Roundhouse Ramblings

Claude's Corner
 Taz's Tales
Old Heading  24 April  
Railroad Slang

 April 2005

   24 April  Non-NERR News
  29 April  Other Downloads
  27 April  Fun Page

Send news, articles & other material to us. All contributions used with gratitude!!

 

30 April

  • And just to end this month on a humorous note (we can't be serious all the time around here, can we?! ) - do you know the  longest website address  in the world? Try this one:

www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk/

  • 2  new work orders  for you today:

    • BRS-MN-0004 - Monon route (you will need the Bison Rail equipment to run this work order). At 1.00pm, take your Bison Rail EMD SD40T-2  from Louisville to Vernia - it should take you about 1 hour. Along the way, your work order is as follows. You and your crew have finished lunch from the KFC restaurant on your right and are ready for work! Proceed forward to the yard beside the Ohio River (note that the bridge is closing for you, but you don’t go that way!). Uncouple your caboose near the forward end of siding on which you entered the yard. Proceed using manual switching to pick up the autoracks on your right and then pick up your caboose again. Move forward and admire the river port facilities. At North Wye, reverse at the reverse point (ask permission at the red) and then manual switch to drop off your consist on the first siding in the yard opposite the engine sheds. Reverse back past this yard and pick up all the parts boxcars on the furthest siding, the first two boxcars only from the middle siding, and all the boxcars from the remaining siding. Pick up the rest of your autoracks with your caboose. Proceed forward through town onto the left siding before Vernia. Uncouple the caboose where advised, before you reach the siding to the unnamed Ford Auto Plant on your left. Manual switch to reverse and drop off the autoracks on the outside siding at the plant (when the rear car is at the end of the shortest building). Drop off the remaining cars on the inside siding (when cars are inside the building). Couple to your caboose and keep reversing until the work order ends on that siding.

    • BRS-FS-0021 - Frisco Fort Smith route (you will need the Bison Rail equipment to run this work order). Just before noon, climb into your Bison Rail EMD SD40T-2 for a 1 hour trip from Zero Mountain Storage to Springdale. Proceed out of Zero Mountain Storage and head for the wye after Fay where you turn train around.
      Do not come out of the wye before 12.10pm, as you need to wait for the passing tanker train on the main. If you arrive later at the wye, the tanker train should wait for you to enter the wye before it proceeds. Proceeding back up the hill, manual switch to pick up the soup reefers at Campbell Soup #3. At Fay yard reverse to pick up more soup reefers at Campbell Soup #1 & #2 (be careful on the steep grades). After Ralston Purina, manual switch to drop off the rear 3 reefers at Steele Can Co siding on your left. At Springdale yard, drop off the 3 remaining reefers at Steele Canning #2 yard space, then go forward past siding on right and then reverse onto it (manual switch) and drop off the boxcars at Springdale Warehouse. Take the engines to Yard Track 1 where the work order will end. Soup for lunch?

  • Extracts from an RW news item earlier this month: EMD is now successfully transferred from General Motors to an investor group led by Greenbriars Equity Group and Berkshire Partners. It has been renamed from Electro-Motive Division to  Electro-Motive Diesel Inc . So even though it's no longer GM EMD, it's still called EMD. (Electro-Motive Diesel). The new company will continue to be based in LaGrange, Illinois.

The sale covers almost all of the Electro-Motive businesses, including North American and international locomotives; power, marine and industrial products; the spare parts and parts rebuild business; and all of Electro-Motive's locomotive maintenance contracts worldwide. Both the LaGrange, Illinois, and London, Ontario, manufacturing facilities are included in the sale. Electro-Motive employs approximately 2,600 hourly and salaried people. The company designs, manufactures, markets, sells, and services freight and passenger diesel-electric locomotives and diesel marine and power generation products for use worldwide. Since the early 1930s, Electro-Motive and its associates have produced more than 58,000 diesel-electric locomotives for customers in 73 countries. Electro-Motive diesel engines are used in over 100 countries worldwide. They currently produce the SD70M-2 and SD70ACe freight locomotives, plus the GP20D road-switcher. Earlier models included the SD90MAC, SD60MAC, SD40-2, GP30, E8, and the GP7.

  • Interested in MSTS routes in France? Then www.funtrain.net is the website for you.  28 prototypical French routes  and 6 fictional French routes are listed and linked to download sites. Take a look - it will take just a few minutes of your time to appreciate the skills of the route developers.

 

29 April

  • On the  Other Downloads  page: Route-Riter v6.2.64 - fixed a few bugs in the buttons which listed unlinked files, now gives a count of files in the Common folder.

