Trainz free download - Trainz demo, Trainz Simulator, Trainz Railroad Simulator 2006 Hawes Junction demo, and many more programs. Subway is a fun retro, arcade-style game testing your reflexes! Control your own subway network by triggering rail switches to make sure the trains arrive on time to prove you are a cool-headed stationmaster! Aretro 2D game featuring fast-paced gameplay that will get you hooked till the last train has reached its stop! If youre a fan of ˜line-drawing genre games such as flight control.
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1DLS Overview
1.1Foundation knowledge on 3rd Party sourcing
DLS Overview[edit]
The Download Station—or more commonly the DLS(DLS Web Link)—is N3V Game's public repository[note 1]) of third-party custom Trainz assets created and shared by other Trainzers ('Content Creators') in the world wide community. The DLS was instituted late in the Trainz 1.3—Trainz UTC era (versions v1.3–v1.5) with the user community wanting an easier means of sharing CDP files, very early in the history of Trainz releases (2000–2003, when its initial website took on much of its current form and function. By the release of TRS2004, the so called 'Black Pages' website, was up and running with T'04 providing primitive file management and interfacing using a suite of individual Windows EXE files. During those early years of explosive Trainz growth, its library of assets swelled from a few hundred assets well into the thousands. The number of assets available for download in July 2013 is over 2,500 routes and 270,000 assets overall, but varies by the trainz-build version of the users Trainz installation (older Trainz can access less, and are blocked from more recent higher trainz-build number assets for the newer may use technologies unknown to the older). Then again there are assets which are functional duplicates of previous versions, dutifully updated using the Trainz KUID and KUID2 system of version tracking and management, and those cut the count down since they obsolete prior releases. Similarly, assets with entries in the obsolete-tables also diminish the total count of assets, but whatever the ever changing usable total may be (as this forum thread shows, more are added daily). In Trainz, no one can say there is a poor selection of alternative assets!
Foundation knowledge on 3rd Party sourcing[edit]
It is said that Trainz would not exist without the Download Station and the community's willingness from the earliest pre-Beta Test days to share content. Until recently, any registered Trainz user may upload their home-built content and/or download content made by others using the cloud based facility.
Most of such content is quite good, but alas, there have been many items uploaded by novice content creators which fail the sniff test as well. Now days any budding content creator prematurely uploading an experimental asset that lacks professional qualities is likely to hear about it in vociferous and discouraging ways!
They'll also likely receive coaching and help in upgrading it to acceptable standards, unless they're an offputting and abrasive personality—who's content will be shunned until they mature a bit and adapt to accept constructive criticisms gracefully.
Overall, content creators are beloved, so support and encouragement and help will be found on the forums—so the harsh words of a few trolls, should be given the attention they deserve. Ignore them.
The New reality[edit]
In recent years policy on uploading has been belatedly changed to vett and pre-error-check uploaded content in an attempt to weed out assets made to older technology standards, ensure only legal tag names (key words) and newer data types and data structures are incorporated, and an asset is complete as well as has all dependencies on the DLS. These are all good things, but N3V Games has also begun to limit uploading by trainz-build tags, which has created more than a little friction with the user community. Some of that vetting (the forcing of new uploads to the latest trainz-build is both unnecessary and unwise, but the N3V reputation for stubbornness is well deserved, so getting them to provide a path for 'functionally just fixing' an older asset so it works with all releases seems less likely than a snowball's chances to make it out of hell. 'Them's with the gold, makes the rulez', it is said in an old folk bit of wisdom, and unfortunately, many a good content creator has quit producing assets or uploading new goodies as a result.
The later circumstance is probably an unresolvable problem, as only the asset creator may upload an asset or update it, and many for philosophical reasons choose to not lend their efforts to be freely shared on the DLS.
Bookmark me! This link attempts to list all known Trainz fansites, most are content providing and hosting sites provided for the occasional need to locate a asset missing on the DLS to get that new route or session up and running.
Their programmer's created the compatibility issues, but won't own the responsibility for them by auto-translating during pre-processing when necessary—a particularly unprofessional attitude in the staff supporting a data base product. Historically, over 90% of software programming involves such compatibility programming, but since it's 'boring code maintenance' N3Vs programmer's have gotten away with it by citing their small size and numbers.
