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13 March

• This will be the  last update  to the News Page until about 10 April, as I shall be travelling to Europe for a series of conferences and meetings. I apologise to my faithful readers.

• A new version of  Route-Riter , V6.3.77, is now available from the Roster section of NETS. Lots of enhancements again from Mike Simpson. It's a 2.22Mb download.

• The new utility from the developers of ConBuilder is now ready -  CB-Run . "It is done, and the first orders are being filled. The price is $15 for the first copy and $10 for each additional copy. CB-Run will only run on the system it is set up for. You request it by sending an e-mail to cbrun@cox.net. To purchase it, go to the ConBuilder webpage and click on the PayPal link, and put "For cb-run" in the notes or comment box. Now I know that people will be wondering: why does he want money for this, especially since it looks like TMTS will be out shortly, and MSTS is about done, or ConBuilder has been free all this time? Well for one thing, originally I did not build ConBuilder, even though I did suggest that we charge for it way back then. I did, however, put the time in to make and build CB-Run with the aid of several people. How many of you bought or remember MSTS-buddy? When TMTS does come out ,we will endeavor to make ConBuilder also work with it, so you won't be losing anything as far as functionality goes. Look at it as supporting the people who do things to make the Sims more workable and enjoyable. So, if you want a personalized copy of CB-Run just download the attached program, run it, send me the zip file it creates, and then go over and hit the PayPal icon on the ConBuilder web-page." Go to the 3DTrains Forum thread about CB-Run, download the required file, and then follow the instructions there.

• There are a number of ways that you can enhance your driving screen in MSTS - by making the track monitor transparent, or nearly so, by changing the colours of the various aids, or by adding the newest utility from Train-Sim, which changes the  F8 Switch display . From the Readme file written by John Hopkins, the enhancement's developer: "I find the original F8 display to be confusing where the rear switch is concerned. It assumes that you are always looking forward and not using outside views. Therefore, you had to mentally transpose the display. This rework of the display shows the rear switch as if you were looking back at it directly. When using outside views, if a switch diverges to the right, the display will show it diverging right, not left. The display itself is small and less intrusive by reworking the ace files." It's easy to install. Just use the files in the 45Kb zip file download to replace all the files in your DRIVERAIDS folder in MSTS - AFTER you have made a backup copy of the original folder, just in case you want to go back to the original display. The picture on the right shows the enhanced display.

• Another new route at Train-Sim. This is the  Northrail route  from New Zealand. This route consists of 8 files to be downloaded, and not all of them are available yet - there are a few extra ones each day. From the documentation files: "This route has been developed as a simulation of a section of the Marton to New Plymouth branch of New Zealand Railways on the West coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The emphasis is on the 50 miles between Marton and Waitotara which encompasses the City of Wanganui and port of Castlecliff branches. The era is loosely set in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a period when NZR was – IMHO – at its peak and in transition from steam to diesel.

"The section between Marton and Waitotara was chosen as it provides optimum challenge for running trains and includes the Wanganui City loop, the Castlecliff port branch, plus two testing grade sections – the Westmere bank and Kai Iwi bank. These have ruling grades of 1:32 (3%). Also included is the Wanganui tramway system, or at least its trackage. The original concept was to include a fully detailed tramway route within the rail route. Full detail to both proved impossible to achieve given the limitations of MSTS. The concentration has therefore been on the rail section with detail added to the tramway only where it directly interacts with the rail. The tramway is drivable but not fully detailed in all tiles.

"New Zealand Railways is left-hand running, and the route is designed to follow that practice. Signals therefore are set up for left-hand running. The route is not designed for high speed main line running. Many speed restrictions are in place and curve transitions are deliberately severe to reflect the tight curves and sudden steep grades of NZ 3’6” gauge."

There is a set of good maps in the documentation files.

Some more information about New Zealand railways from the documentation files: "NZR was originally a blend of English and North American architecture and rolling stock that has developed, over more than a hundred years, a character of it’s own that is now uniquely New Zealand. Due to the topography of NZ, a system of narrow gauge (3’ 6”) was finally settled on to traverse the country. Indications are that economics also played a hand in the decision to proceed with narrow gauge as the national standard. NZR, like many of the world’s railways, is but a shadow of its former size with many branch lines now closed and a shrunken workforce. NZR is nowadays in private hands and suffering many problems, particularly in the state of its operating infrastructure. The NZ government now owns the track system once again.

