Create Activities (Operation) for Train Simulator by Exporting Operation from Ship It!

Welcome to Ship It! Simulator Export, the program allows you to utilize Ship It! to interface with Microsoft® Train Simulator.

Key Features - Create Activities (operation) for Train Simulator by exporting operation from Ship It! - Generate car locations in Train Simulator for any moment in time during the 24 hour Ship It! operating session.

For the Train Simulator Fan: Generate new and ever-changing activities (operation) for your Train Simulator routes. You can create activities for any route in Train Simulator. Don’t be “stuck” running the same activities over and over again!

For the Layout Designer: Use Ship It! Simulator Export (in combination with Ship It! and Microsoft® Train Simulator) to test out your layout before actually building it. Not only can you run all of your trains but you can view all car locations for any point in time during an operating session. See how full your sidings and yards get. Do you have enough siding or yard capacity? Do you have enough industries or interchanges to develop the operation you need?

Please note that this program does not build your route for you. You must use the tools that come with Microsoft® Train Simulator (or other suitable tools) to build your route. Program Setup

The main menu appears below.

Selecting the File Menu as shown below, brings you to the Options Window.

You’ll notice that the Options Window looks very similar to the one in Ship It! The first two tabs, “Database” and “Names and Dates”, match their Ship It! counterparts exactly.

The third tab, “Simulator Options 1”, differs. This is the tab where you will do much of the setup work to tie this program to Microsoft® Train Simulator. Siding File Name This is where you set the name of the siding file created when you build sidings within Microsoft® Train Simulator. The Browse Button to the right of the entry field allows you to select this file using a standard dialog box. Do not type the name into the entry field – use the Browse Button to select the correct file – this way you will not make any spelling mistakes. In the example above, the full name of the file (including the path) is “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\ROUTES\Example1\Example1.tit” Note these items: 1. The extension (last 3 characters after the period) of the file is always “tit”. 2. The path name (where the file sits on your hard drive) is usually going to be very similar to this example (except the drive letter might be different). It will begin with the location where Microsoft® Train Simulator was installed. 3. The file name itself, excluding the “.tit” extension, will be the same as the name of your route. In this case, my route is named “Example1”. 4. The folder where the file sits also matches the name of your route (in this case, “Example1”). 5. The route folder mentioned in item 4, “Example1” always sits in the “ROUTES” folder (see the full path name above).

By using the Browse Button to select the siding file you are ensuring accuracy! Don’t try to shortcut this – nothing will work if you have the wrong file (or no file) selected. Activity Path This identifies the location of the activities folder for your route. Like Siding File Name, you should use the browse button beside the entry field. This is fairly simple to do. Using the dialog box that appears after you select the Browse Button, navigate to where your Microsoft® Train Simulator software was installed, usually “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator”. Then select the “ROUTES” folder. Next select the folder that holds your route. In this case, it is “Example1”. Next select the “ACTIVITIES” folder. When you are finished, your folder path must end in the word “ACTIVITIES”.

Route Directory Name This is simply the name of the folder your route sits in. There is no browse button here. Just type the name into the entry field.

Path ID Name and Player Service Name (Default Path) The default path is used whenever you have not linked up a path with a train. In other words, when the software is building an activity for a train that has no path linked to it, the software will use this default path.

This is one of the more complicated items to set up, mainly because you have to first perform some setup tasks using the tools that come with Microsoft® Train Simulator. Before entering the Path Id Name and the Player Service Name, you must create the Player Service and the Path.

If you have problems with Microsoft® Train Simulator locking up when you are selecting a trains activities, examine the path name in the Activity Editor and inside Ship It! Simulator. If these don’t match exactly (including spaces, caps, and punctuation), Microsoft® Train Simulator may lock up.

