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1(a). Where do
you live? How long have you lived there? What
are the three best things about where you
live?
Ambridge, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles north
of Pittsburgh. Have been there about 5 years
now. The best thing about Ambridge is me, my
wife, and our cats live there. I pay $275 a
month rent for a small house with 2 lots.
That's actually why I live there. Ambridge is
pretty run down as with all the other small
towns in this area; when the mills closed,
life changed. However I will be moving in
December/January to a town called Beaver. My
boss owns a condo there and offered it to me
to live in for free until I save some more
money to buy a house on some property. So I'll
get to live in a 3 story condo that's 6 years
old and only pay utilities.
1(b).
Have you moved around much in your life?
Yes. I have moved a lot. I am also tired of
moving. One more move to the condo and then to
my house - that's it. I am 49, and I bet I
moved 35 times. Being married 3 times affected
that a lot, too.
2. Do
you, or did you, have any RW connection with
railroads, for example other family members?
Do you have an interest in RW railroads? When
did your interest in railroads start?
All of my family's older generation were
"mill hunks": they worked for US Steel or J&L.
No one was associated with the railroad. I
like trains; I think they're neat. It amazes
me how they stay on the tracks. All that
weight on 2 skinny rails, going fast. I
started playing with trains before I can
remember. At Christmas time there was always a
train layout under the tree. Grandpap used to
go hog-wild and run the track all over the
house and suspend it from the ceiling! So
everywhere I went at Christmas time, there was
a train to play with. As I got older, I wanted
to play all the time, not just at Christmas.
3. Are you a
model railroad person? If so, tell us about
your involvement - past and present.
Yes. I like HO, mostly because I can still see
it .
Bigger gauges are too expensive; smaller
gauges are, well, too small. I have 2 4x8s
connected in an "L" shape up in the attic that
I play around with from time to time. Once I
get my permanent home, things will be
different. I like to build kits. Nothing from
scratch, but I use several kits to make one
unit sometimes, or put several together to
make different things. I am a "kit basher".
Anyway, I have been collecting and building
things for several years now. They are all
waiting for a home. I like to build little
dioramas that can be added to the layout as
space allows.
As a kid, my
dad fixed up my attic for me by laying down 8
sheets of plywood. One of my friends and I
scrounged everywhere we could looking for
people's old stuff and made a Railroad/Race
car set up using HO cars and trains. We played
up there for years.
4. What
hobbies did you have before MSTS came along?
I build models of all kinds - ships, planes,
cars. My favorites are 1/35-scale Armor. I
like the Japanese Tamiya company for my
models. Then I make them real. I add lead
weight to scale them. I add talcum powder to
the paint, so the guys clothing looks like
cloth. Then enter them in contests.
I played with
ESTES rockets for a few years - build 'em, fly
'em, crash 'em.
My friend and I
built 2 fleets and had our own Pearl Harbor.
We built balsa
wood airplanes and had the Battle of Britain.
I was always
building something.
5(a).
When did you start with MSTS? Why did you
start? Tell us some of your good and bad
experiences with MSTS before VRs.
I started 3 weeks after it came out - only
because I didn't know it was out for 3 weeks.
I got it, fired it up, thought it was cool,
got on the 'net and started looking for trains
and stuff. Found train-sim.com, found the
library, subscribed and started collecting.
Found the 'Heard It On the Wire' page and saw
that ACR had a VR. What's that? Went to check
it out and joined up. Played with TS for 15
minutes and joined a VR.
5(b).
What part of the VR world do you enjoy the
most - running trains, doing work orders, or
...?
I enjoy most of all, all the nutty people that
are doing this with me. I like painting
trains, and even more so since I discovered I
can do the photoreal thingy. I like making
work orders, not especially running them, but
writing them. Testing them, making them work.
Then hearing about how someone else liked them
or not. I have fun with the web site and
programming NETS and well, I am the boss, so I
get to do whatever I want, when I want!
