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Saturday, 30 October

• Interesting development in the Maple Leaf Tracks story: if you click on their website address, you will now be redirected to a new company called StreamLines.

• We have received an email from Alan (Hogger6060, ID# 53) about the Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives Heritage Collection: "An upgrade patch has been posted on our web site that will correct a few minor problems that were spotted by one of our users. Seems that the boiler tube pilots on the 2816, and 5916 were in need of adjustment." Some of our members have ordered this collection, mentioned below (click here to go down to that news item), so it would be worth their while to download this patch.

Friday, 29 October

• If you have downloaded the latest version of ConBuilder (2.2.8), you might not have noticed yet that there is a new item in the folder - CBklite. It's a stripped-down version of CB with no testing facilities. It lets you produce consists and photographs of the items, and that's it. A very handy little version.

Thursday, 28 October

• If you have the payware route called Michigan Iron Ore (the LS&I route), you can find an update (3Mb file) at www.MLTdownloads.net which will convert your v1.0 to v1.3 and give you a missing consist. Thanks for the news, Jim (Intelvet, ID# 260). Also on that site is an update for the Sandpatch route that converts it to v1.03 - a 1.35Mb file. The site also has a good range of locos and items of rolling stock. You will need to register before you can download from the site, but it's free.

Wednesday, 27 October

• We have added the date of the latest change to the Other Downloads page (e.g. new version of Route-Riter or ConBuilder) to the boxed menu on the right.  The link will take you to the main NETS page where you can log in and download the new utility software. Now you can check for the latest Other Downloads page updates from here, and you won't have to keep visiting the page, just in case there is something new!

• There is a new version of Okrasa Ghia's set of utilities - tkutils - on T-S.com. We have requested permission to host it here on our NERR website so that you can get easier access to it - it will be on the Other Downloads page as soon as we receive permission. On the right is a sample of the output from one of the utilities - Mapper. Click on it to view a larger version of the map. The other utilities are Archibald (an editor for MSTS), Horace (a route converter), and Zipper (compression tool). You must have the .NET Framework installed on your computer (on most recent computers), and you need a bit of patience when you ask Mapper to produce a route. The maps that it produces are not up to the standard of our own cartographers, but they will do as a quick reference if there is no alternative - and you don't need to open the MSTS AE!

Monday, 25 October

• Don't forget about our two subsidiary VRs that focus on the use of payware routes, with some freeware routes to join the routes into a cohesive network. Go and take a look at their websites and read their operations manuals. They will operate differently from the NERR and will be for serious and skilled engineers.

  • Great Lakes & Allegheny - run by jvaughan (Jim, ID# 4) - currently using Kicking Horse Pass II, Michigan Iron Ore (LS&I), the Bridge Line (D&H), and Sandpatch - though there plans to adjust this because of the current difficulty of buying some of these routes now that MLT is in limbo. The freeware routes to be used to form a cohesive network have not been finalised. This VR is open for business and currently has almost 40 members.

  • Pacific & American - run by artimrj (Bob, ID# 1) - currently planning to use Whitefish 5, Cascade Crossing, NERR Hoodoo Pass, Tehachapi Pass II, Cajon Pass, and Clinton Sub. This VR is not yet open for business. The opening is planned for early November. Engineers will need to also acquire a range of equipment packs from payware sites.

Sunday, 24 October

• There will probably not be any new longer articles until next month, as it is not fair to the authors to have them available here for only a few days. For the next week, the material will consist of short news items, assuming that there will be some news!

• I have almost finished installing MSTS again, using the process that was described below on 16 October. I now have 33 routes (plus the 6 default ones), including 9 payware ones. Not all of the NERR network routes are installed. The MSTS folder is 14.5Gb, with 178,250 files in 2,255 folders. Route-Riter gives me zero errors in the Routes. Activity Analysis gives me zero errors in the activities. There are 472 locomotives, 1006 pieces of rolling stock, and 1788 consists in the Trains folder. ConBuilder gives me zero errors in the locos. I have backed up the Routes and Trains folders to another hard drive on our home network, just in case this laptop crashes on me like the previous one did! I'll also burn the folders to a couple of DVDs for more permanent storage. I've even had time to run a few short work orders on a few routes. I really like activities that take 30-45 minutes as a way of relaxing from concentrated thinking work! So make more of these please. Longer ones are for while I am watching movies or long sporting events.

