Railworks/Railworks 2/Railworks 2012 - How realistic?

I've been meaning to create a thread about this for a while, and now we have an appropriate sub-section of the forum, I thought I might indulge myself.

I've owned Railworks 2 (now updated to Railworks 2012) for a while now and as I've never driven or fired a steam loco, I have always wondered how realistic the performance of the steam locomotives is in the game.

So if anyone on this forum who is/was a driver or fireman and has played this game; over to you.

 

You can take so many more liberties with an engine on Trainsim than you can in real life, and unfortunately while Railworks 2012 is lots of fun, I play it a lot, it is nothing like the real thing in actual reality. You should go down and volunteer somewhere, it really is worthwhile

 

Ive been playing Railworks for some time now, and Ive also helped one of the developers setting up the performance of the 56xx that recently got released, and I did the scenarios for the King Class locomotive that was released last month. Ive never fired a locomotive, but I do know that Pete (who built the 56xx) spent at lot of time at Llangollen taking photos and also talked to former steam crews trying to get it right. I think of all of them its possibly the most realistic one available, and even then with the cylinder cocks he had to make compromises.

I personally think Railworks better simulates Diesel locomotives and DMUs than steam locos, but things HAVE been improving. Its now possible to setup wheelslip which was not possible in early builds. Its also a doddle to go inside the game code and modify locomotives. Not happy with how the safety valves are set up? easy to fix. You can even modify fairly big things like boiler output, power output and even brake application.

Needless to say if there is anything of note that anyone who operates locomotives think is desperately wrong, please post it up. Ill bring it to the attention of the developers. In fairness to them they seem pretty open minded to modifications.

 

Great points Stuart... The game is highly addictive, even to someone like me who drives/fires Steam Loco's, so it can't be that bad! Unfortunately, even with technology as it is, there's no way of accurately recreating a steam loco unless you actually build a simulator haha. But Railworks is doing a great job of trying!

Since you are involved with the developers Stuart, do you know of any plans for any Narrow Gauge railways to be appearing as payware on Railworks? I know people make their own routes etc, but the quality is only ever top notch when it's the real deal. This would be a massive seller in my eyes, I know a lot of people who would purchase a version of the Ffestiniog, Talyllyn, Welsh Highland etc...

Cheers,

Tom

 

Well I dont work for them, but various bits and pieces ive done have been used by them, such as the Kings scenarios as I say, and some soon to be released scenarios for a new diesel, so I dont wish to overstate my involvement with them. The 56xx setup I did just because Pete is a friend of mine. I think the updates they are doing for it for the new graphic engine really get the best out of it too.

I know there is a narrow gauge line on the charity route they did for The Railway children organization (roughly based in concept around portland) but Im not aware of RSC doing any other payware routes with narrow gauge. I DO know that there is someone on UKTS who is building a route based on the Lynton and Barnstable as it was in 1935. Looks quite acomplished in fact. Unfortunately the lead builder of it was not very well, and I dont know its current status. Probably get released some time or other though.
Atomic Systems • View topic - Lynton and Barnstaple Railway

May be worth suggesting to them. At the moment I get the impression they are doing a lot of US stuff to break into the US Market, but Im sure they will get back to UK stuff sooner or later.

 

Incidentally, electric fans may rejoice at the news of this route they are working on.
Woodhead Line

 

I was the last person to comment on the L&B thread requesting an update! I am, as you may have guessed, a narrow gauge fan haha. I can understand their desire to break properly into the American market, they are, after all, in the business of making money so it makes sense. I just think that unfortunately the narrow gauge lines of this country were somewhat neglected in Train Sims. I do have the Railway Children Charity route, which is very enjoyable.

Do you do any route building on Railworks then?

 

Yes ive done a bit of routebuilding. I built 'Western Rails' which is a freeware replication of the GWR line between Didcot and Bristol Temple Meads (and Gloucester through the Stroud Valley), though I chose to go the other way around via the Badminton line. Im quite happy with it, the only downside is that it needs two payware routes to get it to work, and an armful of freeware stuff. Also running an old PC, I cant get it to run at all around temple meads now, though Im gratified to see others with faster PCs dont seem to have the problem. When I have a PC that is capable of running it properly Ill probably go back to it sometime and redo it.
Atomic Systems • View topic - Western Rails
The 7.40 to Bristol (Western Rails) - YouTube
The 7.40 to Bristol Part 2 (Western Rails) - YouTube

The 56xx is from my friend Pete, the B set is from Digital Traction.