6. Why
did you get involved with VRs? What other VRs
were you with before the NERR? Any good
experiences?
As I said, I joined a VR within minutes of
knowing one existed and within hours of owning
MSTS. I had been playing with Flightsim and
was looking over a bunch of VAs, and I played
war games on several sites that used a ladder
ranking system. So I figured a VR would be
along the same lines. However, things were a
bit different with MSTS. VAs needed a trip
report entry system, a web site, some planes
and a schedule. A PIREP is pretty basic info.
A schedule can be made by going into
Flightsim's planner and just plotting places,
then recording it and making a chart. Then you
post it, and your members go fly it. In the
war games, you played the canned scenarios for
a score: more score - higher rank. You could
not make scenarios, so you played with what
you had.
A VR needs a
website, a timeslip system, a route, a lot of
trains, and a never ending supply of work
orders. Work orders that have to be written
one by one.
Be nice if I
could just say: "Someone take load of boxcars
to so-and-so siding in Explore mode", but it
doesn't work that way.
Before vNERR I
was with ACR - Atlantic Coastal Railway. I
joined and waited and waited and waited. Then
I inquired, and someone got me processed, with
an apology. Everything was new, and it was two
14 year-old kids playing around with MSTS. One
kid's parents had a few bucks and set up a web
site deal for them. The other kid liked being
called a COO but never really did anything. He
was in charge of processing the newbies. They
had an idea of using the NEC route to do
passenger service, much like an airline. They
had 3 activities and a set of skins that you
could use to overwrite the default ACELA with
that had ACR on it. They had a schedule for
AMTRAK on the NEC and hoped to make activities
using this schedule. Then they discovered
writing activities was a time-consuming and
not easy-to-do project. At ACR there was a
Callboard of employees that kept track of
their hours like a virtual airline does. They
needed a volunteer to enter the numbers in the
web page. I volunteered. I was called the HRD
- Human Resources Director. I got to process
all the new applications, welcome the newbies,
assign them a number and get them started. I
got to enter their time on the callboard and
tally it up. While doing this I kept adding
more columns to the callboard, showing more
and more info, then I started doing monthly
totals.
Work orders
were needed. So I opened up the AE and started
doing the AMTRAK Schedule. By the time I
finished the south-bound schedule, I had no
desire to do any more passenger runs to make
the north-bound schedule. Running from one end
of the NEC to the other at different times,
stopping at each station, started to get dull.
It's a 3 hour run at high speed - that's it!
So I decided to
make some freight work orders. Short 30-45
minute ones that played on from the previous
one. I was knocking them out at 1 a day, and
they were a hit. But then we needed more
trains to do freight. So I opened up Photoshop
and pull a TGA file in. I was turning out a
new piece everyday for about 2 months.
The NEC default
route is not very good for freight. So I
wanted to use Marias Pass also. Turmoil began.
I was essentially taking over ACR. We started
talking about programming a timeslip system to
automate the drudgery of tallying timeslips,
and I started writing NETS. The ACR guys had
another programmer working on something else
that I didn't know about. They decided to make
a sub-division using the Marias Pass and call
it the Great Northern Railroad, not Railway.
;) I was in charge of the Kalispell end and
started writing work orders for it and
painting trains just for it. This meant I
wasn't doing any NEC stuff, and focus was
attempted to be redirected to that route. But
too many engineers were looking for something
else to do besides drive an ACELA or HHP from
Philly to DC.
So it was time
to leave. They were holding me back.
7. Why
did you start the NERR?
I needed to be able to do things without the
restriction of someone else's ideas. I wanted
to play trains and not worry about the
semantics of purchasing virtual tickets with
virtual money and other what-not that was cool
but totally useless. I needed to get away from
the teenage mentality that I was associated
with.
8. When
you started to set the NERR up, how did you
plan what you did? What was the sequence of
things that you did?
