Large Scale Central

Train simulators

General Discussion
#1

I bought a Trains magazine ‘special’ to day which mainly concentrates on the shipment of automobiles by railroad cars. I noticed an advert for a Train simulator - a full page ad, not a small one tucked away with the classifieds.

Many discussions take place, here and elsewhere, about younger or new folks not joining our hobby. Whilst not having any personal involvement with simulators it did cross my mind about how many folks might be into that side of railroading. Is this the new and upcoming railroading experience? There is not the maintenance involved, modeling skills are not needed and I guess just a vision of how you want it to look and operate. It also appears that when you get tired of one sets of locos and stock it would seem that it is easy to change to another set just with a click of a mouse.

Maybe there is more to it that I state, but I am prepared to be advised.

However, I will stick to what I currently do and that is operate and maintain an outdoor garden railroad.

#2

Alan,

The simulators have been around for a while. Many years ago I considered getting MS Train Simulator, but it took some time for someone to come out with my favourite RhB (Simtrain.ch). Probably a blessing since I would get even less done on RhB layout Grischun.

In addition to the proto based progs there is also Train Player www.trainplayer.com/‎ which I have considered for some time. One of the layout design programs I use www.anyrail.com can be exported to Train Player, which is niffty to try out operations on a layout.

But again, life is short and so far I always managed to run the “operations” in my head to determine if operations will be interesting or too repetitive. It is always handy if one can explain how the railroad is intended to be run e.g. along proto practices or by the seat of one’s pants.

As far as actual involvement goes, the “kids” are right into it, designing complete scenes, whole sets of rolling stock etc. It isn’t as dusty and mucky as building a real world layout, but it takes the same dedication.

#3

Many thanks HJ for your reply.

I was sure it was not a simple as I portrayed it to be. At least, I find it so anyway, that outdoor maintenance and operation of a railway helps keep the waistline below 42" and the need to buy larger clothing is assuaged. Besides, I can always find other work to do outdoors when running a roundy roundy.

I guess I am fortunate in living where there is little snowfall or sub zero temperatures - except January some years.

Nevertheless it is worth knowing about these alternatives: one never knows when they may come in useful.

#4

Alan, I got TrainSim 10 years ago or so, and use it from time to time, but I don’t find it nearly as much fun as operating a large scale train outdoors. Its ok on a cold winter’s night, but it really is a poor substitute.

Just my 2 cents worth. The guys that like it really do some good work.

#5

Train Sims have come a long way in 10 years.
It’s too bad Micro$oft killed the new TS they were developing.

Most of the younger “gamers” play “Run 8 Simulator”.
Ralph
http://run8studios.com/

#6

I’ve never played with any of the commerical simulators, but my experience running a sim comes from BNSF. Every year we had to do a sim run (plus all the sim runs during choo U for 6 weeks) as our check ride. It was laughable how easy it was to do a sim run after you’ve ran the real thing. It’s nothing at all like running your own train. That said it’s most likely the closest most people will get.

If you want to do a sim run, here’s how I would make you do it! Sit around and wait for the phone to randomly ring. Good it’s now 2200. You have 90 minutes to stop what your doing and turn on the computer and load the program. Now its 2330. Sit and blankly stare at the screen for another 60-90 minutes. Then begin your run. By now it should be at least 0100-0200. Run for about 2 hours, then stop the train and begin to stare at the screen for 3-4 hours :stuck_out_tongue: Try not to fall asleep. After you’ve nodded/bobbed your head a few times, wake up and suddenly realize that the signal has gone green. Now run for 45 minutes, stop again for 90 minutes… Repeat until you either get to the end of the sim run or it’s 1130. Before you can go to sleep you have stay up another 90minutes to represent your drive home. Oh yah, and your wife has a dinner party tonight at 1600, so you can’t sleep too long, and it looks like you’ll be back at work at 2330 again. The wife tells you don’t expect to get home until 2100 after the party. Remember no drinking at the party cause your on your rest. :stuck_out_tongue:

Sounds fun eh?

#7

I’ve actually got the Raildriver (http://www.raildriver.com/) for mine … was using MSTS that was all right, and later had a version of TRAINZ that I never could get to work correctly. I may have to go try out the Run 8 just to see…

Now if I could just get this Raildriver thing to also work with a model train with a camera on board… hmmm.

Matthew (OV)

#8

Craig Townsend said:

I’ve never played with any of the commerical simulators, but my experience running a sim comes from BNSF. Every year we had to do a sim run (plus all the sim runs during choo U for 6 weeks) as our check ride. It was laughable how easy it was to do a sim run after you’ve ran the real thing. It’s nothing at all like running your own train. That said it’s most likely the closest most people will get.

