Elvas Tower: Open Rails Utility - UKFS-Fix2 - Elvas Tower

It is quite well known that routes which use the UKFS track system display what has been described as "flickering" or "shimmering" tracks when run under Open Rails. This was first noticed in the Open Rails demo route, which is an extract from Making Track's Scottish Capital Express route.

Although the UKFS author, Tim Booth, was aware of the problem, efforts to contact him over the last two years have been unsuccessful, with his website and email address not now being available. My last contact with him was in February 2016, so it seems unlikely that he'll be able to help.

It has been found, by people more experienced than I, that, by changing a couple of values in each shape file by a set amount, the flickering/shimmering can be eliminated.

Program UKFS-Fix2 was developed to automate this process.

This version uses comp.exe/decomp.exe from recmp119.zip (available from trainsim.com) instead of FFEDITC_unicode.exe making it more universally useable.
NOTE : The compression/decompression times are appreciably longer with comp.exe/decomp.exe

There is no effect on the visual appearance of the modified tracks when used with MSTS.

Full details are in the UKFS-Fix2_Readme.rtf file which is included in the program's installation folder.

NOTE : A partial set of modified UKFS files was released by a 3rd party, but subsequently withdrawn. An attempt to run this version of UKFS-Fix2 on these files will fail due to their later Last Modified Date.

Changes in v2.2
(i) Replacement of FFEDITC_unicode.exe by comp.exe/decomp.exe (recmp119.zip)
(ii) Modify use of 'working' folders due to differences between the operation of FFEDITC_unicode.exe and comp.exe/decomp.exe
(iii) Replacement of a 'dummy' shape file by a check of the Last Modified Date to indicate if the files have already been modified.
(iv) Improvements to the user interface to better indicate progress of the various phases of a run.

Thanks and acknowledgements

- Many thanks to Peter (peterat49), Martin (brace2011) and David (dforrest) for their help in the development and testing of the original utility, and to Bart (bartdude) for checking out this version.
- Background image courtesy of FreeFoto.com (23_07_20_prev.jpg)