Update 2013-04-11: Added new DLC
Update 2013-02-19: Added new DLC
Update 2013-02-02: Added new DLC
Update 2013-01-20: Added new DLC
The DLC list in the Steam store is not completely useful when it comes to deciding what DLC to buy.
I believe this list is quite complete and correct 2012-12-26 2013-01-20. I appreciate comments, feedback and corrections.

On Scenarios
FR means “Free Roam Scenarios”. Those ones kind of stopped making much sense with TS2013, when QuickDrive was introduced. Also, with TS2013 came Steam Workshop, making community scenarios much more viable. I guess that is why it is quite common with DLC with zero scenarios. Finally, it is most often not possible to know how many career scenarios you get with a DCL. Sometimes a DCL contains 4 scenarios, and all of them are also available as career scenarios (NE Corridor). Sometimes just some or none are available as career scenarios.

Update 2013-05-03: Regarding GWR 5700

With the upgrade from Train Simulator 2012 to Train Simulator 2013 running steam locomotives (with manual fireman) was simplified. Among the changes were:

• Two injectors (both from 0-100) were replaced with a single On/Off
• No ejector
• No damper
• Blower used to be 0-100, now just On/Off
• Steam generation/steam consumption information was replaced with just a PSI value and a green (going up) or red (going down) indication
• Adding coal used to be 0-100, now just On/Off

Perhaps I have forgotting something. This is mostly a GUI change (to make XBox gamepad controls possible, I guess). The old values are still available using F5, and the old controls are still available if using the mouse to control the levers manually inside the cab (not showing the HUD at all, I have read). The physics are not necessarily changed.

Well, I like realism, but with TS2012 it was hard to figure out if some of those things really mattered (like the ejector) or if it was just decoration.

I decided to make some test runs with different settings/values, to find ideal operating values. The results surprised me a bit!

Test setup
I choose Quick Drive and the Black 5 (LMS B5 + 8Mk1s) steam locomotive. My test track is East Coast Main line from Thirsk to Darlington. I leave at 2AM, the skies are clear and it is spring.

I try to drive as fast as possible, within the boundaries for each test run. I dont care about any speed limits, but it is a good track and the tests are quite safe.

Regulator is normally at 100%. I lower the regulator only when I lose pressure and water level outside my target values. However, I never lower the Regulator while the Reverser is above 10%.
Reverser is kept as high as possible, and not below 10%. With possible, I mean that I must respect my water level and pressure boundaries. I start from 75% and gradually lower as speed goes up, trying not to waste steam during acceleration while keeping a good acceleration.
Pressure: For each run I have kept the pressure within a 5-PSI range. The baseline has been to keep it within 215-220 PSI. For lower pressures I have lost pressure in a responsible way (it has taken me a few miles to get down to target pressure).
Coal: For each run I have kept the coal within different ranges. When reaching the lower threshold I have opened until reaching the upper threshold and then closed until reaching the lower again. The coal has started at 66%, and typically I have kept it between 65-70%.
Water: In most cases I have maintained water level between 90% and 100%. That is, opening the injector at 90%, leaving it open until 100%. Occationally, I have let the water down a little bit more to maintain pressure, and occationally I have allowed myself to switch injector on/off within the 90-100 range to maintain pressure boundaries.
Blower has been Off except when I have written otherwise.
Brake is set to Running (7%) as soon as brake pressure is 21 PSI.

Measure points
I have measured time at three points:

• 15.05 miles before Darlington (At Northallerton platform)
• 6.0 miles bofore Darlington
• 2.0 miles before Darlington

Measurements have been made manually, so there is a risk I made a mistake with a measure point or two. When getting closer to Darlington speed limit is 25 mph, and my speed is about 80 mph, so no measurements are taken closer to Darlington than 2 miles away.

Results
When reading the table, compare everything to run 5 (for each run, only one parameter is different from run 5). I suggest you

1. compare 2,3,4,5,6 (pressure variation)
2. compare 1 to 5, and compare 7 to 5 (basic coal variation)
3. compare 0 and 5 – only difference is that 0 was run as the first drive after loading TS, while the other runs are run immediately after another drive
4. now feel free to look at 8-15

First and most shocking notice: on my computer I lose about 40 seconds the first time I run the scenario, compared to when I run it again (compare 0 and 5). Obviously a lot of things are not loaded or computed the first run, but cached for the second run.

