do not lead to sudden pauses at tile borders when new assets need to be parsed and cached.

 

This showed up in my Youtube feed.

Looks quite good and a showcase for French locomotives and rolling stock.
Unfortunately private, but perhaps it will get a public release.

 

Where is the JMY pointer sourced to show missing assets?

 

There was a route called "La Rochelle - Saint Maixent" that was on RailSim-fr but it seem to have gone

 

21c164fightercommand provided the link in his post, but here you go....https://www.railsim-fr.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1697-jym26-missing-objectzip/

 

Thx Gary - is was buried in the thread