Discover > News

Jul 2023 - New route from Train Simulations

Train Simulations publishes new Southern Pacific Shasta route.

Jan 2023 - Portugal '79

Portugal '79 has been published. This provides 1775km of broad gauge track, with full detail on 91km between Entroncamento and Alfarelos.

Jan 2023 - HSB Simulator

New commercial route HSB Simulator published. This contains 87 miles of the Harz narrow-gauge railway, the longest narrow-gauge route network in Europe.

Nov 2022 - Version 1.5.1

Open Rails 1.5.1 released to fix 3 bugs in v1.5.

Nov 2022 - Version 1.5

Open Rails 1.5 released.

Jul 2022

Three new UK routes are now available for immediate download here.

Oct 2021

Version 1.4 is now available for immediate download here.

Nov 2020

Wagons can now be braked individually as on the oldest railways. This can be experienced in 2 scenarios - Stephenson's Rocket at Rainhill Trials and Langley Vale Timber Tramway.

Apr 2020

After more than a year of work the free, restored and improved Siskiyou Route is once more available.

Apr 2019

ENG files published with accurate physics for 176 USA diesel locos.

Dec 2018

Open Rails 1.3.1 released Download it here.

Mar 2018

Geoff Rowlands found a way to model 3D controls so they can be grabbed by the handle as in this video.

Jan 2017 - Version 1.2

Open Rails 1.2 released.

Mar 2016 - Version 1.1

Open Rails 1.1 released.

Dec 2015 - More Access to Elvas Tower

The Elvas Tower forum plays a major role in developing Open Rails but has been closed to non-members following a dispute. We can now report that some of the Open Rails sub-forums are open again.

Jun 2015 - Great Zig Zag Railway

Peter Newell has just released (June 2105) the Great Zig Zag Railway, a steam route for Open Rails v1.0 (this 120MB download requires no other files).

May 2015 - Version 1.0

Open Rails 1.0 released! Download it here.

Apr 2015 - Demo Model 1

Open Rails first demonstration route Demo Model 1 has been published.

Dec 2014 - 3D Cabs

Dekosoft Trains has added locos exclusively for Open Rails to its range. These are GP30 diesels taking advantage of our 3D cab feature.

Jul 2014 - Web Site

The legacy graphics-heavy web site has been replaced by one based on Bootstrap which is both easier to maintain and suitable for phones and tablets as well as PCs.

You can still see an archive of the old site.

Apr 2014 - Installer

An installer is now available, so Open Rails and its pre-requisites such as XNA can be delivered in a single download.

Apr 2014 - Smoother, More Detailed Graphics

Open Rails currently uses DirectX 9 and, although this is not the latest version of DirectX, hidden away inside is a method for reducing the number of "draw calls" which the CPU makes to the GPU. Fewer calls mean higher frame rates, smoother motion and the capacity to handle more detail.

The technique is called "hardware instancing" and allows identical objects (e.g. trees in a forest) to be combined into a single draw call. The work is transferred to the GPU which copies them as many times as necessary and usually has spare capacity.

You can expect some increases in frame rate, especially on routes with many identical objects. To turn this on, tick the checkbox for
Options > Experimental > Use model instancing.

Mar 2014 - Additional Languages

Open Rails becomes available in additional languages, initially eight including Chinese.

Mar 2014 - Work Starts on Timetables

A schedule of trains (or timetable) is nearly impossible to arrange in Microsoft Train Simulator as AI trains don't adhere to booked station stops. In Open Rails, the situation is better but an activity with a player train and AI traffic is still very different from a timetable.

Work has now begun on a timetable element which is an alternative to the usual activity. The timetable will contain all the details needed for each scheduled train - path, consist, booked stops etc.. Conventional activities will continue as before.

Also there is no longer any distinction between player train or AI train - any train in the timetable can be selected as the player train, the others are operated by a remote player or by the simulator.

Feb 2014

Fog is developed from just softening the horizon into a realistic effect which users can fully control.

Recent Code Changes

• T1.5.1-1806-g5522fc5fa Merge pull request #1078 from cesarBLG/steam-locomotive-script
  Default PowerSupply script for steam locomotives
  • 9ab642ec Default script for steam locomotives
• T1.5.1-1804-g4fdacd539 Merge pull request #1070 from pzgulyas/scriptfix
  Fix a NullReferenceException in TCS scripts
  • f818e40d Try to fix it at another place
  • 3a665975 Fix a NullReferenceException in TCS scripts
• T1.5.1-1801-g0e66a4f52 Merge pull request #1083 from sweiland-openrails/MenuRouteNameClash
  Menu contents route name clash
  • fc8adf75 Empty manual form fixes.
  • 6d0e99cd Determine unique name for the last row also
  • dee7900a Leading and traling spaces removed from route when leaving the field
  • 7e6fb604 During upgrade OR from 1.5.1 to 1.6 automatic routes are imported. Name clashes can occur with local routes. This update renames the manual added route appending (1), (2) etc. This update does the same when automatic routes are added.
  • 6380c71b When in the "Manual Installed" tab a route is added or changed for which the route name is the same as an "Auto Installed" route, the manual name is changed by adding (1), (2) etc.
  • 4b5b7ab8 Create unique route name by adding (1), (2) etc to the name. This is for adding or changing a route.
  • 0237cdab Added Cancel functionality for adding "Manual Installed" tab entries
  • 1a402dc5 Message box pops up after pressing the cancel button or closing the form: "Cancel: changes made in the 'Manually Installed' tab will not be saved, are you sure?". Saving will only be done when pressing the Ok button.
  • 9aedc7cd Removed buttonCancel.enabled from "Auto Installed" tab
  • 2c050313 Cancel button only enabled when changes made in the "Manually Installed" tab. Implemented for deleting a row.
  • b4ac31a7 Removed cancel button from the "Auto Installed" tab. On the "Manually Installed" tab pushing the cancel button undoes the changes. However on the "Auto Installed" tab undoing a route installed or undoing updates to a route is not possible or logical.
• T1.5.1-1789-gf7ec8097c Merge pull request #1079 from cjakeman/translate-po
  Adds Polish transations
  • 592e054f Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master' into translate-po
  • 5e37059b Build updates .pot files
  • fe65f085 Adds Polish translations
• T1.5.1-1785-ga4b51ce87 Merge pull request #1066 from rwf-rr/log-derailment-and-more
  Log derailment, using TraceInformation.
  • 62c89c1d Log derailment, using TraceWarning.
    Initial version, using distance travelled. May be updated to use
    milepost.

See more code changes