Non-NERR News & Equipment

Useful MSTS sites below:

. Train-Sim.com

. UKTrainSim

. Steam4Me

. webDotWizTrainSim.com

. Other VRs below:

. Ohio Valley System

. vFull Bucket Line

. Payware MSTS sites below

If you know of a web site that we could add here, send us the web address.

This page will be archived at the end of January 2005.
You can find the page for the previous 3 months on the Archive page - follow the link on the menu to the left.

• 22 January - a wide range of items this time, with some B&O cabooses (wooden and wood-sheathed), a patch for the Milwaukee Road Div 4 route (sound files), diesel locos (including a "Penn Central ALCO Roadswitcher Pack. Contains 14 locomotives including the following types: RS-11, RS-27, RS-32, RSD-12, RSD-15 and T-6" - 18Mb, some SD50s and SD40s), activities (pack for Kootenai Subdivision), a whole range of railcars and carriages for the Bernina route in Switzerland (not released yet) from 1900s to 1960s, steam locos (including "Pennsylvania & Reading Camelback #408. The camelbacks [a.k.a. Mother Hubbards] had the unusual cab center design to accommodate a wide fire grate that would not fit between the frame of conventional locomotives. This design allowed the use of cheap, slow burning anthracite coal", 2-6-2 Prairie), and more rolling stock (intermodal pack, reefers, boxcars of various sizes, CN cylindrical grain hopper pack).

• 17 January - more boxcars, locos (MO&W U23B, CSX SD60 and SD50 update files, Seaboard SD50, WSOR GP35), route objects (including a 50m high building!), a 3-bay hopper pack, activities (LGV-Medv3), a Chinese steam loco (one of the last Qianjin built by Datong), a replacement diesel smoke texture, Inlandsbanan Route Patch 2 (for this Swedish route from Vern Moorhouse - restores all the missing files from the original installer and the first patch. Vern also developed the well-respected U79 tramway route), and a NJ Transit Schedule Board.

• 13 January - What a busy week! Apart from the rest of new files, there are three new or updated routes available: (1) the Gulf Mobile & Ohio Northern Version 2 - upgrade files only (25Mb in 1 file) - requires existing installation of GM&O v1.8 plus Scale Rails. XTracks, NewRoads, and Kosmos 1.1. (2) the Milwaukee Road, Rocky Mountain Division, Fourth Subdivision and the Northern Pacific (MRL) line from Lothrop, MT to Paradise, MT, and the former NP Wallace Branch from Haugan, MT to Wallace, ID, are all included in this simulation. (8 files, each of about 20Mb.) This version upgrades the one published a week or two ago and has been created to fix a signal problem that prevented effective creation of AI meets in the earlier one. (3) the Inlandsbanan route in Sweden (1 file of 76Mb). Description from the route's developer: "At first glance a remote section of Swedish rural line might seem an odd choice for a UK MSTS Route Builder. However, I travelled over the Inlandsbanan a couple of times in the early 1980s and was quite entranced by the experience. It doesn’t have the scenic grandeur of some of the Norwegian railway lines, but as it weaves and climbs through wooded hills, alongside rivers and lakes, then into the Arctic tundra, it offers a unique journey. The Inlandsbanan covers a vast distance from Mora in Central Sweden, through Ostersund, Storuman and Arvidsjaur to the Lapland main line at Gällivare in the far North. Only the northernmost section is represented here, the 271km (170 miles) from Arvidsjaur to Gällivare, which crosses the Arctic Circle just south of Jokkmokk. Until the 1990s, the route was part of the Swedish State Railways network but was divested to a private company Inlandsbanan AB some years ago. Building this route represented quite a challenge. Compared to a British route, the information required was very hard, and in some cases impossible, to obtain. So it is very much a compromise – the terrain and general course of the line should be quite close to reality, but it was not possible to get exact data for gradients, speed limits and track plans. So this is very much an interpretation based on the limited resources available. However, I am quite pleased with the end result, and if wilderness railroading is your thing, then I’m sure you will enjoy this route. Another reason for building this route is that in recent years the line has been downgraded from its already secondary status to a precarious existence with the passenger service operating for a very limited period in the summer months only and the odd freight train at other times. My version does not represent any particular period, although I would place it notionally in the early 1980s."

