This is the second "reloaded" route mod I've installed. I learned a lot the first time around, and this time I decided to document the process and share it with the community to give back the tremendous support I have received learning about Train Simulator. A big thanks to the community - for the help and the great mods that are available.

Special Thanks to the train enthusiasts that help others out here in the Steam community and Dovetail games! Also to those who create these great products & those who spend the time to tweak and improve them.

For those who spend countless hours working on these mods please do what you can to support their work!

Feedback Appreciated!

I created a set of videos that you may want to view that goes along with this guide.

The first video is an overview of where Train Simulator files are located, and how to use TS-Tools to create a list of all the rolling stock you have installed in Train Simulator. Understanding rolling stock is important if you are modifying downloaded scenarios so they work with YOUR stuff.


Freiburg Basel Reloaded (The MOD) Part 1 shows how to install the mod from Railomanie to fix/improve the Aerosoft Freiburg-Basel Train Simulator Route - correcting and improving a wide variety of items.



Train Simulator - Freiburg Basel Reloaded Part 2 - Adding and Modifying Scenarios to work video covers installing prebuilt scenarios and modifying them to work with YOUR rolling stock.


Last - a test run after installing the mod & swapping the missing rolling stock:


Enjoy!

Hints, Tips and Best Practices for the Freiburg-Basel Reloaded Mod and Scenarios

You will need a few things to install the Freiburg - Basel Reloaded Mod

• Purchase and Install the Freiburg - Basel Route for Train Simulator
  
• Using a browser of your choice - search for "Freiburg-Basel Reloaded" (It should be found on https://railomanie.eu/filebase/index.php?entry/88-freiburg-basel-2018-reloaded-final-edition/ website) You may want to use a translation program such as Google Translate to translate the web page from German.
  
• You can review the purpose of the mod on this page. I was primarily interested in the fixes for the signaling.
  
• There is a link in the upper right of the screen where you can download the mod.

Once you have the base route installed and the MOD downloaded from railomanie.eu:



I recommend making a backup of your Train Simulator directory. This Mod should be safe, but it will add a route and you will be making changes to the Freiburg-Basel route you purchased.

• Extract the Mod to a folder. I recommend using the 7zip program as the mod is compressed using 7zip. I just used the default of extracting it to the Downloads directory to make it easy.
  
  
  
  • The Lies Mich bitte – Readme.pdf file is your instructions in German. Open this file up because it has the links for the mandatory freeware items. Since the instructions are in German you can translate each section, but this guide will go through those steps.
    
    
    There are 9 required freeware items to download with links to those. These include the updated magnets for the track, corrected signals etc.
    
    
  • In sequence, click on each link and download each of the 9 items.
    
  • Extract each zipped file and put in it's own folder in the folder created when you extracted the Freiburg - Basel Reloaded mod. I named the folder required-1, required-2 etc.. You can name them whatever you want.
    
    You will end up with a folder structure like this:
    
    Assets & Contents are from the Mod, and the required-1 through required-9 folders are the additional freeware mods required.
    
    

In this step you will copy the Assets and Contents folders from the Mod to your Train Simulator installation. It will overwrite some of the assets and route items including missing distant terrain.

• Locate the Assets folder of your train Simulator installation.
  
  By default it will be at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Railworks. I installed Steam on my D drive so it's at D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\RailWorks.
  
  
• If you use the Steam version you will need to unzip the "MainContent.ap" file in the Freiburg-Basel route in order to copy the content to the "Terrain" folder that is in the mod's Content folder. The route is at RailWorks \ Content \ Routes \ a7befb00-8969-4dcc-a3ef-6a902e06f7ca. If you do not see a Terrain folder you will need to right-click on "MainContent.ap" and unzip (using 7zip) the .ap file to that location.
  
  
  
• From the MOD folder, copy the Assets and Contents folder to the Railworks Folder
  
  
  
• Confirm overwrite always with "YES" A lot of old files will be overwritten, so don't be alarmed ;)
  
  Now, you will copy the Textures folder
  
• Navigate to RailWorks \ Content \ Routes \ a7befb00-8969-4dcc-a3ef-6a902e06f7ca \ Terrain \ and right-click copy the complete "textures" folder
  
• Navigate to RailWorks \ Content \ Routes \ 113b4589-93d2-423f-91bc-7f2f7acbbda3 \ Terrain \ and paste the textures folder copied above.
  
  This adds the textures folder and copies the content to the path \RailWorks \ Content \ Routes \ 113b4589-93d2-423f-91bc-7f2f7acbbda3\Terrain.
  
  
  Now you are ready to install the 9 required freeware items.

Installing the RWP files

The first 7 freeware modifications have one or more RWP files. These files are installed using the Utilities.exe program in the RailWorks folder where Train Simulator is installed.

The manual for Train Simulator Utility is located here[sites.google.com].

• Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Railworks (or where you installed Train Simulator) and double click on the file utilities.exe to run it.
  
  
  
• Click on the Package Manager tab at the top.
  
  
  
• Click on Refresh to show a list of packages currently installed
  
  
  
• Click on Install to install a new package
  
  
  
• For each required freeware mods, navigate to the folder that you extracted it to (in my case it was required-1 through required-7).
  
• You may need to drill down in the folder for the extracted item until you see one or more .rwp files.
  
• Select an rwp and click Open.
  
  This will install the rwp file. If there are multiple rwp files in the folder install each one, one at a time. Navigate to the next required-x folder and install that rwp file.

Items 8 & 9

Required Item 8 is a download of an exe file from ChrisTrains that adds scenery items the route uses. Run this program and follow the instructions making sure the correct path to the RailWorks folder is indicated.

Required Item 9 is a rar file that you need to extract. It will have a folder called Vegetation, and under that is the Asset folder. Copy the this Asset folder to your Asset folder in RailWorks.


This complete the installation of the mod!

Give it a test drive to check it out. If everything looks good...

Make Another Backup!

You can now create your own scenarios! If you want to use a downloaded scenario... read on!

Additional Items – ralpin mod & Saadkms Güterwagen and FREE Scenarios from beluxtrains downloaded from rail-sim.de

Now that we have the basics installed, there are some payware items that we can install that are especially valuable if you want to use the great scenarios created by beluxtrains that will be covered in the next section. The scenario you download may also require additional rolling stock. These are ALL optional - I'll show you how to swap missing rolling stock.

The links for the wagons are in the readme file called Readme – Update Pack ralpin.txt. The correct link for the Saadkms wagons is https://www.rsslo.com/product/saadkms-freight-wagons-bcmz-carriages/ and is about 9 € ($11 US).

After you install the wagons from RSSO you can follow the other links to install the Mods (additional paint schemes and sound) for the wagons. Again you can follow the general instructions when you installed the 9 basic mods: Extract and either install the RWP file and/or copy the directories.

Again, it's optional - you can use your own rolling stock for swapping. If you don't get this pack of saadkms you can still use the following instructions for scenarios downloaded from the Rail-sim-de website, but you will need to do additional substitutions (which can get fairly tedious).

Do a web search for "Train Simulator Freiburg - Basel Reloaded scenarios" for some links to check out. I decided to use the https://rail-sim.de/forum/filebase/entry/6822-aufgaben-paket-01-freiburg-basel-reloaded/. You may want to use Google Translate to check out the features. This one features 20 free scenarios, and they utilize LOTS of payware. You may wish to use your own stock for some of the rolling stock or some may not be available.

I will be using a program called TS-Tools than can be downloaded from https://www.agenetools.com/downloads.html. It's a cool tool that does lots of different things - more than we will get into here.

I'll go through the steps, and if you want you can view the video too:


Step 1
Download the chosen scenario or scenario pack - it will have an rwp file that you can install (you should be familiar with this now).

Run the scenario - if there are no missing items, your in luck! Nothing more is needed. If it has missing items... read on.

Assuming you have already added all the freeware and payware items you want and still have missing items when you try run the scenario – the easiest way to fix having missing rolling stock is to use a utility called TS-Tools You may also need to use the Build feature built into train Simulator for certain tasks and to verify the changes made in TS-Tools.

• Download, extract and install TS-Tools.
  
  
  
  
• Read the TS-Tools-Help.pdf document.
  
• Additional documents are available at the TS-Tools website - for example swapping stock[www.agenetools.com].
  
• Follow the instructions in the TS-Tools-Help.pdf for the installation and configuration process. I installed this in a separate directory on my D drive so I could easily access reports created. As noted in the installation instructions for TS-Tools DO NOT INSTALL IN THE DEFAULT WINDOWS PROGRAMS FOLDER.

Step 2 (Optional)
Create a list of all your assets.

• In TS-Tools select Edit Assets/Content from the top menu bar. It will bring up a second window.
  
• Click on Add To List.
  
  
  Note: To get a complete list you may need to extract AP archive files. I recommend creating a backup of your train simulator directory before doing changes.
  
  
  Expect this process to take 10 minutes or so. Be patient!
  
  
• Now that you have a list of all your assets, click on Save List.
  
  
  It will save the list as a CSV file. For obvious reasons, I called this assets current date.csv. I import the csv file into Open Office Calc and save it as an ODS file then create an auto filter for each column after naming the columns. You could also use Excel or Google sheets.
  
  
  You can get the names for the columns from the TS-Tools program. I also moved the G column to A because I usually look at the type of asset (Diesel, Electric, Freight Wagon, etc.)
  
  Then... you can quickly look at specific categories of your installed rolling stock:
  
  
  By default, the files are in the reports folder in TS-Tools. This is a reference CSV file that you can import into a spreadsheet program. You could also print the list or view it.