Pressure is less important than I thought! Keep it below the emergency valve level (at 221 PSI) – in run 6 the Black 5 is constantly leaking steam to avoid over pressure. Keeping pressure as close to maximum as possible is obviously not of much importance; compare 3,4,5. Below 205 PSI some performance is lost (run 2).

The Blower has hardly any effect whatsoever in this situation; compare 5 and 8.

Coal and Fire management is clearly quite important, and it is not so obvious what point is optimal. In run 1 coal was allowed to drop from 66% to 60% before filling up for the first time – not a good strategy. In run 6 on the other hand coal was immediately loaded from 66% to 75% before closing for the first time – not a good strategy either. Slowly adding more coal (run 12) seems to be better strategy than the baseline (run 5) and slowly adding less coal (run 11) seems to be a slightly worse strategy. Never filling up coal is a disaster (run 10) – if your engine cant maintain pressure even if both regulator and reverser have low settings your fire is too little! Finally, the Automatic fire guy (run 15) lets the coal level drop to 62% and then kept it there with the doors open (not possible using the HUD in TS2013).

Water can be spent with a slight benefit (run 13). For maximum performance, do not arrive with a full boiler. This might be within error margin though. Notice that both with a -10/+10 strategy and a -10/+5 water strategy much running time is spent with the injector open – losing water level is much quicker than gaining it.

Regulator vs Reverser
In run 14 I decided to run with the regulator at 80% instead of 100% – turns out top speed for my train increased from 80.5 to 82 Mph! More torque? I first set regulator at 100% and lowered reverser from 75% to 30% as I picked up speed (keeping pressure around 220 PSI). After that I instead lowered the regulator from 100% to 80% to keep pressure constant. After that went back to operating with the reverser. This opens up the question that there must be an optimal reverser value for each situation… depending at least on speed, but possibly also the load and maybe more factors.

Conclusions and driving advice

1. If you are going for maximum career scenario scores, run the scenario twice and/or get better hardware
2. Avoid forgetting to feed your fire: open/close regularly and make it grow slowly
3. Dont waste steam: brakes at running and pressure always below 221 PSI
4. Allow yourself to operate below maximum water and pressure levels
5. Regulator/Reverser ratio is not obvious or trivial

Conclusions and driving advice may not apply to

• other engines than the Black 5
• scenarios with many starts/stops
• slower scenarios (uphill with load), in my tests I operated close to maximum speed
• scenarios with heavy load
• the exact same situation, in case game physics engine is updated

Driving a steam locomotive is supposed to be a black art. Each locomotive is unique. It is about listening and feeling. Some of my findings here were quite surprising too me, and I dont know if they are realistic, or just an effect of a limited physics engine.

GWR 5700
After driving the GWR 5700 a bit I made two observations. First, it starts at about 60% coal level. Keep it there, between 55-65%, or at least raise it very slowly. And, the Blower is very useful for Boiler Pressure when GWR 5700 stands still. I guess it should apply to all locomotives.

Train Simulator 2013 was released a while ago and among the new features was the possibility to play the game/control the train with an XBox 360 gamepad. I dont have such a thing, and I was not sure it was worth buying one just for Train Simulator.

I will start with the conclusions:

1. You can use a PS3 controller instead of an XBox controller
2. You may want to reconfigure/remap the gamepad, not using the default behaviour
3. First I was sceptical – but after a while, not going back to driving with mouse/keyboard

Making the PS3 gamepad (DS3) work with Train Simulator 2013
Windows 7 (x64) recognizes the DS3, but to you need a software that makes the DS3 appear to be an XBox gamepad to TS2013. This software is MotioninJoy, I installed version 0.7.1001 and if there is a later version available you should probably use the latest.

With the MotioninJoy software you use the “Xbox 360 Controller Emulator” mode.

Default DS3->XBox experience
Since the XBox gamepad is not identical to the DS3 I found it quite hard to play TS2013 with the default settings. XBox has A,B,X,Y while PS3 has Triangle,Circle,Cross,Square buttons. Regulator and Brake control was not on the Joysticks (the same on XBox), and this did not mach my expectations. But the worst was that the left Joystick was both used to control the reverser (up/down) and the HUD-panel (left/right). The result was that the HUD-panel changed mode by accident quite often.

