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31 March

• 1  new work order  for you today - on the East Metro division - NEEM-268-01a. It's 10:35am on a clear autumn day. For the next hour, you will be driving a pair of U23Bs plus tank cars, box car, and caboose in part 2 of the Oil City Local work order. In this part you will perform the switching tasks at Oil City to set out the delivered empty tank cars and supplies, and prepare your train for the return trip to Big City with the loaded tank cars.

29 March

• The latest  NERR Award of Excellence  has been given to Rick Foss, aka silvermeteor (ID# 42). The award citation reads:

"Rick has been with us since September 17, 2003. Rick has created many of our maps and graphics on the site. He also has been instrumental in the opening of a new VR and can always be counted on to help out. Thank you for all the hours of fun! Rick Foss is a model engineer."

The boxcar issued to commemorate Rick's award can be downloaded from the Download Roster page.

•  Mike Simpson, the developer of Route-Riter , the MSTS utility that many of us regard as essential to our sanity when we use MSTS and install new routes, work orders, and equipment, posted the following message at t-s.com a day or two ago:

Mike also posted the message at the forums at UKTrainSim.

There was an immediate wave of responses from all sections of the MSTS world saying how much they would miss having Mike's program available to them. Many said that they would contribute now, using the PayPal link on the program's front page.

Mike later posted the following message:

Now, to make sure that Mike does not feel that we do not appreciate his much hard work and wonderful utility - and the amazing speed with which he responds to requests for additions or changes or patches, please consider either or both of the following:

• Send Mike a message in the NERR forums (or the other forums, or by email) to let him know the positive benefits that RR has had on your enjoyment of MSTS.

• Send Mike a $ contribution to help him with the costs of continuing to provide us with a brilliant add-on to MSTS.

• If you are into graphics work in MSTS, you should note that  AceIt v1.3.1  is now available over at t-s.com. "AceIt is a program designed to produce Kuju ace format texture files from many common image formats. It is intended to be used as a replacement for the makeace and makeacewin tools. DirectX 8.1 or higher and a graphics card capable of 32-bit Direct3D modes are required. Now includes 16-bit dither optimizer. By Scott M. Miller Also includes TGATool2a by Martin Wright."

• If you have the payware  Niagara Corridor route  from Maple Leaf Tracks, you can now download the cab update for the locomotives that are supplied with the product. You will find the 15+Mb download on the Maple Leaf Tracks website.

• Joe has posted an update for the  North Coast Railroad  route in the NCR forum section of the NERR forums - it's a 1.9Mb download that adds to the flexibility of the route for our work order developers.

• 1  new work order  for you today - on the Full Bucket Line - NEFB-100-8: You will be in charge of a GE 44 ton diesel locomotive for this work order today. It should take you a bit over 2½ hours for this one. It consists of a yard switching job to assemble Train 200-2 in the Fort Fairfax yard. The switch list is in the documentation, but, just to give you a taste of what you are in for, here is a summary:

  • Pick up #619 and 620 from Siding 4 and set out on Siding 1.

  • Pick up #308 from Siding 1 and set out on Siding 2.

  • Pick up #113, 114, 115, 116, 1024, 636, 617, 915, and 710 from Siding 1 and set out on Siding 3.

  • Pick up #545 from Siding 2 and set out on Siding 4.

  • Assemble on Siding of your choice:

    • For ST JOSEF: Cars # 605, 609, 1213 and 1214 from Siding 3;

    • for YONDER: Cars # 614, 615 and 1022 from Siding 3;

    • for NEWTON: Cars # 542, 544, and 546 from Siding 4, 535 from Siding 2, 703 from Siding 3 and 536 from Siding 2;

    • for LAKE HURST: Car #621 from Siding 4;

    • for PROVING GROUNDS: Car# 905 from Siding 3; and

    • for MOUNT OLIVER: Cars # 1012 from Siding 4, 433 from Siding 2, 1013 from Siding 4 and 434 from Siding 2.

  • The final consist should be 19 cars. This will be the pickup for NEFB-100-8A.

