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Apr 2025 - Demo Model 1 route updated

Demo Model 1 route now features a 3D cab created by Geoff Rowlands.

Oct 2024 - Elvas Tower ownership

Elvas Tower changed owner - a critical transition has been smoothly achieved.

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The legacy graphics-heavy web site has been replaced by one based on Bootstrap which is both easier to maintain and suitable for phones and tablets as well as PCs.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

• T1.5.1-2092-g6b62c2a7d Merge pull request #1121 from SteelFill/manual_articulate
  Manually Override Articulation
  • de2a45d3 Documentation tweaks
  • 91d2d26d Add manual header
  • 80b81f48 Allow manually defining articulation
• T1.5.1-2088-g5ad5bc1a6 Merge pull request #1165 from twpol/feature/contributing-2025
  docs: Add code guidelines for logging
  • aacd11b0 Update Docs/Contributing.md
    Co-authored-by: Chris Jakeman
  • 168c27cb docs: Add code guidelines for logging
  • 56d23f7e docs: Clean up ordering, improve submitting code section and link between sections
  • 8b563ac9 docs: Clarify general requirements as being from Microsoft .NET
  • 29f5a3d2 docs: Remove default branch name
  • 7a6e4f94 docs: Consistently refer to forums on Elvas Tower
  • a47d67ce docs: Small grammatical updates
  • 644d0d21 style: Format code
• T1.5.1-2079-gc9409918f Merge pull request #1160 from peternewell/track_sounds_final_#1
  Route Based TTrack Sounds
  • c64daa0a correct spelling error
  • 9dc6b3bb correct issue with 2 axle car positions not being processed.
  • c45a9265 Remove surplus sound trigger
  • 84330cb0 Remove surplus triggers
  • 3390e80a Add documentation.
  • 21e55c88 Revert "Remove conflict"
    This reverts commit 235a29356f9fb2baaaab1f0f132d51a6ba2b16c2.
  • 400cfd25 Revert "Remove conflict in Sounds.cs"
    This reverts commit d58af26d549e1e55d97021d07c077229a6995602.
  • d58af26d Remove conflict in Sounds.cs
  • 235a2935 Remove conflict
  • 76ee5aec Initial build of track sounds

See more code changes