Train Simulator Tips & Tricks for Route Building

Before you start to build anything for the Steam Workshop it is vital that you are familiar with the next 3 sections of this guide: –

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

Backing Up and Using the F2 Key Regularly – ignore this and you may lose you work.

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 6 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
• Stroudley A1/A1X Class ‘Terrier’ Steam Loco Add-On
  – needed for running on the Hayling Island, East Southsea and Lee-on-the-Solent branches
• BR Class 402 ‘2-HAL’ EMU Add-On
  – needed for the electrified sections between Portsmouth and Warblington
• 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.

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 2 great ways to protect your work.

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

2. 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 Okay 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.

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 (19×19) 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.

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.

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 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.

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. You can then adjust its position as desired.

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.

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: –

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 and this then 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: –

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.

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: –

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.

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 still needs to be added at the ends of the track. Unsurprisingly, these are usually known as “end of track” signals – but in Train Simulator they are also frequently called ‘buffer lights.” The 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: –

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.

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.

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.

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.

This site may be of some assistance: –

https://www.old-maps.co.uk: –

Just key in your area of interest and explore the maps available from past eras. The following map, for instance, is of the area near Portsmouth & Southsea station in 1948: –

Users are restricted to 350 map layers per month.

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%20Lines%20Schematic.png” and “Hampshire%20Lines%20Schematic.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%20Lines%20Schematic.pdf” ><img src=”Hampshire%20Lines%20Schematic.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.

Publishing

While you are still building your route, if you have made some reasonably good progress on building it, you might wish to publish it to the Steam Workshop. This is not the same as making it final, and you will still be able to make as many changes to it 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 prove invaluable in helping you to complete your route successfully, after which you will want to make it final. In the meantime, you will be able to update your published route regularly as its development progresses.

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
• 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.

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. There are other guides available in the community which will guide you in the creation of a Quick Drive scenario.

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.

Finalising

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. To be made final, it must have received at least 30 positive votes. The main advantage of making your route final is that it will allow other people to publish their scenarios for it.

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.

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.

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[sites.google.com]

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

There you should find some useful stuff. In my case, I have these files located there: –

• HOWTOUSE_TS12Tech.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TS13Tech.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TS14Tech_P1.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TS14Tech_P2.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TS15Tech.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TSEngineScripts.pdf
• HOWTOUSE_TSScenarioScripts.pdf

Have a look and see which files you have.