Are there any RR SW/games allowing creation of historical RR net? (USSR, 1941)

[Sean Oliver]

This is a rather unusual question, but maybe someone can help.

I'm new to train subjects in general, but I'm interested in solving a hypothetical World War II history question about Russia's RR network. I'm designing a detailed and extensive wargame scenario about Operation Barbarossa and this is the only major question left, and maybe a RR sim or game might help.

My question is:

1. Are there any RR simulation software/games which have an editor, so I can create a rough model of the Soviet RR network at the start of the German invasion in 1941?

2. Then, using the rail network SW, I'd like run a number of 'scenarios' to test the RR net's ability to maintain the support of Russia's war effort -if the Germans had taken Moscow, and/or other important RR hubs, tracks, or locations. Could a hypothetically different German strategy at the start cause the RR system to lose it's (historic) ability to stop them? Moscow was never taken, and this undoubtedly made a huge difference to the Red Army's war effort, but would the opposite happen if Moscow fell?

Historians have never been able to answer this question, since the Russians themselves have never published enough detailed data about their RR network, which was considered top secret.

However, over the past years, much more Russian RR network info from WW2 has come to light, and I've gathered a fairly good set of hard data concerning the RR capacity in trains per day at a number of key nodes/stations, (but I don't have as many details about all the stations themselves as I'd like).

Can anybody offer some advice?

[eric]

I suspect you're looking at the wrong solution.

Most of the commercially or community developed simulators available do offer an editor (e.g. Train Simulator, OpenRails, Trainz).

The question is will they do what you're ultimately trying to do, which seems to be perform a throughput in time & motion simulation.

Simulators are typically for individuals with limited capability for introducing AI traffic to produce interference with the player's movements. AI trains can be programmed but in at least one of them literally run thru each other without any adverse consequences, giving a false result.

Sure, you can recreate a railroad with somewhat realistic terrain mapping and track, but it's not going to help you model how many trains or car loads per day you can realistically push between network nodes. Another issue would be replicating the signaling logic. Most traffic control back then was manually managed for volume, not necessarily safety. Replicating that in a modern simulator would be interesting.

I think what you might need is traffic modeling software, but that's typically not discussed here. And the good stuff is not cheap.

You might have some luck trying to use an IP network packet traffic simulator, using bandwidth limits between nodes to stress test the latency and transit times of strings of packets, or a highway traffic simulator.

[Sean Oliver]

Thank you for the reply, and I like your IP traffic sim idea. As I mentioned I'm a newbie when it comes to this stuff. I should clarify that I'm not looking to use the train sim as if it were a wargame, but more like a quick train 'calculator'. I don't need much info beyond a rough idea of how many trains could be sent to/from each surviving operating division/node per day. I know the hauling capacity avg per train, and their avg speeds, turnaround time, etc as well as numbers of trains per section max., which ought to be enough info for my needs. There are papers online describing this calculation, but I hoped there might be SW which could do it faster and easier.

[SurvivorSean]

I don't know how historically accurate is, but the closest thing I can think of is Workers & Resources Soviet Republic. But this is a sim that goes much beyond just trains so you have to put up with that and then I'm not sure it's going to get what your looking for out of the trains that you can create lines etc.

Trainz is a possiblity as mentioned above many do have editors. Trainz has it's own resource system that does play out supply and demand and allows you to create a network. But the interactive objects that deal with the supply and demand though they can be customized is going to take lots of work to get all the various tank and ammo movements (most assets deal with coal, and other base commodities you would see on an average train).

Thanks

Sean