De-Trainzing[edit]
Others content creators have left Trainz or digital trains modeling for various reasons (including passing-away, or those 'going over to the darkside' —now modeling for a competitor product) and others don't feel an obligation to perpetually update assets they authored a decade or more ago. It must be understood, Auran was already a successful mid-size game company when it undertook Trainz' development in 1998, but by 2006 they were almost totally focused on the expensive development of a MMORPG based game that totally flopped, and left Auran in bankruptcy proceedings selling off pieces, laying off nearly every employee and badly needing rescue cash from N3V Games. That event was tramatic and spawn many fan-sites in order to protect the Trainz community from the loss of the DLS and forums. After six weeks, the servers came back on line, but to this day, many an long-time Trainzer content creator hedges his bets with fan-site hosted content that takes its time wending its way onto the DLS. N3V's policies continue to tick people off even today, so politics and preference enter the motivations.
Hence even when a creator now wants to upload assets he once hosted personally on a fan site, he'd have to update them just to patch the missing asset a route has called for. Many of these, especially the older retirees who fueled Trainz early explosive growth in asset wealth have no real interest in a newer Trainz release, nor mounting the learning curves of converting things to the newer technologies since incorporating updates on the DLS to advance older (still working digital) models to the minimum trainz-build level now demanded by N3V requires expending $$resources to comply. While often friendly to users making enquiries, those folks have put Trainz into a past chapter of their lives.
New User Tip Missing assets with an updated form.
Assets meeting this condition is also a source of confusion in operating CM, for a missing asset might have a more updated kuid on the DLS and Content Manager will flag the obsolete asset as a missing dependency—a check by author will show the updated version (a kuid2 or another replacement kuid with an obsolete-table while CM is just looking at the initial kuid, a minor bug, but as true for CMP as for CMP-3.x!). Once downloaded, the replacement/upgraded asset can then fill in the dependency association tracking correctly and the dependent asset then can be used.
Since once locally downloaded, the condition is cured by the presence of the local updated version, the first step in fixing faults should be to check for an updated version of the asset! Once that is obtained, the version with the error can be safely deleted, or archived, for from the time a new asset obsoletes an old, CM will know locally to substitute the one for the original. This is the strength of the KUID2 system. Its weakness is CM's don't track every asset by KUID2 encoding. By definition <kuid:abcdef:ghijki> is the same as <kuid2:abcdef:ghijki:0>
Those missing assets[edit]
There are many long time Trainzer's who disdain downloading older routes, because it may require fault fixing. Then their are others who disdain newer routes for containing missing assets. In the end, where's their sensible room to complain, you are paying nothing or a pittance for a digital model that took upto 8 man-months to draft, texture and test.
For the missing assets, there are over 400 other Trainz asset sources (index and search engine) on the web hosting downloadable assets and various nationalistic/linguistic camps — plus two broad, major, and diametrically opposed philosophies fueling their continuance:
A) One camp, knowing the time and effort it takes to make a digital model feels they should receive some monetary compensation for their time, so charge a bit to download same. The extreme end of this group is sites which offer only or at least, almost all, payware.
B) Others, feeling the assets should be free and no money-grubbing capitalists should benefit from having their asset in payware (which includes routes released by N3V as part of a release, and some reason as well the revenue stream created for N3V/Auran by the DLS First Class Ticket costs)
C) Lastly, and to a lesser extent are sites resenting English as the mandatory language for asset names and descriptions, so host in Spanish, German, Russian, or other such languages since translation is time consuming and costly.
Essentially, since technically all content is intellectual property eligible for copy-write under international law, all groups are within their rights, and begrudging a person who wants paid for their time is absurd. The Auran/N3V DLS upload release agreement essentially asks up-loaders to waive those rights, allowing N3V to use any DLS asset as it sees fit. Since many content creators opposed to payware also feel N3V's use of an item in a route released in a new Trainz version is also payware and deserved monetary compensation, said believers often host their own content on a fan-site. Similarly, use of an asset from a payware site means those folks want paid. N3V on the other hand, selects routes secretly from a group submitted voluntarily from the user community, and given the expense of hosting the forums and DLS servers, customer services, et. al. aren't about to pay anyone much of anything, except partners whom they have contracted with for DLC, payware hosted by N3V at the Simulator Central web-store.