After doing time at ACR and attempting to get
GNR going, I knew what was needed. People who
were like me; who liked trains and computers
and who didn't have to worry about what their
parents had to say. I knew some good usable
routes were required; ones that could be
virtually connected so a virtual world could
be made.
MR (Martin
Roberts) was working the GNR with me. He had
me paint some trains up, and he started
looking at the coupler-breaking thing that
plagued us in the beginning. Wayne was playing
at ACR. He started writing work orders, but
the "kids" were not following through. He was
starting to realize he was wasting his time.
Jim was attempting to help out the early MRS
VR (I think it was MRS, anyway). They thought
they would exploit us by charging to join
their VR, and Jim said "No way" and ventured
over to ACR just at the time I was getting
ready to leave. Cedric had been writing some
news articles for me, as back at that time we
used FSINN to post news to the virtual airline
community. The ACR CEO must have started
feeling left out of the loop at this point and
decided all correspondence would go through
him first. He wanted to proof Cedric's work. I
quit asking C for articles then.
While waiting
for something to happen with the GNR, I
started making the NERR web site. I laid out
the structure. Picked the colors. Made the
logo, set up the forums and got everything
functional. Forms had to be made for timeslips
and applications. Someone had to receive them,
and they had to contain pertinent info. I had
9 routes laid out to go up the east coast and
across Canada. Made some maps and showed some
connections.
I then started
painting some trains. Lots of trains. 10 coal
hoppers, 10 loggers, 10 of this and 10 of
that, all with different road numbers, and
dirty and clean and faded and not. I painted 5
of each engine, same way.
I made a few
activities, 10 I think. Then I sent an email
off to MR and Jim and Wayne and said; "Go here
and look at this; tell me what you think".
Within a few days we all kissed ACR goodbye
and started making NERR.
First thing was
to cut down the quantity of stuff. 10 of each
was way too many. 5 of each engine was way too
many. We decided on 2 of each engine. 1 of
each piece of stock, unless it was a dedicated
unit train piece, like the coal hoppers and
grain hoppers, then it was limited to 3.
MR wanted to
adjust the brakes and other things in the
engines, including putting FRED lights on
everything. So he developed the NERR Standards
and made all NERR trains the same or the same
proportional values according to their
physical dimensions.
Jim started
writing work orders. Wayne is a RW engineer,
so we constantly asked him how do they do this
and why is this and... All the real world
railroad stuff at NERR is from Wayne's
experiences.
I. You need a
theme. NERR's is continuity; everything
connects.
II. You need a
web site. A good dependable server. No free
ones, no popups, no malware, just a web site.
III. You need
people to help you. A VR would be a hard to do
as a 1 man operation. If you did, it would
have to be small, very small. Or you would
have to be retired.
IV. You need
your own trains, or at least be able to have
some for downloading. I like everything to be
"in house". It just makes it easier for your
members. If you (as an engineer) get
frustrated because you spend all your time
looking for stuff over the internet, you won't
stay very long with the VR.
V. You need a
good route or routes. Pretty scenery is nice.
Locations that are familiar are nice also, but
can you write a functioning work order for the
route using AI trains and passing paths
without getting Mexican standoffs and crashes
and all the other bad things we know about.
VI. As with
anything, you have to put time into it. The
more you put in, the more you get out. The
more people you have putting in, the better.
Essentially a VR is a team effort.
9. How did you
find the early members of your Admin group -
MR, Jim, Cedric, Wayne, Brian?
Mentioned MR, Jim & Wayne above. After the 4
of us started getting things ready, I got a
hold of Cedric and showed him what we were
doing and asked if he wanted to write for us.
He became the Editor-in-Chief of the
Roundhouse Ramblings. Brian was one of the
first people to get an Engineer of the Month
Award. Shortly after seeing how interested he
was in everything, I asked him if he wanted to
help out. He did and hasn't stopped yet.
10(a).
Where / how did you learn the skills in the
areas of painting, skinning, coding (e.g.
