Railroad Pioneer Music

[CrownVic95]

I figure there's a fair chance that some of you here may have played or otherwise be familiar with Railroad Pioneer. It was produced by a German company and released just after RRT3 was, as I recall, and it is an interesting and very different approach to the old west railroad strategy game.

Anyway, I have it but hadn't played it for probably 5 years. But the other day its awesome theme music came to mind, so I re-installed it and am now trying to re-learn the game without the benefit of any documentation....which this game is notorious for lacking.

Here is the music that plays while the game is installing....

And here is the opening theme....turn up the volume as it seems to be low

What a joy it was to once again hear some of the finest orchestral arrangement I've ever experienced. If that theme doesn't put goosebumps on you, I can't imagine what would.

Surely that awesome music wasn't composed and performed just for that computer game, right? Or was it? Does anyone, by chance, know more about the source of this music and whether it might be available anywhere as an MP3 download?

There used to be a website for the game, but it doesn't appear to exist today.

[akuenzi]

Hi CrownVic95,

I have Railroad Pioneer at home, though I've never played it. I guess I'm still enjoying RRT2 too much! You're right, the music does sound pretty neat. I've noticed that RRT2's music is all in mp3 files. If a person was able to find mp3 files for RRP's music, would it be possible to dump it into RRT2's music directory, and then hear it while playing RRT2?

I remember there being a website too. I was able to find this one, which appears to still be active:

http://www.railroadpioneer.webs.com/

Maybe the site you're remembering is this one, which I found through www.archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110202055330/http://railroad-pioneer.com/

[jeffryfisher]

If that theme doesn't put goosebumps on you, I can't imagine what would.

Ah, the big percussion and big horns are very stirring, suggesting big motion, like the railroad locomotives in the game.

This being Christmastime, my choice for goosebumps is Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Canon":

(the clip is from a longer movie, hence the two people watching from the front row)

I don't know what that has to do with railroads... maybe "Trans-Siberian" reminds me of the rail line of the same name.

[jeffryfisher]

If a person was able to find mp3 files for RRP's music, would it be possible to dump it into RRT2's music directory, and then hear it while playing RRT2?

I tried putting other MP3s into that folder, but the game never played them. The game must have a file list somewhere, either inside the EXE or written in a config file somewhere. If the list is in a text file, then you could probably add to it. If not, then you could rename files: Call old files by new names and new files by the names the game is seeking.

BTW, It seems as if the game is always playing music even if the music volume is reduced to zero. This probably burns more CPU than the game itself. I like the music selection, but I grew awfully tired of it after my first few hundred hours of playing, so I turned the volume off long ago.

[akuenzi]

... I like the music selection, but I grew awfully tired of it after my first few hundred hours of playing, so I turned the volume off long ago.

I've always thought RRT2's music selection was top drawer, and I still enjoy it. Maybe I'll reach the point you have at some point.

[CrownVic95]

Hi CrownVic95,

I have Railroad Pioneer at home, though I've never played it. I guess I'm still enjoying RRT2 too much! You're right, the music does sound pretty neat. I've noticed that RRT2's music is all in mp3 files. If a person was able to find mp3 files for RRP's music, would it be possible to dump it into RRT2's music directory, and then hear it while playing RRT2?

I remember there being a website too. I was able to find this one, which appears to still be active:

http://www.railroadpioneer.webs.com/

Maybe the site you're remembering is this one, which I found through www.archive.org:

http://web.archive.o...ad-pioneer.com/

Yep - I think that last one is the one I'm remembering....thank you!

Adding the music to RRTII as MP3s is a neat idea, too. My immediate motivation is to be able to add them to my portable MP3 player so I can listen and enjoy on my afternoon walks around the various vista points in my neighborhood.

I had forgotten that the RRTII music is MP3s. So after I read your post, I looked at the directory and double clicked on a couple of songs. I was amazed at how much better they sounded using Windows Media Player - perfect fidelity! So much better than the in game sound that I had to listen for a few seconds to confirm that they were, indeed, the same songs I've heard in the game a million times each. I have run RRTII Platinum for years and, now that I think about it, I recall that the Platinum in-game sound never matched the original in fidelity. I wonder why.

Anyway, back to Railroad Pioneer. Its music files are ogg files and Windows Media Player won't play them - at least not without an additional codec or plug-in. It looks like there's a way to get it to work, but I'm still investigating.

[jeffryfisher]

I take back what I said about adding your own MP3s. I must have been careless earlier and added them while the game was running. In that case, it had already looked up the list of MP3s in its data2 folder and wouldn't see anything new. Either that or I mistakenly copied in music files that were not in MP3 format (such as flv files captured from online players, or shortcuts pointing to music elsewhere).

To get ogg files from another game to play, you would need to convert (save as MP3) each one.

[jeffryfisher]

There's a limit to the amount of music that RT2 can work with in the data2 folder. After adding about 25 MP3s, my RT2 couldn't start; it simply crashed on launch. The limit could be simple file count, or it could be something indirect like the total length of a string returned when grabbing a list of file names (so having shorter file names might allow more files to be used). After moving 25 original MP3s into a new subfolder, the game ran and played the remaining mixture of old and new MP3s.

BTW, I found "*.mp3" in the EXE file. If RT2 uses an embedded media player with a codec to play other simple sound files, then it might be possible to hack that. However, it would probably be easier and wiser to convert other music into MP3 files and not hack the EXE.