Saturday, 23 October

• Our engineers have submitted over 10,000 time slips since 12 January 2004! The 10,000th time slip was submitted by John Saunders (Hogger, ID# 47) for work order NESE-260-02, developed for the Seattle route in the North West Division by Jim (Intelvet, ID# 260). The work order is one of the most popular for the Seattle route, having been run 16 times this year. It requires the engineer to deliver a mixed consist of 86 freight cars to the yard at Interbay.

Congratulations, John,  on being the engineer to submit the 10,000th work order!

Congratulations, Jim, on being the developer of the activity for the 10,000th time slip!

• Major news item! The developers of some of the best quality routes and equipment for the MSTS VWorld, Maple Leaf Tracks, has closed down their company, not just their website! The company produced routes such as Sand Patch, Cascade Crossing (Willamette), Bridge Line (D&H), Kicking Horse Pass 2, and Michigan Ore (LS&I), together with some excellent equipment packs.

Apparently there are moves by at least one of the partners to start up another company to produce further material, but it is not known at this stage if the current Maple Leaf Tracks material will be part of that. Danny Beck, one of the people involved, made the following statement in a forum thread at t-s.com: "It is the end of MLT and that is even more heartbreaking to us involved. It is also the beginning. The UP pack is still coming... just under a new banner. I am excited about what is going to be a new endeavor. This new organization has me excited about MSTS and whatever future train sims yet to come... We are taking a step back to evaluate a new approach to the business. I think you will all be pleased. The spirit and love for the hobby still remains strong. Long story short... the team may not be entirely the same and the name is changing but we are still here." We hope that the people involved can work out ways to at least keep the existing routes and equipment available, even if it is through a third party company, so that the excellent routes and  equipment are not lost to the VWorld.

The announcement is shown below in a screen capture of the only page now available at their website:

There is also a note from Bill (UK Bill, ID# 286) in a thread on our NERR forums (in the Locker Room) which states that the Maple Leaf Tracks routes, apart from the newest one - Cascade Crossing, are available in boxed form from Contact Simulations.

Thursday, 21 October

• A new development that has appeared first on the Ohio Valley System VR website. If you follow the "Run Through Trains" link on the main page of their website, you will find the first activities that are intended to form a series in which an engineer can drive a work order that covers routes across multiple VRs. On the page are 4 work orders for OVS routes that link with the NERR and 2 work orders for OVS routes that link with the vFBL routes. The page also has links to the OVS locos and rolling stocks that are needed to run the work orders. The NERR and vFBL locos and equipment can be obtained from their own websites.

This is a serious attempt to promote cooperation between various VRs, and it is a great idea. There is a feedback form on the OVS website page so that the level of interest in running these sorts of activities can be ascertained. It is hoped that members will support this initiative - so please consider running the work orders.

• Interesting release of a new route on t-s.com today. The route is the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority route (also known as "The T"). So far, there are 8 of the 16 required files available for download, and they total over 670Mb! One of the files is about 175Mb. Apparently, the author does not trust Route-Riter to compact the files without changing them and so changing the appearance of the route. It does include most trains and consists for the route, as well as the route itself. And it does include all the textures and other files, so there is no need to run an install.bat file - you run what you download. It will be interesting to see what the comments are from the people on dialup or on limited download limits. The author has spent several years developing the route, so it would be a shame not to make it available to everyone, regardless of limitations of the internet.

• Alan (Hogger6060, ID# 53) has sent us a link that will be useful for people who have Maple Leaf Tracks products - www.mltdownloads.net - it is an official part of Maple Leaf Tracks, and it has lots of downloads for their routes, including support for the discontinued version 1 of the Kicking Horse Pass route. There are also some good-looking locomotives in a variety of liveries. You need to register at the site before you can download files, but it's free.

