I'm new to this...

Hi everyone. I'm really sort of new to this whole railroad thing. I'm in college and I live in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. I ride the SEPTA regional rail system many times a week, and at my school whenever someone needs info about how to get anywhere on SEPTA they come to me. I've recently discovered that I'm becoming more and more interested in trains.

Anywho... I'd like to play a train simulation game on my computer. From what I've read on these forums it seems as though the general standard is icrosoft's Train Simulator. I also understand that there are many add-ons such as different trains and routes. I would like to know what routes and trains come with this game. I'm mostly interested in commuter passenger trains right now (like the ones used in Philadelphia, the Silverliners and Budds) and the Regional rail routes, and possible NJT's Northeast corridor route and trains. Any basic help at all would be appreciated! Thanks!

You can jump over to this board http://forums.flightsim.com/ts/dcboard.php A lot of good information there. Another SIM is Auran Trainz 2006, Both are great, but with all the add-on's and the Bin update (you can read about what the bin update is on the other forum) for MSTS is still the way to go. There is plenty of "freeware" and "payware" routes out there for what you are interested in.

The first thing after getting MSTS running is to download the NEC V4 from trainsim.com which is a great upgrade that among other things provides you with all of the commuter stations on the R2 between Philadelphia and Newark.

You should also download Conbuilder which is the easiest way to create your own consists.

It is then not too hard to create your own "activities" for a commuter rail operation, using the activity editor. On my setup I created a morning express run from Newark DE to Philly (using Amfleet equipment to simulate the SEPTA push pull trains) and an evening local using the Japanese MU cars to simulate the Silverliners. On both of these I tried to follow actual SEPTA schedules as much as possible. It is fun to try to see how you can do vs. the real operators -it's not as easy as it looks!

Jon