Three Country Corner Route By Just Trains

Review by Gene Davis. Just Trains has delivered yet another fantastic route for Train Simulator and this time it will have you traveling through Austria, Switzerland and Germany! This new route is known as the Three Country Corner Route and it does not disappoint! It will have you traveling across borders and trekking through snow covered mountain ranges as you get your virtual passengers to their destinations.

Purchase, Download and Installation

The route itself can be purchased from the Just Trains website and it is roughly 350MB’s in size and costs $37.99. Once purchased, you can download the file from their site and install it. The only thing you will need to do is input your user name and password for the Just Trains site during installation, so this portion of the installer does require an active internet connection.

Once installed into Train Simulator 2013 or the now 2014 version you will have access to the route manual, scenarios and activities in Train Simulator itself. From what I can tell, Three Country Corner Route works well with the newly released Train Simulator 2014 and I haven’t had any real issues, if anything my performance has gotten better and load times are much faster!

The Three Country Corner Route from Just Trains

This new route from Just Trains covers three different countries, Austria, Germany and Switzerland and includes over 80 miles of track between the cities of Rorschach Switzerland, to Lindau Germany and onward to  St. Anton in Austria with all of the stops in between.

The route itself uses mostly the BR101 Electric Train with a full complement of passenger cars, but it does also make use of the BVR 200 diesel and the electric BR143, though the BR143 is not available in the quick drive option for this route it can be added manually. In total there are 10 different scenarios to choose from and they include both freight and passenger service through all three countries.

In total there are 11 main and 5 freight stations along the way, Germany has a total of 1 main and 1 freight, Austria has 8 main and 3 freight and Switzerland has 2 main and 1 freight. From St Anton to  Bludenz you will experience the mountain pass portions of the route in Austria and as you descend towards Feldkirch the valleys will start to open up to towns and sprawling cities as you near the border crossings for Switzerland and Germany.

The route also makes use of the many new enhancements seen in Train Simulator 2013 and now 14, two of the biggest difference I have seen is the lighting and the way the people are handled in the simulator.  At some of the stations there are hordes of people waiting to cross tracks and many just standing around waiting for the next train. The night lighting is also impressive as it makes use of the TSX technology for Train Simulator.

Travelling the Route!

Initially I started this route from St Anton and found that much of the route from there to Bludenz is mostly tunnel and I would recommend traveling from Lindau Germany, over to Rorschach Switzerland and then onto Austria for your initial trek across this fantastic landscape to get the full experience because it’s awfully dark in those tunnels.

As you travel through the different towns each have their own signage, buildings and custom scenery objects and many are particular to their location. Even the border crossings are in multiple languages and are accurate to their actual signage.

The larger train stations and depot’s are also beautifully rendered and match their real world locations along the way, one of the more interesting observations while coming down from the mountains from St Anton, after the tunnels,  are that of all of the old abandoned train depots and small communities along the way.

The towns and cities have all been brought to life with people, cars, animals and even boats! The journey along the coast line along Lake Constance is a beautiful one!

You will also want to try out the different seasons with this route especially when it comes to traveling to or from places like St. Anton because the mountains all take on winter textures and the conditions change dramatically as you traverse the landscape.

Textures changes as the seasons change, this is nothing really new in Train Simulator but the difference in textures really does stand out with this route.

Each individual line also follows strict track rules and guidelines for operating a train especially when it comes to operating in three different countries. I found that as I explored each section of this route I could not just drop a train in and go with the quick drive options.

Take the BVR 200 for instance, because there are some places the sim just will not allow you to use it because it is not designed for use on that specific track and ultimately I confused the sim enough times that I eventually started crashing the game and needed to restart the whole thing.

One of the things that I have the hardest time with is paying attention to the speed limits in Train Simulator as I tend to get going a little too fast at times. This was apparent after leaving St. Anton and it is actually right after a series of tunnels. The speed goes from 100 to 60 right after a tunnel at Wald am Arlberg (which is a closed station) and if you miss the change in speed you will find yourself going right off of a bridge and into a ravine after the abandoned station because there is a tight turn in the track and it comes up real fast if you are travelling at 100. 

Also, make sure to watch out for other trains! I made the mistake of ignoring a couple of signals and found myself plowing into other engines several times, and at a 100 mph they come on awfully fast! I found that it didn’t matter whether I was doing a scenario or just doing the quick drive option, I encountered other engines on several occasions.

In Closing

This particular route is a must have for any arm chair engineer as it really shows off what Train Simulator is capable of and literally grabs you and pulls you into the simulation as you use it!

The routes that Just Trains offer simply get better with each one and you just find yourself just wanting more with each new addition to Train Simulator.