New Zealand is divided into 2 main Islands traversed by a main trunk rail system. The main trunk of the North Island runs from Auckland in the North to Wellington in the South passing predominately through the center of the Island. Key branches are the Napier run on the East Coast and the New Plymouth on the West Coast. Dividing the two islands is Cook Strait that is traversed by a roll on roll off shipping service.  The main trunk of the South Island runs from the terminal of the strait shipping service in Picton, to Invercargill at the Southern tip of the South Island. The major branch of the South Island is the run from Christchurch through the Southern Alps to the West Coast region. A tourist branch operates from Dunedin over the remains of a line into the Central Otago area.

• From the front page of the  Ohio Rail System VR  - Spin writes: "The Steam Train Operation course is ready to go, visit the training site for full details. You'll learn to fire and drive a wide range of steam. The Canton steam packs are available at Train-sim.com, and the OVS Berkshires now have "EZ Fire" versions. With the steam program now in good shape, our attention turns to reworking the site, and getting ready for our new VR concept. That should take a few weeks, then I plan to start construction on a new freeware shortline. Upcoming additions to the family, several routes are under construction by OVS members. Some you know about, some you don't. hee hee. Andre Ming is working on a new route as well, and we all know the quality of his work is second to none."

11 March

• Over at 3DTrains, they have just released a new set of freeware  diesel smoke textures  on the Utilities page. Included are versions for light (modern equipment), medium (installed as default - for older EMD, GE, etc.), and heavy (Alco, Baldwin, etc.), with batch files for easy swapping between sets.

• If you are one of the people who downloads all the  new routes , installs them, and then explores them for hours, you are having a busy time this week. There is another new route over at Train-Sim, and an update and a new route at UKTrainSim. Read the next item.

• New route at Train-Sim -  Great Northern Hi-Line route  (3 zip files of about 50Mb each plus a documentation file of less than 400Kb). From the route builder: "'Hi-Line' is the name of a Great Northern subdivision in Montana (Havre to Blackfoot), BN and BNSF kept this name alive until today. The modern Hi-Line sub even extends over the famous Marias Pass to Whitefish, which used to be the 1st subdivision of the Kalispell division during GN times. The term 'Hi-Line' also refers to the entire northern part of the Great Plains in Montana, stretching from the state border in the east to the foot of the Rocky Mountains in the west.

"My route project attempts to model the entire GN line between Whitefish, MT and Havre, MT, as well as the line from Sweetgrass to Havre via Great Falls. The entire route is based on real terrain data, topographic maps and aerial pictures from the internet. I aimed for a fair amount of realism, especially considering grades, curves, and terrain. However, I had to make some compromises in order to make the route playable. The route is set in the 1940s/50s, allowing for a great range of long distance and local passenger action, heavy transcontinental freight trains, branches busy with locals, steam and diesel power, and overall one of the most interesting times of railroading history. The Hi-Line route includes steam facilities to better allow modeling the transition era, signaling, station and siding markers, and speed limits."

Plus "The GN Hi-Line is my largest route project so far. Aiming at more realism, I tried to model part of the GN Montana division, the line from Whitefish, MT, to Havre, MT. Both places are crew change points, with Havre even being the locomotive exchange point at the division point of Lines East and Lines West. Also included is the entire Kalispell branch, including the Tie plant at Somers, MT, and the Sweetgrass branch up north to the Canadian border. Many industries, spurs and sidings left out of earlier versions of Marias Pass will also be included, for example the large aluminum plant at Conkelley."

• Update at UKTrainSim -  Dorset Coast V3 route . This is an upgrade to the earlier V1 and V2 of this route. This version adds Basingstoke to London Waterloo and Basingstoke to Reading. You require Dorset Coast Version 1.0 core files 1 to 10, and Version 2.0 upgrade files 1 to 4, but not the patches, which are included in version 3.0. There is also a patch to upgrade V3 to V3.1. If that all sounds very complicated, you are right. It has caused some major headaches for a lot of people  when they try to install and upgrade. That is a shame, as the ones who have been successful at getting it running have given it rave reviews. I think that I'll wait for it to come out on the CD as part of their Community CD program.