NETS, web pages), modelling? Did you have any
background in the area of graphic arts or
computers?
I am
self-taught in all of that, except I can't
model yet. 3D Environments make me dizzy. The
only background I have is that in high school
I took mechanical drawing one year and
drafting the next. I went to a Vo Tech school
my Junior & Senior years and took Civil
Construction - that's drafting, surveying,
architectural work, blueprints, steel &
concrete design and bridge development. I was
#1 in my class and had a full scholarship to
Carnegie Mellon University but joined the
Marines and went to Vietnam instead.
10(b).
Do you think that your background in the
military helped you to set up the NERR? (We
seem to have a lot of ex-military people as
members - by Australian measures, anyway.)
MR, Jim
& Wayne were in, but I do not think that had
much to do with it. I think it is more that I
did not act like I was the boss or owner or
CEO. I don't have to be in charge; I don't
know everything. So my military at best,
helped me to work with people, not for them or
for me. Together as a team.
|
Bob sandblasting granite.
Click the photos to see a larger
version. |
|
The artistic outcome. |
10(c). What do
you do in the RW? - job, hobbies, vacations,
spare time?
I carve
cemetery memorials - tombstones - monuments
whatever you wish to call them (check
out a photo essay at the NERR forums). That's my job.
I have a model railroad that I am dismantling
for the move. I play wargames and fly on my
computer, along with train-sim.
I collect coins
to a small degree. I have all the pennies and
nickels back to 1900, only missing the "rare"
coins. The U.S. Mint has been producing
"State" quarters. I have all of them from all
3 mints.
At present I am
renting my home, but when I owned one, I had a
garden that produced some vegetables -
tomatoes, radishes, onions, carrots, parsley,
cucumber & peppers. I grew strawberries in
another part of the yard. I like flowers. I
built flower boxes around all my trees and
sidewalks, and anywhere there was dead space,
and planted flowers. I had a 90-foot driveway
trimmed on both sides with 5 rows of a
different color and size of flower. I can grow
things. I have 4 cats. 2 are like dogs, they
get a lot of my attention. Another is a lap
cat, she fights for attention, and the other
is dumb as a rock - he I just worry about. But
I give them some catnip, and then we go on a
mouse hunt. I buy small cloth mice, stuffed
with beads. They come a dozen in a pack. We
must have 80 of them, but we can never find
them. I lift up the couch and chair in the
living room, and they help me locate the mice,
under the fridge, under the microwave, under
the sink, under the bed, under everything.
Then we pile them up in the middle of the
room, and they attack them, or I toss them
around and in a few minutes they are all gone
again. Funny thing is, some of the cats have a
favorite mouse. A particular color or texture
or chew marks or whatever they are thinking
that makes it their favorite. When I pull out
a favorite, their eyes light up and off they
go, flipping and grabbing the fake mouse.
11. How
has your role in the NERR changed over the
past 2+ years? When you started the NERR, is
that what you thought would happen?
Yes my
role has changed a lot. I started it with an
idea, found some good people to help me, we
got it going, and more people joined in. Each
started and some are still doing separate
projects that connected to the whole thing.
Essentially it was my VR when we started. But
when the other ideas started coming in from
the 3 other guys, it also became theirs. As we
grew, the engineers were also allowed a say in
things, and it became theirs. NERR went from
me making a place to play to a living entity.
No, I never expected that. I don't think
anyone did. We made the rule of two work
orders a month to stay active. I do not think
there was ever anyone who only did 2 for the
month. We had 10 work orders when we opened
the doors and figured we were good for 5
months, since you only had to run 2 a month.
Two days later it was, "Are there anymore? I
ran all those already." If you make the
activities, they will run them. Good or bad.
It doesn't matter. That's all you can do with
train-sim, run work orders. It's like sex,
even bad sex is good.
12. What
future changes do you think might happen in
the NERR?
