Help choosing a route to download

I have been away from MSTS for about 9 months and am keen to get back into it.any recommendations are welcomed- I like Marias Pass, so I am looking for something similar _ i like freight, long routes, extensive yards etc.Thanks in advanceRichard

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RE: Help choosing a route to download, SHEPLEY1935, Aug-06-02, 04:51 AM, (1) RE: Help choosing a route to download, downside, Aug-06-02, 08:16 AM, (2) RE: Help choosing a route to download, bwfer, Aug-06-02, 11:19 AM, (3) RE: Help choosing a route to download, dixie, Aug-08-02, 05:04 PM, (6) RE: Help choosing a route to download, Railfan727, Aug-06-02, 01:09 PM, (4) RE: Help choosing a route to download, plainsman, Aug-06-02, 01:29 PM, (5) RE: Help choosing a route to download, dixie, Aug-08-02, 05:10 PM, (7) RE: Help choosing a route to download, sniper297, Aug-08-02, 07:00 PM, (8) RE: Help choosing a route to download, bkvpvideo, Aug-08-02, 08:00 PM, (9) RE: Help choosing a route to download, wisrailfan, Aug-08-02, 09:34 PM, (10) RE: Help choosing a route to download, robertreedy, Aug-08-02, 09:49 PM, (11) RE: Help choosing a route to download, sniper297, Aug-08-02, 10:16 PM, (12) RE: Help choosing a route to download, wisrailfan, Aug-08-02, 10:18 PM, (13) RE: Help choosing a route to download, sniper297, Aug-08-02, 10:45 PM, (14) RE: Help choosing a route to download, CWA13000, Aug-08-02, 11:17 PM, (15)

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OHIO RAIL version 9 available in the Train-Sim D/L Library!

Don Shepley-Chicago

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PO&N 5
Seaview2 - you will be surprised at this one if you have been away that long.
Another vote for Ohio build 9Bill

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I'll cast my vote for ADFRR by Robert Reedy. Excellent Trackwork, spectacular scenery, just about every type of terrain, ... I could go on and on. Best of all I get higher frame rates on my system than any of the other routes I have downloaded.Just my 2 cents worth.

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Hi Bill. I sent you an email but am afraid it didn't make it to you so I saw your message and thought I'd try this. I dl'd SeaView2 the other day and attempted to install it yesterday. Terrible results. I followed the docs completely and unzipped to my MSTS Train Simulator\Routes folder. I did *not* create a SeaView2 folder. In checking the Routes folder, I found some SeaView files...including the "Installme.bat" file...but I was afraid to start it because the install had not gone as predicted.I have since gone in and deleted all the SV files I could find. I ran MSTS today and it seems fine. I was looking forward to running this route...recommended to me by Rich Garber.Can you help me out here and let me know your thoughts on this and what to do now?Your reponse would be greatly appreciated.Dave in Apex, NC

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Try the Conrail Indianapolis Line...Over 200 miles of track between Avon Yard (west of Indianapolis) and Marion, Ohio. Mostly double track, a short stretch of single between Marion and Ridgeway, and three branches out of Anderson, IN (each roughly 10 miles long). A mixture of CTC and automatic-block signaling, a few at-grade crossings of other railroads (a couple of industrial tracks in Indianapolis, Norfolk Southern at Muncie, Indiana & Ohio at Quincy, and CSX and NS side-by-side at Marion). Many, many highway crossings (in the version I'm putting together now).Version 0.2 (a preliminary version containing all track and signals, but no scenery) is available now, and 1.0 should be ready this winter or next spring.

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Try Raton Pass. It has very well developed grades and runs very smooth. This is a fast hard working main, that handled both freight and passenger duties.
I also like the Full Bucket Line, a short desert road similar to the Santa Fe west of Vaughn. This works well for less time consuming activities. It is also a good route to model branchline activities.
Bob

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Hi Splinter,Like you, I had been away from MSTS for some time and just got back into it a couple of months ago. I had been very apprehensive in the past about new routes...messing up my MSTS, etc, so I avoided adding new ones. Then, a few weeks ago, I read some good comments about East Metro and the Ohio RR, both by Rich Garber. I checked them out in the download section and read the text...and decided to give them a try. They are outstanding! Look really good and are very easy to install...and a lot of fun to run. I recommend them 100%. Hope this helps.Dave

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http://www.train-sim.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/11289.html
Link to the best route ever. Nobody ever accused me of being humble! Dixie, that was my fault, I helped Bill with the packaging and forgot to mention he shoulda stored the route folder in the path. Go into \Train Simulator\Routes, delete everything in there that's not a folder (a lot of add-on routes put their install.bats and assorted picture files in \Routes, but they can safely be deleted too).
Next thing is to delete the subfolders that shouldn't be there, click on View, Details, to get a listing with the dates if you don't have it that way already. Since folders are recreated from the extraction process, all the newest folders will pop to the top of the list, and all the subfolders of Seaview 2 will have the same date that you extracted it. They should all be at the top unless you installed another route afterwards, but in that case you would recognize the folder name.Notice all the folder names from \Activities down to \World, none of those are route names, they are all subfolders found in each route. Next thing is to select all the folders with the same date:

Then click the delete button.So here's the "official" installation instructions for Seaview 2 now:Doubleclick on Seaview2.zip. If the "wizard" opens (default setting), click on the Winzip Classic button to change the interface (don't worry, there's a "wizard" button in the classic interface so you can change it back).

