Simulator Review: Trainz Simulator 2012

For all of my "career" as a railroad simulator content creator (short though it may be) my simulator of choice has been Railworks Train Simulator. I have grown very used to its dynamics, and even some of its quirks and shortcomings don't really bother me anymore. I have adapted to both repainting and route creating, and have turned out some content that had made both myself and others happy. Railworks is still my bread and butter, however.....


There have always been other options in the realm of Railroad Simulation, all with their own offerings, weak points and promises. I never got into MSTS (Microsoft Train Simulator) as my interests were in other places when it was at its peak. It seems too complicated and not quite worth getting into at this point, although I do appreciate the amount of content available for the sim.

There are other simulators like Run8 that are just starting out, however they either have very little content available right now or do not appeal to me for various reasons. And then there is Trainz.

Trainz is a unique simulator in that it never really got the amount of attention that MSTS and Railworks received, yet there is something about it that has drawn me in time and again. "Trainz: A New Era" is the current title but at the moment there is not a great deal of content available and there is a general "controversy" about its promised quality. So, I have decided to focus on Trainz 2012 which has by now a lot of routes, rolling stock and assets available. I am starting to explore the simulator, and so I will share some of my observations about the program.

My first impressions of the simulator were actually quite poor. The included routes and rolling stock had unrealistic textures and recycled sounds. The controls and layout were confusing and meddlesome, with the zoom feature greatly limited in its range. Railworks has very fluid controls and the controls for Trainz felt sluggish and forced. Frustrated and looking around on the internet, I saw screenshots of beautiful routes and stunning locomotives. There had to be more to this.

Trainz deals with the downloading and installation of its content through an application called the "Download Station" or the "Content Manager." Once you get past its crude appearance and memorize the controls, its actually a pretty useful tool. Each major asset, like a locomotive or a route, require smaller assets or "dependencies" to run correctly. Locating all the dependencies can be a hassle but once you know where to look it gets a lot easier. Finding more enjoyable routes in the DLS started to turn my opinion around, and that's when I discovered the user generated content online. There are many websites that host content for Trainz. Everything from locomotives to routes can be found, and the best part is that they're all mostly free. That's right, I've found more freeware rolling stock for Trainz than all the American payware content available for RailWorks, and when you're a dedicated sim user that is a literal godsend. Some of the better quality locomotives on websites like JointedRail are payware, but they're more reasonably priced than RailWorks locomotives. I've even been able to locate my favorite diesel locomotive, the EMD SW1, which is absent from RailWorks altogether.

As you can see, many dependencies were still downloading so the route looks unfinished. This is the "Emily Bay Branch", a model railroad-esque route. The GP9s I purchased from JointedRail for $6. The SW1 and all the cars were free.

Repainting is also a heck of a lot easier. There are no changes of alpha channels or exportation of files; all you have to do is make a copy of the locomotive, edit your files, then save them. That's it. Granted a lot more of the content creators have strict policies on repaints so you'll probably have to save some of them for your own usage. But it's nice to have them to yourself sometimes. The repaints that are allowed are often found on the DLS or on hosted sites. I haven't tried the route builder yet but I hear its ridiculously easy to use. Whether that means it gives up quality and realism remains to be seen.

Finally, one thing I have noticed about Trainz is that it has a bit of an "identity crisis". Some routes are set up like model railroads complete with human sized objects like doors, windows and chairs. Other routes strive for the realism of RailWorks. I really like the unique model railroad approach, it hasn't really been done and it can make shorter routes really enjoyable. However, I also like a realistic approach. The fact that it can do both is definitely cool.

Spotting a car at an industry. Everything seen here is freeware. You can see the "model railroad" aspects of this route, the Emily Bay Branch.

I have outlined more of the pros and cons below. I encourage you to take a look yourself!

Pros:

• A very large amount of free, quality content.
• More locomotives available than RailWorks.
• Cheaper prices on payware content.
• Easier repainting abilities.
• Interesting "model railroad" approach to some routes.
• Dynamic narrow gauge routes and locomotives.
• Industries that are animated and sometimes even load railcars.
• Greater range of content for "vintage" and "specialty" routes.
• You can have many trains running at a time, eliminating confusing AI preparation. You can easily jump from train to train.

Cons:

• Awkward and sluggish controls with limited zoom angles.
• Locomotive controls are always set up like a model railroad controller, unless you like always sitting in the cab.
• Dependencies for routes can take days to download and you are have limited MB per day.
• Content included with the game lacks quality.
• No central community website (I.E. Railworks America) so you'll have to dig for content and dependencies.
• Less realistic and engaging than RailWorks.

Here are some links of interest for Trainz: 

• http://www.theerectinghall.info/
• http://jointedrail.com/
• http://trainzforge.weebly.com/
• http://trainz.banal.net/catalog/catalog.html
• http://rrmods.com/