Creating the Player Service Name and the Path Start up “Train Simulator Editors & Tools”. This is the program you used to create your route. Instead of starting up the Route Editor, start up the Activity Editor. In the main pull-down menu, select File, then New. A dialog box will appear asking you to “Select a Route”. Choose the route you are working with. Another dialog box will appear, asking you for the “Activity display name”. The default is “New Activity”. You can leave this as is, or enter the name of your route. After you have chosen the name, a window similar (except it will display your route) to the following will appear: Your next step will be to create a new Player Service. On your screen, beside the window above you should see another set of windows looking like this:

Notice the Player Service entry field. Underneath this field is a button titled New. Press this button, and the Service Editor window will appear: In the Service Editor window, the first entry field is called “Name”. Here enter the Player Service Name you wish to use. You can be creative, or simply enter in “Service 1” (without the quotation marks). The important item is that this is the name you enter into the Player Service Name entry field in your Ship It! Simulator Export Options Window. Make sure you get this right, as the program will not work correctly if these names do not match. In the Options Window for this example (shown above), I have used “test 1” as the Player Service Name.

Next, in the Display name entry field (right below the Name field), enter in the same name you used in the Name field. Then make your selection for a locomotive in the Consist drop-down. In the example used here, I have selected the “2 x GP38-2” choice.

At this point, your window should appear similar to the following (except for where you have used different names or chosen a different consist): Next, press the New button beneath the Path drop-down. A window will appear, asking you for the “Path Name”. Again, you can be creative or simply enter in “Path 1”. The important item is that this is the name you enter into the Path ID Name entry field in your Ship It! Simulator Export Options Window. Make sure you get this right, as the program will not work correctly if these names do not match. In the Options Window for this example, I have used “test 1” as the Path ID Name.

After you enter your path name, you will be asked for the “Display Name”. It’s easiest here to simply enter in the same name you used in the previous window.

After you enter in the Display Name, the following window will appear: You’ll notice two empty entry fields, “Starting Location” and “Ending Location.” Here enter in the names of the starting town on your route, and one other town down the line. It does not have to be the last town in your route. In fact, the path we are creating here does not have to be very long at all. What we are doing is creating a simple path so that Ship It! Simulator Export has a path to use when it builds its own activity file. The activity we are creating here is not used for anything else.

Now comes the hard part. Don’t try this after a bad day at work, or when you are in a rush to get things done, as it may take you several tries to get it right.

After you have entered the starting and ending locations, you are ready to set up the path. If you bring your mouse over the tracks on the track schematic, you will see a small circle appear. You may need to zoom in on your track to be able to select the correct track. By pressing CTRL-Up Arrow (first make sure you have selected the schematic window and that it is active) you will be able to zoom in on your track. Conversely, pressing CTRL- Down arrow allows you to zoom back out. Using the arrow keys without the CTRL key allows you to scroll (pan) North, South, East, or West.

When you have zoomed as far as you need, right-click using your mouse. A menu will appear with everything grayed out except for the “Place Start Point” selection. When you are comfortable with your choice of starting location, select Place Start Point on this menu.

Next you will choose your ending location. Keep in mind that you don’t have to select the actual end of the route. I have no idea exactly how short you can make the path, but go at least as far as beyond the first switch. Also note here that your route cannot end at a switch. I tried to create a path when my route was under construction, and my path creation consistently failed. It was because my route ended at a switch. Once I extended the route with some track, the path creation was successful. Right-click the mouse when you are centered over your choice of an ending location. The same menu as before shows up, this time with more selections enabled. Choose the Place End Point selection. The following image shows this menu:

Notice some of the other menu items. Some of these may be necessary if you have to adjust your path. In particular, Remove start point and Toggle start direction may be useful.

When you are finished, the starting location will be identified by a blue circle with a green outline. The ending location will be identified by a blue circle with a red outline. The above image shows how your path and path editor window should appear when you are finished setting up the path. Once you are finished, all you need to do is press the Leave Path Editor button.

This will take you back to the Service Editor window. Press OK here.

This will drop you out to the Train Simulator Activity Editor window. The side windows should appear similar to the following:

Next choose File, then Save, from the pull-down menu. If it asks for a name, use the name of your route. If you get a message that says your activity is not playable, it actually should be OK. If you get a different error message when saving, it may mean that your path or some other aspect of the setup has not been done correctly. The way to test this is to attempt to drive a train on your route. The option to “Explore Your Route” should be available. If you are able to drive a train on your route, you should be OK.