• New route at UKTrainSim -  Ashburton Branch route . This is a short route in South Devon, I think. The download is 3 files  of about 14Mb and 1 of about 400Kb. I can't tell you anything more about the route, as there is no information on the UKTS website. The early reports from the members over at UKTS are very complimentary - rave reviews, in fact.

9 March

• Another new route today, this time an Australian one: the  Adelaide & Hills route  from South Australia. The picture to the right shows the main Adelaide railway station as it would have been in the 1950s. The building, behind the plume of smoke, is now the Adelaide Casino!

This route can be downloaded from the Steam4me website, either as a 220Mb single exe file or as a set of four 56Mb spanned files. I downloaded the single file very quickly  it is a very fast website. From the Readme file:

"Welcome to Adelaide. Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, recognised as the driest state in the driest continent on the planet. It enjoys a "Mediterranean" climate, with days of over 40 Celsius in summer, but it very rarely drops below 12 Celsius in winter. Adelaide has not seen snow in my lifetime, although on rare occasions we will see a light dusting up at Mount Lofty (2,334 ft). All seasons in Adelaide can be experienced in the summer mode in MSTS. None of the more than 800 custom objects built for the route have snow textures, and the ground textures reflect either changing from green to brown in late spring as the summer sun turns the grass brown, or the new growth of grass after the early autumn rains.

The route is set in the mid-1950s when steam was still in force, but when the first generation diesels were well established. The system had not yet been sold to Australian National and therefore still retained its unique South Australian identity. It covers the metropolitan area of Adelaide from Gawler and Outer Harbour in the north to Bridgewater and Hallett’s Cove in the south with virtually everything in between. It now includes the two southern lines from Hallett’s Cove to Willunga, which was pulled up more than 30 years ago, and to Mount Barker Junction and Victor Harbour, which is now a tourist line. Why the 1950s? Well, September 1957 saw the first of the line closures - the Henley Beach line.

There are many historical buildings, signage and billboards included, and you might look out for not only these, but also things like:-
1. Bogaduck Road sign (clue: - somewhere in the Hills).
2. The tree from which an Aboriginal canoe was cut (clue: - on the way to Victor Harbour).
3. War Memorials at Glenelg, Salisbury, Semaphore and Victor Harbour.
4. How many Pelicans can you find at Goolwa?
5. The Hercules aircraft ready for take-off.
6. The 2 ft narrow gauge railway.
7. 21 rabbits between Bugle Ranges and Gemmells, and rabbits at Currency Creek and other stations. They are everywhere, even being harried by Wedge Tailed Eagles south of Strathalbyn.
8. The two abandoned tunnel entrances (clue: - somewhere in the Hills).

I have included actual timetables from the period for the creation of activities. They are in the folder “Timetables”.

The Glenelg tram line has been included, but at the very last minute, and there is much detail missing. The Glenelg Town Hall and the buildings at Morphettville Racecourse were only constructed 24 hours before the route was uploaded."

The two pictures below show a short freight consist being pulled by an Alco Loco on the route.

• Correction to yesterday's news item: the  Port Ogden & Northern route  was actually built by Jim Ward (sniper297) - sorry for the error. It can be downloaded from Hawk's (Ed Hawkins)website - that's what confused me. The route can now also be downloaded from the Train-Sim website.

8 March

• If you have been around the MSTS scene for a while, you have probably heard of the  Port Ogden & Northern route . Version 10 of this fictional route has just been released at the website of the developer, Hawk.

  As you can see from the map of the route to the right, it is a very different layout from the usual MSTS route - which is no problem when the route is fictional! The map to the right is for V9; the map below is the extension that has been added to make the new V10. As you can see from the names of the places on the extension, it is meant to represent part of the Marias Pass route, joining the old section of the PO&N route at the top right.

  This route has a passionate following over at Train-Sim, especially among people who like to make their own open-ended activities.

  I'll be able to tell you more about the new version when I can download the single 14Mb file - very small for a route these days. The download keeps dropping out on me - annoying, to say the least!! Oh well, I'll keep trying.

  Hawk, by the way, has a number of routes to his credit, including one of the various Whitefish route variations.

• And there are some more screenshots of the  TrainMaster TrainSimulator , one of the new generation programs currently under development, including one showing reflections in a stream as the train passes over the bridge - quite impressive. The page test says that: "All these images are taken directly from within the game engine. Some have been cropped and all have been saved 'for the web' with 50% quality settings to keep the image sizes down."

