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New to BVE

MrDumbOfAll

Member
Joined
15 May 2025
Messages
6
Location
Worcestershire,Worcester
I got openBVE and now there's not even a single train because they're all old and no longer exist I like really needed a 350 but after trying to find a website the url breaks because it won't either have domains or cannot find owner
 
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RailUK Forums

jp4712

Member
Joined
1 May 2009
Messages
505
Open BVE is, effectively, dead. There are few people, possibly no one, actively developing and publishing for it now; and the majority of the servers hosting content have disappeared.

I await the howl of rage from someone who is bucking the trend but there's certainly no longer a large, vibrant community.
 

Mojo

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
7 Aug 2005
Messages
20,851
Location
0035
Wow, BVE, that's a blast from the past! My favourite route was the parody of the Cross-City line, which included stations such as Selly Pine and Bournebrook.
 

MrDumbOfAll

Member
Joined
15 May 2025
Messages
6
Location
Worcestershire,Worcester
Wow, BVE, that's a blast from the past! My favourite route was the parody of the Cross-City line, which included stations such as Selly Pine and Bournebrook.
I've got cross city south as my starter route not sure about if there's another cross city since I don't recognise sellypine nd bournebrook and also that I've been living in Middlesbrough for 10 years I didn't really go discovering new places till I moved
 

365 Networker

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2019
Messages
518

MrDumbOfAll

Member
Joined
15 May 2025
Messages
6
Location
Worcestershire,Worcester

365 Networker

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2019
Messages
518
Whenever I download the 5 files I am not sure where to place them in C:/Users/User/AppData/Roaming/OpenBVE/LegacyContent/Railway (no objects folder in any wo when I make a folder in route it doesn't work either
My folders look like this within the legacy content folder:-
1747477048523.png
Did you name the file "Object" or "Objects" - that may be the issue?
 

Russel

Established Member
Joined
30 Jun 2022
Messages
2,481
Location
Whittington
BVE Used to be great 15 years ago, sadly the community imploded on multiple occasions and it never really recovered.
 

GusB

Established Member
Joined
9 Jul 2016
Messages
7,452
Location
Elginshire
My first encounter with OpenBVE was when I was dabbling with Linux a good few years ago. There was one route and one train, if I remember correctly - it was the Cross City line with the class 323 being the default train. All the necessary files were installed by installing one single package and it all worked quite well.

It was only when I started looking for other routes and trains that problems began.

When I tried to install it on Windows things became a little more tricky. You needed to have certain things downloaded from various sites and, if I remember correctly, some systems such as AWS (automatic warning system) and TPWS (train protection and warning system) didn't always work. Such issues could usually fixed by manually editing the configuration files but it was a bit of a faff.

At one point there was an installer program that made life slightly easier but it wasn't perfect. It's all well and good if you don't mind tinkering to get things working but if you just want to drive trains it was a pain in the backside. I eventually managed to set things up quite well using Windows XP running in a virtual machine but then the hard drive on that laptop died!

I seem to recall someone called "Michelle" taking charge at one point, but I suspect that they eventually became fed up with the criticism and packed it in.

It's a pity that developement seems to have stopped. The Network West Midlands routes were great and I had hours of fun but once I could afford to buy a machine that ran it, I switched to Train Simulator and forgot about Open BVE.
 
Joined
10 Jan 2018
Messages
356
Re-visited BVE 2 content recently by downloading content old websites from archive.org, though had to use OpenBVE as BVE 2 program does not work with Windows 10 I believe.

I remember driving them 20 years ago. Driven some LU Lines and Sandymill Routes, before something even better came along indeed.

Also driven Birmingham Cross-City South, that was a very superior route at the time comparing to other BVE Routes.
 

Flange Squeal

Established Member
Joined
17 Jul 2012
Messages
1,546
Wow, BVE, that's a blast from the past! My favourite route was the parody of the Cross-City line, which included stations such as Selly Pine and Bournebrook.
That was the Hammerwich to Wood Green route. Other Cross City line inspired station names along the way included Arleschurch, Westfield and Four Ways. There were other tweaked West Midlands-based station names too, including Bleakdown and Cragley Heath.

The Hammerwich to Wood Green route was quite an early UK route, and came well before the later (and much more detailed as a result) Network West Midlands (NWM) suite of routes. But the route's first station of Hammerwich was also the last station on the later NWM package, creating a much longer route between the two, albeit unable to drive the two routes in one go.

I remember the BVE community during the mid-2000s, when I'd say it was probably at it's peak and most enjoyable during the transition from BVE2 to BVE4, with a community constantly releasing new things and the existence of the very extensive BVE Trains website. It's a shame that has more-or-less all gone as, while it obviously lacks some of the 'fun' aspect you have from things like Train Simulator Classic and earlier Microsoft Train Simulator (which offer the ability to do shunting, change points, drive routes in both directions and modern things like GSM-R radio inputs etc), from a purely driving point of view I think it's still right up there on the home simulator rankings in my experience.
 
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