• Recaps the purpose of released networks and props,
  
• How to use various types of tracks in different settings, including examples,
  
• Provides side notes and explains known issues,
  
• Replies "Class A" questions that were asked numerously.

Ability to read and use common sense where it is needed. This guide will explain things simply cleanly. This is a powerful pack of train networks and anything that is related to it, not a linear algebra problem. So, if you can not deal with this guide, then Railway is not made for you. Jerenable has a good alternative to vanilla railway network, you should check it out.

Following mods are absolutely required to follow the guide.

• Anarchy Mod, in order to work extensively with the rail network.
  
• Move It, in order to tweak nodes and curvature.
  
• Fine Road Tool, to adjust the increment of the height and switch between segment variations and make things smoother.
  
• Loading Screen Mod, tracks share a lot of textures, use LSM to take advantage of this and reduce overall RAM load and loading time considerably.
  
• Network Tiling. All tracks require it, as their textures are tiled to be used efficiently.
  
• PropRotatingParams. Required by Swiss barriers.

Following mods are RECOMMENDED to have, as they improve the overall experience.

• Network Skins 2, in order to change catenaries per segment, instead whole network.
  RWY: Germany was made in NS2 in mind, so you can mix catenaries on same main line.
  
• Single Track AI, improves the behavior of train AI on single tracks and forces trains to wait, if single segment is occupied.
  
• Rail Track Speed Increaser, unlocks the speed of train tracks.
  WARNING: You must set a maximum speed on your trains, otherwise they will be broken.

Notes to non-English speakers:
Feel free to provide translations. I am open to suggestions of releasing different languages, provided that there's a transcript. Or add as co-author.

Used to replace station tracks with new Railway station tracks, also prop customizer. As it's the entire point of this project, it must be subbed.

• Any station that uses ETST and vanilla station track can be updated with the mod in order to use new tracks.
  
• Some creators use standard tracks on stations in order to negate peasant maximum length of station tracks in-game. These tracks wont get replaced by the mod. Use Move It mod, or Touch This to remove these tracks.
  
• Elevated tracks are also supported.
  
• There are no specific cargo tracks, so it's possible to use regular station tracks on any cargo station, but a side effect of that is the ability to place passenger train stops on them.

Select the station from the toolbar/menu. Railway UI will pop up. Select the track you want to plop the station with, then place the station.
Same station can be placed multiple times with different track config.

There is a workaround, discovered by AquilaSol, that allows to replace tracks of already placed stations. In order to do this:

• 1. Select the station in the Train panel
  
• 2. Select the RWY tracks.
  
• 3. Don't place the station.
  
• 4. Open Move It
  
• 5. Select the station building you want to replace.
  
• 6. Delete.
  
• 7. Undo the delete. (Ctrl+Z).

This places the station back, with RWY tracks, with all nodes connected.


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The mod will also give you the ability to customize props used on tracks.
These include single normal catenary, single end-catenary, single tunnel catenary, double normal catenary, double end-catenary, double tunnel catenary, right signal, left signal, short barrier, medium barrier, long barrier, very long barrier, and buffer.

There are currently 3 major styles available: Swiss, Japanese and German.

Aside these, there are base props that exist on all networks, regardless the style (mentioned on next section).

Shinkansen tracks have their own style, 'Shinkansen', which is not customizable since it is a separate network.

The prop selection UI can be opened by pressing SHIFT + ALT + P.


Replacer also has a setting to make wires 3.5x thinner than vanilla game, to match their real life dimensions.

There is a basic set of props, which are used on the entire base set of tracks and also 3rd party tracks. They include things like the fishplate, tunnel darkener, fence beams, and some concrete boxes which match elevated and tunnel versions of the tracks.

Railway Narrow has its own prop pack for track related props, as gauge is different.

These are props that can be customized with Railway Replacer mod.
They can be also plopped independently with More Beautification/Find It.
Lights are not part of the customized props, but standard props that can be plopped.

At least ONE set must be subbed.

RWY and RWY-N share the same thumbnail structure. Necessary information regarding tracks are shown on the thumbnail:

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Sets that are made by Ronyx. 3sets: Gravel/Ballast with concrete sleepers, gravel/ballast with wooden sleepers, concrete/ballastless with concrete sleepers.

• All sets are separated into 2 categories: wired and wireless.
  
• All sets have 1 and 2 lane versions of same track, using same texture elements.
  
• All sets have basic/ground, elevated, bridge, slope and tunnel variations:
  
• Elevated tracks are very bare, borderless, pillarless, which are intended for custom elevated railyards or more complex custom builds.
  
• Bridge is a generic concrete elevated track with pillars, borders, fences.
  
• Slope(tunnel entrance) is intended to be completely flat(no elevation change) and it's recommended to shorten it using move it.
  
• All sets have nodeless variations that are recommended to use on complex junctions.
  
• Tunnel works like any tunnel, but with visible interiors which get dark very quickly.

Main line tracks have also nodeless tracks (basic and elevated only) As the name suggests, they have no nodes, which means the segments must be straight or have a continuous curve. An example of how nodeless tracks (shown on the bottom) offer an advantage in some situations:



User is free to choose any of these "sets" to sub to.

In addition to elevated/bridge tracks, custom elevated tracks are made with various styles and both wired and wireless.

User is free to choose any of these networks to sub to.

In addition to elevated/bridge tracks, custom bridge tracks are made with various styles and both wired and wireless variants.

User is free to choose any of these networks to sub to.

Set of decorative networks that can be used in a complex railyard setting or junction. Contains catenary + wire, wire only networks, along with border fences that can be used on the edge of elevated sets of networks.

User is free to choose any of these decorative networks to sub to.

Custom bridge/networks from various parts of the world.

User is free to choose any of these "tracks" to sub to.

