MSTS - Helpful Facts and Links - Part 05 (Route Riter)

This is the fifth 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 another of the well known accessories that is vital to the efficient running of MSTS, and includes links for additional information and download access:-

Route Riter for MSTS by Mike Simpson

Route-Riter v7 is a suite of over 110 utilities for performing various actions on sections of the Microsoft Train Simulator program. The major options are as follows:-

a. Check a Route for missing shape and texture files;
b. Compact a Route by removing those files from the route that are not required and just serve to slow the program down;
c. Check all Activities installed in the Simulator;
d. Package a route ready for uploading (including production of spanned zip files);
e. Count objects in selected and adjacent World tiles;
f. List all the track and road sections used by a route;
g. Produce 'Mini-Routes', i.e. compact versions of MSTS which contain only one route and associated rolling stock;
h. Options to check and fix many of the file types used by MSTS for operating routes, rolling stock and activities;
i. A host of utilities to compress and uncompress files, replace shapes in .W files, build AI locomotives etc.;
j. Graphics utilities which allow the user to view shape files and consists in full colour, run 3rd party programs such as TGATools2a and TView etc.;
k. A fully-fledged Consist Builder (freeware) is also included;
l. The full version of Carl-Heinz Rave's TSUtils program is also included;
m. Route-Riter supports the following languages: English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese and Spanish.

The best location for a description of what RR does (from which the above list was taken), together with access to relevant tutorials, is at Steam4me.

The recommended location for downloading this valuable tool is at Mike Simpson’s own site rstools where his final version (v7.6.26), together with the Help file, is available.

It should be noted that the same version can also be downloaded from UKTS, as file ID 2588, and trainsim.com.

NOTE : A new version of Route-Riter (v7.8.8 ) has been developed by a third party and is available from UKTS (File ID 34157). Some errors reported from earlier versions have been corrected.

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.

Hi Gentlemen,
It appears that some members are having problems getting Route Riter to operate properly, so I offer a couple of notes :

1. As Route Riter is a 32-bit program, the 32-bit version of Java MUST be installed; this even applies if you are running a 64-bit OS.
2. Follow Mike's instructions for creating a 'classes' folder (in the 32-bit Java folder) and copy all the contents of the Route Riter TSUtil folder into it.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi All,
Recent tests I've carried out prove that details contained in my last post are incorrect.  I apologise for that and ask that you read the following two paragraphs instead of those shown above :

1. If running a 64-bit OS, download and install the 64-bit version of Java, otherwise download and install the 32-bit version.

2. Follow Mike's instructions for creating a 'classes' folder within the C:\Program Files\Java\jre x.x.xxx folder and copy all the contents of the Route Riter TSUtil folder into it.  Note : x.x.xxx is a series of numbers indicating the version of Java.


If I've still got it wrong, please let me know

Hi All,
A query on the MSTS Forum at trainsim.com has pointed to a problem with Route_Riter when it's installed in a recent (2017) version of Windows 10.

The problem manifests itself by various error messages, but one which most will get is : "Error Path not found while confirming route xxxx".  These are caused because the TempFiles folder is missing.  In Windows 7, this was in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Route_Riter folder, but in versions of Win 10, before 2017, it was placed in Route_Riter's installation folder; the same folder MUST also have a folder named TempFiles2.  The solution is to place two empty folders called TempFiles and TempFiles2 respectively into the R_R installation folder.

Apologies, but I can't pin down the actual update which has caused us this trouble, except to say that it was released sometime after 20 December 2016.

Ged

Hi All,
Another anomaly has occurred when using Route_Riter under Windows 10!
The following is a copy of a post I've made on UKTS :

If you have a problem running the "Check All Activities" function, in Mike Simpson's version of R_R, where one or two '76' errors are followed by a never-ending series of '52' errors, I believe one of my testers and I have found the solution.

The cause is a route folder within the ROUTES folder which doesn't contain an ACTIVITIES folder. Such a folder is created when installing the MSTSBin patch - MyRoutes folder which contains an empty TEXTURES folder - but the user may create one for their own purposes or to be able to run other software.

The solution is to either remove the spurious route folder, or to create an empty ACTIVITIES folder within that folder.

I don't know why the Bin patch creates this folder! The problem doesn't occur when using Win 7.

Cheers,
Ged