• 10 January - a busy week with over 30 reefers and boxcars (most are large files of 3-4Mb), a few route objects, locos (Central Michigan  and BNSF C30-7s, BNSF C44-9W, Ann Arbor GP-35, Ontario Southland Railway MLW RS-18u, Conrail SD45 3-pack, 5 old Spanish electric locos, Petit Arbre Line Consolidation - steam loco, Export GM Diesel GA-8W [small locomotive exported to South America for short hauls and yard duty. Unique in that the trucks don't contain the traction motors. Instead, they are under the center body and drive the trucks using crankshafts and universal joints - this allows for real flexibility in truck interchangeability for different track gauges and country differences]) activities (Bridge Line, Whitefish4 pack) a  set of four MOW trucks (including a red D&H welder's Hy-rail truck, and three heavy duty Hy-rail MOW trucks [D&H, B&M, CR] with a National Boom), sounds for UK locos, Shape File Viewer 1.4.57. All of that, as well as the new version 2 of the Kingsport route, as described on the main news page earlier this week.NB: for some of then locos, you need to own other locos to get .s files and cabviews, etc. - read the readme files before downloading.

• 6 January - a new version of TkUtils ("Archibald, Horace, Mapper & Zipper. Archibald is a tree view editor for MSTS files capable of reading/writing compressed shape, terrain and world files. Horace is a route converter when doing changes to the tsection.dat file like installing XTracks first time. Mapper is for doing maps and profiles of routes. Zipper is an easy to use compression utility that also handles folders. This update improves some file handling and adds a search function in Archibald. By Okrasa Ghia."), some more locos, the reference route for XTRacks (useful for route developers), some rolling stock, activities (a 5-hour one for the Cascades Crossing route), a set of Southern Pacific screenshots for use as wallpaper, and the highlight - the Wenatchee & Cashmere route - a 10-mile fictional route (3 files totaling less than 30Mb) from a new route developer.

• 2 January - The main things that looked interesting this week were a minor fix for the Milwaukee Road route, the latest full version of ConBuilder (2.2.9), and MOW bunk car, the Random Route generator program v1.2, 2 x NYCTA ALCO/GE 50-ton electric locos, a Monon EMD BL2 diesel loco, a British Columbia Electric Railway electric trolley car from 1911, and a Southern Pacific ALCO Roadswitcher Pack (contains high nosed RS-11 #2914, low nosed RS-11 #2935, RS-32 #4005, RSD-12 #5964 and SSW RSD-15 #5159. All locomotives are weathered). There were also some other locos and rolling stock.

• 27 December - a range of new locos from various uncommon railroads (Guilford, Winchester & Western, Ontario Northland - for you Canadians, North Shore, FBL, DMIR, and Conrail and Amtrak as well), only a few boxcars, a couple of activities (Bridge Line), a "Trainsimming Modern Hungarian Railways" document (following on from a few other countries some months ago). Also a "Rio Grande Southern Route Patch to v2.1. This .zip file will patch version or2 to or2.1. This patch fixes all the TDB, path, and terrain mismatch problems in Durango and also has improved scenery on the northern section. Missing snow textures are also included. The problems in Durango have been fixed by Charlie Leveritt, and he has also added the smelter in Durango." The biggest thing is the new route - the Milwaukee Road, Rocky Mountain Division (8 files, each of about 22Mb).

• 23 December - 3 new utilities. A random route program that, according to the readme file: "allows the user to make a 10 by 10 tile route in Microsoft Train simulator using pre-constructed track modules
  or custom modules created by the user. The program generates a batch file that copies pre-designed tiles into Microsoft Train Simulator. The user is then required to perform a track database rebuild to make a custom route called RandomRoute in MSTS. The batch files can be renamed and re-used for future use. The program requires X-tracks and the Default
  version of Marias Pass to be installed." The latest version of Shape Viewer (v1.4.55) is now available - read the thread at t-s.com if you do not use Windows XP. And the third is a new utility: "TS-FastFix is a tool to alter .eng and .wag files in Microsoft Train Simulator. The main purpose is to automatically replace the first Friction() line by using Joseph T. Realmuto's equations from his utility FCalc20." You need the Microsoft .NET framework v1.1 installed for this this one to work - if you are using Route-Riter successfully, then you already have it.
  
  The main purpose of TS-FastFix is to automatically replace the first Friction() line by using Joseph T. Realmuto's equations from his utility FCalc20.

• 20 December - A new route today, or rather, a new version of a route today - Whitefish 4 (1 file of 130Mb). Plus another new route during the week - the Austral Bay RR (4 files totaling 40Mb). Also, 15 boxcars(1 in Sea View Xmas livery), 4 activities (Cajon Pass, NYC, Marias Pass, Bridge Line Xmas), 3 other rolling stock items, locos (1 GP60B (the no-cab version of the GP60M, a 6-pack of UP SD90MAC-H2s, 7 D&H Alco RS-11/36s, 14 UP EMD GP30s), 3 WCRR stock packs (including locos and rolling stock), 2 Dutch tramcars, 2 IRT railcars, and a Monon passenger train with an EMD F3a loco and a full set of cars (including a baggage/mail car).