Tuesday, 19 October

• If you like reading about Real World railroad activities and experiences, you will enjoy the website called Tales from the Krug. Al Krug is an engineer with the Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad, and he carries a digital camera with him on the job. He has compiled over 60 photo-essays about his experiences. The photos are great, and the stories are very interesting and easy to read.

Monday, 18 October

• Please note: I left out a rather important step in my story about installing MSTS - described below on 16 October. I forgot to list the installation of the XTracks and NewRoads filesets. I have added that step below in purple to highlight the addition. Thanks to the members who contacted me with that reminder! I appreciate their help.

Sunday, 17 October

• The MSTS installation is going well. I now have a Trainset folder with about 90% of the NERR equipment installed, and there are still zero errors. I have about 6 routes completely installed with all the NERR activities installed and checked. And my blood pressure is still quite good!

• Our final interview for this month is with one of our non-North American members - Paulo Sousa (paulos, ID# 198). Paulo lives in Lisbon (Lisboa), Portugal, and he has been a member since 12 January 2003. He lists his occupation(s) as Quality Analyst, Informatics Technician, Electronics & Computer Engineering Student, and his interests / hobbies as trains, trains & trains (and computers).

Saturday, 16 October

• I have been installing MSTS onto my new laptop this week, and I'd like to share my experience and my process with our readers. This process can apply either a new installation by a new NERR engineer or a re-install (can be shortened a bit if you know your equipment in your backup has zero errors). This is how I am doing it. It is a long and involved process doing it this way, but the end result will be worth the effort.

  •  installed MSTS from the two CDs supplied in the box. I bought it in mid-2002, so it is version 1.

  • opened the Microsoft download site (url on the Other Downloads page of this web site - I knew that I put the link there for a good reason!!

  • installed the train update, the Class 50 loco for the UK line, and the SD40-2 loco for the US lines. Several new items of rolling stock are included in the update. This brings MSTS up to version 1.2, which is the version available in shops now, I think.

  •  installed the tsunpack-fix, which helps to unpack the zipped activity files - making sure that apk files are associated with this program - then I can just double-click on the apk file to install the activity automatically.

  • installed ConBuilder - I use it to check locos and rolling stock. I checked the default locos and rolling stock to make sure that they had installed properly and that ConBuilder was working properly.

  • installed Route-Riter - I use it to check routes, plus a few other things that are not relevant to installing MSTS. I ran RR on each of the default routes to check that they had installed properly and to check that RR was working properly.

  • installed Activity Analysis - I use it to check activities - it is payware, and I have used it for 2 years, so I stick with it. You can use Route-Riter for this task. I checked a couple of default activities to make sure that AA was working properly.

  • installed Train Store. I stored one of the default routes and then unstored it to make sure that TS was working properly. (And yes, I am somewhat - my wife would say very - pernickety about ensuring that things work properly, so I check and re-check.)

  • installed the NERR_Upgrade_1.2 file to upgrade the default rolling stock to NERR standards.

  • ran a couple of short activities on the default routes to make sure that MSTS was working properly. My new laptop has a dedicated video card with 64Mb of RAM (an Nvidia Geforce FX Go5200) - all previous ones used built-in ones with shared RAM - and I can not believe what a difference it makes to MSTS. With that plus 1Gb of RAM, the 1.7 Centrino-powered Toshiba Tecra M2 gives me 30-55 fps, with everything maxed out except for dynamic shadows, in places where the best that I had been able to get was 10-25! I love my new toy!

  • installed XTracks and NewRoads - both available from the Other Downloads page of our web site. Not all routes require this step, but an increasing number of routes need these additional files.

  • Now I was ready to start installing the NERR stuff - at last!

  • I copied the Chippewa Valley route onto the hard drive. If you haven't installed it before, then you will have to do the usual installation steps - unzip the various files and run the install.bat for most routes. If you have installed it previously, then you will, of course, have a copy of the folder on a CD so that you can just copy it to your new installation rather than do the whole installation thing again! I have a copy of my Routes, Trainsets and Consists folders on a network drive on our home network, so this saved my a lot of time. I still ran Route-Riter to check that all the files had copied properly - a few minutes of checking now could save me some MSTS-crash time later. I cleared out all the files from the following folders - Activities, Paths, Services, Traffic. I did not delete them, but moved them to a storage folder, which I'll burn to a CD later - I'm not paranoid; I know that "they" are out to get me!