  • This work order will terminate when you run #1044 to FORT FAIRFAX WYE 2.

And that's it! That should keep your palms sweaty for a while!

28 March

• A  new Fun page  has been started today. The previous one is archived and available through links on the Archives page and the current Fun page.

• You can find some great looking French locos and rolling stock at the Project ESK page, including a TGV, steam locos, a very interesting railcar, crane set, electric and diesel locos, passenger coaches, and some DMUs. And there are plenty of French routes available to run them on.

•  Other Downloads Page : Route-Riter version 6.2.55 is available. Mike Simpson, the developer of R-R, writes: "New options - 'Fix .CVF files' to fix bad CabView entries, and a new option on the Unicode Editor screen to automatically insert Sound and CabView aliases into .ENG files. There is also a new, separate Help file to find out how these work."

27 March

•  Other Downloads Page : Route-Riter version 6.2.53 is available. There was another update (6.2.51) yesterday, but Mike was too quick for us and brought out this latest version. The changes in the two latest versions are:

  • v6.2.51 - "I have fixed a bug in the 'Fix .Eng' option whereby it was possible for the WagonShape entry to be accidentally deleted from an .eng file. The Fix .sms option has been improved; it fixed automatically around 80% of 500 bad .sms files on a test system. The MSTS Path option on the Files menu has been improved so that invalid paths can no longer be input. "

  • v6.2.53 - "Includes a new option to Activate/Deactivate Routes in MSTS. This works similarly to the program 'Routes on/off' but works on systems with multiple installations of MSTS. Deactivating a route simply renames the route's .trk file (e.g. Europe1.trk to Europe1.off). Reactivating it turns the route back on. This makes MSTS load much faster. Using this option will also show which routes are on/off, and for users of TrainStore this will indicate which are probably in store (but will not unstore them for you). "

• 2  new work orders  today - you can get them from NEAWOS. A quick preview for you:

  • Chippewa Valley - NECV 110-SF03g Cascadia Loads - Special Freight. You climb into your SD70 with the AC6000helper and leave at 1915 hours on a clear summer evening. Cascadia Mines Inc. Hoodoo Pass District plans a large expansion of their mining operations, due to the discovery of very large high grade ore deposits. To gain access to the ore bodies, new tunnels (drives) need to be driven from the existing mining area to reach the ore bodies. Then new mining galleries need to be built, so that mining of the ore can commence. Many materials are needed, including explosives, treated logs, shoring fixing systems,  cement, heavy machinery, and
    new drilling equipment. Also new railway lines for the underground haulage system. You need to collect the required loads from various NERR Divisions. In this work order, you will transit through the Chippewa Valley District.

  • North Coast Railroad - NENC-018-04. You and your USRA 4-6-2 (Pacific) work a passenger run from Alderpoint to South Fork on a clear spring morning. Once a week, Train 20 heads north from Willits, stopping at all the logging camps, shifting the logging crews in and out. You're driving Train 20 today, continuing on up towards Scotia. This is part four of the work orders for Train 20.

• Another  new/revised route  is now available at t-s.com - the "BNSF/UP Route Whitefish 6 (2 zip files totaling something over 60Mb) - Sandpoint & Eastport. It requires XTracks (any version). It now includes Stryker-Eureka, Bonners Ferry and Sandpoint reworked. Major update, rework and extension of Route Whitefish 2 (BNSF Kootenai Subdivision)."

• And if you are into  payware routes , Maple Leaf Tracks has recently released its first new route since the break-up of the company. From their website:

 "Niagara Corridor  is a recreation of Canadian National Railway's Dundas Subdivision. As part of the CNR's corridor through Southern Ontario, Canada, it has high speed Via Rail passenger service, Norfolk Southern trackage rights runthroughs, as well as an unending number of hotshot, wayfreights, and heavy manifests of Canadian National.

The route starts in Hamilton, Ontario, at the Western end of Lake Ontario through the world famous railfan location of Bayview Junction and climbs the Niagara Escarpment at over 1%. It then levels out across some of Canada's heartland agricultural areas and urban centers. Many industries dot the right of way with yards and stations all modeled to give the look and feel of the region."

