German Route!

[kujuSabrina]

Hi all,

We have an announcement on our website today with the third route to feature in Rail Simulator!

Visit www.railsimulator.com

Thanks!
Sabrina

[OTTODAD]

Thanks for the info, Sabrina !

The WUPPER EXPRESS being my all time MSTS favorite, Hagen is also part of, I shall be looking forward to running KRS rolling stock on much improved tracks and turnouts in your version of it ! ;-)

I hope that Pantographs of e-locos will auto-adjust to the height of the overhead wire of different countries so that they can be run in all routes with varying overhead wire heights.

One day we could have KRS European routes traveling through various countries ? My ambition is an Alps route, covering the best scenic routes of Switzerland and surrounding countries. That could become a best seller in Japan, it's people being in love with Switzerland ! :7

Should not be that difficult to make the Pantographs animation code look at the height of the overhead wire of the track an e-loco is running on and raise the pantograph to make contact with it, as I do by adjusting them manually in their Shape files, having to create various versions to run under say 5.8 and 6.2 metres overhead wires !

I think that in order to allow various types of tracks in the same route KRS tracks are being designed so that each section is stamped with it's characteristics, such at sleepers type, electric or not in order to apply various textures to it and if electric track were to also specify the height of the overhead wire to be mounted above then that should be achievable ?

There could also be a third-rail option to allow three different types of tracks in the same route, each with sub-options of sleepers and trackbeds for them !

In MSTS this can be achieved by changing the rail and trackbed textures, but for all of the entire route only, unless the available 2 basic trackbeds of basic or concrete are being used !

Take care, O t t o.

[sstyrnol]

Otto,

keep in mind that the overhead height also varies within a single country. For example when passing under road-over passes or bridges, the wireheight is often reduced somewhat to fit into the limits without having to rebuild the bridge.

Various types of tracks are of course even now possible, using either custom track systems like UKFineScale or ScaleRail or even the standard MSTS track and Sniper's trick on changing its ballast colours.

What holds us off making an international route? MSTS allows already now different signalling systems etc. MSTS locos make no difference in overhead voltage or so, so thats a bit of a inaccuracy. You are mentioning a cross-Alps route. Of course this would be more interesting in those long-gone days, when international trains required change of traction at the borders, with those big border stations, where customs officers would come aboard to check the passenger's passports etc. Strange, it seems somewhat romantic these days, eh?

In those days, operations were much more interesting as you had to switch e.g. from the German/Austrian HVAC traction to Italy's HVDC traction... Then of course you would have Austrias/Swiss heavy electrics pulling over the passes like the Gotthard or the Bernina Pass.

I must say, I share your vision and would really love to see it become reality. Well, maybe, if the route editor in KRS is really as easy as it is promised, I might even get into constructing a route.

Either way, the description of the German route sounds very promising and with it serving as a showcase of what KRS can achieve, I am quite curious, what addon producers will provide in addition...

Another thing I am dreaming to recreate is one of the many (some long gone) German narrow gauge routes.

http://www.jessner.homepage.t-online.de/kleinbahn.jpg

[OTTODAD]

Yes Sebastian, those where the days, Orient Express and all that ! ;-)

MSTS is limited to what length of route can be created without either encountering a "White Void" or MSTS grinding to a halt, not being able to run it from end to end for other reasons.

I hope that KRS will have no such problems, leaving it to developers of routes to create whatever they are capable of ! ;-)

O t t o

[Bill Hobbs]

Very interesting information. If one reads carefully, it says a lot about the new abilities of RailSimulator.
Thanks for the update Sabrina.

[sstyrnol]

Why would you want to have such long a route??? You'd never run it from end to end in one bit anyway due to not wanting to sit behind a monitor for a solid five+ hours.

Also on top of it, who would be modelling some 800+ km of scenery??? Keep in mind that KRS will most probably be able to put in a LOT more scenery to make scenes more believeable. Having said that, it would also imply, that even though modelling tools will be more streamlined, it would take considerably more time to build a km of route.

In the end, I do believe that we will see much more detailed routes with better terrain and scenery modelling, but which will most probably still in the range of 200-300 miles / 300 - 450 km.

For a transalpine connection as you mentioned, it would be more than enough.

[OTTODAD]

Hi Sebastian !

Why would you want to have such long a route??? You'd never run it from end to end in one bit anyway due to not wanting to sit behind a monitor for a solid five+ hours.

The MARIAS-KOOTENAI I had a hand in releasing is 570 km long and there are other routes like the WUPPER-EXPRESS where using my loops version you can drive on tracks in excess of 1000 km and on the way use only part of it's tracks more than once to explore all branches of it. There are other routes like the N.&.J.C, Lehigh Valley & NEC-4 also featuring extensive track layouts.

In a way it's like MSFS which covers most of the world and you got a choice where you want to start, flying into other countries at will.

It would be more compact in one package. The main layout being standard gauge linking from surrounding countries, TGVs from France, ICEs from Germany and E-Express trains from Italy and Austria, parts of 1 metre gauge scenic routes running alongside standard gauge and sometimes sharing the same trackbed and ties.

Basically I am a Sims FREESTYLER and EXPLORER. It would provide endless variations of exploring such a SWISS ALPS route and if the scenery can be made to be photo-realistic too then that would save me and others having to go there for real, I did twice in the past 4 years. ;-)

It would also be an idea to have something similar to MSFS where you can move to any place in the route without having to re-start it, like using one of my top wishes, a moving map and just COPY/PASTE your train to another location ! :7

O t t o