I will provide a couple of ideas here, feel free to use your own and how you wish. It's a train track, there are examples on Google Earth.

Base, node tracks are self-explanatory and do not require high amount of IQ to work with.

Nodeless tracks should be used on junctions where tracks are merge/splitting and usually a hassle to deal with in standard game. Splitting track can be node track (as it was tested before), whereas main track should be modified into nodeless so it will not bend weirdly as shown in the picture.

Alternatively, player can choose to use wireless tracks on junctions and add catenary / wires later, by using decorative networks. This will be actually useful in a setting such as railyards, where tracks have combined catenaries that can support 3 or 4 tracks. Swiss prop pack has 3 and 4 catenary versions along with pieces that can be used separately to create much wider catenary.



Elevated junctions are fairly common in a "Shinkansen" setting. As it's shown below, the setting was made with a combination of elevated tracks node/nodeless. End portions are decorative "border networks". As for catenaries, 4 lane catenary prop was used, along with wire decorative network. Rest is usual detaling that involves plopabbles.



Since each track has a wired and wireless version, you can create/combine an environment where diesel and electric trains co exist. It's not very uncommon to see railyards that have non electrified tracks thus this is now possible.

Use Swiss Arch Bridge with Eglisau to create mountain networks, as both have pillars with a considerable height.




Piacenza Bridge network features ground, elevated, bridge and tunnel segments. While other networks have 300kmph operational speed, Piaceza segments have 200kmph, that can be used as very high speed network line, a concept that is being adopted in Europe after commercial success of Shinkansens and TGV lines.



Erfurt network pack features custom ground, elevated, bridge and tunnel sements. The maximum operational speed is set to 300kmph for these tracks. In addition, embanked tracks are also made. High Speed Networks have their own custom catenaries, which are wider than standard RWY catenary props.





Branch of Railway environment for 1067mm narrow gauge system which is widely used in Japan and Switzerland. These networks have their own collection, as they are not compatible with RWY tracks due to width of tracks.

You will likely get a "duplicate pillar" error in LSM loading window. This is normal, since game acts in a rеtardеd way when it comes to elevations.

There's nothing special about cargo tracks so same tracks were used as passenger counterparts.

Game does not support -any- custom track as outside connection, so never update outside tracks that are vanilla.

It's reported that using RWY shortcut also opens Prop It Up menu. Either change the shortcut of Prop It Up or close its window whenever it pops up.

Total filesize of entire pack + custom bridges is about 1.3GB. This does NOT mean that game will load such assets if you have LSM enabled. All rails and sleepers are shared among all networks. Packs that have same "style" obviously share texture load. Thus the RAM load will be much more minimal than 1.3GB load. While it's impossible to indicate shared RAM load, consider the fact that all track superstructure is shared among all networks, and track "styles" are shared between themselves as well.

MOM and RWY work together to a degree. I personally tested both at the same time on full game.
1. You will select which RWY track do you want on station placement,
2. then you can change individual tracks within MOM UI.
The order is important. Otherwise, they will overwrite each other.

Aside this I didn't see any issues.
Either use both as I've described above or choose one of them.

It's not relevant to the pack, and its presence doesnt break anything. You can either get rid of it as map-wide track is being handled with Railway or use them together.

All prop sets and RWY tracks are compatible with Network Skins 2. I highly recommend to use NS2 to change catenary style on different segments to achieve a realistic look. Aside RWY, you can also use styles on non-RWY tracks.

Replacer mod and track collection got an update on 30th of December. With this update and new station tracks, RWY now supports stations that have 1 lane tracks. This, of course, depends on the original station track used on existing stations. As there's no standard track for 1 lane wide stations, different creators made their own station tracks for their stations. So far, 1 lane elevated station tracks from konfox, Bad Peanut and clus can be replaced with RWY.

Narrow gauge package is partially remake, some of segments are re-using already released RWY pieces and bridges. If you have both type of tracks, you can save up RAM thanks to LSM.

Q: What's the difference between wired and wireless tracks ?
A: Give me a break.

Q: I connected new tracks to my station and now I have blue holes in the ground ?
A: Because you didn't read the description where it says "replop" stations with new track selection.

Q: I subbed everything but I can't open the prop menu ?
A: Activate the Railway Replacer mod.

Q: I subbed everything and I activated the mod, but every time I drag tracks there's no prop.
A: Because you didn't set which props do you want to use in the prop selection.

Q: I subbed everything, activated the mod, props are there but I cant see signals.
A: Signals is related to priority/yield function. Use Traffic overlay located on the left of the screen and assign yield/priority to tracks, then signals will appear.

Q: I have MOM and I see both MOM and Railway UI when I select a station.
A: Well, obviously you will have both UI because station you selected has a subway track...

Q: I have a junction problem on custom bridges rails do not merge.
A: Bridges do not have any transition nodes, because... they are bridges. Bridges do not merge. Extend the track with elevated segment or ground segment with same lane/style and do your junctions on the ground or use base tracks.

Q: X junctions are not triggered on stations ends when Railway tracks are connected.
A: Same as above, you're using bridge networks. Answer is the same as above.

Q: Can I connect Railway networks to vanilla tracks ?
A: Why... Why would you do that, you monster.

Q: How am I supposed to see what track i selected as they are not highlighted in the UI ?
A: If you cant be sure which track you selected 2 seconds ago, then Railway is not for you, use Vanilla tracks instead.

Q: I can't "trigger" bridge, it's always elevated tracks.
A: Be a smart lad and use Fine Road Tool.

Q: Woah this pack is too large.
A: That's what she said.

Q: I have a problem. *does not give any details*
A: I have a SG553 which I will not hesitate to use.

Q: How to use this mod ?
A: *Inserts magazine into SG553*