If you want to do a sim run, here’s how I would make you do it! Sit around and wait for the phone to randomly ring. Good it’s now 2200. You have 90 minutes to stop what your doing and turn on the computer and load the program. Now its 2330. Sit and blankly stare at the screen for another 60-90 minutes. Then begin your run. By now it should be at least 0100-0200. Run for about 2 hours, then stop the train and begin to stare at the screen for 3-4 hours :stuck_out_tongue: Try not to fall asleep. After you’ve nodded/bobbed your head a few times, wake up and suddenly realize that the signal has gone green. Now run for 45 minutes, stop again for 90 minutes… Repeat until you either get to the end of the sim run or it’s 1130. Before you can go to sleep you have stay up another 90minutes to represent your drive home. Oh yah, and your wife has a dinner party tonight at 1600, so you can’t sleep too long, and it looks like you’ll be back at work at 2330 again. The wife tells you don’t expect to get home until 2100 after the party. Remember no drinking at the party cause your on your rest. :stuck_out_tongue:

Sounds fun eh?

Sounds a lot like standing watches in the pilot house at sea, sans the part about going home. We just went to work after the watch.

#9

I use only Run 8 now and the online sessions are fun and if one of the real life engineers is on line also then it is even more so as they will instruct on the running procedures correctly. On the server I use there is one such fella there and he has stated that Run 8 is actually better and harder than the Simulator that BNSF uses. They really have come a long way since MSTS and Trainz. Raildriver works in the program also Mathew

#10

For a Christmas gift - person loves trains, no layout - is RUN 8 the best choice? The product I would like to give includes putting the person in the loco cab.
Appreciate suggestions. Wendell

#11

Personally I never cared for the simulator as I had the real thing to run. Yes I had indoor RRs so I ran all the time. My opinion is that simulators are more for the arm chair Railroaders so they have a way to play trains without a big investment. Later RJD

#12

Wendall

IMHO Run 8 is the best. Plain and simple. I have had them all and not one of the others exists on my hard drives since Run 8 came out. Learning curve is steep. Real steep. That said once you understand that applying to much throttle will result in busted couplers and the attendant messing around to fix it and then retry to move again with a high tonnage train on a 1 1/2 percent grade on Tehachapi then keep it at road speed or as near as can be done or riding Dynamics with a brake set of 15 down the same grade and not exceed the posted 23 mph plus all the other things that go with it then Run 8 just simply kills them all. Then, once you think you have a little mastery over it then go on to a server and do it in real time with others running trains and a dispatcher trying to keep from going insane and when you feel confident enough try your own hand at dispatching or switching in Barstow, Bakersfield or Yermo with others making and breaking trains. There are always people in the community that will help just as there are those here on LSC that help also. I am an Admin on one of the forums, cum server, and so I speak with first hand knowledge about the Sim. Any thing else you want to know P.M. me about it if you like.

Grant

#13

R.J. DeBerg said:

Personally I never cared for the simulator as I had the real thing to run. Yes I had indoor RRs so I ran all the time. My opinion is that simulators are more for the arm chair Railroaders so they have a way to play trains without a big investment. Later RJD

R.J.D

Not sure how to reply to your last line but I will try my best.

Is this why I have about 2000 ft of track not to mention a large number of Outback Turnouts that if I was to pay for (nothing under a #6 and most are #8 or #10 ) would nail me down for a hefty 6 grand in just turnouts plus Challenger and 2 x GP 38 units ( wrong scale and are for sale) + a serious slice of hoppers and PFE units plus attendant RCS and MTH control units plus sundry other small investment items that I must then class myself as a Armchair Railroader. Interesting, don’t you think? A player of a brilliant sim and enjoy it.

#14

Ahhhhh, choices. Ain’t life grand?

#15

Does anyone make a simulator that runs on iPad or Mac?

I really like Run 8. I can see the run that goes to Mojave from our house!

#16

Thank you gentlemen for your contributions to this thread. I know simulators have been around for a long while: when in the Air Cadets some sixty years ago I trained in what was then an early type of simulator. My initial post questioned whether the younger generation preferred a simulator to running models outdoors, hence the possible decline in large scalers.

Knowing the passion for computer games, for very many folks, young and old, I thought that this may well be one of the principal reasons.

Grant, incidentally, gave a pretty fair explanation why he favoured a simulator.

#17

Doug

Run 8 Train Simulator runs on MAC with VM Ware/Windows Vista/XP/Win7 32/64 bit/ and Windows 8 operating systems. And 700 meg of hard drive space is needed.

These are the minimum computer specs recommended:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ 2.80 GHz
RAM: 3 Gb RAM (run8 will only use around 2 max due to DotNet memory management stuff.)
Video Card: GeForce GT440 1Gb VRAM

#18

Thanks Grant. I’ll do some looking and see if my Mac mini can run it. It’s only about 6 months old but not sure if it has VM ware.

#19

Thanks Grant. I’ll do some looking and see if my Mac mini can run it. It’s only about 6 months old but not sure if it has VM ware.

#20

Grant-
Many thanks for your analysis of Run 8 Train simulator.Wendell