Car Skin Setup

- Individual Car

- Car Type

When setting up your car skins (how each car looks), you have the option of using a separate skin for each car or each car’s type (AAR Code). Choose the option which suits you best. The car skins themselves are associated with either cars or car types under the Rolling Stock pull-down menu. Note: you must use the car skins provided with Microsoft® Train Simulator or car skins obtained elsewhere. This program does not contain car skins or help you create them. Rolling Stock Menu

The purpose of this menu is to allow you to associate car skins with the rolling stock in your Ship It! database.

The following window shows the AAR Types browse window.

Your Ship It! AAR Types will be displayed in this window. If nothing appears, or the wrong data appears, you do not have the correct database selected in the options window. See your Ship It! manual for more information on how to add AAR types. The purpose of this browse is to associate car skins with the AAR types you have set up in Ship It! This information is used only if you have selected “Car Type” for the Car Skin Setup option in the options window in Ship It! Simulator Export. To associate a car skin name with an AAR type, press the change button and type in the name of the skin you with to use. You may be wondering where you find out the names of the car skins to use. This is easy. Simply start up Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer), and navigate to the folder shown in the image below (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\TRAINS\TRAINSET). Note: your drive letter or your path may be different if you have installed Microsoft® Train Simulator on a different drive or in a location different from the default install location. Also keep in mind that there are train skins here also, although if you sort the list by name, the car skins are at the bottom.

The other menu items (Rolling Stock and Cabin Cars) allow you to associate car skins with individual cars and cabooses. The Rolling Stock Browse is used only if you have selected “Individual Car” for the Car Skin Setup option in the options window in Ship It! Simulator Export. Siding Setup

This is perhaps the most important item when setting up Ship It! Simulator Export. All of this work is done using the inside the Microsoft® Train Simulator Route Editor. If you used this tool to construct your route, you should be familiar with it.

What you need to do here is to add Siding objects to your route. This is how sidings within Ship It! get associated to the track you have laid inside the Route Editor. You will be creating siding objects inside Microsoft® Train Simulator Route Editor that have the names that are similar to the names of the industries within Ship It!, with one important exception – a multiple car siding must have one siding in it for every car that can fit there. For example, Harrison Bakery has a 2 car capacity inside Ship It! Therefore, in the route for Example 1, there must be 2 siding objects on the track that represents Harrison Bakery.

Okay, we are now ready to create the siding objects. Open up your route within the Microsoft® Train Simulator Route Editor. Make sure that the placement window is visible (this is the window you used to lay your track). If it’s not visible, select Window in the Route Editor pull-down menu. Then select Placement. This window is displayed below:

Next, press the More button inside the Placement window. This will cause the Object Selector window to appear. This window looks like this: Notice the dropdown box for the Object Class (in the Object Selector Window). In the image above, “” is selected. Click on the dropdown arrow and select “” from the dropdown. The window should now look like this:

Next, select the Siding option in the Object Selector window (a gray box should appear around the word “Siding”. Then press the OK button. The Placement window should now look like this: Notice the word “Siding” near the top of the window. If your window does not say “Siding” here, it means you have not successfully selected the siding object for placement and should redo the steps above.

Next press the F5 button on your keyboard. When you move the mouse cursor over the main window (where your route is displayed), you should see a white cross in place of the mouse cursor. This means you are ready to place your siding object.

If you are not familiar with navigating around inside of a route, press F1 to access Help, select Route Editor, then select Moving Around In The Route Editor. The above image shows the Harrison Yard area of the Example 1 Route. The yellow lines are siding objects. The white cross is used to place new siding objects. Here I am just about to add a new siding object.