  • downloaded all the activities for the CW route from the web site (that gives me the latest versions of the activities) and installed them.

  • installed one of the activities - then checked it with Activity Analysis (could have also used Route-Riter) - then installed the necessary locos and rolling stock. That last step is quick to say but rather time consuming to do. I used ConBuilder to check the locos and rolling stock - ran it after installing every 3-4 items. Again, that is time consuming, but once you do it once and check that each item has zero errors, you will not have to do it again (just make a backup of the folder in a safe place, e.g. on a good quality CD).

  • repeated that last step for each activity. The time it took for each activity decreased as more items of equipment were installed and checked.

  • repeated the last two steps for each of the routes.

  By the time that is all done, the installation should be as close to perfect as it can be - no route errors and no equipment errors. That is the aim of the exercise.

• Some handy hints from other engineers about re-installing MSTS:

  • "Once you have installed everything and got it just the way you want it SAVE IT. I have the whole of TS saved in a 12GB zip file (www.Zipbackup.com - mine is paid for but you can download 30 day trial) with incremental backups done every month. To reinstall I just delete and reinstall the default MSTS then unzip everything. Takes around 2-3 hours in total most of it unattended time." (Bill, UKBill, ID#286)

  • "I lost count on how many times I had to reinstall MSTS before I learned to read the instructions with every download carefully. One thing I did was have my son burn all the NERR rolling stock, locomotives on to a CD and then each Division with its unzipped routes onto a CD for each division. We are working on burning the TrainStore files and all the various files I have downloaded over the past few months from t-s.com. so the next time I have to reinstall it will be less painful." (Bill Prieger, ID#269)

  • "One thing I have done after removing the MSTS portion of TS, I renamed the folder to something like Old MSTS Oct12 . In those files are all the rolling stock, all the routes, and all the other things I need - hope it's true! My theory right now anyhow. I will let you know. I have downloaded all the extras from our site.... then have the payware stuff, no problems there." (Alan, Hogger6060, ID#3)

  • "I made a list as well of all the MSTS related items listed in my start panel under Programs. Then when I reinstall MSTS, I move everything back from where I backed it up to, then go back and totally re-install all the items I have listed from the start list. Don't know if it is "needed" but seems to me that it runs better when it is a fresh install. Also do a fresh install on certain cars if, when I save an activity and quit MSTS, I go back to it later, and it fails to load a car. I re-install it and so far it has been coming back up." (Ken, Speedy, ID#276)

  • "The key I have found to reinstalling is to put MSTS on as suggested, and then add your routes one at a time as you want to use them. Ditto with the stock - which I put on one at a time, check with ConBuilder, then the next, etc. This means a reinstall to get up and running takes around an hour. I have also done two things to make life easier. I copy all the Trainset files to a CD - saves having to fix files again. And, with MSTS there are all the little add-ins one likes. These are on one CD, each add-on in a directory numbered 1, 2, 3 etc. Then, I just run through the directories in number order, without having to think. I put this CD together incidentally when Iwas doing a reinstall, and have not looked back since!" (Kevin W-S, ID#239)

Friday, 15 October

• The issue of how to re-install MSTS often comes up in the forums. A few people have taken the time to talk about their process of re-installation - and everyone does it a bit differently. Here's the process that MickyT, ID# 102 from New Zealand, uses:

  • "Install MSTS from the CDs.

  • Install the MSTS updates:

    • trainupdate (general stuff).

    • tsunpack-fix (helps with unpacking activities).

    • class50_content_update (British loco).

    • sd40-2_content_update (US loco). The SD40-2, if not installed, gives a error message in Route Control if you use it.

    • and, if you need them, TrainSimGmaxGamePack and TSgmaxSampleLoco."

    All of the above can be downloaded from the link on the Other Downloads page - log in through NETS.