The unresolvability of the problem is that before dependency checking on uploading (a recent development in the overall time frame), many, perhaps even most, routes and sessions used such proprietary assets, because they are frequently superior or special in some way.}}
Early in the TS2009 era, the N3V Games instituted a controversial policy of only accepting content 'made to' or 'upgraded to' currently supported releases of the software, concurrent with a policy implemented to limit their customer support to such Trainz_Life-Cycle_Policy supported versions. This policy is still causing resentment among many an old-time Trainzer. It also effectively enslaves a content creator by demanding ongoing maintenance and upgrades for some favor he did for someone else years ago!
Content on the Download Station had historically shown significant rates of errors or missing dependencies. This is being addressed via the Download Station Cleanup initiative, albeit slowly as the program is now nearly five years old.
In point of fact, many so-called faults or errors in the majority (i.e. scenery assets) have trivial data model evolution caused faults resulting from unwise technical choices based in lazy and inconsiderate programming standards by a small group of young programmers lacking experience in large project politics. The damning point of fact is the programmer's chose a path easy for them with insufficient consideration of the impact on the tens of thousands in the customer base. As a pointed and common example, assets which worked fine in pre-TS2009 releases suddenly weren't able to find their own mesh tables despite being located in the same sub-folders that were part of the earlier (actually earliest) Trainz data model standards, when a few more lines of code could have 'handled the error' automatically using excerpts of proven TRS2006 software, when instead the programmer's chose to force a mesh-table or texture.txt file down users throats. Before v2.0 (TRS2004-SP0) Trainz didn't know about mesh-tables. Hence good programming assumptions would have handled such older constructs the same old way as the TRS series of releases.
Fact: V1-3 and V1-5 assets usually fail because they assume a more modern structure in the config.txt whilst any considerate programming staff with two or more brain cells would have just written a routine to translate the old style to the new more desired model (from the programmer's point of view) instead of creating a ongoing cancerous issue. A second example is the unnecessary elimination of older legal keywords instead of just ignoring the line, N3Vs programmers generate errors if updating the asset beyond version trainz-build 2.6.
Notes[edit]
↑N3V's Zec Murphy has stated officially the web page access is not supported for more recent releases of Trainz, but it works and many of us choose to use its graphical browsing and expanded information to shop for assets to download.
References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Trainz/Download_Station&oldid=3524538'
Product-specific information, downloads, and utilities on the Auran web site.
Product assistance through the Auran Helpdesk.
Maintenance of product-specific forums.
Access to the Download Station.
Access to the iTrainz network.
Access to other product-specific network services.
Uploading Window for Trainz-build code which the DLS vetting software will accept. (Controversially, the vetting software actually tests ahead of a trainz-build testing in Content Manager or CCP.)
After the end-of-support date for a given product release, some or all of the above services may be immediately withdrawn at Auran's discretion. Any services which remain active may be withdrawn at any time thereafter. Users are encouraged to upgrade to a more recent version of Trainz to maintain support.
As Usual[edit]
As usual, the attitude of N3V Games is insensitive to the burden their software changes require of a content creators time.
End-of-support Dates[edit]
The following end-of-support dates are formally acknowledged.
Product
End-of-support Date
trainz-build tag[1]
Code Version* Build Range[note 1]
Dates are solely 'End of support Dates'. See the individual linked articles for each Version's publication dates. Normally a software downloadable version is available some months in advance of CDROM or DVD boxed sets. Product releases listed as much as possible in calendar date order of release, given bundling of some re-published products.
Trainz 1.0
September 2010
v1.0-v1.3[2][1]
0009–0277[3], 0263 or bundled 0404 (UTC)[note 2]
Trainz UTC (UTC)
v1.5[3][1]
0327–0404
MSTS Regional Add-on Pack: USA and Canada Volume 1
unk
v1.7???
Microsoft Train Simulator Paint Shed
September 2010
v1.8???
Content Creation Art Source
September 2010
v1.5?-v1.9???
TRS2004+4 SPs
September 2010
v2.0[1]-v2.4[1][4]
0668–2390, 2365
Trainz Driver
September 2010
v2.5[5]
'3096'[6] and no variants.