To add a siding object, position the white cross over the track approximately in the center of where you want the siding to be. If you have trouble doing this, you may not be zoomed up enough, or you may be at the wrong angle. A viewing position similar to the image above makes it easy to position sidings. When ready, click the left-button on your mouse. You should then see the yellow siding symbol appear where you clicked the mouse. In the above image, the siding symbol is just above and to the left of the white cross Don’t worry too much about the exact placement of the siding when you first place it – it can be moved around easily. Now notice the size of my new siding compared to the existing sidings. Looks a little small doesn’t it?

To enlarge the siding, first press F2 (this puts you in Object Select mode). Then move the mouse pointer over one if the little yellow sideways-pyramid symbols that make up the siding object. This object should then turn red, as in the following image:

Very carefully, while your mouse pointer is still over the sideways-pyramid, left-click the mouse. The sideways-pyramid should then turn into a wire-frame, like this: Note that when your mouse is over the sideways-pyramid, it turns red. If you are having trouble with any of this, you probably need to zoom in closer, or get a better viewing angle. It can be tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy.

While the sideways-pyramid is still a wire-frame, press F3 on your keyboard. Your mouse pointer should turn into a 4-way arrow symbol. Once you see this 4-way arrow symbol, you can click on the track where the siding object is and slide the sideways- pyramid back and forth to position that end of the siding. Once you have that end of the siding where you want it, press F2 to get back into select mode. Now you can select the other end of the siding and move it to where you want it. Perhaps the toughest part is gauging the correct size of the siding so that it will hold one car. Remember, a multiple car siding must have separate siding objects set up for it so Ship It! Simulator Export can work with your route. One trick is to use 10 meter track pieces in your sidings. This way, when you are in select mode (F2), you can see the length of 10 meters easily (track pieces show up in red when your mouse is over them.) Another way is to look at the gray track indicator symbol - this shows hash marks according to the length of your track piece. Both of these ways are displayed in the image below:

One last step, and our siding is done! Select either end of your new siding object so that the sideways-pyramid turns into a wire-frame. While your mouse is over it (and the wire- frame is red, not yellow), right-click the mouse button. If you do this correctly (it may take you a few tries to get the hang of it), the following window will appear, asking you to name the siding.

It comes up with the default name, “Unnamed siding”. You’ll need to replace this with your own siding name.

Naming Your Sidings As mentioned before, you must have a separate siding object for each spot a single car can occupy in Ship It! Therefore, a siding with 2 car capacity must have 2 siding objects inside the Route Editor. When naming your sidings inside the Route Editor, you must change name by adding a dash at the end of the siding name, along with a number representing the siding position. Each siding should be numbered consecutively starting at 1. For example, Harrison Bakery is an industry in the Example 1 database that comes with Ship It! In the route I created for Example 1, I named the siding objects that represent the siding for Harrison Bakery, “Harrison Bakery-1” (without the quotes), and “Harrison Bakery-2”. Miller’s Granary is another industry in Example 1. Because Miller’s Granary has a 3 car capacity, the names of the siding objects are: “Miller’s Granary-1”, “Miller’s Granary-2”, and “Miller’s Granary-3” (again without the quotes.)

With the exception of the dash and the number at the end, your spelling of the sidings must match exactly between the two programs. You must have the same capitalization, same punctuation, the same number of spaces between words. You cannot confuse zeros with the letter “O”, etc. I am deliberately listing some of the problems you may encounter. If you have a siding that is not working correctly, look at the spelling first. Also make sure that there is no space before or after the dash before the number at the end. The Path Menu

The path menu is where you link up paths with trains. The purpose of this is to allow different trains to start in different places. When you set up a path in the Microsoft® Train Simulator Route Activity Editor, you are also setting up a starting location for your train. Note that if all of your trains start at the same location you can simply use the default path in the options window.

To set up different paths for trains, you must first list your paths in the Browse Paths window (see image below). You must have a path for each different train starting location. Note that several trains can share the same path if they have the same starting location.