Click on the extract button, the extract window pops up. You can either type in the full path, or go to the Folders/drives window and browse to \Train Simulator\Routes. Once you have that path, click on the New Folder button, and in the "create folder" window that pops up, type "Seaview2". Click on OK, then click on the Extract button in the extract window. This will create a new folder in \Train Simulator\Routes named \Seaview2, and extract all the files to that. Then close winzip, go into the new Seaview2 folder, double click on installme.bat.

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Hey RichardI'm finally a registered member in the message area, and thought I'd give a big pat on the back to Kent Weissinger and those who helped him with the Florida Funnel Route. I love this route for the sheer ability to meet lots of opposing trains with fast mainline running! I have just recently created an activity where the player train meets 15 trains on its' way to Jacksonville, not including a yard job at Waycross. The scenery is of course nicer in some other routes, but for pure heavy duty train operations, this route is a must. I have not had a chance to try a few of the other routes mentioned in this thread yet, so I just want to say THANKS to everyone who has put so much effort into making MSTS into much, much more than what the original release offered.Ken B.

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I'll second your opinion on the Florida Funnel. Fast mainline running with somewhat decent framerates (for my POS computer). I also like the Ohio Rail and PO&Nv5, although I have to turn the detail down to get double digit frame rates. The CSX A-Line is only partially scenicked, but it has a long mainline and plenty of branches and sidings to explore. I haven't tried the ADFRR, Raton, Whitefish, or Seattle routes because I'm planning on upgrading in the near future and don't want to have to reinstall too many add-on's.
If you want shorter routes and activities, East Metro and Central Wisconsin routes are great.

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If you're going to upgrade to a newer computer, don't let that stop you. For a couple of dollars, a null modem, cord, and some time you can port it directly from one to the other without any problems. I've done that twice in past years and didn't lose a thing. Even most of the registrations on programs everything kept current.Just a thought.

RobertR .. ADF-M&RM
http://adfrr.com

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I generally upgrade one thing at a time, but whenever I get something new, my youngest son gets my old thing, so he gets an upgrade too. I bought one of those LAN in a a box kits a few years back for 50 bucks, primarily so Mike and I could play Quake, but found that the file transfer from one computer to another is a lot faster than the null modem cable. It's equivelant to transfering directly from one disk to another on the same computer, which brings me to the next point.
When I buy a new hard disk, I always go with the people who invented integrated drive electronics (IDE) in the first place, Western Digital. Setting the jumper on the old drive to slave or cable select, I pop the WD utilities disk in the A drive, format the new disk, and there's a utility "Copy the contents of the old drive to the new". WIN 98 all too frequently won't recognize a second hard disk sometimes, which drives me goofy trying to figure it out, so if I want to copy or move some files from one drive to another without copying everything and overwriting a newer OS, I just unplug the cable to the CD-ROM drive, plug it into the spare disk that I'm copying from and set it on a box or something, and when I boot up go to explorer and the second disk is drive D. After copying everything, shut down, unplug second hard disk, reconnect CD-ROM, power up again. Poor man's ZIP drive.

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Thanks for the tip. The only problem is I'm going to have to do it one component at a time. I bought an HP computer with a Celeron 700 last year before I knew that MSTS was coming out, thinking it would be a while before any games would make it obsolete. Boy was I wrong!

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That's not a problem (thinking to self, "HP and Celery godhelpthepoorguy"), when you get the new hard disk, hook new drive up as primary disk and format, shut down, unplug CD-ROM, plug in old drive as secondary or slave, whichever the CD was configured for. Put DOS utilities diskette in A: drive, boot up, copy all the contents of the old disk to the new, including the OS so you don't have to reinstall Windows or all the other stuff. Shut down, remove old hard disk, reconnect CD, boot up and go. It goes a LOT faster than a null modem cable, which as I recall was restricted to 115,000bps. 115,000 BITS per second is 14,375 BYTES per second (8 bits = 1 byte), and when you figure the transfer rate between two hard disks on the same computer exceeds 300kb (2,457,600 bits) per second, that's quite a time savings.

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I really like PO&N especially because of the open-ended style activities and I really like the Ohio River Route but I am big-time into Steam and I found that the grades on the Newark and New Jersey Route allow me to pull 30 cars of coal with one TA Light Mountain, which I could not accomplish on these other routes. Of course,this route is really hard on the frame rates cause it is jammed with really neat stuff. It has a lot of yards and a good amount of track and a few coaling facilities but only one water tower. Then again so many of the routes have great stuff, I say try em all that is what I have been doing. That is why I have so few posts. Good luck!

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