Train Simulator forms the basics. With the purchase of Train Simulator, you will notice that some routes and trains are already added. These are only foreign routes and trains. There are thousands of add-ons available for Train Simulator, many of them also being Dutch add-ons. There are free and paid add-ons. For many free add-ons (freeware), paid add-ons (payware) are mandatory.

In Train Simulator we divide routes, material and scenarios. Routes are trajectories to drive from point A to point B. The material is the train you’re driving on a route. A scenario is an assignment which simulates real circumstances where you drive from point A to point B. In scenarios you’ll also meet other material (traffic). You have these options in the mainmenu of Train Simulator:

Quick Drive: in this mode you’ll drive from point A to point B. During the journey you won’t see any other traffic. These are more easy scenarios, for example; to explore a route.

Career: these are more challenging scenarios. During a career-scenario you can score points. You will be tested to drive on-time for example.

Standard: standard-scenarios look a lot like career-scenarios. The difference is you won’t be earning points during the session.

Free-Roam: you’re completely free to do anything on the route. Nothing is pre-defined. You can adjust switches manually for example.

Workshop: on Steam there will be an option to download scenarios as well. These are mainly for foreign routes that are available through Steam. Scenarios that you’ve downloaded through Steam, are available to play here.

There are many different Dutch routes available to download on SimTogether. Many times people have spent building routes for thousands of hours in their spare time completely voluntarily.

Every route uses objects. In the Train Simulator community, we also call them assets. Everything you see is an object. You can imagine that making custom objects is an impossible job. That’s why existing objects are used a lot of times. These objects are already made by someone else. Sometimes by someone that has put it in a paid add-on, but sometimes also by someone that has made it available for free. That’s the reason why you need additional payware to get a freeware Dutch route to function properly. Make no mistake: sometimes objects are made for one route only. For example an object that features a route. Think about stations, monuments and other noticeable things.

Objects that are made for one route specifically, usually are included with the download of that route. The other objects have to be downloaded separately. Usually this takes most of the time when installing a route. If you don’t download the necessary objects, you won’t see them in the route. It will look very empty once you load the route in the game.

If you have installed your route, you’ll probably also want to drive a Dutch train on it. For Train Simulator the most known publisher of Dutch trains is Christrains. All the material of Christrains is available on the SimTogether store. There are also some trains that you can download for free. Check out the download section of SimTogether.

As explained earlier, you can play scenarios on routes. To be able to successfully start a scenario you must need the required material for the specific scenario to be able to load up the scenario correctly. If you download a route, usually it comes packed with a list of scenarios. For the required material, you can read the manual of the scenario or route.

It is also possible to download scenarios from SimTogether or other websites. Whenever you’re downloading a scenario it’s a good measure to check which material you need and if you have it already. Otherwise you may not be able to load up the scenario correctly. It will display an error message at the beginning of the scenario with the missing material in the message.

ChrisTrains material