• Some  new work orders  have been released today. We are up to No. 982 - only 18 to go to our first 1,000!! I can remember when we thought that 200 or so work orders would be enough to keep the members happy! Ahhh! The good old days!?? Anyway, here are the latest batch. 2 are from a new work order developer (Dave Perry), and the other 4 are from a very experienced developer (Gary Hoffman).

  • NESE-317-MOW-01 for the Seattle route. "It seems that the tamper for Seattle has seen its last days, and there's work to be done around Ballard. A new tamper has been borrowed from a neighbouring district, and it's your job to take over the delivery to Ballard. There's a bit of traffic this morning so there may be a slight delay. Due to lax maintenance, you'll have to back onto the track to put you in line with the Ballard siding. Have fun and be safe!" This is part 1 of a series of 2 (so far). Note that this is an RAR file, not a ZIP file.

  • NESE-317-MOW-01A for the Seattle route. Again you are in the Tamper (Plasser & Theurer, model 09-3X). "OK, it looks like we're going to have to run the tamper. This is a really short job. Watch for mainline traffic. Follow the ballast train to the main where this work order will end." Be aware that this developer has an off-beat sense of humour!

  • NEFB-100-8D for the Full Bucket Line 3.0 route. "We are running late in ur EMD GP38-2 (ex-GNRR), so let's just grab our pickups at Newton Oil as best we can. We can get the Lake Hurst switcher to sort us out while we have a late lunch. We will be heading into all but one siding at Newton Oil, so we can only handle 3 to 4 cars on the runaround tracks. We are dropping 8 and picking up 11 cars." This is part one of a day's work.

  • NEFB-100-8E for the Full Bucket Line 3.0 route. Using the same EMD GP38-2 (ex-GNRR), "we are running late and needing some lunch! We will let the Lake Hurst yard sort the train out for us. This activity will terminate at Lake Hurst Fuel track."

  • NEFB-100-8F for the Full Bucket Line 3.0 route. Now we are in the EMD SW1500 switcher. Make sure that the car for the Proving grounds is at the front end. You can use Yard 1. carry out a lengthy switch list, which ends in Mount Oliver.

  • NEFB-100-8G for the Full Bucket Line 3.0 route. Back in the EMD GP38-2 (ex-GNRR), this run completes the day. You have a drop-off at the Proving Grounds and a pickup at the Wind Power spur. You end the day in Mount Oliver.

5 March

•  Claude  has sent in his march column - click on the link above. This one will make you think about yourself and the NERR. Good one, Claude!!

• A new route over at Train-Sim: the  New York City Subway / Elevated route . It is a stand-alone route, not a direct replacement for the earlier versions of the New York route. There are a couple of prototypical railcars - R4 and R9 - also available from the Train-Sim file library. Early reports give it a good review.  From the Readme file: "F1 IND in MSTS Folder USA3d, Version 1.0. This route models the 6th and 8th Ave. IND lines in the Bronx and Manhattan. Also modeled are two IRT routes. This route is prototypical of the 6th and 8th Avenue IND lines from 205th St in the Bronx and 207th St in Upper Manhattan down to West 4th Street in Lower Manhattan. It is prototypical in the sense that it follows the track maps, and most station designs are typical of the New York System, although not exact renderings of each station. The 8th Ave line south of 14th Street in Manhattan is two-track instead of four-track, but the station sequence and track route is prototypical. The remainder of the IND line is freelance. The route also includes two freelance IRT lines. A portion of one of the IRT line is prototypical of the Lexington Ave. line from Bowling Green to 42nd Street. These lines share storage yards with the IND lines at 205th Street and Smith Street.

"The route will operate any time of day in any season rain or snow, although it is not intended for winter, rain or snow, unless you want to see rain or snow in the subway tunnel. Not all of the objects have snow textures. Size of Download: One zip file 88 Mb. Size of Installed Route: 203 Mb. Freight or Passenger: Passenger. Era or Genre: Traction around 1960. Length of Lines: Estimated - IND 205th St (Bronx) to Smith St. Yard - 19.5 miles; IND 207th St (Manhattan) to Smith St. Yard - 19 miles; IRT 205th St to Smith St. Yard - 18.6 miles; IRT Smith St. Yard to Pelham Bay Park - 17.4 miles. Number of Sidings or Storage Yards: 3 Large IND aboveground storage yards at 205th Street, 207th Street and Smith Street. The 205th Street and Smith St. Yards are shared by the IRT lines. IND Lines - One underground storage at 174th Street, and one at Park Place. 7 Underground sidings. IRT Lines - One underground storage at Queens Plaza. 8 Underground Sidings.