TRS2006+1 SPs TRS2007 French Ed. TRS2008 German, Eastern Europe Ed.
Trainz Simulator 12 September 2016Trainz Simulator Mac September 2016Trainz Simulator Mac 2 September 2017Trainz: A New Era May 2019
TANE Community Edition 1.0
May 2019[1]
v3.9[1]
TANE Community Edition 1.1
December 2018?[note 9]
v4.0[1]
TANE pending
December 2018?[note 10]
* Code Version Build Range — Number in bold, often set off by comma is Highest English Language Release Code Build Number, corresponding to the highest Service Pack Installed.
The link above lists all known and confirmable Trainz Code Build numbers in tables by Retail Release Version Names.
Sometimes Foreign Language releases will have slightly higher Build Codes as is reflected in the range.
FAQ's from the forum's (Q&A)[edit]
('WBA' is Wikibooks editor's answer!)
Q: Will the named products continue to operate after the listed end-of-support date?
A: We will do nothing specific to prevent the products from operating. However, if they were to stop working for some reason (for example, they were found to be incompatible with the latest Windows Operating System) we would not take any steps to resolve the issue. Additionally, any product features which rely on server support (for example, in-game Download Station access or iTrainz) may cease functioning correctly.
WBA: Yes, why would software on your install stop because some company decided to TRY TO force people to buy newer software?
Q: Can I still access the Download Station after the end-of-support date?
A: Access granted to you by the unsupported product may be terminated. If you have purchased access through other means (newer products, First Class Ticket, etc.) then your access will continue thanks to these products.
WBA: If you have any registered version, and maintain a FCT subscription, there will be a way to download. Summer of 2014 forum threads suggest they instead swerved to a second new DLS, as suggested by Fabartus (here), and that will be the sole FTP CM access for TANE. They may extend FTP access, perhaps by a service pack (TS12-SP2 has long been called for by users, but for bug fixes!) might be forced upon the user community for the TS12 and the MAC releases, but as of September, they are spawning a second 'Whitepages' DLS for the 64-bit machines and only vetted content that is thoroughly debugged ONLY will be allowed thereon. (See the DLS Cleanup Project) This newer DLS went operable in July–August 2014.
Q: Can I still access the Download Station from within Trainz, Trainz Helper, or Content Manager after the end-of-support date?
A: Access to our servers from an unsupported product is not guaranteed, regardless of your level of Download Station access. You may need to download the content separately and then manually move it into the unsupported Trainz installation.
WBA: Translation. This company won't commit to policy's in advance for anything much. This weasel wording is a typical.
Forums intellegence says the Black Pages DLS will stay available and so content can be imported after the FTP transactions. TRS2006 evinced irregularities in expected downloads from early July, so DLS server changes seem to be in place and automatically updating data requests to inappropriate higher trainz-builds in some cases.
Other times, other versions this has not happened, so this editor blocked in T'06 was able to download the KUIDs in TS09 or TS10. Bottom line, Auran's IT staff have shortcomings, and you learn to live with odd behaviors for a time. Put in a ticket when something should work and complain loudly on the forums, so others can join your voice with theirs.
Q: Will the Download Station continue to host content for Trainz editions beyond their end-of-support date?
A: We will not immediately remove older content from the Download Station, as newer editions of Trainz can still use this content.
WBA: Worrisome answer? Or just more weasel wording, because of some proposal one day around the water cooler or a staff meeting. No policies in advance seems to be a watchword of Tony Hilliam and his staff toes the line. Per Tony's announcement of the TANE, most expect the Black Pages DLS to go on.
Q: Will I be able to upload old-format content to the Download Station?
A: New uploads to the Download Station must be in a format no older than our oldest supported product. Attempts to upload content with a trainz-build number lower than our oldest supported product will be rejected. This ensures that legacy formats are cleanly phased out over time.
WBA: NO! Version jumped from V2.9 acceptable to V3.5 minimum on 1 September 2014. Despite a lot of forum noise and protests.
Q: Will my Lifetime First Class Ticket continue to operate if all my registered products are beyond their end-of-support date?
A: Yes, we will ensure that all users who have a right to Download Station access can continue to download content. The specific techniques required to download content may change. At the current time, we offer support for using an FCT with the DLS web site to manually download content. We do not offer support for using an FCT with Content Manager (or similar) in an unsupported product. We do not offer support for installing manually-downloaded content into an unsupported product.