  • The  Bison Rail System  team have just released a 16-part work order series for the Wenatchee & Cashmere route (the 10 mile shortline based around timber and oil). Together, the series adds up  to about 5˝ hours' driving time - switching and mainline running with some automatic switches and some manual switches. This series is is based on moving timber around the route. It is a well-thought-out series, with good, clear  instructions. I have run it, and it's great fun. What's the catch? It's available only to BRS engineers, so you need to join to access it.

 

28 April

  • Mike Simpson, the developer of Route-Riter, has posted the following information on his website:

Route-Riter - Setting up Common Shapes/Textures for MSTS

(ONLY for XP users with NTFS file system and RR v6.2.59 or higher)

The 'Holy-Grail' of MSTS users has always been to have a 'Global Folder' for Shapes and Textures. Up to now, this has always been considered virtually impossible to achieve.

However, following some work done by 'Mdanie' on uktrainsim.com and suggestions from other users, it has been discovered that, at least for users who use Windows XP with the NTFS file system, it is possible.

XP includes a command 'Fsutil Hardlink Create file-A file-B' - this in effect places a directory link for file-A pointing to the position of file-B on the hard drive. Deleting either A or B has no effect on the other; the file is only removed from the drive when both A and B are deleted. These files appear in Windows Explorer with exactly the same entries as before, so folder size, etc., remains the same. The difference is in the free space on the drive.

In my case, I had two versions of the London South-East route on my E: drive - one in my main MSTS installation, one as a mini-route. The saving by using a common folder was 740Mb for a single route.

In RR v6.2.63, I have implemented this to some extent using a new tab 'Link Shapes/Textures'. The procedure is as follows:-

1. Set up a Common Folder (use the button 'Set up Common Files' under Misc Options) - You may if you wish then click the 'Copy Default Files to Common' so that all the default files are now in the common folder. Note: The Common folder MUST be on the same hard-drive as your MSTS folder, usually in your Routes folder. The hard-drive MUST run under XP with the NFTS file system.

2. Select the Common Folder from the Files menu (once you do this once, it is saved for future use and should not need to be selected again).

3. For any route you wish to use this option with, you should now copy the Shapes/Textures/Terrtex/Envfiles/Sound folders into the Common Folder (use the 'Copy Route Files to Common Folder' button).

4. Select the Route as usual by clicking the Confirm Route button .

5. Click the 'Link all Files to Common Files' button and the hard links are set up.

6. Check your hard-drive free space before/after.

Note: In some cases, files in the Common Folder might have the same name but be different to the one used by a particular route. A crc check is made, and if different, then the file is not replaced by a hard link.

The above is somewhat experimental, so I would suggest experimenting only with routes which you have backups for, in the early stages of the development of this capability.

In v6.2.63, I have added two further buttons:-

1. 'List Hard Links in Common Files' shows you a list of all the files in the Common files folder and how many links each file has. A reading of '1' link means that the file is not linked to any route, so it may be removed to reduce space. There is a button on this screen which will delete all unlinked files.

2. 'List Linked Files in Selected Route' shows which files in the route are linked (once again, those showing 1 link are unlinked - the single link is the link from the file name to the file on the hard-drive).

  •  Looking for some work orders to run  at the end of the month to make some extra $$? Well, the ones in the table below have all been on our books for a while, and the customers are getting upset because we are not running them often enough (less than 4 or 5 times). We need to keep their business - can't let the road transport companies over at www.truck-sim.com take over our customers. So let's run some of these this month.

Chippewa Valley
  • NECV-256-01c - 1 hour
  • NECV-010-BR14a - 35 minutes
Montgomery & Mobile
  • NEMM-260-Yard-Work1 - 45 minutes
Ohio Rails
  • NEOW-150-01b - 1 hour 15 minutes
  • NEOW-150-01c - 1 hour
  • NEOW-150-01d - 55 minutes
  • NEOW-079-03 - 1 hour 30 minutes
Marias Pass
  • NEMP-026-23I - 2 hours
Dual Fictional
  • NEDF-026-23H - 5 hours 30 minutes
Hamilton Norfolk
  • NEHN-018-10 - 2hours
Wisconsin Central
  • NEWC-Xmas-Train - 41 minutes (I know that it's not Xmas, but it doesn't matter!)
East Metro
  • NEEM-092-02 - 1 hour
Full Bucket Line
  • NEFB-E01-EB - 45 minutes
Monon
  • NEMN-018-08 - 10 minutes
Newark & Jersey City
  • NENJ-026-09 - 3 hours
Raton Pass 2
  • NERP-018-01b - 1 hour
San Diego & Arizona
  • NESD-018-2 - 1 hour

 

27 April

  • From the  Other Downloads page  today: Route-Riter version v6.2.63. Added buttons to delete unlinked files from the Common Files folder, and to show how many files are linked, both in the Common folder and in a Route folder.