With the
help of Brian and a few other people, I hope
that the NERR will be completely automated. We
are programming several addons to the NETS
environment. We are making the WCN for new
engineers a self-paced, self-help program. The
same thing is going to happen to our training
academy. By setting up visual aids and walk
through scenarios, anyone should be able to
apply, go through orientation, become an
engineer and go through the training academy
without asking anyone anything, Right now we
have a team of people dealing with new
engineers and training. This team of people
could be doing other things besides overseeing
students and new hires. The way I see it, you
have to own a computer to play train-sim and
get on the 'net. You are most likely using
your CPU for other things as well. So it all
boils down to how well you can follow
instructions. If you can follow them, you will
get into the NERR. If you can't, then maybe
you should be doing something else. Our
application and WCN process does not require
rocket science to understand. Too much time
over the years has been wasted trying to help
people that do not wish to learn to help
themselves. There 250 names on the callboard,
but I have over 700 in my notebook, and that
was before NETS. I have no idea how many have
come and gone since NETS. You are going to be
able to come and have fun at NERR but not at
the expense of others. This I feel has to
change and the automation I hope will do this.
13.
Where do you think that the NERR will be in
3-5 years' time?
It will
still be here. Whether it will still be using
MSTS, I don't know. If MSTS is still runable
on systems in 3-5 years from now, we will more
than likely be up to 2,000 work orders by
then. If people still keep making new routes,
and interest in general is still going for
MSTS, NERR will still be using it.
14. If
there is a new train simulator in the next
couple of years, how do you think that will
affect the NERR? How do you think the NERR
should respond to the new simulator?
If a new
simulator comes out that is better, we would
go that way. When we can't use MSTS any more,
we will have to use something else. I think we
will welcome it with open arms, but then again
Trainz is still there and we haven't done
anything with it yet.
15. Why
did you start the P&ARR? Where did the name
come from? How did you choose that area of the
USA and those routes?
I
started P&A so I can do some things that I can
not do at NERR. If I tried to implement some
of the P&A ideas at NERR, it would just piss
a bunch of people off. At P&A, you know what's
happening when you come in. It is a whole
different ballgame. I don't have to worry
about pissing anyone off at P&A, because it is
different and it is the way I am doing it.
I
chose those routes because Jim over at GL&A
beat me to the other ones. I didn't want to
use the same ones as him, so I took all that
was left. I don't have a particular interest
in the West Coast – I was stationed there for
a while – no real interest in going back.
16. What
do you want to get out of the P&ARR for
yourself that the NERR does not now give you?
P&A puts
me back in the action on the ground floor. At
NERR I am just observing and giving a push
here and there from time to time.
17. Where will
the P&ARR be in 3-5 years' time?
The same
place NERR will be, online and having fun only
on a smaller scale.
18. You
have produced a lot of the trains and
activities for the NERR. Have you ever thought
about building a route? If you did build a
route, do you have an idea of its location /
area / era - fictional or prototypical?
If you have no interest in route building, why
not?
I have
started 5 routes. Finished 0. Lots of work and
time goes into route development. I don't have
the time to do it. I started modeling the
Conway Yards here at home. At one part it is
180 tracks wide. 180 tracks does not work in
MSTS; it bogs down too badly. I have reworked
the MP3.1 route and extended it fictionally. I
purchased the original Tehachapi Pass (the
developer's edition) and started adding
scenery to it. If you want to play with the
route editor, you can't be doing anything
else; it takes all your time.
19. What
is your favourite existing MSTS route -
payware and freeware? Why?
I really
don't have any favorites. The ones we use at
NERR are all good; that's why we use them. At
P&A half are commercial routes, and they are
excellent. I chose several freeware routes to
go with them that are of commercial quality.
Whichever one I am driving on is my favorite.
20. Your
favourite locos - RW and NERR and P&ARR? Why?
Same as
with the routes. I don't have any favorites. I
drive 'em all.
21(a).
If you could make one or two changes to the
NERR right now, what would it/they be?
