MSTS - Helpful Facts and Links - Part 04 (Train Store)

This is the fourth part in a series of posts that are meant to give a simple history of MSTS and point people to the various accessories/links considered vital to maximising the performance of MSTS.
This part looks at one of the well known accessories that is vital to the efficient running of MSTS, and includes links for additional information and download access:-

Train Store Utility for MSTS by J A Formoso
It is a well known fact that in order to run MSTS a large number of files are needed for each simulation. MSTS wants to read all of the files that might be required, and these are then stored within its memory ready to be used. Consequently as the MSTS content grows so the files memorised grows and this significantly increases the start up time, and in that respect MSTS has a finite limit; e.g. the MSTS “consists” limit appears to be about 800, at which time MSTS can crash!

The obvious solution to this is to minimise the number of files that MSTS needs to memorise, and that is what Train Store does, and the basic summary is as follows:-

a. Train Store assists in storing MSTS Routes, Activities, Consists, Paths and Tsection.dat files efficiently, without requiring changes to the MSTS configuration, and without making additional copies of files or installations of MSTS.
b. Individual Routes and/or Activities can be “in use” with MSTS, whilst the remainder of your MSTS configuration is “in store” and unavailable to MSTS.
c. This improves MSTS start-up and close-down time dramatically.
d. It also removes the problem of “too many Consists”.
e. Changing between Routes and Activities is very quick.

Train Store actually does a lot more than the above, and the manual that accompanies the download should be viewed for its extensive content on how to best use it.

Train Store can be downloaded from here (3 files of which 2 are updates)

TrainStore plus First Update plus Second Update.

It should be noted that the above files can be downloaded from other sources.

When installing and/or amending all or any part of MSTS it is strongly recommended that you create a back-up copy, because even with the best will in the world mistakes can and will happen. There’s many a “simmer” who can testify to that.