Perhaps the default makes a lot of sense with the Xbox gamepad, but for med and the DS3, not good enough for driving trains.

Reconfiguring the gamepad
I did some thinking, and this is what I want: The right joystick used for braking the train, only. The left joystick for controlling the regulator, only. Up/Down buttons control reverser (mostly important for steam, of course). I use Left/Right buttons for controlling coal and water leves (only relevant for steam, of course). The left hand triggers control the HUD. I decided Triangle looks like A, and then Circle is B. I decided Cross looks like X, and then Square is Y.

This way, the gamepad is primarily used for controlling the train, and can not be used for camera pan.

The mappings look like this (all other set to None):

DS3              XBox

Triangle         A button

Circle           B button

Cross            X button

Square           Y button

L1               Left Stick X-       (HUD)

L2               Left Stick X+       (HUD)

SELECT           Back                (Map)

L3               Left hat button     (whistle)

START            Start               (Menu)

Dpad Up          Left Stick Y-       (Reverser)

Dpad Right       D-pad up            (Water)

Dpad Down        Left Stick Y+       (Reverser)

Dpad Left        D-pad down          (Coal)

Left stick y+    LB                  (Regulator)

Left stick y-    Left Trigger        (Regulator)

Right stick y+   RB                  (Brake)

Right stick y-   Right Trigger       (Brake)

I obviously have R1 and R2 to do something with.

Update 2012-12-26: Many changes to DLC: check my new list instead
Update 2012-11-25: New DLC added

I found a need for a list of Train Simulator 2012 DLC, so I made one. Perhaps you find it useful too.

Note:

1. This list was complete on 2012-07-22 2012-11-25, it might not be up to date
2. Feel free to report any mistakes
3. Naming of DLC is not very strict

There is a great site for trains simulator content: UKTS. However, everything does not work perfectly, unfortunately.

I am keeping track of my problems in this post. I have another post for problems with original DCL.

I have found that the Freeware packs released in 2011 and updated in 2012 generally have high quality. I recommend those ones!

However, downloading and installing single assets and scenarios often does not give the expected result. I managed to break some of my routes (the 2D map stopped working, even for orignal scenarios) and had to reinstall from Steam to repair.

Sometimes if you get the error “Broken Consist”, it helps to open the scenario in the editor and just save it.

Bath to Templecombe: [Q1] Coal to Shepton (Q1 pack from Pete Gillam)
Bath to Templecombe: [Q1] Slow Freight Train (UKTS 25052 v1.0)
Very hard to couple the wagons. Getting rid of the Brake car (the last car) using the scenario editor does not fix the problem. 2D map does not work with switches and route.
(2012-04-08)

Bath to Templecombe: Norton Hill Special Service (UKTS 21640 v0.91)
Switches and paths dont work on 2D map. Tried to play anyway, but derailed…
(2012-04-08)

Great Western Mainline: A Day on the WR (part 1 of 2)
Completed everything fine, still got red crosses on some via-points. The last post in this discussion indicates that no points may be passed below 60mph (and this is just a mistake by the scenario-creator). I will perhaps try another day and confirm if this is the case. However, not the funniest scenario ever.
(2013-04-22)

Great Western Mainline: HSTs and Handcuffs
Can not pick up passengers at first stop, Paddington 3, where the train starts from the beginning.
(2013-04-26)

Port Road: 1980s – C1 Preps : Shunting tanks (UKTS 25836 v11-02-1)
The 2D map does not seem to work. No blue marking/line around train, and can not operate switches from 2D map. Possible to run scenario and manually handle all switches not using the map, but scenario crashed when almost completed.
(2012-04-01)

Port Road: Freight Extra Down (UKTS 24843 v1.0)
The 2D map does not seem to work. I do not get any blue marking/line in front of the train. Going into scenario editor I find plenty of “Static consist clash”. Saving the scenario does not repair it.
(2012-04-01)

Port Road: Night Ballast Port Road (UKTS 24890 v1.0)
I refuel at Dumfries P3 water loader. I get my water, but the scenario never continues to the next waypoint. The red bar never shows up indicating refuel progress. I made some attempts to fix the scenario, no success.
(2012-04-01)

I have problems with some orginal DLC scenarios in Train Simulator 2013 (2012 when I first wrote this post, but I allow myself to keep it updated). I will keep track of the problems here – mostly for myself, but perhaps it helps someone.

