HeavyRailCar

Infantriewagen

schwerer Panzerspähwagen (s.Sp Heavy Railcar)

HISTORY

These heavy armored rail cars were introduced in 1944 and saw service in Russia and Yugoslavia, and after the war Czechoslovakia used some until the mid 50s. (see skins note, below)

Although each of these cars were self propelled and could, if necessary run independently, they were designed to operate in a train of about 20 cars. But, in practice the self propelled rail cars often did operate independently or in small numbers, due to battle conditions and fuel shortages.

There seems to be some confusion regarding the name of these vehicles. It is an s.SP heavy railcar, or Schwerer SchienenPanzer (Literally "Heavy Rail Tank"). It has been referred to as a Draisine (which means hand trolley), or a PanzerSpähwagen (Tank reconnaissance car). While PanzerSpähwagen may seem appropriate, the name is commonly associated with Armored Cars (Sdkfz. 222, Sdkfz. 223, Sdkfz. 231, etc..) The s.SP's were produced by Steyer in 1944 and 1945, for the Deutsche Reichsbahn. They weighed approximately 18 ton, with 20mm armor plate. They were powered by a air cooled 76-HP Steyer motor which was a bit inefficient to move such a heavy car (bad gas mileage). They could operate singly, but the Reichsbahn had envisioned them to be in a complete Armored Train.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Create a new folder called "RBIinfantriewagen" (or the name of your choice) in the subdirectory ...\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\Trains\Trainset.

2. Unzip the entire contents of this ZIP file into your new folder. This will place all the files in that new folder, plus CABVIEW and SOUND subfolders will be created which will include appropriate .ace, .cvf, .sms, and .wav files.

3. The rail car will show in the Consist Editor as "RBIinfantriewagen". Create a consist for use in MSTS, using the Activity Editor, or using a third party consist editor. Directions for creating a consist are on the Train-Sim website.

OPERATION of all MSTS s.SP's created by Port City

The model includes reasonably accurate controls, but the horsepower has been increased to handle the MSTS terrain and also a trailer or two. The maximum speed of the Rail Car has been set to 55 KPH, as was the prototype. The various levers are set to resemble and operate in the familiar MSTS world.

We have placed, you the driver - looking out the front viewing slit. But we suggest you use using your keyboard from the turret view for greater visibility. The passenger view (key 5) initially places you in a position to run the car from the keyboard, while you look over the front gun. It also provides a superb view from the turret. You may pan to other views by using the arrow keys. If you do not wish the passenger view, which will preclude a passenger view in trailing cars, instructions for disabling are found in the .eng file, which should only be opened in WordPad, to preserve the Unicode format.

BRAKES - APPLICATION
Considerable time has been spent on the brakes, and they have been adjusted to mimic those of the era. There are only four positions: Release, Hold (or Lap), Service Application, and Emergency Application. These brakes do not provide graduated release. You will soon get the hang of it, and you will be emulating the driver or operator of this equipment.

LIGHTS
The headlight is a regulation search lamp of the era. It has been adjusted to provide forward light in the dim - and scenery lighting in the Bright position. There is no night view texturing.

LEGAL
Because this program is royalty free, it is provided WHERE IS, AS IS, WITH ALL FAULTS, and WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE or any other warranties. There is no liability by the authors in your use of this program, instead all liability is assumed by the user.

CREDITS:
3D graphics and textures for car body and cab by William Hall
Physics, brakes, sound, .eng file and bounding box adjustments by Chuck Zeiler
Lights and additional adjustments by Paul DeVerter
Research and development assisted by:
Dean Kleffman, Andy Konst, Jack Rehatschek, Ted Ahner, Robert Fraunfelter and Randy Burton.

Skins

Colors: Olive green camo or red-brown with chips dirt and rust.

Note: in the absence of good documents and color pictures, some initial liberties have been taken. We understand the Germans painted their WW2 armored trains using the same guidelines as for their Panzers. (We are using the pattern from Armored train 205 in Czechoslovakia 1945. This armored train was used by the Czechs after the war without repainting beyond over painting the German crosses). If your planning to reskin these models, for what you believe is greater accuracy, please send us a copy for our files. - Thanks.

DOWNLOAD INFORMATION

FREEWARE

Please Download this model from Train-Sim LIBRARY - key word "rbiinfa.zip".

If you are having a problem downloading - please contact us.