  • 9  new work orders  today, for a variety of our routes:

  • NEWH-152-06b - Whitefish 4. You leave from Troy at 11.15am in your Mikado on the third part of your journey from Sandpoint to Whitefish. This is a work train designed to service the lumber industry. Since your arrival in Troy it has started to rain, and the forecast says that it might turn to snow before your hour-and-a-half journey is over. (This work order is designed to use the automatic fireman, although you can do it manually. As always, save frequently and play it safe with the speed and crossings. But above all, have fun!)

  • NEFS-117-01-BR01 - Frisco Fort Smith. Drive a Bison Rail EMD SD40-2 from Rogers to Fort Smith, leaving at 9.00am on a clear, spring day. You should be at Fort Smith before 11.00am. Pull forward across road but stop at the W sign before the main line. If you look behind you, you will see a priority tanker train approaching on the main. He will stop at the entrance to yard; you should then reverse slightly so he can see that you are waiting, and he will then proceed past you. When the tanker train is clear, go onto the main and reverse (using manual switching) on to the siding on the left and pick up the lumber cars at Brashears Lumber. Proceed to the Formam Lumber siding (about MM 351.5) and manual switch to reverse to pick up the lumber wagons there. Continue on the main past the Campbell Soup 3 siding, where the dispatcher will give you instructions to allow a local freight to pass at Fay Roundhouse Track. Proceed over the Ozark Mountains peak at Winslow and then down the scenic Arkansas River valley to Fort Smith (MM 414) on the set path. Drop your consist on the Fort Smith Yard 4 siding. Go forward, following the reverse point, and stop on the Fuel siding, where your work order will end. Refuel and refresh before the next sector!

  • NECV-117-01-BR01 - Chippewa Valley. Drive a Bison Rail EMD SD40-2 from the West Route Connection to Cornell Yard, starting at 12.30pm for about 2˝ hours. You have taken on some helpers from Fort Smith, as there are some heavy pickups to come. Proceed up the valley and past US Rubber, when a reverse point will appear. Reverse at the point beside Larsen Lumber onto the Dells Pond Siding, and then go through the first side of the wye. Continue reversing until the dispatcher tells you where to drop off your lumber wagons in the US Rubber yard. Then move forward with your engines only and turn them around through the wye. Reverse onto the main and proceed to EC Industrial and pick up pipe wagons. Return to Dells Pond and run the train through the wye, and then continue reversing to pick up the lumber wagons that you dropped off previously. Head forward onto the main, and if you are passing Larsen Lumber around 14.18, a tanker train will run by on the other track and on past Hallie with you. Continue to Chippewa Concrete, and stop on the main and uncouple from your consist. At the reverse point, reverse your engines to pick up the waiting consist with the helpers attached. Couple the new consist to your waiting consist on the main and proceed to Cornell. At the Cornell Yard you will receive instructions on where to leave the wagons so that you don't block the level crossing and where the work order completes. Onward to Cascadia Mine in next sector!

  • NE-HP-090-BR01 - Hoodoo Pass. Starting at 6.00am and ending at about 8.00am, you will take a Bison Rail EMD SD40-2 from Trentwood to Helper Station #1 on a snowy spring day. This is the first part of a 4-part series of work orders.

    Introduction to the BR/CT Contract with the South East Division - the Background: The South East Division requested assistance in providing resources necessary to expand operations at Cascadia Mines as follows: "Cascadia Mines Inc 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  mining of the ore can commence. Many materials are needed, from explosives. treated logs, shoring fixing systems, cement, pipes, heavy machinery, new drilling equipment, and new railway lines for the underground haulage system. Cascadia Mines Inc is looking for expressions of interest in transporting these materials, from their present locations to Cascadia Mines Hoodoo Pass. As much as possible, NERX rolling stock will be used in the transportation of the contracted loads. The BR&T will supply the necessary motive power in the SE Division, and if necessary, arrange to lease more locos to fill all needs. "

    After performing one of the first day operations, an engineer is selected to continue operations on the second day. Operations begin at Trentwood Yard by assembling all of the consists from the first day operations into one large train for delivery to Cascadia Mines. After assembly, the train is taken to Cascadia Mine, picking up and dropping off helpers (provided by SE) as needed. After arrival at Cascadia Mines, the train is disassembled and placed on sidings determined by negotiations with SE Division, and the engines are placed on the diesel fuel track.

  • NE-HP-090-BR02 - Hoodoo Pass. Part 2 of the 4-part series. BR/CT has gathered all the portions required to satisfy the contract with the SE division. All contract items have been assembled into your train. Helpers are required to take this long, heavy train to Hoodoo Pass. This work order is the second in the second day of the series. You must pick up the helpers, take the train to Hoodoo Pass, drop off the helpers, and reattach to the train. You will encounter pass through traffic during this work order.