"Mixture of Dual and Single Track: Estimate - 4-track 40%, 3-track 15%, and 2-track 45%. All three lines are fully signaled. IND Lines - 69 Platforms or stations (67 Underground, 2 Elevated). IRT Lines - 61 Platforms or stations (48 Underground, 8 Elevated, 5 Surface).

"Activities Provided: 4 Explore Activities which cover almost 100% of the route. (No AI Traffic). 13 Route Activities varying in AI traffic covering 100% of the route. Estimated times to complete activities ranges from about 15 minutes to 2 hours."

2 March

• An interesting railroad is shown in the photo to the right. It uses an  Abt rack rail system  - the third rail  between the two that the wheels run on is the 'rack' (shown in more detail in the photo below).  The rack-rail consists of two parallel, serrated bars, about 2.5 inches apart, attached to the sleepers midway between the normal running rails and arranged so that the indentations on one bar were exactly opposite the teeth on the other bar. There were two sets of pinions under the locomotive, arranged so that two pinions were always engaged with the teeth of the rack-rails at any time. The Abt rack locomotive, developed principally in Switzerland, was a powerful locomotive, having an independently-powered engine, beneath the boiler, which drove pinions (toothed wheels) set between the adhesive wheels. These pinions meshed with the teeth of the rack-rail. This gave the necessary driving power to the rack engine. The standard of maintenance of the rack engine needed to be very high.

When descending the slope, the Abt rack engine was attached to the front of the standard engine. While ascending the slope, the rack engine was attached to the rear of the train. Most rack engines were built according to a system patented in 1882 by Roman Abt and first used in 1885.

There were two Abt rack railway systems in Australia, one in central Queensland going up the range to the mining town of Mount Morgan, and the other on the private Mount Lyell (another mining town) railway in Tasmania which closed in 1963. The Mount Morgan Abt locos ran from 1898 to 1952.
 

1 March

• Engineers who are  on leave on the callboard  will be contacted in the next few days to find out their intentions. There are all sorts of sound reasons for members being on leave, mostly to do with work/study commitments and computer problems, so not all of them will be eventually deleted from the callboard. On the other hand, there are some who are on leave from here and active in other VRs, which is not really fair to the active engineers who are working to maintain their commitments here. So if you are on leave, expect an email soon.

• At the  Los Angeles Union Station , there is a sundial. On the granite pedestal holding up the sundial is carved these words. I wonder what the story behind them is.

• Let's start the new month off in the usual way, with the  Most Popular Work Orders listing . These are the 37 work orders for which 50 or more time slips have been submitted since NETS was implemented. A few noteworthy points:

  • 3 developers have a work order with more than 100 time slips - artimrj, elementb, and Mont Denver Gold.

  • 1 developer has 2 work orders in the Top 5 - elementb.

  • There are 4 different developers in the Top 5.

  • 3 developers have 3 work orders in the Top 10 - Gary H, Mont Denver Gold, and elementb.

  • There are 13 different work order developers in the listing.

  • There are 5 passenger work orders in the listing - 2 diesel and 3 electric.

  • There is 1 MOW work order in the listing.

  • There are 11 different routes in the listing.

  • The oldest work order in the listing is #45 (for the East Metro route), and the newest is #624 (for the Chippewa Valley route).

27 February

• I think that I have sorted out the entries for  ConBuilder  in the Roster section of NETS. If you want to be completely up-to-date with that excellent utility, you can now download the following from our website:

  • V2.4.3 - the full version.

  • V2.4.3 - the upgrade version. You must have a recent working version of ConBuilder before using this upgrade.

  • V2.3.50 Help Files - the latest full version of Help.

  • ConBuilder Help Update - the version that updates the V2.3.50 Help files to the latest version.

  Joe has other utilities and files on his website. I'll install some of them here when time permits.

The views expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of the NERR Administration. They are the views of the author of the particular news item.