Railworks America

I read in the manual that the "testtrak" is actually based on a real-life train testing site...

I can see how and why there would be a need for a "testing track" for trains in real life, but since RailWorks is a "simulator" and already everything is a "test", what is the point of a TestTrak for a simulator game?

Is that a bit like having a holodeck within a holodeck?

I mean surely it is not because we need to save cost of fuel or have scheduling problems in availability of routes/tracks or because of safety concerns... so how does testtrack benefit from other routes and scenarios in the game?

Think of it as a way to test out the latest locomotive or cars that you downloaded, either freeware or payware. I usually like to see how fast the locomotive I recently DL'd would run.

Just don't attempt to do 125 and over on the curves. You will derail almost all the time.

If I just want a plain test track without even all the trees, terrain, houses, etc is there a quick and easy way of doing that? Basically how can I clear all the clutter around me or is it easier to somehow select and copy the tracks onto a new blank map?

As an asset builder, Test Trak is an invaluable tool. If you are building interactive assets, such as signals, you can use that route to test them without worrying about causing problems with a route that you may use quite a bit. I've probably trashed and reverified the TT route five times while building crossing signals and trackside signals. The most common cause was the asset causing the "line 113" error that would not let the route load entirely.