Open Rails

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The legacy graphics-heavy web site has been replaced by one based on Bootstrap which is both easier to maintain and suitable for phones and tablets as well as PCs.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

screendump listing languages


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

  • T1.5.1-1339-gd5ef71956 Merge pull request #989 from mbm-OR/bugfix/Fix-TrainCarOperations-crash-locales
    Fix: TrainCarOperations-crashes-locales
    • 32a99613 Cleaned duplicates translations.
    • c0ae6cdf Fix:TrainCarOperations-crashes-locales
  • T1.5.1-1336-gc3fcdaa84 Merge pull request #839 from Csantucci/further-cc-parameters
    First phase of https://blueprints.launchpad.net/or/+spec/additional-cruise-control-parameters
    • d00beb98 CC: small fixes and code cleanup
    • bae7132c First phase of https://blueprints.launchpad.net/or/+spec/additional-cruise-control-parameters
  • T1.5.1-1333-g0a8547bd1 Merge pull request #990 from mbm-OR/bugfix/Fix-TrainDrivingInfo-locales-context
    Fix TrainDrivingInfo, some texts are misaligned.
    • 37d8ea6f Update pt-BR.po
      Delete the last blank lines.
    • bbd86261 Try to avoid Conflict pt-BR.po
    • 9a56b6fa Revert Try to resolve the conflict: Locales pt_BR.
    • dbdca220 New try for pt-BR Locales.
    • 0165e9ae Locates pt-BR.
    • b1463dfc Try to resolve the conflict: Locales pt_BR.
    • da5f1b8d Try to resolve the conflict: Locales it and pt-BR.
    • d304d6cd Verified locales files.
    • a1bbd344 Locales updated.
    • 68eb044f Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/openrails/openrails into bugfix/Fix-TrainDrivingInfo-locales-context
    • 54c4e162 Fix TrainDrivingInfo, some texts are misaligned.

See more code changes