SimSchedule

SimSchedule is the proprietary tool used for editing timetables in a format that makes improvements on the older MS Access (.mdb) method of creating and editing timetables.

Structure

Timetables created using SimSchedule are saved with the extension .timetable extension, but internally, the data is a file structure enclosed in a Zip file. You can take any .timetable and rename the extension to .zip and work with it the way you would with any .zip file.

The benefits of having timetable data files inside a zip file (as opposed to tables in an MS Access database) are:

• the data, in its raw form, is human-readable and human-editable
• database developers are not limited to using a single program for editing (theoretically, someone could make a tool to edit the data better than SimSchedule does)
• backwards compatibility (the ability to add new features without breaking old ones)
• data transparency (there are no mysteries in how the data is stored and edited)

Period Templates

Period templates are useful when creating many trains with commonly-used periods in which they run or do not run.

Translations

In order to localise remarks/train instructions in trains, you have the option to construct those pieces of text using short codes that are replaced with localised strings upon loading each train.