1. What the heck is this?
Quite simply an application to remove custom routes from Rail Simulator because someone at Kuju didn't think of it!

2. Disclaimer

Rail Simulator is property of KUJU, RSD, EA, Fund4Games and maybe some other people.
Either way, it's not mine and I am not associated with them in any way.

LEGAL STUFF: I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY USE MADE OF THIS APPLICATION. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY COMPUTER DAMAGE, FILE DAMAGE ETC. THAT RESULTS FROM IT'S USE. ALL SOFTWARE IS USED AT YOUR OWN RISK. INSTALLING THIS APPLICATION INDICATES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS.

I have tested this application extensively, but it could potentially mess up your Rail Sim installation by the nature of what it does (ie, changes files and deletes folders). By installing and using it you are accepting that I've done my best but it's still freeware written by some guy who's doing it in his own time and can make mistakes!

3. Installation
First off, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you back up your current routes folder if you haven't started messing with the routes yet. Even if you have, if you want to start over and make it all nice and clean do a fresh install of Rail Simulator, that would be a good idea.
To back up the routes:
- Open File Explorer (you can get it from My Computer in the Start Menu, or press the Windows key and "e" at the same time.
- Navigate to your installation of Rail Simulator (the default location is C:\Program Files\Rail Simulator), to navigate to means just keep clicking on the folders listed and they will open up.
- From here right click on the "Content" folder, and select "Copy"
- Ok, now you need to pick somewhere to put it all. If you're not sure where, how about navigating to "My Documents\My Games". Right click again and select "New" and then "Folder" in the menu that springs out. Name the folder "RS Content Backup" or something similar so you know what it is.
- Now open your new folder and inside it right click and select "Paste"
- Now wait... probably go have a cup of tea as it's nearly 500Mb of files to copy

Right, now we have an emergency back up (if you chose to do it) so we can get installing.

Unpack the files in the zip file and double click on "setup".
Follow the prompts as you would any other software install. Click finish at the end.
To uninstall go to Start Menu, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and select "RSRouteRemoverSetup" and follow the prompts.
You're done!

You will need to the .NET framework 1.1 and 2.0 installed for this application to work. Chances are you already have them, but if you ran setup and it told you to get lost this is probably what's missing. Just run Windows Update and select custom update, then in the Software folder you will find the 2 updates you need.


4. How does it work?
Good question, I'm glad you asked!
In their infinite wisdom Kuju didn't provide a method to remove user created routes from the standard install of Rail Simulator. Whether the advanced tools will do it is yet to be seen as they don't come out for 3 weeks as I type this.
I had a look at the files/folder structure and found the naming convention for the new route folders and where they matched the routes.xml file. It was also confirmed by  Albert_pf in this thread http://www.railsimulator.com/node/164 on Rail Simulator's forum.
Nice advice from Albert if you understand xml a bit but scary for your average user, so being a software developer and needing some practice (and thinking this application would be handy for me as well) I set about writing something to do that for you. And here it is.
And here is how to use it:

Firstly: DO NOT USE THIS WHILE RAIL SIMULATOR IS RUNNING! I haven't tried it cos frankly it could be very ugly! Exit out, delete junk routes, then restart.

Simple:
Start the application (there is a shortcut in "All Programs", "Rail Simulator Tools")
If you installed Rail Simulator in the default location it will run and either tell you that you have no custom routes, or will list them in a drop down box.
Select the route that you want to remove, and click "Remove Route". Confirm with "Ok" and that's it. It's gone.
You can only remove custom routes, not the ones supplied with Rail Simulator, HOWEVER, if RSD provide more routes later they WILL show up for removal, so be aware.
That's it, enjoy.

Advanced:
Ok so you want to know all, or it didn't work right with the simple instructions.
The File menu allows you to set the Rail Simulator default folder. If you need to do this, you will be told when you start the application. Just select your install location from the pop up.
You can also type it directly into the RSRouteRemover\Settings\DefaultFolder.xml file in <DefaultGameFolder>
Also in this file you will find entries marked <DefaultRoute>
Any folder listed within these tags will not show up in the delete list, mainly to protect the default routes, but you could also add any other routes you want to be ignored so they can't be deleted by the application.
From the file menu you can also refresh the list.


Finally, if you get any bugs or questions please email me at bad_karma5@hotmail.com, and I will do what I can to help.
I really like Rail Sim (despite it's release bugs and issues) and hope we can make it something really special.

Thanks, Pete (Oct 17 2007)

Oh, and thanks to http://www.icomania.com/ for the black lump that is the icon!