Railworks America

For any Narrow Gauge fans who might be interested in something different, and having played on it personally I didn't want you guys and gals to miss out on the opportunity to get a new freely obtainable German route that has been made available for the community. It's called Preßnitztalbahn Wolkenstein-Jöhstadt, it's a prototypical layout, read the Wiki page for all the relevant information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressnitz_Valley_Railway you can get everything from here - https://rail-sim.de/forum/wsif/index...dt-2-02/#files
Read the accompanying .pdf document which gives links to the vast majority of freeware assets utilised to help you obtain the necessary content, there is a lot of downloading and several Payware routes are utilised, as per normal, however, the end result is worth it. It's about 25/30 kms in length, which is roughly 15/20 miles, and has superelevation and is superbly constructed, it's taken the developer a few years to design and build and it's been a labour of love which reflects in the end product, it's truly stunning, the attention to detail is through the roof.
The route is now patched up to v2.02, with an Aufgabenpaket .pdf document included which gives URL links to some German NG Steam Mallets and Portuguese Steam Engines and other appropriate stock, unfortunately, there isn't a lot of Narrow Gauge stuff available for us Europeans, there is also some from the Czech Republic and Russia, and veteran British Railsimmers, and anyone else who purchased the DLC, will be able to make use of the modest content from the Charity Payware route (Project Platform/Phorum Peninsular) route that was available a few years ago, sadly now obsoleted by DTG.

Cheerz. Steve.

https://rail-sim.de/forum/wsif/index...dt-2-02/#files
It is a broken link.

Well spotted, I don't know what happened on their website page, try this one then. https://rail-sim.de/forum/wsif/index.ph ... 40c4971d50

Just a few screensies......

No prototypical German narrow-gauge rolling stock available at the moment, but due soon. Info and pictures (in German) at https://rail-sim.de/forum/index.php/Thr ... /?pageNo=1

Marcus

The screenshots make this route look quite good, but digging out piles of additional packages from numerous sites and further cluttering my TS installation only to find that many of them require other downloads, etc. etc. etc. is just not for me anymore. I've recently gone through this procedure with a couple of Italian routes (see earlier thread) and am completely fed up, so I'll stick with buying traditional payware DLC that installs simply without bringing on heartburn.
For me, the other obstacle here is that the German I studied years ago has vanished into a distant section of my brain, but while my Italian continues to expand and thrive, my patience and persistence have dwindled away.
This doesn't mean that I'm disrespecting anyone who has the patience to follow such trails (and trials), just that I only recommend it for the strong of mind and heart.

OldProf wrote:The screenshots make this route look quite good, but digging out piles of additional packages from numerous sites and further cluttering my TS installation only to find that many of them require other downloads, etc. etc. etc. is just not for me anymore. I've recently gone through this procedure with a couple of Italian routes (see earlier thread) and am completely fed up, so I'll stick with buying traditional payware DLC that installs simply without bringing on heartburn.
For me, the other obstacle here is that the German I studied years ago has vanished into a distant section of my brain, but while my Italian continues to expand and thrive, my patience and persistence have dwindled away.
This doesn't mean that I'm disrespecting anyone who has the patience to follow such trails (and trials), just that I only recommend it for the strong of mind and heart.

Amen to that. Some of these freeware routes really ought to include asset packs containing all the necessary free assets. So then all you need to worry about is installing the files rather than hunting all over the internet for them.

I'd say when you get something for free that someone spent hundreds if not thousands of hours creating you can either take it like it is or pass but complaining because it isn't exactly what you want only drives people to either not go public or not go to the effort of even making it.

One cannot include other people’s DLC creations without their permission.
While I don’t like creators pulling just one or two assets from a whole DLC, most of us do have all the important bases covered.

Lovely little routes like these easily surpass the creations of DTG’s of late.

One can always install the route and run RW Tools on it to see what is actually missing and how important that missing asset is.
Either ignore the milk bottles, get the DLC or substitute it with a resemblance.

I presume this route draws heavily on the Czech narrow gauge freeware route that was released a couple of years ago? This in itself is a rather excellent little route well worth getting acquainted with.

I will certainly try this German heritage/museum line.

I recommed for freeware routes a separate installation of the assets.
That needs not to be an installation in another steam library,
I think more about something like createing a folder (e.g. \tmp\default\) where you park your assets for default assets and another folder for freeware routes (within the same partition like the partition the TS is installed).
These assets can be moved quickly into and out of the RailWorks folder.

buzz456 wrote:I'd say when you get something for free that someone spent hundreds if not thousands of hours creating you can either take it like it is or pass but complaining because it isn't exactly what you want only drives people to either not go public or not go to the effort of even making it.

So constructive criticism of freeware isn't okay?

I wish more game modding communities would take a page from some segments of the Il-2 community, where there's an expectation that anything released publicly can and will be used, redistributed, modded again and re-released by anyone who wants to do so, and it's all considered okay as long as proper credit is given. Freeware belongs to everyone, not just the one who made it. I personally think the whole idea of having to ask permission to re-package or re-distribute freeware is stupid, largely because of situations like this, where being unable to make packs of stuff leads to tangled messes of dependencies, some of which can't even be downloaded because the original source is no longer online. It makes everything way more difficult than it needs to be for the end user, especially older folks who aren't as computer-savvy, and all because somebody decided to be over-protective of stuff for no reason.

Constructive criticism is fine. Whining because you have to do a little work is not considered constructive in my world. I agree with most of what you just said.

After one hour of asset hunting, made easy by the fact that all links seem to be provided, I am now down to about 15 missing assets of low importance.

All I can say is " wow ", for this is really nice little route. Captures the East German " outback " pretty well.

Lots of switching opportunities, you hardly get bored completing those scenarios.

IIRC some narrow gauge ex-DDR steamers are being converted from Tz at the moment, only adding to the authentic feel once released to the public. The substitute Czech diesels are no easy beasts to tame, one notices lots of love went into creating these locomotives and cars.

5/5 from me.

Can you put a list up of your missing assets, Edwin, and I'll attempt to help you locate them, I don't have anything missing now.

Cheerz. Steve.

For those of you who may be interested, the developer has now uploaded a newer version to the German Railsim site today, see here - https://rail-sim.de/forum/wsif/index.ph ... ec4e032006

If you use Google Chrome you can translate the page, there are some comments made at the bottom of what is in this v2.03 release, some tweaks and certain assets have now been deleted from the Payware packs in the original version, but, as I have everything already, I'm not sure what newcomers might be wanting, or, missing, shout up on here if you folks are in need of information on asset location.

I also discovered that at the top of the map is the junction between the narrow guage and the standard guage tracks, at Wolkenstein, so, you have the possibility to run standard gauge trains as well now, but, only for about half a mile, or, so, still, it's even more variety to entertain the masses, we love it.
It's an excuse to get my German Steam locos out for a little run......

Cheerz. Steve.