Great Western Coffee Shop

Has anyone plyed these two Trainsims?

I so, do you like them? and whats your favourite train for them?

Thanks,
Jim.

I haven't used either, but I did use RailWorks for a few months with my old computer; this was the best IMO.

I've not played the two you mention.

I've still got three Siam DOS games which I occassionally play using DOSBox as an emulator under Vista. Works pretty well.

Aller Junction is played for a Saturday in Summer 1955.

The Driver simulation is Bristol to Birmingham New Street with 45/47/50 and HST and different train lengths. You chug up Lickey with a 45 going over the top at about 15! AS it's not a 125 line you are constantly in danger of exceeding teh speed limit with an HST

The other is American on around Spokane. It's a CTC simulation over a great length of single track with passing loops. You have to be quite careful the first time I did it I ended up with a stalemate with trains going in the same direction in adjacewnt loops. As there is no facility of reversing a train I was stuck.

Both Aller Junction and the American one can be speeded up but Aller Junction at 600% can get hairy especialy as it's 3 levers to pull for the switch diamond between the Up Torquay and Down Plymouth and the Up and Down  crossovers between main and relief lines towards Newton Abbot.  FPL to normal to disengauge and one to reverse the crossing then FPL reverse to lock.

 But you do get to know your Bell codes. Remembering to change 1-3 Branch passenger from Newton Abbot West to 4 (express) or 3-1 stopper to Torre.

I'd recommend openBVE

I've played TRS2010, I have it on my PC at home. I've also played TRS2006 which I thought was very good.

It's not the most realistic series of Train Sims as the graphics can go it bit strange sometimes. The junction control and signalling is a nightmare if you let the computer automatically drive the trains, as if you have 3 trains arrive at a junction, all wanting a platform... the results are interesting and often lead to derailment :-X ::) :o Also if you crash 2 trains into each other as I did once by accident (Dad said i'd never make it as a signaller :o :D ), they don't derail but join as a complete consist. Another bug is that if you stop a train across a junction, you can drive another train through it :o

But on the whole, I found it very easy to use and it was good entertainment.

There is also Rail Simulator by EA, which does feature FGW stock. It's a much more advanced game with superb graphics which feature passengers actually walking down the platforms (Auran TRS they are static on the platform and just appear/disappear). But I found it quite difficult to use if you wanted to make up your own rolling stock consists or maps. Driving the things is quite realistic too, but it does need a fairly beefy machine to run. I didn't find it as easy to use as the Auran series, but thats possibly because it has so many features.

I haven't played Railworks or OpenBVE so I can't comment on those unfortunately.

after spending a whole weekend modifying vista to take bve 4 (this is a while ago) i couldnt really be bothered to install open.... but i have to say its fun for about 10 mins and then i got bored

openbve works on vista/7 with no mods

Indeed it does. Just driven a 158 from Edinburgh to Aberdeen.

158 and a 31 on BVE, not done much with routes as the video card on my old Pent II is a bit on the slow side with it's refresh rate.  :(

I'll probably have another go when I eventually get something a bit quicker.

OpenBVE is potentially very good, but almost all routes (all of the ones in the UK at least) are currently ports of the BVE4 route.  There's a very promising upgrade of the WCML from Watford to Rugby and the Cross City line in Birmingham coming along soon, but as they're mostly being developed by computer-savvy enthusiasts it takes an awful long time! 

Updates on those two routes can be found here:

http://www.railsimroutes.co.uk/watford-jn_rugby/index.php (http://www.railsimroutes.co.uk/watford-jn_rugby/index.php)

http://www.railsimroutes.co.uk/x-city_south/index.php (http://www.railsimroutes.co.uk/x-city_south/index.php)

I can't find the link and I nolonger have the file but there is a poorly rendered (to be fair looked unfinished) route covering Plymouth to bodmin

Why?

I'd like to know what would be the closest thing to having a "virtual model railway" on my PC...