Where are the Scandinavian routes??

[seagoon]

Today I spent several hours watching a cab-view video of a 4-hour freight haul from Bergen to Al in Norway.
The female driver/engineer - pen-name RailCowGirl - has done many similar vids over the last few years but this one is a masterpiece.
It may be viewed in several resolutions, right up to 2160p60 4K, and is exceptional in its quality. Watching in full-screen is recommended.

The reason for this post is in the title; why in God's name are we not experiencing routes such as this in any of the train simulations?
It (and other spectacular Scandinavian lines) truly deserves being created by the major players in this hobby rather than them shoveling out North American, German and UK content day after day.

You may not want to watch this in one sitting - I didn't, but you can save your place and come back to it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and if you like her work, subscribe.

[crimsonfloyd]

You can run this very route in MSTS/OR. Go to .....http://banbyggarna.se/ ,the route is called VBSR 8 V1.1.
Mark

[NorthernWarrior]

There was also a version of the Merakerbahn from Trondheim to Storlien (just over the border into Sweden) for MSTS.

For some reason Trainz and DTG TSC haven't really captivated the Scandinavian side of things. There's a bit of Trainz stuff for Sweden (ironically a huge selection of buildings) but most of the loco and rolling stock assets very old and has poorly aliased cabs and sounds, or require a massive off DLS dependency hunt. Not much for Norway at all so very much chicken and egg. No point making a route if there's no suitable trains to run on it.

Another hurdle building Scandinavian routes is tunnels. As we know these are a right pig to do in Trainz (you can't get under the terrain to fettle things) and TSC is awkward (no wire frame mode) and Norway in particular has some very long ones. I have also found the DEM data doesn't match up very precisely with the mapping at these northern latitudes.

[haverfordwest]

Yikes that MSTS route has over 1000 miles of running lines.

[seagoon]

.......Another hurdle building Scandinavian routes is tunnels.....and Norway in particular has some very long ones.....

Aaah! Yes....I hadn't considered that aspect, Vern. So true.
And this particular route has dozens of them.

[seagoon]

Yikes that MSTS route has over 1000 miles of running lines.

I just had a look at the download site....1850 kilometres!! That's some route!

[seagoon]

You can run this very route in MSTS/OR. Go to .....http://banbyggarna.se/ ,the route is called VBSR 8 V1.1.
Mark

Are you sure, Mark?
From what I can determine, using Google Maps to locate the places mentioned in the intro to the route, the Bergen to Al (thence Oslo) route doesn't form part of the VBSR package, which is south and west, not north.

[crimsonfloyd]

Yep. I just watched the video and I recognized the freight yard in Bergen. I have tried to follow that line on Google maps and there are a lot of long tunnels, especially on the Bergen end of the line. It looks to be very mountainous in that region. Between Bergen and the next station the line is almost completely underground.
There was a forum that had activities but it seems to be gone now. You could access it from the Banbyggarna site if you clicked the to Swedish3D trains here link. I was just there a couple of months ago but there wasn`t much recent activity.
Mark

[seagoon]

Yep. I just watched the video and I recognized the freight yard in Bergen....

Thanks, Mark.

Yep....I just checked and it's the Bergensbanen section of the package.

I'll have another go at trying to download the route....the first attempt came up with a "fail".
Nope....it's failing again after showing more than 24 hours to download!!