The form for inserting or changing this data looks like this: The Browse Trains window is where you link trains to paths:

The form to insert or change this data looks like this:

In the above example, train number 301 is linked with the path “Erie-Morgantown1”. If you have problems with Microsoft® Train Simulator locking up when you are selecting a trains activities, examine the path name in the Activity Editor and inside Ship It! Simulator. If these don’t match exactly (including spaces, caps, and punctuation), Microsoft® Train Simulator may lock up.

The Generate Menu The last item to cover is the Generate Menu. Ship It! Simulator Export uses the current Ship It! session to generate both car locations and activities. To generate car locations, you must have at least done a successful “Start Fresh“ within Ship It! To generate activities, you must have generated at least one session successfully. The title bar of the main window shows you both the Ship It! database you are using plus the session you are on.

Set Time for Car Locations Use this if you want to see what your route will look like at a certain time of day during the operating session’s 24 hour clock. This is useful for watching how full (or how empty) your various sidings and yards are. Remember that sidings, yards or interchanges that are full or near capacity can easily prevent car movement from occurring. You must set the time before selecting Car Locations for all Trains. Setting the time has no effect when generating activities.

Car Locations for all Trains This generates car locations based on the time given in the above option. If no time was set, it uses the beginning of the operating session (12AM). Cars on trains that are in transit (have left their origin) are not shown.

Activities for one Train Selecting this pops up a browse window displaying the trains you have set up within Ship It! Select (highlight) the train you wish to generate activity for, then press the Generate Activity button.

Putting It All Together After generating activities or car locations, go into Microsoft® Train Simulator. Select Drive A Train from the main window. You should see a window similar to the following: These selections are from what I generated using the Example 1 database from Ship It! (along with the Example 1 route I built using the Microsoft® Train Simulator Route Editor. The first line is an activity I generated. Notice it has the name of the train, the train number, and the name of the railroad. All of this information is obtained from the Ship It! database, using the data in the Options window and data from the Trains browse window. The next three lines are from Car Locations I generated by setting different times (using “Set Time for Car Locations”).

Activities always show the name of the train. Car Locations simply show the time.

Notice that at the bottom of the screen, the session number is given, along with the time (for Car Locations), or train number (for Activities).

Inside a Generated Activity In the briefing portion of your Operations Notebook (press F11 if you don’t see the Operations Notebook while inside your activity), the session, Train Number, and Train Name are listed. See the following image for an example. In the Work Order section, each of your car moves is detailed. Essentially, this is a Ship It! switchlist inside of Microsoft® Train Simulator. You can use either the work order or the printed switchlist (from Ship It!) for that session. The car moves will be identical.

Car Numbering

Cars are numbered differently in Microsoft® Train Simulator and Ship It! Looking at the Work Order above, you’ll notice that each car number has two parts, separated by a dash. The first part of the car number is required by Microsoft® Train Simulator. The second part of the number is the last four digits of the car number in Ship It! For example, the work order above for car number 32770-8659, is actually for car number 568659 in Ship It! Displaying Siding Names and Car Numbers Pressing F6 toggles the display of the siding names in your route. Pressing F7 toggles the display of the car numbers in your route.

Here the siding names are displayed. These are shots of Harrison Yard in Example 1. Harrison Bakery is the first siding down the track. Far in the distance is the town of Thurston. Here the car numbers are displayed.

Additional Notes on Activities

You can view siding names and even car locations from within any activity. Under the View menu, select Siding Names to view them.

Additional paths (for new trains) can be added from any activity.

Help for the Route Builder If you are not familiar with creating routes using the Route Editor, I strongly recommend Michael Vone’s book on route building titled “Step by Step Guide to Route Building”, available from Abacus at trainsimulatorworld.com. This book was a great help to me in learning route building.

My advice to the beginning route builder is mainly to have patience. In the beginning it can seem daunting, but it really is fairly easy once you learn how to use the tools correctly. You also should have a newer PC with loads of RAM (256 MB minimum, preferably 512MB) and Windows XP. If you need car skins, the following sites sell add-ons. http://trainsimulatorworld.com http://www.mapleleaftracks.com/ http://www.3dtrainstuff.com