Combining Routes?

[Nitsujy12345]

This may be impossible, but I'm not an expert with how Railworks files are saved, so any help would be appreciated.

As many know, the CSX Hanover Sub route was just released. Hanover is about half an hour from my hometown. For the past couple years, I've been recreating York, PA down through Hanover, PA, using Google Maps overlay. Conveniently, where the Payware route ends (Porters Sideling), is right where I left off on my own route. For my own personal use, is there any way to literally combine one route with another?

[ZekTheKid]

It is entirely possible. If the coordinates line up perfectly it should just pop into place. It's been done with the NYNH and NJCL routes, but I'm not sure how it was achieved.

[krellnut]

Both routes would have to have the same start coordinates in order for that to work. If both routes have the same start point, roads, scenery, and everything else will be in the correct location. Different start points, they won't. If you would have used the Hanover start point for your route, then flew to where you want to add, it will work.
The only thing you can do now is add to the actual CSX route, if you want.

[Nitsujy12345]

Would the ‘starting point’ be the route origin? If so, my route began in York, PA, which would not be where the Hanover route’s origin is.

Does railworks relate all the scenery/tracks/etc to the route origin, and is that why a different origin wouldn’t work? If that’s the case, I take it there’s no real way around that, other than having to move all of the scenery to the right spot

[BoostedFridge]

Would the ‘starting point’ be the route origin?

Yes.

Does railworks relate all the scenery/tracks/etc to the route origin, and is that why a different origin wouldn’t work?

Correct. All of the tiles are named based on their position relative to the route's origin cooridnates.

[RailWanderer]

The assets and terrain locations are based off the start position world coordinates and uses an offset from the start location to create the locations. So, if the two routes had different start locations the offsets would created alignment problems.

[SAR704]

And not to mention world tile conflicts. Rather than create a separate route, you are probably best off releasing your work as an extension to the existing one.

This was done with the Feather River route with no major issues from what I can tell.

But if you wish to merge the route, I'd suggest acquiring the starting location of the original route, importing all the world tiles and scenery from the original, then place your track plus scenery items and whatever else, and then deleting the original so as not to rerelease someone else's work.

Using this method will enable you to bear less liability for anything going wrong. But gaining permission of the author may be helpful as well. This reminds of when someone went to modify my MSTS midnorth route WITHOUT my permission. I politely asked them to remove all screenshots and evidence of it taking place.

[Nitsujy12345]

My route is just something I’ve been making for personal use, with no intention to release. It would be impossible to release this considering I used just about every DLC asset I own to make this route lol

My goal was to finish my route down through Hanover, and merging the two routes would just save me a lot of time. If it doesn’t work out, that’s fine, I can just make it myself. Thank you to everyone for the input!

[thebigroyboyski]

It is possible to merge routes with different start points.
It has been done with a few UK routes like the East Coast Main Line which merges 5 routes into one and the West Coast Mainline from Preston to Edinburgh which merges 3.
I have no idea how it is done but it is possible