  • NE-HP-090-BR03 - Hoodoo Pass. Part 3 of the 4-part series. BR/CT has gathered all the portions required to satisfy the contract with the SE division. All contract items have been assembled into your train, and it has arrived at Hoodoo Pass. This work order is the third in the second day of the series. You must take the train down the mountain to Cascadia Mine. You will encounter pass through traffic during this work order.

  • NE-HP-090-BR04 BR/CT - Hoodoo Pass. Part 4 of the 4-part series. This work order completes CT's requirements to satisfy this contract.

  • NENC-018-05 - North Coast Railroad. At 12.20pm, you climb into your Pacific 4-6-2 steam locomotive at South Fork. It's spring, and it's raining. Once a week passenger 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 towards Scotia. The rain just started coming down as you pulled in to South Fork a few minutes ago. Thankfully, you're nearing the end of the run. You're ten minutes off-schedule, due to all the switching down the line, but it's especially important to get to Shively by 12:35 at the latest. You're meeting freight express Train 41 there. Make sure you're on the siding there by 12:35 at the latest to let it on through. This is part five of the work orders for Train 20.

  • NENE-061-10a - North East Corridor. You climb into your NERX locomotive at 7.00am on a clear summer's day. Today, you are running from East Avalon via CSX to Elk Creek Munition, Edgewood Army Arsenal. After your pick ups, you will deliver the train to the Bayview Yard.

 

26 April

  • We haven't had a look at the  current existing VRs  lately. Here is the current listing of the routes that they offer their members, taken from their websites:

    • Pacific & American - 43 members - 3 divisions, mainly payware routes:

      • Kings Gate - Cascade Crossing, Whitefish 5.

      • Mojave - Cajon Pass, Tehachapi Pass 2.

      • Belle Plaine - Clinton Sub, North Coast Route, Hoodoo Pass.

    • Great Lakes & Allegheny - 62 members, payware routes:

      • Kicking Horse Pass 2, Michigan Iron ore (LS&I), The Bridge Line (D&H), Sand Patch.

    • Bison Rail System - 45 members, potentially 5 divisions:

      • Bison Rail Midwest - Chippewa, Monon, Wisconsin Central, Hamilton Norfolk, Fort Smith Sub, CGW.

      • Bison Rail Narrow Gauge - Sumpter Valley - using Narrow Gauge equipment.

      • Bison Rail Europe - CityLine_U79, Wupper Express 8 - using German and European equipment.

      • Wenatchee & Cashmere RR - using WCRR, BRS and default equipment.

      • Bison Rail Australia - Under Construction.

    • North Eastern - 305 members - 5 divisions (numbers below in brackets are the number of work orders for that route):

      • North East - North East Corridor (49), Newark & New Jersey (30), Ohio Rails (57), LGV Med (13), Wupper Express (8), Unterland (10).

      • South East - Hoodoo Pass (52), Montgomery & Mobile (17), East River (23), East Metro (19), Florida Funnel Line (10), South Rail (14).

      • Central - Chippewa Valley (43), Wisconsin Central (36), Frisco & Fort Smith (14), Hamilton Norfolk (28), Monon (47), Niederelbebahn (10), Blue Mountains (10).

      • North West - Dual Fictional (93), Whitefish 5 (24), Marias Pass 3.1 (46), Seattle (30), Clinton Sub (4), Lehigh Valley (20).

      • South West - Full Bucket Line (66), Glorietta Pass (22), Raton Pass 2 (20), San Diego 2.0 (10), North Coast Railroad (9), Melbourne - Ballarat (9).

    • Ohio Valley System - 169 members, 2 divisions using the Ohio Rail Build 10 plus 2 others:

      • Shortlines - Canton, St Louis & North Arkansas, Arkansas & Ozarks, East Metro.

      • Narrow Gauge - Rio Grande Southern.

  •  Word of the Day : Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - what does it mean, and how would you use it in a casual conversation?

 

25 April

  • Only a week until the end of the month, so new material on this page during the next week will be limited to short news items. We'll start the new month with a couple of interviews with members - you will get to know two of our active engineers and very active forum contributors a bit better. And we'll publish an article on another of our steam locomotives - the Mountain 4-8-2, following on from the one on the Mikado earlier this month.

  • If you ordered the  Donner Pass  payware route from 3DTrainStuff ("90 miles of extreme mountain railroading over the high Sierras back in the 1950s"), you shouldn't have much longer to wait. The news is that the first bunch of CDs has been posted.

But, from an even more reliable source, we hear the following (thanks, kip [ID#57]):

"Having been in contact with Brad Brown and John Dunbar recently, I pretty much got the inside scoop from them concerning CD printing and distribution ... Here's the scoop: Donner is huge. It is packed to the gills with goodies, and I'm not including the stock. So ... after the release announcement, Brad and friends proceeded to make the copies for delivery, and guess what? The entire route package and stock is too big for one CD ... it needs two. Yup ... that big. I emailed some suggestions to 3DTS, and I was told that the situation is now under control, and shipping will commence very, very soon. This week I bet.