Step 3 (Optional)
This step is to review the scenarios to see the rolling stock used, and what is missing from the scenario. I use this step to evaluate which scenario to modify. Back in TS-Tools select Scenarios and then Edit Scenarios from the top menu.

Next select the Route & Scenario to review.


To review all the consists of a scenario click on Edit Selected Scenario on the right side. I wanted to pick a scenario that had fewer missing items and had the type of stock I was interested in. Pick the Route and Scenario to review.

It will take a short while to load the scenario. When the Edit Selected Scenario window comes up, in the middle of the window there is the Consists in scenario listing. Click on a consist to check what rolling stock is included in that consist. Then click on the button under that named Consists with Missing Items to narrow the list down to only those consists missing rolling stock.


Click on each consist and check the Selected Consist Details for a list of missing items.
Note: RED items in the Consists in Scenario are AI or Driven consists. RED items in the Selected Consist Details are specific rolling stock that is used in the scenario and is missing.


Step 4

Close extra TS-Tools window so just the main window is open and select Route Building Tools, then Check Routes or Scenarios.


[/list]

• Select the route and scenario to modify (For example Route: Freiburg-Basel [2018] Reloaded [Final Edition] and Scenario [BLXT] 02-EC 2 'Rembrandt')
  
• Click on Clone Scenario
  
• Provide a name for the copied scenario (I add a "00" in front so if I copy the fixed scenario to change weather or something I can just go to "01" etc.)
  
  
  Now, lets fix those missing rolling stock items!

After you have checked out what rolling stock you have, selected and copied a scenario to use (see prior section) you are ready to check it for missing items.

In TS-Tools select Route Building Tools then Check Routes or Scenarios from the top menu bar.


Select the Route and Scenario you want to edit


Click on Consists with Missing Items, then click on the first consist listed.


SUGGESTION: For a first pass I would stick as much as possible to using stock included with the Freiburg – asset route and one or two other sources to prevent out of memory issues. Then you can do additional swapping to tweak your updated scenario.

As a reference, use the CSV or printed listing of your assets unless you have a really good idea of where the different assets are located. For the Freiburg – Basel route the Provider is PAD-Labs. If you have converted this to Open Office ODS or Excel here is where the filter option comes in handy. In this example I will stick to Freiburg – Basel rolling stock, the BR150 and the 3DZUG freight pack for replacements. See the filtered rolling stock below for the Freiburg – Basel listing. Slick!


The first missing item in my example is the first Loose Consist with vR BR151 EL DynNr1 Orot. Cross referencing my assets extract I'll pick the vR BR150 142-8 orient red EL for a replacement. It's important to keep track of what you are changing at this point especially if you are doing a large number of replacements.

• Pick Consist in Consists in Scenario panel
  
• Pick Rolling Stock listed in Selected Consist Details panel that is RED (Missing)
  
• Now, working from the bottom to the top on the right hand side:
  
• Pick the replacement stock using the lower right window to navigate to the correct folder (usually Rail Vehicles Folder). The CSV assets listing will help you here.
  Select the correct category (Diesel, Electric, Steam etc.) right up the folder navigation window. In this case I'll select Electric
  
• Click on Find Available Rolling Stock button.
  
• Navigate to and Select the correct replacement rolling stock item
  
  
  Click on ONE of the following:
  
  • Swap a SINGLE Selected Item
    
  • Swap ALL Selected Items
    
  • Swap All Identical
    
  • Swap in Every Consist
    
  • Swap in ALL Scenarios for this route
  Read the manual for TS-Tools to understand the difference. In this case I recommend either Swap a SINGLE Selected Item or Swap in Every Consist (in THIS scenario).
  
  BEST PRACTICE:
  
  Record the changes you made – for example this is the start of my list of changes for this scenario. Best Practice: I'll record each change made for each consist noting the consist number:
  
  
  This way if I run into problems testing I can quick change what I already swapped out.
  
  NOTE: Unless you know what you are doing I would NOT select Swap in ALL Scenarios for this route. It will take a long time and may not be what you want to do! At the very least test it out on one scenario first.
  
  Now select Save Changes to Scenario (Lower left).
  
  NOTE: Save changes after EACH swap!
  
  Do this for each missing item. Again, read the TS-Tools readme on swapping stock.[www.agenetools.com]
  
  Once done, test out the route in Train Simulator, noting any errors and resolving those.
  
  NOTE: Train Simulator may have issues with stock you swapped - so the item may be available but TS can't use it for some reason. Simply re-swap with a different asset.
  
  NOTE: If you get Out Of Memory errors - especially for large complex scenarios try removing consists that are not drivable - especially those with just locos in them. I found removing those resolve the issues I had with Out Of Memory.
  
  Enjoy!
  
  Here's the test run...