Im also slowly building the Brentford Docks Branch set in the 1950s which Im hoping one day will be payware. But we shall have to see about that. If nobody wants it, it will probably make good freeware.

I would agree narrow gauge needs to have more done for it. My personal preference would be for a Western Front route with an armoured Simplex, though I suspect researching something like that would prove very difficult.

 

All those routes seem very interesting, thanks Stuart...

I agree regarding the Western Front route, it would be exceptionally difficult but there are certainly skilled enough people out there, here's hoping eh.

I'll download those routes and try and get them working, as I have most payware on my pc, luckily enough I have a 6gb pc that can deal with these things haha!

 

For WR, you need the IOW route, as well as Bristol and Exeter by Darpor, and released by Just Trains, which is a very fine route in its own right. As for the freeware, well its a long list, though if you have installed Wales and Borders and South Devon Banks, two other freeware routes, you may have it all anyway.

Just make sure you install asset pack 1 first, as well as the other freeware bits. A lot of people didnt do that and wonder why they couldnt get the route to work.

I really must go back and package up the rest of the asset packs, though Im also trying to work out Blender and route build, so im a bit busy you might say!

 

Thanks for the advice mate, I'll defo have a go, I'm hopeful I'd be able to get it to work, but I know where to go if I cant

 

No problem, ask away if you have problems.

I will add one thing as far as the heritage sector is concerned. Its fairly easy to grasp the concept of building new routes (or it was for me and Im no genius!), so if any heritage lines really want a simulator to help trainees practice safety proceedures, it really would be a very good and iexpensive system I think to build it upon. There is a Scottish train operating company that has recently introduced Railworks running the Edinburgh-Glasgow route for just that role. If people have accurate trackplans of their heritiage line route, its not hard to import them into Google Earth as a template, import it into Railworks using RW decal and build from there. Indeed one of the volunteers on the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Railway has build a replica of their route before the Slip, and very good it was too.

As I say, there is potential for using it for training. Not stoking or locomotive proceedures necessarily, but track movement, safety proceedures, probably yes I would think. Worth consideration at any rate.

 

Kind of scary if a locomotive driver was to say driving on a computer game would be better than the real thing?

 

Yes you have a point. Probably not achieveable before they give away a scratch and sniff card with each copy anyway.

This gives an idea of the different DLC available for the sim (ignore the TrainsvZombies one, that was just some fun for Halloween!). As you can see there is quite a large amount of class UK and US locos available now.
Official RailWorks Website | RailSimulator.com | Products

This chap is also very good. His version of the Class52 I think is near definative. Will be even better when he does the update for the new graphic engine.
IHH

 

I find that TS2012 Lags so that the wheels slow down mid revolution. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix it? I have tried anything I can think of!

 

The typical fix is to upgrade your computer to run faster or buy a new faster computer.

Usually that happens if the memory starts filling or the processor is not able to process quick enough.

I customized my computer from PC Specialist with a AMD 2.9Ghz processor and 8GB RAM, and the game runs pretty smoothly.

 

The computer was new about a year ago and it is an up-to-date HP. Don't ask me which model it is though cos I won't have a clue

 

Railworks has a problem with some computers with this stuttering. About the best you can do is turn the graphics down and perhaps look on the UKTS forum there they cited a memory manager as one way of dealing with the problem.
UKTrainSim
Rather like FSX its a matter of tuning the settings to get the best out the system and unfortunately, newer systems seem rather more vulnerable to the problem than older ones. Perhaps a legacy of the system being based on Railsimulator which came out in 2008 or so. I can tell you running in Window mode does help, so does turning down water and draw distances.

On the positive side, Trainsim 2013 is being worked on as we speak and apparently this kind of problem is one of the main things they are going to try to fix. Its a free upgrade to existing users too.