Now ... let me say this: Brad recommends a high-end system to run this route. It eats up resources. Every item in the route was made entirely from scratch. Dozens upon dozens of terrtex files; buildings that are true to prototype from plans and photos of the 50s. Trust me, I know! When I started this project almost 2 years ago, I understood then that it would be set in the "transitional" time period (steam to diesel). That means making all the "goodies" that no longer exist. Anyway ... that's a lot of stuff to cram into 1 route 90 miles long. Remember ... Tehachapi and Cajon were desert routes ... Donner is a mountainous, forested and "snowy" area. Tons of objects to transpose to make the proper environment  Not easy.

So ... it's done and will be coming to those that ordered it very soon. You're really gonna like it. This is probably the best route EVER made..."

  • Handy Hint: From time to time, we get queries about the problems of uncoupling using the  front coupler . Here's a solution from Robert Reedy - "Set your independent brake to about 30% or so. Then reverse using notch1 and slowly release your independent brake until you are just moving - less than 1mph for about 5 yards will do it. Uncouple as you go. If you have more cars than will show in the F9 window, simply uncouple them in series, one group at a time. This will work about 99% of the time. In fact, can't ever remember it failing for me."

  • On the  Other Downloads  page: added the Czech language pack to the Train Store section of the page.

 

24 April

  • We have a new  Old Heading  article from Bill Prieger (ID# 269) - about trackside Defect Detectors.

  • We hear that Tony Formoso is upgrading  Train Store  to version 3.2 - it will be available in May. User-requested new features will be in the new version, including the use of multiple stock lists in a route, path lists in maintenance mode, and integration with Paul Gausden's Shape Viewer to view stock and consists. It will be necessary to install Shape Viewer separately.

  • There are enough versions of the route with the word  Whitefish  in the name to confuse most people - especially your writer. However, here is information that will help to make the situation clearer. The information has come from a usually-reliable source, but no guarantees are given. If there are errors, please contact us. The various versions of the Whitefish route are:

    • Whitefish (v1) (Chuck Dollins).

    • Whitefish2 (v2) (rework of v1 by Matthew 'Batt' Smith).

    • Whitefish3-Hawk (rework/retexturing of v2 by Haken 'Hawk' Peterson).

    • Whitefish4-Hawk (continued rework/retexturing of v2 & Whitefish3hawk by Haken 'Hawk' Peterson). WF3Hawk and WF4Hawk by Haken Pettersson are in essence redecorations of WF1/2 (Chuck Dollins/Batt Smith). Hawk's main aim was at considerably improving vegetation & terrtexes, plus minor object placements, but WF2 tracks were kept.

    • Whitefish5 (rework of v2 + extension by Ren?ump). WF5 by Ren?ump is a full rework of WF1/2, including track re-laying, a prototypical straight Flathead tunnel, major terrain corrections, many new objects, and the Spokane/UP line from Sandpoint to Eastport via Bonners Ferry.

    • Marias-Kootenai (v3.0 Marias/v1? Whitefish by Frank Carver)

    • Whitefish 6 ( rework of v2/v5 - Ren?ump) (hopefully pre-1970). This version extends the route from Stryker over Eureka to Lake Koocanusa, i.e. the non-flooded part of the old route before the Libby Dam and the Flathead Tunnel were constructed. This section roughly reflect a 1970s' status, not the downgraded Eureka Subdivision as it is today. Additionally, Libby yard, the whole Bonners Ferry area, and Sandpoint were remodeled, distant mountains improved, and signaling remade from scratch. Plus a few eye candies (Katka Canyon wilder, animated tunnel gate at Twin Meadows, some sidings lengths made prototypical, etc.)

    • Whitefish 7 ( continued work on v6 - Ren?ump) - not yet released.

    • sooner or later Kootenai/S.I. Line (? - macster).

 

23 April

  • An MSTS route that was released on train-sim.com a few days was the  London & Port StanleyRailway . The route's developer has published a comprehensive coverage of the route on his website, much our own Robert Reedy did for his Dual Fictional route. In the introduction to the L&PS route, he says: "Presented here is the London & Port Stanley Railway as it was in about 1927. The route traverses 24 miles of rural countryside from London, Ontario, Canada to Port Stanley on the Lake Erie shore. Electrified in 1914, the line operated a number of unique passenger and freight motors, many of which you will see here. The 1920s were an exciting time for the L&PS, with both freight and passenger traffic hitting near-records. The beach and amusement facilities at the Port provided a popular destination for area residents and generated much of the passenger business. The line enjoyed significant freight revenue through delivery of loaded coal hoppers from the Marquette & Bessemer car ferry to customers all along the route. The L&PS interchanged with four major steam roads, providing a source for additional traffic in both freight and passenger transfers." He has a mile-by-mile set of pages that tell the story of the line in both words and very good pictures taken along the MSTS route, and a page listing the equipment used on the line, along with photos of the equipment. He states that his aim in modeling the route was historical accuracy.