25 March

• 5  new work orders  today - you can get them from NEAWOS. A quick preview for you:

  • CGW route - Transit through the Chicago Great Western District from Stockton to Chicago. Pick up Helpers from the Helper siding. Pick up the consist from the East Stockton 7, and then pick up the original consist from East Stockton 5.

  • A passenger work order that is the final leg of Ike's trip to Florida.

  • 3 passenger work orders on the North Coast route - 2 Passenger runs taking loggers to camps, with some mixed freight duty also, and 1 that is a continuation of a local passenger/freight run northbound from Willits.

24 March

•  Other Downloads Page : Route-Riter version 6.2.49 is available. It was developed a couple of weeks ago but has just been added to our website.

• As far as I know, there has been no update to the version of ConBuilder that is currently available on our website - 2.3.28.

23 March

•  Other Downloads Page : The latest version of XTracks (3.13), with Build 29 of the Global tsection.dat file, is now available in self-extracting form - easy for everyone to install.

• There are 17 rookies involved in the WCN induction program, all but one of whom joined in March. It's great to see new engineers joining up.

• In the next few days, the HR Department will be following-up on engineers who have not fulfilled their commitment to submit 2 NERR time slips each month to ensure that they still want to be members of the NERR. If you are in this category, you have until the end of the week to bring your callboard entry up to date. If you don't, then there will be a number of new yellow entries on the callboard.

• And there are still a good number of MSTS  routes under construction  or just released in both North America and Europe - a great sign that the MSTS VW is still strong. These routes include:

  • version 9 of Wupper Express and a new version of the Stadtbahn tramway route available soon.

  • Maple Leaf Tracks has released their new Niagara Corridor payware route.

  • a new Dijon to Paris route in France is progressing well.

  • the LIRR line into Brooklyn, along Atlantic Avenue - an elevated route that will include freight movement opportunities - not yet finished.

  • available now from t-s.com - the Norfolk Southern Pocahontas District Route 1.0, which runs from Bluefield WV to Williamson WV. Deep within West Virginia coal country, the Pocahontas District covers 250+ miles of double track mainline and numerous mine branches.

  • also from t-s.com - GM&OSS "The Springfield Switch". This route traverses the corn and hay fields of central Illinois around the Springfield area. You can see Lincoln's Tomb off in the distance, and the Illinois State Capitol and lots of farmland while running the route.

  • and also the Mountain Electric 1.0, a fictitious re-decoration of the default Europe2 Orient Express route into an electrified, mountain-based shortline, including a connecting interurban/trolley system, with a scenic touch and a circa 1950s-1970s North American touch. Total track length about 100 miles, fully scenitized, signalled, and set-up for 7.2m NEC wire height.

  • and also the DownTown Trolley 1.0, a fictitious route system for trolley and interurban running, electrified at 6.2m wire height (Mesaba standard). It is made up from eight urban branches and two interurban branches of circa 65 miles in total, plus a few miles of non-electrified mainline tracks ("static" tracks trick, yet player accessible). The route is fully signalled and equipped with interactive objects.

  • and also the Clinch Valley District Route, v1.0. Part of Norfolk Southern's Pocahontas Division, the Clinch Valley District takes up trackage from Bluefield, WV to St. Paul, VA. This version however only runs from Bluefield, WV to Cedar Bluff, VA. Pocahontas Division engineers agree this virtual recreation to be very accurate.

  • the new Yorkshire East Coast route in England - available from UKTrainSim.com.

  And the list could be added to, if we could find all the European routes, including the UK ones still being developed.

22 March

• Normal service will be resumed at the start of April, but there will be a few news items during the next few days. Note that new material has been added to the Fun page today - laughter is more important than the rest of the news!

• Some  time slip statistics for February 2005 :

• Some  work order statistics for February 2005 :

• Some  Divisional statistics for February 2005 : These were taken directly from the main NETS screen. Remember that the Divisions do not have equal numbers of engineers (NE = 84. SE = 31. CT = 41. SW = 49. NW = 63.).