    • "Install NERR_Upgrade_1.2 to upgrade default NERR stock.

    • Now see if it all works.

    • After that, install whatever routes you require. Remove the non-NERR activities - shift them to other folders or to CDs.

    • If we are talking a clean install, now is the time to install locos and rolling stock.

    • But my usual way is to install one activity at a time, check for missing stock with Route Control, and then install the required locos and rolling stock. Over a matter of months you'll be back where you started. So Route Control would be a utility I'd install about now.

    • I recommend buying the NERR disks for a fast reinstall. All the MSTS and NERR updates are on it.

    • After that, install any utilities you want, Train Store, Sky Conductor, etc."

• Here's an interview with a member of the NERR who is not known to most of you - Gary Kunder, ID# 11. You will come across him only in certain special circumstances.

Wednesday, 13 October

• Over 9800 time slips have now been submitted by our engineers. Who will submit the 10,000th time slip, and when will it be? And which work order will be on that 10,000th time slip? And does anyone really care? Yes, we do.

Tuesday, 12 October

• There are a couple of new files for the Wupper Express 8 route on www.thetrain.de today - a small fix file plus a different sound file + 2 activities.

Monday, 11 October

• The files for Wupper Express V8 are now available on ts.com. See below for some details of the route.

• Alan (Hogger6060, ID# 53) has sent us a link to the Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives Heritage Collection for MSTS. Some of our members have ordered the package, so it will be interesting to hear what they have to say about it when they have run the equipment on a route or two.

On the front page of the web site, it says: "This collection of Steam Locomotives and steam era coaches has been produced as a donationware package to benefit steam preservation in Canada. It includes 9 new unreleased CP steam locomotives, 2 new coaches, and repaints of heavyweight coaches in CP livery." The project has been coordinated by John Fowlis, with material being supplied by a group of people, many of whom are well-known in the MSTS modelling world, "including Harold Clitheroe (who provided the CP sounds and ".sms" files as well as historical background information and feedback and liaison with Canadian Pacific Railroad), Rick Grout (who is the author of those beautiful CP-style cabs), Russ Dobell (the author of the 4-4-0 CP 29 model), Teemu Saukkonen (author of the heavyweight coaches included in the package), Bob Boudoin (for refining the physics on various models)."

"This package has been produced as a fund raising effort for steam preservation in Canada. All funds collected through the sales of the Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotive Heritage Collection, less the cost of CDs and postage, will be donated to organizations furthering that cause. Donations will be made under the name CPHS, and the donations will be attached to a letter explaining the true source of the funds, you the Train Simulator enthusiast. CPHS would like to thank the Canadian Pacific Railroad for allowing the distribution of this package, use of their heritage liveries, and for waiving royalties so that we can provide the maximum possible donation to Canadian steam preservation.

The Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotive Heritage Collection is offered to you for a donation of $12 US or $15 CDN  (this includes shipping to Canada and US by Canada post). International orders (places other than Canada and US) will cost $13.50 US or $17 CDN."

Sunday, 10 October

• Statistics for September: with the data for August for comparison purposes. Now we need to find a way to encourage the other engineers to submit their two time slips each month - the NERR needs the funds! :>)

• The most popular routes run during September were as shown in the table below. This ranking is done simply on the number of time slips submitted for each route - remember that there is a great difference between the number of work orders available for the different routes.

• The new version of the Wupper Express route (version 8) is now available on The Train web site at www.thetrain.de - German and English language web site.

  • It has over 250 miles (400 kilometres) of line. It features the Ruhr industrial region in western Germany. It is fully electrified. It has a new signal system. It covers:

    • Moenchengladbach-Dusseldorf.
    • Cologne-Dusseldorf (with a branch into the chemical complex at Bayerwerke Leverkusen).
    • Cologne-Solingen-Wuppertal.
    • Dusseldorf-Duisburg-Essen-Bochum-Dortmund.
    • Dusseldorf-Ratingen-Essen.
    • Dusseldorf-Solingen.

    • Dusseldorf-Wuppertal-Hagen-Dortmund.