The picture to the left shows a model for the L&PS route from the Train-sim.com file library - "The No 2 Interurban for the London & Port Stanley Railway - a 1914 Jewett Motor Car, 61 feet long and weighing 47 tons. Model by Wayne Campbell, which includes a cab view. Sound by Chuck Zeiler." There is also a GE 44-tonner diesel locomotive available in the same file library. And there is a wide range of interurban equipment - both passenger and freight - available there as well.

If you are looking for something different from the heavy duty routes that make up much of the inventory of MSTS routes, then this might be just what you need.

  • Do you have any of the routes (e.g. Sandpatch) on which the activities end with an "Activity Failed" message if you don't sound the horn on the locomotive before each and every grade crossing? Does it annoy/aggravate/enrage you? There are two ways that you can switch this feature off, but both of them are tedious.

    • Do these steps for each crossing on the route:

      • Open the route in the Route Editor and find the crossing.

      • Select the crossing object to get a wire-frame, and then right-click on it.

      • Click on the "Level crossing" tab and then edit "Crash probability" to be 0.0%.

      • Click "OK" and Save.

    • The second method involves going to the .W files of the route, opening and checking every one for "CrashProbability" lines. When you find one, set the value in it to zero (0). To open/close the /W files, you must use a Unicode editor, such as Wordpad (or a recent Windows XP Notepad).

 

22 April

  • Back on 10 April, I wrote: "The North West and South West Divisions were the only ones in March which had 5 engineers from their own rosters in their top 5 tables  - showing the most time slips submitted. The NE had 3 of its own engineers in its table, the Central had 3, and the SE had 0." With 3/4 of April having almost gone, the situation now is as follows:

    • the NE, NW, and SW all have 5 of their own engineers in the top 5 in their divisions,

    • the SE has 2 out of 5, and

    • the CT has 1 out of 5.

    What does this really mean? You decide! I just report the facts!

  • Back on 1 April, I wrote: "Which work order was run the most times in March? I can't tell easily from the statistical tools available to me." Well, I still can't tell precisely, but I have had a quick perusal of the time slips that have been submitted so far this month. No work order appears to have been run more than 8 times, and there are a few that have been run that many times - mainly the new ones. But the "old faithfuls" like the Grainmove work order for the Wisconsin Central route keep being run by a couple of engineers each month.

  • 11 rookies have graduated from the  WCN  to become NERR engineers so far this month, and we have 10 others who are currently going through the WCN program. Congratulations to Dan and his very, very small team for helping these people start to make the most of their MSTS experience!

  • Do you know  when MSTS was first released  onto an unsuspecting world? Keep watching the news page - we'll remind you. The date varies, depending on where you live - we'll take somewhere in the middle.

  • Note from Bob Burrows (ID# 126): "This may be old news (the utility certainly isn't brand new), but it has helped me through some very computer resource-intensive routes and activities.  FSAutostart  was originally developed for Flight Simulator but works equally well for MSTS. It's a utility that shuts down unnecessary processes that run behind the scenes in your computer to give MSTS more 'headroom' to operate in. There have been a number of programs that do that, but this is by far the most comprehensive and flexible that I've seen - plus, it does a memory defragmentation so that more contiguous chunks of memory are available. It's a free download from here.

  • Even though  our three current columnists  have not sent us any new material for a while, the links to their pages will be kept at the top of the news page, as their columns are of ongoing interest to our readers. The information in the columns is not current affairs or short-term news items, but rather comment or educational.

 

21 April

  • For some thing different:   Interurban rail lines  developed as direct competitors of regular rail lines in many parts of the U.S.A. Very quickly after city street railways were electrified, companies were set up in the late 1800s and early 1900s to run frequent, inexpensive, high-speed trolley services between cities all over the United States and in many parts of Canada. These trolleys were  larger and much faster than intra-city trams or trolleys, and were called 'interurbans'. The map to the right shows the interurban networks that existed in the Midwest. The map is incomplete, as it shows only the electric lines.

The interurbans had several advantages over the steam railroads:

  • The electric interurban trolleys were very economical to operate, so they could carry passengers for less money, so the fares were cheaper. The lower operational costs allowed them to provide more frequent service than the steam railroads.

