Model Railway Forum

Transport Fever 2 As Model Railway Sim - 01 - Settings and Scaling

While Transport Fever 2 actually is a game of economics, to set up a transport network and make your economy thrive, its game engine can equally well be used as a simulator for (model) railways. We can tame its AI to keep villages and industries static and we can give ourselves unlimited money to build and rebuild as much as we want to make our (model) railway look good.

The Steam Workshop has a vast collection of mods available, all free of charge. They comprise collections of rolling stock from different countries, trees, houses, industries and more, as well as system mods of which some are very useful for the purpose of model rail sim.

This video series intends to cover most of the topics that can help to enhance the experience of using TF2 as a model railway sim.

The first episode shows the game settings for model rail simulation and details how to scale your (originally probably HO or N scale) model layout to work with TF2.

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 01 Settings and Scale

Track can of course be laid by eye. However, if one likes to re-create a layout from a drawing or an image, it would be of great help if the image can be used as an underlay. This is possible, via a mod that turns a 4096x4096 px image into a 1km terrain brush.

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 02 Use an image as Underlay

Trains can only make scheduled stops at a station. More specifically, cargo trains can only stop at dedicated cargo platforms and passenger trains only at passenger platforms.

Placing a station is super easy, just a mouse click. Use the n,m keys to rotate. After a station has been placed it can be modified, the station can be named and tracks, platforms and buildings can be added or deleted until it has the desired configuration.

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 02 Stations

Trains don’t just randomly drive around, they drive on so-called Lines, which we first have to set up. A Line is a list of stations, waypoints and signals that a train must pass in sequence. Lines are created in the Line Manager.

Once one or more Lines are set up, trains can be bought and can be assigned to a Line (this will be the subject of the next video).

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 04 Train Lines

Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway 05 Buy Trains

Train lines have been created in video 4 … it’s time now to buy some trains and allocate them to their lines.

To buy trains we first have to place a Train Depot. Once it’s placed, click it and a window opens where we can buy locomotives and wagons. By default TC2 already has some available, but many more can be downloaded from the Steam TC2 Workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1066780/workshop/

Link to video Transport Fever 2 als Modelspoor Sim 05 Treinen Aanschaffen

By default TF2 flips trains around at dead ends to always leave head first. For a model railway we don't want this behavior. Luckily there is a mod that we can install that lets the trains drive in reverse, driving backwards out of dead ends.

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 07 Drive Backwards out of Dead Ends

My better half thinks I spend too much time in front of a screen as it is. This would be just too much!

Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 08 Curved Station Platforms

TF2 by default only supports straight station platforms. Luckily mods are available that let us create curved platforms. For instance the mod Freestyle Station allows platforms to be laid as curved tracks, alongside the rails. Once the platforms are laid we use markers to tell TF2 which platform belongs to which track and a station is then automatically created. Via the station properties we can add buildings and other items to the station.

Link to video Transport Fever 2 as Model Railway Sim 08 Curved Station Platforms