What are add-ons and where to get them?

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What are add-ons?

Add-ons for Train Simulator Classic are an important part of the TS ecosystem. While it is possible to enjoy the basic game for a long time, it does get old after a while, or you may have a special place in your heart for say, an old rusty GP9 that you used to see every morning walking to Saint-Mary's Elementary in 1965, and you would love to drive it in the simulation.

Add-ons can be:
- routes;
- scenarios;
- engines;
- cars (wagons for you Europeans);
- scenery items;
- repaints of existing engines or cars;
- other modifications of existing content, such as new sounds, lighting, weather, physics, tracks.

Add-ons are usually offered as packages called "DLC", for "Downloadable content". Such packages may be free ("freeware"), others must be purchased ("payware"). Sometimes providers will offer a free basic version or more elaborate payware. It's really up to the provider to decide on the price of his DLC, and up to you to decide whether or not to buy it, depending on pictures, videos and comments from the provider's web site or message boards such as RWA.

With today's electronic stores, getting payware DLC, and emptying your wallet, is only a few clicks away. Fortunately, most providers will offer items on sale, especially around major holidays. It's not rare to find items of exceptional quality on sale for for $5 or less if you shop around. Traditionally, DTG (Dovetail Games, the publisher of Train Simulator Classic) has a Christmas sale at 50% for any item.

Where to get DLC?

1- Payware from DTG
Some DLC is provided by DTG (either made by them or made by a third-party under contract). All or almost all of it is payware. This you can find on DTG's products page, or in the Steam client, and it is sold exclusively through the Steam store. These add-ons have been submitted to DTG through its partnership program, have gone through DTG's quality testing (which is not infaillible but better than nothing) and are maintained by DTG. Any DLC purchased through Steam may be installed and resinstalled as needed, just like Train Simulator itself.

2- Payware from 3rd-party providers
Train Simulator is a very open platform for 3rd-party providers to create new add-ons or modify existing assets. Such providers are people like you and me. They usually go by a company name, but are typically one, sometimes up to a handful of people. I don't think any of them does that for a living, and the prices for 3rd-party payware reflect this. Usually the authors are just trying to get a compensation for the hundreds of hours they spent on designing the assets. The quality of several of these add-ons is equal or superior to that of DTG products. Some inexpensive payware, such as repaints or scenery items, is sold through the Steam Marketplace.

3rd-party payware providers either enter in a partnership with DTG (see above) or sell their own products through their own web site or web store, with payment carried through Paypal or credit card. The price for these is typically lower than those sold through Steam. The method of order and delivery varies wildly from provider to provider. At one end of the spectrum you'll order from a simple static web site with a Paypal button, and receive a download link and password by e-mail within 24 or 48 hours. At the other end you'll add items to your cart in a full-fledged web store, pay with your credit card and get the DLC straight away without human intervention. It is best to check this beforehand -- if you're an impulse buyer (not uncommon here) you may be disappointed if you get the DLC the next day. Recently, we've seen some providers start selling their products through another provider's web store, presumably after some partnership agreement.

3- Freeware from 3rd-party providers
Some authors prefer to give away their work for free, for the benefit of the whole community. Such add-ons are by no means of inferior quality to that of payware. There is no difference in the effort needed to make freeware add-ons. In both cases, there is a point where the author says "this is as good as it's gonna get". The variety of freeware is much greater than that of payware. All or almost all repaints, for example, are freeware, and there are hundreds of them. Freeware can be obtained from three sources:
- the provider's web site -- some providers offer both freeware and payware, some even offer free basic versions of payware;
- Steam workshops -- for scenarios written by Train Simulator users like you and me. You can get these directly through the game;
- file libraries in community boards like RWA in several countries -- this is where the bulk of the freeware can be found -- or not found, depending on the library's search engine's effectiveness. Most of these boards require free registration, some of them offer better download service for a fee. On these community forums -- the best of which is, of course, our own RWA, but you already found that -- you'll find posts about newly published DLC, works in progress, screenshots, comments from members, problems and solutions, hints and tips, stupid jokes and bad puns.

You will find typically more information about freeware DLC in the forums than in the file libraries themselves, which tend to be rather terse as far as documentation goes.

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Some links for Railworks add-ons follow.
This is by no means complete, feel free to suggest others and I'll add them.

1- Payware from RSC
RSC's products page or directly through the Steam store

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2- Payware from 3rd-party providers
Digital Train Model
Trains and Drivers Download Store
Golden Age of Railroading
All Aboard Rails - Rich Garber
G-TraX Simulations
BritKits
RRYard.com
3DTrains
Footeforward.com
Eyein12 Us Railworks Corner

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2- Payware from 3rd-party providers (cont'd)
ChrisTrains - Dutch payware and some freeware

3- Freeware from 3rd-party providers
Railworks America forums and file library
Trainsim.com forums and file library
UKTrainSim forums and file library
Obo's RailWorks Locomotive Catalog
North Eastern Rail Works forums and file library
C&O Alleghany forums and file library
Digirails Forums and file library

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Reserved

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Reserved

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Reserved