  • The trolleys had powerful electric motors and were able to accelerate much more rapidly than a steam locomotive, so they were able to keep to faster timetables than the steam railroads could. Even though the interurbans often made more stops in country areas than the steam railroads did, they could still maintain a faster schedule because of their faster acceleration.

  • Because the trolleys could make more frequent stops, they became popular with farmers (to move their produce) and other people (to move passengers) who lived in rural areas. The interurbans were thus able to serve a market that the steam railroads could not serve economically.

  • The trolleys entered the cities and towns on the rails of the local trolley line, so the interurbans could bring their passengers directly to the business districts. The railroad depots were usually some blocks away from this area of the city, so their passengers had to either walk or hire a vehicle to take them to their final destination.

There at least three interurban routes (and a good collection of equipment to run on them) for MSTS at train-sim.com, including:

  • L&PS Bathurst St. Yard - represents the switching yard of a small electric interurban line located in London, Canada in the 1920s. Twelve car spotting locations and a compact two track yard with run-around.  This is the newest and smallest (1 tile only) interurban route at train-sim.com.

  • DownTown Trolley 1.0 - a fictitious route system for trolley and interurban running. It is made up of eight urban branches and two interurban branches of about 65 miles in total.

  • Mesaba Electric -  an interurban line that ran across the Mesaba iron range of northern Minnesota until 1928. There are four different railroads in this route:

    • 1. The Mesaba Electric is the primary road, and runs from Hibbing to Gilbert, via Kitzville, Chisholm, Buhl, Mountain Iron, Virginia and Eveleth.

    • 2. The Great Northern runs from Hibbing to Virginia, with a branch to the Glen Mine, and another branch diverging to Chisholm.

    • 3. The Duluth, Missabe & Northern runs from Hibbing to Virginia.

    • 4. The Duluth Winnipeg & Pacific only exists in the Virginia area, and extends north of there.

  • Want something else a little different? Try an MSTS  route from Hungary ! The Z-Line, a Hungarian fictional railroad, has just been released here. "This is a Hungarian fantasy line, about 400 km long, in which several main and secondary routes, and two border stations, can be found. In the Szombathely, Nagykanizsa, Dunaújváros, Székesfehérvár square the terrain is true to life. The stations in Z-line were named after some Hungarian towns and railroad stations. Since in TS the simultaneous use of the electric and non-electric lines is very difficult, the overhead-wire pylon shows whether the line is electrified or not." The route's developer states: "I started to build Z-line on 20th September 2004, and it took 6 months to finish. Most of my free time was spent with the construction. I had no experience of the Route Editor and also, I had never ever set down a rail before. I am not a railroad man, just a railroad fan, so Z-line should be looked at this way. As I have put emphasis rather on spectacle, there must be some errors formally, such as some stations full of objects, which causes low fps." A mega-pack of activities is being prepared for release as well. The eventual final length of the route is planned to be 700-800 kilometers.

There is just one small catch ... or, rather, a large catch. The route download is 785Mb in ONE file!! Can someone introduce this guy to Route-Riter? When you download and install it, it will take up about 1.5Gb on your hard drive.

  • On the  Other Downloads  page: Route-Riter v.6.2.60 - various downloads that will update your version in a variety of ways, depending on which version you have now. v6.2.60 replaces the Xcopy command in the Copy files to common file option with the VB Filecopy command. This allows the program to check if the file already exists in the Common folder and does not overwrite it. Also cleaned the code up.

For those users who get error messages when they run RR, Mike has listed some of the common errors and their causes and solutions:

Error Messages after Installation / Upgrading:

  • I receive Error 76 when I first try to run Route-Riter after clicking OK on the Startup screen: The possibility is that the Route-Riter 6 registry entry has become messed up, in which case it will be necessary to use Regedit, and look for the entry:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\Route_Riter6 - right click on Route_Riter6 (and Route_Riter as well if it exists from a previous version) and select Delete from the menu. The program should then run OK. (The registry entries are then re-written when you next exit RR.)

  • I receive Error 429 whenever I try to Check a Route or do some other functions in Route-Riter: The error 429 has always been caused by problems with either .Net or the Tokens not being registered properly. This is caused when the .dll required to compress/uncompress files is not installed properly. Make sure that you have Microsoft .Net Framework v1.1 installed (go Control Panel/Add Remove programs to see if it is listed). Make sure that TK.MSTS.Tokens.dll and .tlb are both in the Route-Riter folder along with regasm.exe and InitTokens.bat. Click on InitTokens.bat – this should take up to 5-10 minutess to uninstall the old tokens, then hit any key and it will install the new ones. This should then tell you the tokens are installed, after which RR should run OK.