I have a separate post for problems with UKTS scenarios.

East Coast Mainline: Cathedral Special
Early in the scenario, just before picking up the passenger cars, I need to pass a red signal. I try TAB, but neither approve/denied. Much later, when almost in Durham, at around 1700, I have an AI-collision Game Over incident. I tried avoiding the red signal by, after dropping off the engines, driving all the way forward, and then reverse not through one of the sidings. But there is another red signal, and after passing that one, I derailed. Other people seems to have problems too.

Falmouth Branch: The Little Things Count
This is a nice scenario with some little problems.

First, on your way to collect your cars in Truro, there is a switch and a cross that are problematic to pass. At too low speed (4 mph) I cant pass. At too high speed (9 mph) I may derail or the locomotive jumps losing score. Fortunately, this is in the beginning of the scenario.

Second, in Penryn you need to put your last four cars to the side, to deliver two cars. When collecing the four cars again I get a -500 score for invalid consist (or something) – I am not the only one. I tried a few strategies that dont work:

1. Rearranging already in Truro – gives immediately -500 points.
2. Dropping the four cars in Penryn Up Platforms – immediately -500 points.
3. In Penryn, putting four cars in siding 1, then two cars in siding 2, then collecting the four cars again (with the intention of then putting the two cars in siding 1) – gives -500 points, and jumps to the next task, thus failing the scenario

Third and finnaly, when I have just the last four cars to take to Falmouth Siding 1, in Penryn, the switch never switches back from Penryn Headshunt to Penryn South Approach. Thus, how can I continue to Falmouth and complete the mission? It seems it is not the switch, but the cross that will switch. Drive slowly towards Falmouth, and the cross will switch to the line (not the side tracks) when you approach it.

Grandfield Branch: Branch Workhorse
Fantastic and beautiful scenario, but I cant complete it. While reversing into Weedon Quarry I get a SPAD – after the yellow signal, when crossing the road, but well before the red signal. I kept hitting TAB several times to get denied, but suddenly I got no response anymore, so I proceeded slowly towards the red signal: SPAD. There is a train loading stuff in the Weedon Quarry. It uses different tracks and there should be no conflict. It does not leave – perhaps I need to wait longer? It looks like it is going the other direction, so I doubt I am in the way for it. Other people seem to have had the same problem.
(2012-12-12)

Isle of Wight: After the Flood
After the first stop there is a tunnel. Right after the tunnel comes a Warning Signal – that indicates Warning. But passing it gives me SPOD. I should be allowed to pass a yellow signal without SPOD. I press tab and is granted permission to pass. Later, when leaving Sundown, there is a message saying “You have been given permission to pass the red signal”. So I do, but again SPOD (guess I should have pressed tab despite the message, but it didnt say so).

Isle of Wight: Lights! Camera! Action
Worked second time I tried!
Can not go around the train in Smallbrook. I drop off the cars, continue, reverse, but there is a red signal before getting back to the main line. TAB does not work for me. Perhaps I made a few extra stops/starts in Smallbrook with the northern switch in the wrong position that confused the signalman.
(2013-04-26)

Hagen to Siegen: Part by Part
AI error well into the scenario. I have tried to be faster and slower, and to leave switches in different ways, but so far no success.
(2012-03-12)

Somerset Dorset Joint Railway: Bath Time
AI collision problem at about 14:08:42. Other people have described it here. I have not tried the workaround mentioned.

I have written here and here about performance tuning for Railworks 3 Trainsimulator 2012. Well, I decided now was a good moment to get improved hardware so I have upgraded. I now run the simulation on a Windows 7 computer with i5-2400 CPU, 4GB RAM and a Radeon HD 6950 with 1GB of RAM. I use basic settings at High, in game Master settings at Highest, and run in 1280×1024 full screen mode. It works perfectly. The load on the 4 cpu cores are typically 70/30/30/0 when I play, and the GPU is around 50% load.