I would
make people use their real names instead of
handles. I always hated handles. Some have one
handle on the callboard, another in the
forums, another in their signature, then some
have other handles on other systems. You can't
figure out who is who without a scorecard
sometimes.
If I would have
known all I had to do was make some work
orders using payware equipment and people
would have bought the stuff needed, I would
have made the VEB - Virtual Extra Board for
NERR. But now we have P&A and GL&A using
payware. The impression we got from all our
polls was that the majority were not
interested in purchasing anything.
21(b) If
you could make one or two changes to the VR
world right now, what would it/they be?
Make it
a common rule to not mix politics and religion
with trainsimming. Keep your religion to
yourself and your politics as well. Other
changes would be to eliminate some people from
the scene entirely.
22. What
irritates you the most?
People
who think they have a better idea and insist
that it is the only idea, and yours is
worthless. If I would have insisted my way was
the only way, there would be no NERR right
now. It would be where MRS and ACR, vBNSF,
vCONRAIL and all the other wanna-be VRs are.
Dead. People come to NERR, they do not even
run 1 work order or download 1 train, and they
tell me "this should be this way, not the way
you have it", on their first post to the
forums. Then when you disagree, you are "no
good", "blind", "Don't want things better".
Yet they are disagreeing with me from the
get-go. If I return their same remarks in
disagreement, then I am really no good. It
would be like me coming in your home and
telling you your paint on your walls should be
3% darker to enhance your lifestyle. Then when
you disagree, I go ballistic, and we become
enemies. Over what? A lot of people keep
forgetting this is a game. Sometimes I am
really glad I make tombstones.
In the other
world, there are the people who come in to buy
a monument and want "The Biggest we have" to
show their status in the cemetery, and then
the people who buy the smallest possible
marker and want everything on it, and the
people who are in a hurry and need their
marker by "x date" for their Beloved Whoever
that died in 1948.
24. What
is your favourite type of work order? Why?
No
favorites here either. Sometimes I like to
play passenger train driver and go from
station to station keeping up the timetable,
and sometimes I like to switch in a yard and
build a train, sometimes I like to drive the
train I just built.
25. What
do you believe have been the greatest
successes in the MSTS world and the NERR? Are
there things that you would like to see
developed in the future, either in the NERR or
outside it?
I don't know. I would have to say that the
greatest success is MSTS itself. They gave us
a simulator that we could add to, and we have
been doing nothing but adding to it since day
1. The greatest success of the NERR would have
to be the fact that it is still alive and well
and growing. It has had bad servers, and
idiots terrorizing it, and bad servers, and
more idiots trying to change it to their way,
and bad servers, did I mention bad servers?
Look at it now. Even people who hate it are
amazed it is still alive.
26. How
can the ordinary NERR member contribute to its
continued success?
Keep
doing whatever they are doing. Each engineer
contributes in their own way, whether they
realize it or not. Even the guy who just runs
the work orders and never says anything in the
forums is contributing to the success of NERR.
That's what NERR is - a place to play with
trains for free. All you have to do is be a
civil human being, and you can play there too.
As long as people are playing, they are
contributing.
27. What
else would you like to tell us about yourself,
your family, your ...?
I hate
birthdays as they are just another milestone
to remind you of the successes you have not
made yet. |
The
In
1954, a typhoon sank five ferry boats in Japan's
Tsugaru Strait and killed 1,430 people. In response
to public outrage, the Japanese government searched
for a safer way to cross the dangerous strait. With
such unpredictable weather conditions, engineers
agreed that a bridge would be too risky to build. A
tunnel seemed a perfect solution. Ten years later,
work began on what would be the longest and hardest
underwater dig ever attempted. 
This
is the name taken on by the Central Division of the
NERR and used for activities and equipment used
within the boundaries of the division. They have
developed a range of activities using their own
equipment in the brown and gold livery. You don't
need to join - as an NERR engineer, you can run
their activities as part of the NERR NETS. And just
as a piece of trivia: