F.A.Q. about Bugs and Gameplay (updated Nov 2023)

[Mišo]

Note: Updated in November 2023 to cover the changes in the game and frequently asked questions from recent time.

We have a lot of questions people have asked us. Some are unique while others aren't. Here's a list of some of the more common bugs and questions:

General Game Questions

How do I clear an allocated (green) track or other element?

Game clears them once a trains runs over them. However, under some circumstances, they may be left over allocated - e. g. after you build something from an allocated track o reverse a train so it does not use the whole route.

If it is a Signal, just right-click it

If it is some other element

1. Open its Configuration by middle click or clicking 'V' when hovering it
   
2. Press the Clear button (it has a broom icon)

How do I get red experience points in Endless?

Red experience points are granted by

• Freight contracts (one-time)
  
• Regional contracts (recurrent, one point for each leg)
  
• Urban Transit contracts (recurrent, one point for each run)

These contracts will only appear if you have their respective System Upgrades installed and Dispatcher Office building built.

To install the first two upgrades, you need 3 red points that are granted once you reach some threshold in green points per hour (8 in most maps but can be set for each map individually).

To get red experience points

1. Open System Upgrades to check the throughput threshold to get 3 red points, it is displayed above the bar on top (usually it is 8 green points per hour).
   
2. Reach this throughput threshold and get the points
   
3. Open System Upgrades, switch to Red tab and install either Freights[/] or Regional trains upgrade.
   
4. Open Construction and build a Dispatcher Office at some of your stations
   
5. Wait for a red contract to be generated
   
6. Accept the contract and operate its trains

Why I am not getting Freight / Regional / Urban Transit contracts?

Red contracts are covered by previous section. Here you will find a brief checklist of things needed to get them:

• Upgrade installed
  
• Dispatcher Office built. Preferably at some non-border station (to make things simple)
  
• Station of Dispatcher Office servicing wanted contract type. Middle-click the station sign to inspect: https://annotely.com/preview/aclp7zwr9r00020glgc2ex9f0l
  
• Other unlocked station servicing contract type. Mostly (except Urban Transit) you need at least one border station for trains to come in.
  
• Urban Transit only: Coach Yard built for the same station as Dispatcher Office

Why my Regional train does not wait when I set the waiting time?

It is a situation when Regional train is being shunted using the shunting commands and a Reuse command with some large time (like 15 minutes) is enqueued. Surprisingly, the train does not wait but proceeds immediately.

In fact it is not a wait time but an advance time.

Advance Time: Time before the next leg's schedule start when reusing is performed.

It is because intermission duration may vary between 10 and 30 minutes but the preparation time is almost constant. Using the advance time setting, the train waits for variable time and then goes to the platform in a constant time frame, moving the variability from platforms to stabling tracks.

So the recommended value is something like like 3 minutes.

How to reach Red Tier 2

10 contracts with intermission seems to be a big deal!

Actually it is not needed to have 10 reg contracts per cycle because each rewards 2 red points so you need only 5 contracts. It should be pretty easy to accomplish:

1. Optional but very helpful: have the green traffic fully automated to be able to concentrate on the red traffic.
   
2. Chose a non-border station where you have at least 2 platforms not bought yet. These will be your stabling platforms.
   
3. Buy these platforms, connect them & build couple of Dispatcher Offices for this station
   
4. Accept 2 Reg contracts that do not need turn-around (just go from one side of the map to the other with intermission in your station). Configure the schedule so that first leg terminus is the same stabling platform as next leg origin.
   
5. Once the first leg ends, keep the train on its platform for the intermission. During the intermission, look for next such contracts.
   
6. When accepting each contract, use the Contract Configuration to plan its schedule so that it arrives to the stabling platform just after the previous train leaves.
   
7. Spend the first red points on Shunting Commands upgrade. Once you have it, enqueue just Reuse command for each train that stops at the stabling platform.
   
8. Accept 5-6 such simple contracts

5 contracts with 20 minutes of intermission need 100 stabling minutes while each platform provides 60 stabling minutes. So 2 platforms are more than enough to stable these trains.

With all traffic automated using the green tech & leg switch action semi-automated using the Shunting Commands it is pretty convenient to run the game even on 25× for a single cycle (2,5 minutes real time), just enqueuing 5 Reuse command manually. Once this "sprint cycle" is done, 10-12 points per cycle should be reached and Red Tier 2 unlocked.

It brings Stabling Sensor that can automate the setup described above & even scale it to the RT3 requirement of 35 red points per cycle.

How do I set signals to always route to the same connection?

You need to

1. Unlock Routing Queue in the Green tab of the System Upgrades panel.
   
2. Create the desired route
   
3. Hover the signal and press V or middle-click the signal. Signal Configuration opens opens up for the signal you selected.
   
4. Click the Perpetual Autoroute button (has ∞ symbol)

Now the signal will continuously route to the desired destination.

I changed the UI scale so I do not see its slider anymore

Press

Ctrl + U

If it does not help, try to reset game settings (including video settings). See the previous section.

What are the dashed parts of the tracks?

They are Autoblocks. Autoblocks represent long sections of the tracks between the stations with signalling that allows automated movement of trains in segments of 1km length.

In real-world railways and in Rail Route as well, most of the control is performed in stations and sometimes junctions where trains can change direction, be routed to various destinations etc. These "hot spots" are connected by long and relatively simple tracks where trains just run one after another.

To condense the view, these are not depicted in full detail but just as a "shortcut" either in real dispatcher software or in Rail Route.

Are there cheats / sandbox mode?

There is a Debug Menu. Press F2 to access it.

You can pour money and research points to the game either to try things or to play unlimited / sandbox mode.

Beware that score disappears once you cheat.

How long are the tracks?

Each track has a specific length in meters. These lengths are:

• Straight track: 100 meters per square
  
• Diagonal track: 140 meters per square
  
• Autoblock: 1000 meters per segment

How to dispatch a Regional train in reversed order from a Coach Yard

Reg trains have just one cab and are slow when running reversed. However, they can be either turner around when stabling or dispatched in reversed order from a Coach Yard if needed (e. g. in Masaryk Station).

To do so

1. Click the train
   
2. Open its Contract Configuration ('X' key)
   
3. Switch to the leg that should be dispatched in reversed order
   
4. Click the button displayed at it's first stop

I can't accept trains onto station platforms without a sink in my custom map!

Custom Timetable maps now support only trains that come via the border stations. Support for trains that originate at the Coach Yards building is on the ToDo list. You can work around by creating a separate coach yard station.

None of mentioned here

If your question wasn't answered, feel free to make a new thread here and let us know!

We'll update this list with the most frequent questions we get. If you want a faster response time for your question, join us in the discord and ask us there!

https://discord.gg/avBjPqT

Bugs

How can I fix if...

Game does not start on a Mac

Symptoms including but not only:

1. Game turns into fullscreen mode and logo is displayed,
   
2. Screen becomes black with rainbow spinning forever.

Try changing the SIP Settings - we encountered situation when the game ran only if set to the more strict mode.

If it does not work, try the topic Game is crashing or frozen when trying to start it below.

Game does not start on a Linux

Try running the game with OpenGL instead of Vulcan. To do so, put the following into launch options:

-force-opengl

If it does not work, try the next topic.

Game is crashing or frozen when trying to start it

Rarely happens e.g. when using fullscreen on two monitors or or fullscreen at all.

Solution is to reset game resolution settings:

1. Update GPU driver and try again
   
2. Completely uninstall and then install again the GPU driver. Chose complete rather than express installation. (We had cases when just updating was not enough. The driver was presumably installed incorrectly and the driver installer did not update that particular file because it was not changed by in the new version. Only fresh install helped). Try again.
   
3. If possible, open Options → Video → Display and change Window mode from Borderless Fullscreen Window to Windowed or vice versa
   
4. If not possible or did not help, open game settings location:

   Windows: Winkey+R, Run "regedit", find Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\bitrich\
   Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/bitrich/
   Mac: ~/Library/Preferences/bitrich/
   

5. There, delete the Rail Route directory.
   
6. Restart the game

If the problem persists, please try older versions of the game. They are available as Betas section in Steam Client. Some older GPUs can run older versions but fail to start newer as they are missing some API the game needs to run.

Texts aren't loading

An uncommon bug on Linux.

Solution:

1. Open Options
   
2. In Video section, set Window mode to Borderless Fullscreen Window
   
3. Restart the game

My anti-virus software reports the game executable malicious

If the file is from official Steam distribution, you should not worry. To be sure, feel free to upload the file to be scanned by dozens of respected anti-virus programs. Seldom it happens that there is false-positive detection even by first-class program.

You can even send the file to the anti-virus software vendor for investigation and white-listing.