WBA: Smells like the CM support for older versions is very threatened, should they find a rationale. Note the FTP access to the folders, a much more primative facility will stay in place. This says they want CM features with different data handling, so figure DRM and DLS protections are driving the changes--and the whole Trainz Life-Cycle policy is likely dreamt up so they could garner more cash from such content.
Q: I recently bought a copy of an unsupported product. Will you give support?
A: No. We will not sell products which are nearing the end-of-support date. It may be possible to purchase such a product from a third party through a bargain-bin outlet or similar, however we can not offer support for these products. We expect that the product will continue to operate as normal, and hope that you enjoy your experience with the product will be sufficiently enjoyable that you'll decide to upgrade to one of our supported products.
WBA: They never have, so you are in good company. Buy any older versions you don't have and can get at a good price while they last. Each has their place and use.
Q: My only Trainz product will shortly become unsupported. Will my forum access be removed?
A: No. We're not in the business of kicking our loyal users out of the community. We really think it would be beneficial if you upgraded to a supported version of Trainz, but that's a decision that you'll have to make. The product-specific forum may be removed, but your overall forum access will remain valid.
WBA: Removing a popular product specific forum is also unlikely.
Q: Will the Download Station website be removed?
A: The Download Station website is not tied to a specific product. Our plans for this website are not affected by the end-of-support for any specific Trainz product. Your access to the Download Station is conditional upon having a supported product or other form of access such as a First Class Ticket. We expect to continue support and development of our web services indefinitely, although the exact form of these services may change over time.
WBA: As above, the Black Pages website appear safe, but may be restricted by CM handshaking desires. (September 3rd 2014)
Notes and References[edit]
Notes[edit]
↑Trainz build versions (aka Code build numbers) are charted on the linked N3V Wiki reference page.
↑Trainz 1.3 build: 0263, re-released as part of Ultimate Trainz Collection with SP3 pre-installed.
↑Build 3092: 'TRS2006-SP1' builds & later published release builds.
↑Build 3335: 'The Complete Collection' TCC release build.
↑Build 3337: UK release 'Trainz Railwayz, and original 'Trainz Classics' USA releases.
↑Build 3335: 'The Complete Collection' TCC release build as noted above in TRS2006.
↑All Three Trainz Classics are a good illustration of bad management decisions. Cheapening a successful product and tarnishing it's reputation for a few short term months of cash flow and pissed off customers.
↑Final TS10 Build depends on user choice of final patch applied. Build 44088 auto patches to 49933, but users could apply manual patch 3 to enable Aerotrain DLC and experience Multiplayer Beta Tests.
↑Estimated by Simple Math, 4 years plus Official release date.
↑Estimated by Simple Math, 4 years plus Official release date.
Footnotes[edit]
↑ abcdefghijN3V Wiki 'Trainz-build' tag page, detailing list of Trainz-build tag numbers.
↑Verified by CDROM content.
↑ abcdefN3V Trainz build versions official documentation.
↑ abVerified by CDROM content with TRS2004:Deluxe and bonus content CDs.
↑Verified by Trainz Driver release's CDROM content.
↑By inspection in Windows Registry HKEY: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREAuranProductsTrainzDriver0ProductBuild, accessdate=2015-0501
↑Verified by release's CDROM content.
↑Inferred by CDROM behavior - Installs into TRS2006 as a patch, may incorporate some v1.5 routes. Any determination would need three installs. First a fresh TRS2006 install, then the patch/install of the routes, then import ..local into a higher CMP/CM clean version which can show trainz-build versions.
↑By CDROM-3, Incorporated TRS2004 and TRS2006, so bundled content below V2.6, would need further checking, similar to preceding footnote.
↑CDROM bonus content Add-on with TRS2004: Deluxe' release.
↑ abcv2.7 was tech level given both Regional Interest releases TC1 and TC2 — The second and third releases after TCC under the 'management of software Publisher' N3V Games when Tony Hilliam stepped in with extra financing to support the ailing Auran Development in bankruptcy.
↑Verified by CDROM content 'Trainz Classics 1 and 2' release.
↑Verified by CDROM content 'Trainz Classics 3' release.