Europeanbahn

[Sad Sprinter]

Does anyone remember these games? They were UK route add-ons for Microsoft Train Simulator. I harangued my parents for at least one for every Christmas in the 2000s, and thankfully did end up getting most of them. MSTS was incredibly unstable. The game didn’t seem to work well until I reached Windows 10 operation, so I spent many, many frustrating hours as a child trying to get the damn thing to work. I remember of the games I had:

London to Brighton
London South Coast
East Coast Express 1,2,3
West Coast Express

They were bizzare games, but for their credit had a huge amount of route mileage to drive on. Sadly because I spent so much time trying to make my overly complicated custom activities to work, I didn’t do much driving on them. I still have the PC that they’re installed on at my parents house. So if I can transport it to my house, I’d like to play them again.

 

[AlistairCowell]

Got the majority collection of Europeanbahn add-ons for MSTS, mate. EB routes are rather bulky, the same cannot be said on some of the trains included in some products. Some trains are not detailed either, IC and GNER 225 included in East Coast Express being the examples.

Had a try on Open Rails last year, though London to Brighton had unsightly issues though.

I don’t think Europeanbahn are the best commercial MSTS products around, but it did provide all the major mainlines we need for MSTS.

Sadly, the owner of EuropeanBahn, Ken Austin, died 12 years ago, which had resulted in EB’s demise shortly after.

 

[GatwickDepress]

I vaguely recall Europeanbahn and UKTS having a bit of tiff back in the day, but I'm sure it was inconsequential nonsense like any hobby.

The London to Brighton and South Coast add-ons were quite interesting as they depicted the short-lived South Central era between Connex and the introduction of the Southern brand that we all know and love today.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I vaguely recall Europeanbahn and UKTS having a bit of tiff back in the day, but I'm sure it was inconsequential nonsense like any hobby.

The London to Brighton and South Coast add-ons were quite interesting as they depicted the short-lived South Central era between Connex and the introduction of the Southern brand that we all know and love today.

It's weird that they didn't allow the class 455 in the original London to Brighton game to be drivable. As that would have unlocked a whole new raft of potential activities on a point-to-point route.

But yes I still remember the burst of joy when I unwrapped London South Coast on Christmas 2006. I remember it had a sinister, very post 9/11 message at the back of the booklet headed "Modern Times", which gave an explanation that some parts of the route have been deliberately altered to make it less realistic to discourage the games to be used for planning even more sinister motives. It's probably why Balham Junction was remodelled to have a kink in it, whereas in the earlier version it was truthful to the real world design.

 

[GatwickDepress]

It's weird that they didn't allow the class 455 in the original London to Brighton game to be drivable. As that would have unlocked a whole new raft of potential activities on a point-to-point route.

But yes I still remember the burst of joy when I unwrapped London South Coast on Christmas 2006. I remember it had a sinister, very post 9/11 message at the back of the booklet headed "Modern Times", which gave an explanation that some parts of the route have been deliberately altered to make it less realistic to discourage the games to be used for planning even more sinister motives. It's probably why Balham Junction was remodelled to have a kink in it, whereas in the earlier version it was truthful to the real world design.

Which is quite funny really as driver's eye videos and route charts were readily available and the scenery in MSTS was so barren you could tell where you were half the time.

An article discussing simulation games and the changes that were made in the wake of 9/11 would be quite an interesting one.

 

[Flange Squeal]

I always felt that the London to Brighton route was amazing for its time, but latterly EuropeanBahn seemed to focus more on quantity than quality. Possibly rushing to get key routes done before any competitors, or maybe just putting potential for income first if packs were still selling well? In my opinion, the standard didn’t seem to improve much from that first route as time went on, like it did in the freeware world.

That said, the Slammer (think from memory it was a Class 421?) from the West Coastway route, and later also featured in the revamped London & South Coast package, was pretty decent in my opinion, and became one of my personal favourite Microsoft Train Simulator trains.

Some of the EuropeanBahn team went on to form Making Tracks, where quality on their routes and trains, such as the London South East and London to Norwich add-ons, seemed a world away to me from what EuropeanBahn had latterly still been putting out.

 

[gswindale]

I did enjoy some of the Europeanbahn routes, but always felt they missed a trick by mainly concentrating on long distance high speed point to point routes.

I know they did the Cross City line as an extension to WCML, but it would have been more enjoyable if they'd included the Chase Line as well, along with the Camp Hill line to add a bit of variety to what you could run.

That is one of the things that I think Making Tracks were more aware of - on Great(er) Eastern, you had a fair chunk of the suburban routes out of Liverpool St and Scottish Central had both routes through Falkirk in.

 

[AlistairCowell]

I remember it had a sinister, very post 9/11 message at the back of the booklet headed "Modern Times", which gave an explanation that some parts of the route have been deliberately altered to make it less realistic to discourage the games to be used for planning even more sinister motives. It's probably why Balham Junction was remodelled to have a kink in it, whereas in the earlier version it was truthful to the real world design.

They said “Indeed, some elements have been purposely altered from the real route”, and that the routes were only used for the purpose of entertainment.

The trains included in EB routes are normally in BR liveries due to the copyright of TOCs. Class 390 was included in West Coast Express, but it was painted in Intercity, as EB couldn’t use the Virgin branding.

There was a Class 220 in Virgin Trains Livery in East Coast Express Part 1, but ‘Virgin’ had to be removed on subsequent versions of ECE and on London South Coast.

 

[GatwickDepress]

They said “Indeed, some elements have been purposely altered from the real route”, and that the routes were only used for the purpose of entertainment.

The trains included in EB routes are normally in BR liveries due to the copyright of TOCs. Class 390 was included in West Coast Express, but it was painted in Intercity, as EB couldn’t use the Virgin branding.

There was a Class 220 in Virgin Trains Livery in East Coast Express Part 1, but ‘Virgin’ had to be removed on subsequent versions of ECE and on London South Coast.

Funnily enough, the original Class 390 in (now) Dovetail's Train Simulator has three fictitious liveries due to licencing issues, with InterCity livery also being one of them.

I always assumed it was a nod towards EB as the interpretation of the livery was almost identical bar the yellow on the front.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I always wondered why they didn’t just use LHCS instead of the pendo, it was a 90s themed route anyway

 

[gingerheid]

I vaguely recall Europeanbahn and UKTS having a bit of tiff back in the day, but I'm sure it was inconsequential nonsense like any hobby.

I always felt that the London to Brighton route was amazing for its time, but latterly EuropeanBahn seemed to focus more on quantity than quality. Possibly rushing to get key routes done before any competitors, or maybe just putting potential for income first if packs were still selling well? In my opinion, the standard didn’t seem to improve much from that first route as time went on, like it did in the freeware world.

Some of the EuropeanBahn team went on to form Making Tracks, where quality on their routes and trains, such as the London South East and London to Norwich add-ons, seemed a world away to me from what EuropeanBahn had latterly still been putting out.

Europeanbahn did kick out the products, and had a realistic eye to trying to make the products semi commercially viable in a world where a lot was being done (very very well) for the love of it. I felt they got very left behind - I didn't buy anything after West Coastway as the quality was remaining the same but becoming increasingly awful by comparison. (And I got increasingly fed up of the same big blue block being used as scenery in completely unsuitable areas).

It seemed that this made them defensive and that this wasn't a good thing for perhaps one or more strange personalities involved in it. They tried to use legal threats to order UKTS to prevent criticism of their products on their forums, so UKTS banned all discussion of their products.

They then set up their own forum, which I got banned from for asking for a screenshot of the Huntingdon station area (where I lived at that time). I was getting excited because it could have been the third building I'd lived or worked in that was modelled in UKTS. I guess given the way they operated it was unlikely, but I didn't buy it to find out!

Making Tracks was superior in every way. I still have MSTS on my machine so I can dig out their products from time to time!

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Europeanbahn did kick out the products, and had a realistic eye to trying to make the products semi commercially viable in a world where a lot was being done (very very well) for the love of it. I felt they got very left behind - I didn't buy anything after West Coastway as the quality was remaining the same but becoming increasingly awful by comparison. (And I got increasingly fed up of the same big blue block being used as scenery in completely unsuitable areas).

It seemed that this made them defensive and that this wasn't a good thing for perhaps one or more strange personalities involved in it. They tried to use legal threats to order UKTS to prevent criticism of their products on their forums, so UKTS banned all discussion of their products.

They then set up their own forum, which I got banned from for asking for a screenshot of the Huntingdon station area (where I lived at that time). I was getting excited because it could have been the third building I'd lived or worked in that was modelled in UKTS. I guess given the way they operated it was unlikely, but I didn't buy it to find out!

Making Tracks was superior in every way. I still have MSTS on my machine so I can dig out their products from time to time!

I remember the scenery. London to Brighton was a bit creepy as it had the same office block with the little antenna on top along the whole. Gave the game a very liminal feeling. I thought midland Mainline was supposed to be a bit better? I remember the Amazon reviews of their Great Western one and apparently the map was blank west of Reading