I do not see my most recent saves in game

Most probably you have a Mac & played version 1.5.9 for a while. There was a bug that is already fixed in 1.5.10 but the saves from 1.5.9 stayed in the wrong place. So you can:

1. Ensure you already have version 1.5.10 (displayed in main menu in the top left corner just below Rail Route logo.
   
2. If not, exit the game, exit and re-run steam. It will update the game
   
3. Move all the most recent saves from

   ~/Library/Application Support/Rail-Route/saves

   back to

   ~/Library/Application Support/RailRoute/saves/

4. If you created some custom maps in 1.5.9, move them from

   ~/Library/Application Support/Rail-Route/community levels

   to

   ~/Library/Application Support/RailRoute/community levels

   as well

No audio on Linux

Maybe you use a Linux distro with Pipewire. If so, put the following into launch options:

FMOD_ALSA_DEVICE=pulse %command%

(original thread)

None of mentioned here

Please report a bug:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1124180/discussions/0/3123785722654342594/

Happy dispatching!

[Carpetbeater]

As a graphic designer I noticed when viewing large maps that its very difficult to see the front and therefore direction of train. Why not colour the first block of the train to show direction. I appreciate the info tab has a direction arrow but that is only available to one train.

[Duke Leto]

Originally posted by Carpetbeater:

As a graphic designer I noticed when viewing large maps that its very difficult to see the front and therefore direction of train. Why not colour the first block of the train to show direction. I appreciate the info tab has a direction arrow but that is only available to one train.

👍 In Endless mode this could be another research UI upgrade... 😉

[Carpetbeater]

I am discovering that clicking on train is sometimes only way for finding destination and the "improved labels" in the UI are tiny, unless you zoom in and miss an action at the other end of the map.
May 2022 - thanks for taking colour and tags on board.

[Borsucc]

Hey, I enjoy playing this game a bit differently than majority of RR players. I am a big fan of more realistic maps where you can at least outline the borderlines of coast mountains or towns, but i have stumbled upon issue which stopping me from enjoying game fully. When i created map with such a outlines build with walls, after saving a map I could not ever open the map again with either map editor nor playing mode. And in the first map I made and played after building literally 4 stations it looked like it was too many objects on the map and it stop me from playing it. Is there limit of objects and if so why is so low when the maps can be so big? Could you have look at it?

Thanks

[Bigbigcheese]

Force Clear does not work for tunnels and small sections going away from junctions.

Edit: I managed to delete the tunnel, however I have a section where there are two junctions too close together for me to select the small piece of track in between them, which is blocked. Looks like I have a permanent "Track Circuit Failure"...

[Biesdorfer83]

In the game it is unfortunately not possible to create trains that have more than 9 wagons. If you form such trains and then play the card, these trains report that you have skipped a station and the train does not disappear from the card. Is this error already known?

[maruma]

Hello. I enjoy this game. Can I sort the platform numbers for this game? How can it sort the numbers?

[Tech 52]

Originally posted by maruma:

Hello. I enjoy this game. Can I sort the platform numbers for this game? How can it sort the numbers?

Only the person who created the map can alter the platforms, in edit mode.

[Dan1]

Game is crashing or frozen when trying to start it

Rarely happens e.g. when using fullscreen on two monitors or or fullscreen at all.

Solution is to reset game resolution settings:

1. Update GPU driver
   
2. Open game settings location:

   Windows: Winkey+R, Run "regedit", find Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\bitrich\
   Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/bitrich/
   Mac: ~/Library/Preferences/bitrich/
   

3. Delete the Rail Route directory.
   
4. Restart the game
   
   
   Where i can find Rail Route directory so i could delele it coz my game is frozen?

[TboneIsGaming]

How do you do block signalling on a long piece of track with no junctions?

[TboneIsGaming]

Guys, I would like to see a multiplayer option for the game on huge maps. Any chance.

[TboneIsGaming]

It would be great to import and convert maps from sim Sig.

[mongolteiko]

Just to let you know [no biggie], you spelt occupied [your spelling occupide] in the "manual signal safety" wrong.

[mongolteiko]

Just a query to the devs: Last year my one of my ssd's failed which had my windows 10 installed and also steam account with some of my games including your game. I uploaded about 3 or 4 maps to the workshop before the failure.
When I put windows onto another drive and reloaded steam, I can no longer edit my maps as they are not there. I can download them from the workshop [but cannot edit them].
Is there any way I can have them back in my 'edit section' of the game?

[Mišo]

Originally posted by Pr1nc3:

Game is crashing or frozen when trying to start it

Rarely happens e.g. when using fullscreen on two monitors or or fullscreen at all.

Solution is to reset game resolution settings:

1. Update GPU driver
   
2. Open game settings location:

   Windows: Winkey+R, Run "regedit", find Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\bitrich\
   Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/bitrich/
   Mac: ~/Library/Preferences/bitrich/
   

3. Delete the Rail Route directory.
   
4. Restart the game

Where i can find Rail Route directory so i could delele it coz my game is frozen?

If you are using WIndows, it is in the registry. Step 3 is a follow-up of step 2.