Question on creating your own route in TSRE and the things you need for your route

[TrainGuy17]

Hello everyone, so I have a question that I am curious about when creating your own routes in the TSRE program. Please forgive me by the way if this is not the right place to ask this question, I am not sure if this is the right topic channel to ask.

When creating your own route, what are the objects/things that are required and objects/things that you need to build up a route and where can you find those objects/things that you need to build up a route if you want to download them or buy them? either from off here or somewhere else?
Reason why I am asking this question is because I want to create my own route and since I am pretty new to Open Rails and using the TSRE and the Consist program, I am not sure where I am able to find what I need and what names they are called. I need a couple of things for my route that I want to create. I need a couple of USA Train Stations, Trees, USA tracks, USA bridges, Roads, Roads Intersections, Traffic Lights, Sidewalks, Different types of Railroad Crossings, oh and signals as well.

So therefore, if I would like to get these things, where would I find them or get them at?
Also, are there tutorials provided as to how to create routes and add objects and what not?

Any advice on this would help!

[R. Steele]

Go to the library and search Scenery Items, most of the basic items you will need can be found in the download section....usually these are public domain items, if you need to make custom made models, that's a whole other discussion.

[TrainGuy17]

Ah, okay I see, thank you so much!

[rdayt]

I started out with the Monon railroad, available here.
It's one of the best routes available for MSTS/OR.
It serves as a prime example of how to build a railroad.
It also has all of the stuff you'll need as you get started on your own.
Tracks and roads will have to be installed on their own but you can use the shapes, textures, sounds, sigcfg.dat, sigscr.dat, carspawn.dat and Monon-2.ref in your new route.
After you've started the "your route" in TSRE, save and close it and copy the above files to "your route" folder overwriting everything. Rename Monon-2.ref to "your-route".ref.
Now when you open TSRE you'll have all of this wonderful stuff you can use. And you'll also have the best freeware route available.

Randy

Edit: I should add that this is for American content.

[TrainGuy17]

I started out with the Monon railroad, available here.
It's one of the best routes available for MSTS/OR.
It serves as a prime example of how to build a railroad.
It also has all of the stuff you'll need as you get started on your own.
Tracks and roads will have to be installed on their own but you can use the shapes, textures, sounds, sigcfg.dat, sigscr.dat, carspawn.dat and Monon-2.ref in your new route.
After you've started the "your route" in TSRE, save and close it and copy the above files to "your route" folder overwriting everything. Rename Monon-2.ref to "your-route".ref.
Now when you open TSRE you'll have all of this wonderful stuff you can use. And you'll also have the best freeware route available.

Randy

Edit: I should add that this is for American content.

Ah, wow okay nice! Thank you so very much.

[TrainGuy17]

I started out with the Monon railroad, available here.
It's one of the best routes available for MSTS/OR.
It serves as a prime example of how to build a railroad.
It also has all of the stuff you'll need as you get started on your own.
Tracks and roads will have to be installed on their own but you can use the shapes, textures, sounds, sigcfg.dat, sigscr.dat, carspawn.dat and Monon-2.ref in your new route.
After you've started the "your route" in TSRE, save and close it and copy the above files to "your route" folder overwriting everything. Rename Monon-2.ref to "your-route".ref.
Now when you open TSRE you'll have all of this wonderful stuff you can use. And you'll also have the best freeware route available.

Randy

Edit: I should add that this is for American content.

Wait, so exactly which link or version do I need to select in order to install that route, if I just want the route itself with the scenery and stuff but without the trains? Because I just went on there and I am seeing like a bunch of links and stuff that are needed to install as well and I can't tell which link to select for installing.

[rdayt]

Here.
Under Version 17 (Stand Alone) numbers 1-9, for the route.
Download this from the library here. It should contain all of the track/road systems you'll need.
Where are you starting from? Do you have MSTS content?

Randy

[TrainGuy17]

Here.
Under Version 17 (Stand Alone) numbers 1-9, for the route.
Download this from the library here. It should contain all of the track/road systems you'll need.
Where are you starting from? Do you have MSTS content?

Randy

Oh, okay awesome thanks! And no, I am actually starting from Open Rails which I believe contains some of MSTS content

[TrainGuy17]

Oh, okay awesome thanks! And no, I am actually starting from Open Rails which I believe contains some of MSTS content

Fun fact, I do have the MSTS game itself as in DVD format but I don't have the pc that runs MSTS.

[rdayt]

Depending on how deep you want to get you might install MSTS to a place like C:\01-trains just so you can have the registry entries. Some of the older tools used with MSTS and OR like to have a registry entry to go off of.
There are also a lot of older routes that will want to copy content from the default routes.
Anyway, install to a folder of your choice, not programs etc., then go in and delete everything but routes, sound, trains, global, train.exe and utils.
Now you can put all of your content in here using the correct file structure.
Word of warning. Don't mix the older MSTS/OR content with newer OpenRails only stuff. It uses newer .dds textures so the shapes won't know to look for .aces.
Keep OpenRails itself in it's own folder separate from your content. Like C:\OpenRails.

Randy

[TrainGuy17]

Depending on how deep you want to get you might install MSTS to a place like C:\01-trains just so you can have the registry entries. Some of the older tools used with MSTS and OR like to have a registry entry to go off of.
There are also a lot of older routes that will want to copy content from the default routes.
Anyway, install to a folder of your choice, not programs etc., then go in and delete everything but routes, sound, trains, global, train.exe and utils.
Now you can put all of your content in here using the correct file structure.
Word of warning. Don't mix the older MSTS/OR content with newer OpenRails only stuff. It uses newer .dds textures so the shapes won't know to look for .aces.
Keep OpenRails itself in it's own folder separate from your content. Like C:\OpenRails.

Randy

Okay, cool so in that case should I create another separate folder that contains routes, sound, trains = consist, trainsets, and globals = shapes and textures? and once I create that, then the content from that website that you sent me, once I install that route containing from 1-9, I can then put them into the separate folder that I created and I should be able to move on to the next step by going on TSRE to start creating or?

[eric]

Something else to consider... you'll never find everything exactly as you want it as far as scenery goes.

Learning to build simple models is what really got me moving on my own route building. I learned in Sketchup, many others used TSM, but today the only tool you should consider learning is Blender.

[rdayt]

You can put the Monon route in the folders you created when you installed MSTS, if you went that route. It'll work just fine.

Randy

[TrainGuy17]

You can put the Monon route in the folders you created when you installed MSTS, if you went that route. It'll work just fine.

Randy

Oh, okay. Well I mean I didn't install MSTS since I am using OpenRails and so since I have OpenRails I can put the route in the folder that I created for it in that case?

[TrainGuy17]

Something else to consider... you'll never find everything exactly as you want it as far as scenery goes.

Learning to build simple models is what really got me moving on my own route building. I learned in Sketchup, many others used TSM, but today the only tool you should consider learning is Blender.

Yeah that's true, and yeah blender is something I am going to be looking forward to learning how to do in the future. I heard it is a really good and useful program