  • I receive Error 429 whenever I try 'Set up new .ENV files' or some other options: If you still get this Error 429 after you have carried out the option in the 2nd dot point above, and you find that you can run the 'Check Route' option successfully, then it is likely that you have a problem running scripts on your PC. This can be overcome by going to the Desktop Start/Run box and entering:- regsvr32.exe scrrun.dll -
    then clicking the OK button. After this everything should work OK.

  • I am using Windows 98 and am unable to see the Route-Riter help files: This is similar to the dot point just above this one: Windows 98 does not natively read .chm files, so it needs hhctrl.ocx installed to do this, this file must also be registered as above:- regsvr32.exe hhctrl.ocx - then you should be OK.

 

20 April

  • On the  Other Downloads  page: Route-Riter v6.2.56 has been added to the downloads for those who do not wish to try the Windows XP-with-NTFS add-on that is described below.

  •  Notice to engineers:  On the Hoodoo Pass route at about MP 590, please note that stacktrains carrying loads that are two containers high are unlikely to fit under the bridge!! Do NOT try to cross the bridge with such loads. Incidents should be reported to the Management. For evidence of the results of such attempts to cross the bridge, please see this thread in the NERR forums. Residents downstream of the bridge are having a great time with the goods from the damaged containers - and our insurance premiums are skyrocketing!

  •  Handy Hint:  If you want to change the distance units in MSTS from kilometers to miles, there are two ways that you can do it.

  • Open the route in the Route Editor. On the task bar, click on 'Route' and then select 'Properties'. Just over half way down inside the Properties window, you can tick on 'Imperial'. The units next to your speed limits will change from 'Kilometers per hour' to 'Miles per hour'. Click on OK, then Save, and then Exit.

  • The other way is to open the route's *.trk file in a unicode editor like WordPad in Windows XP. Near the bottom of the file,  find the line:

    MilepostUnitsKilometers ( )

    Change it to:

    MilepostUnitsMiles ( )

    When you run that route next, the distance units will be in Miles.

 

19 April

  • On the Other Downloads page:  Route-Riter v.6.2.59  - two new additions to this utility:

    • From the 6.2.58 version from a day or two ago - an option for Windows XP-with-NTFS users ONLY to set up a common folder for all Textures/Shapes. See the instructions enclosed with the file. This is an .exe only file and is the same as v6.2.56, so will only be of use to those who wish to try this.

    • Realigns the S and C buttons on the report form. Clicking these now automatically searches an .eng file for the Sound or Cab entries respectively. The Common folder option is now changed. The first button now gives users the option to copy all the Shapes/Textures/Sound files in a route to a Common Folder, while the second button now replaces all files, where possible, with a hard-link.

  •  Coupler Cam:  When assembling a train, the 6 key will, in its default state, give you a view down onto the coupler of your rear-most wagon or loco from vertically above it. This lets you see how close you are to the stationary consist, and it is supplemented by a figure in white showing the distance between the moving and stationery vehicles. But this view is unrealistic - can you really fly above your train? There is a solution, if you want to hack a file.

 camcfg.dat  (camera configuration file) can be changed to give you a different view. You will find the camcfg.dat file in the Train Simulator\GLOBAL folder. When editing this file, you must use a unicode-compatible text editor, like Wordpad. And always make a backup copy of the original camcfg.dat file before you start changing it in any way.

In this version of Coupler Cam, you are viewing the coupler from the yard man's viewpoint as he walks along beside the wagons. When you use this view, hold the right mouse button down and move the mouse left and right to look up and down the tracks. The arrow keys do not work in this view. Here's what you need to do to the camcfg.dat file:

Find the Coupling Cam section and make the following changes:

 camera ( CamTypeCoupling
CamType ( CamTypeCoupling CamControlRotate )

CameraOffset ( -8 2.5 0.0 )
Direction ( 0 90 0 )
RotationLimit ( 0 360 0 )

Fov ( 54 )
ZClip ( 0.5 )
WagonNum ( -1 )
Description (Coupling_Cam)
)

The changes are:

  • The CamControl field has been changed to Rotate.

  • The Direction field has been changed to 0 90 0. This orients you so that you look parallel to the horizon (the first 0), and to the right across the tracks (the 90).

  • The Rotation Limit has been changed to 0 360 0. This gives you the ability to look all around at eye level.

  • Set the FOV to 54.

Remember, you must use the right mouse button to look around. The distance between the cars is still shown in the window when you get close enough - less than 50. No responsibility is taken if this change totally trashes your MSTS installation. Make sure that you have a back-up copy of your original camcfg.dat file stored somewhere safe before you make any changes. You have been warned!

 

18 April

  • A new VR! It's different from the NERR-type of VR - no set routes, no equipment of its own, and no CV&W work orders. And it's not part of the NERR system. The  Cactus Valley & Western VR  is now accepting engineers onto its roster. They are a "basic, no-frills VR devoted to having fun running trains in MSTS. You can submit trip repo