  • Cologne has a magnificent cathedral as the main feature on the sky line. The photo to the right is the Cologne railroad station - click on the photo to open a larger version in a new window. It is on the Rhine River, as is Dusseldorf. The other cities are to the east in the Ruhr valley, except for Moenchengladbach, which is west of Dusseldorf. Click here to view a map of the route from the MSTS AE (this thread from ts.com will open in a new window.)

  • There are 2 zipped exe files in the route download (24Mb each) plus an equipment file (11Mb) and an activity package (1Mb). 

  • It should be available on ts.com soon. 

  • It installs into its own folder called "Wupper 8", so you can have versions 7 and 8 on your hard drive at the same time.

  • There are a lot of fixes available for the equipment that is supplied in the equipment file mentioned above, so if you have problems with it, go to this web site and check the 10 October entry that discusses this route. That web site also lists the extra equipment needed for the activities supplied in the file mentioned above - and the web sites where you can download the equipment.

• And just for something completely different: 

A man who had spent his whole life in the desert visited a friend. He'd never seen a train or the tracks they run on. While standing in the middle of the RR tracks, he heard a whistle, but didn't know what it was. Predictably, he's hit and is thrown, ass-over-tea-kettle, to the side of the tracks, with some minor internal injuries, a few broken bones, and some bruises.

After weeks in the hospital recovering, he's at his friend's house attending a party. While in the kitchen, he suddenly hears the teakettle whistling. He grabs a baseball bat from the nearby closet and proceeds to batter and bash the teakettle into an unrecognizable lump of metal. His friend, hearing the ruckus, rushes into the kitchen, sees what's happened and asks the desert man, "Why'd you ruin my good tea kettle?"

The desert man replies, "Man, you gotta kill these things when they're small."

• And there must be something about a uniform! Obsessive trainspotter, Kenji Hishida, was caught stealing two pairs of trousers from a railroad office in Akashi, western Japan. Police later found 10,000 uniforms in his apartment.

Saturday 9 October

• The Reviews Page has been removed - not enough new reviews to keep it going as a separate page. The two main reviews from that page have been added to the bottom of this month's Ramblings. Future reviews will be added to the main news page with all other news items. 

• Murphy's Law:  There's grim news for people who worry that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. A new mathematical formula has proved Murphy's Law really does strike at the worst possible time. Ordinary people have long known that computers crash on deadline and cars break down in emergencies, while previous studies have shown the law, also called Sod's Law, is not a myth and toast really does fall buttered side down.  But now a panel of experts has provided the statistical rule for predicting the law of "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" - or  ((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10)) . 

After tests of the experiences of 1000 people, they have discovered "things don't just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moment". Now the experts commissioned by British Gas - a psychologist, a mathematician and an economist - say the formula allows people to calculate the chances of Sod's Law striking, and even try to beat bad luck. Project psychologist Dr David Lewis said: "The lesson from this is that, to cut the seemingly unbeatable Murphy's Law gremlins down to size, you need to change one of the elements in the equation. So, if you haven't got the skill to do something important, leave it alone. If something is urgent or complex, find a simple way to do it. If something going wrong will particularly aggravate you, make certain you know how to do it." But he added a note of caution: "There is, of course, a Sod's Law factor to the equation. If you judge your ratings wrongly, you might become too optimistic - and calamity will strike."  

In the calculation, five factors have to be assessed: urgency (U), complexity (C), importance (I), skill (S) and frequency (F), and each given a score between one and nine. A sixth, aggravation (A), was set at 0.7 by the experts after their poll.

Top of the most likely - and most annoying - events was spilling something down yourself before a date and the hot water heater breaking down in cold weather, followed by rush hour being worse when you're already late. 

• Here is an interview with Greg Lane, one of the head guys from Auran, the developers of Trainz. This company was started, and is still based, in Brisbane, Queensland. Trainz was not their first game - that was Dark Reign, which sold over 800,000 copies around the world. That game also led to the development of their game toolset called Jet, which has been another success for them. (The interview was published in the ICT section of the Courier-Mail, our local newspaper.)