• 10 December - a busy week. 2 routes - the Roseville Subdivision of the Donner Pass route (feedback suggests that the route is not close to being finished) and the GM&O Northern Lines v1.80 (13 files to be downloaded totaling almost 500Mb). Also French locos, New Haven passenger cars, a pack of 89' intermodal flatcars (needs an earlier pack to run), an activity for the Bridge Line and Tehachapi Pass 2 and Kicking Horse Pass 2 and Whitefish 5 routes, an activity pack for the New York subway route and the Canton-Suddenly route, more boxcars and other locos (quite a few - NZ plus some North American liveries) and rolling stock, a map for the Whitefish Yard, 

• 3 December - Drivable MOW trucks (as in ex-road-going tow trucks!) for several railroads - 4 manual gears and a top speed of 80mph. Plus more locos (including a Berkshire), some hopper packs (need MLT equipment to make them work), German buildings and other objects, Train Store V3.1 (also available on our website) with updated language packs, the obligatory box car collection, a few activities (including a couple for Whitefish 5). One route this week - "MSTS Route -F1 Transit v1.0 NYC Subway/Elevated freelance route incorporating the elements of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Lexington Avenue and Broadway Lines, the first subway built in New York in 1904. The route has a main 4 track line with express and local uptown/ downtown service fed by 5 branch lines, portions of which are elevated or run on the surface."

• 28 November - The most interesting new file in the library this weekend is the one which allows you to change the desert terrain of the Full Bucket Line route to grasslands like the Great Plains of the USA, shifting the route to somewhere around Montana or Wyoming. Plus 6 more boxcars - will the supply ever run out? We hope not.

• 26 November - Nothing startling this week - more rolling stock (lots of boxcars again), locos (e.g. GP9s and GP7s, plus a GP40 and an Alco 424) and some activities. One tutorial for people interested in modelling locos: "An MSTS TSM Tutorial. A simple tutorial file using TSM for a fictitious American diesel. Emphasis is on using a variety of techniques to model objects. Not as much a "How to" as is a "How I" model locomotives in TSM. Simplified to focus on different techniques. Tutorial file in PDF format. Tutorial by Dave Dandy."

• 20 November - New Roads V3.2 and XTracks V3.12 have become available this week (they are both on the NERR website now).Two new routes this week - the Rio Grande Southern version 2 from Jonathon Lewis. "This is the complete main line of the famous Rio Grande Southern Railroad in south-western Colorado from Ridgway to Durango. The northern part of the route features the Dallas Divide, the Ophir Loop and the Lizard Head Pass at 10,250 feet high. The Southern part runs in the Dolores Canyon from Rico to Dolores, where the New Mexico Lumber Company line went off (not all included in the route). At Dolores the main line enters the Lost Canyon, Millwood Summit and then into Mancos near the famous East Mancos Loops and over Cima Summit into Hesperus and on into the Wildcat Canyon into Durango. The mainline is a length of 162 miles, but the route also includes some of the branches." There is also a rolling stock pack for the activities bundled with the route - 2 steam locos and some cars. Also a tramway route set in the town of Solberga in  Sweden - has a couple of good reviews. In the loco department, there have been a couple of GP7s, an SD9M, and a set of 6 GO Transit Genesis P42DCs. There has also been the usual slew of boxcars of varying liveries.

• 14 November - a good looking Mogul steam loco (check the screenshots in the NERR forum today), as well as more boxcars and some Class 48 diesel locos from New South Wales (Australia).

• 10 November - as well as the latest version of Route-Riter (6.1.33 - available on the Other Downloads page of the NERR website), there is a replacement siglight.ace for improving the visibility of signals from longer distances.

• 8 November - 2 updates for the MBTA route (I think that someone is going to run it through Route-Riter + get rid of the surplus files and folders and then  upload it again) plus heaps of rolling stock (boxcars, tankers, well cars, etc. for the collector this week.

• 2 November - more US rolling stock, some New Zealand locos, US locos, UK DMUs, German rolling stock, plus some new objects for placing on routes - all since the start of the month. people were busy over the weekend! And don't forget to visit the forums on that site from time to time - some excellent threads, and some that are quite entertaining!

• 22 January - a DMU (Class 158), route objects, two tiny dual-narrow gauge diesel locos (both 3' and 15" gauges - quarry loco and tourist train loco), activities for a variety of UK routes (including the excellent Thames to Mersey - not available by download), steam locos (4-6-2, 2-6-0, re-skins of Severn River Valley locos [this route also not available by download]), and the latest London to Southampton route v0.9 (25Mb file).

• 17 January - some DMUs (Class 205s, a Class 142, Class 121), route objects (signal box), a small route called the Loco Works ("The route is designed as a primitive loco testing ground; there are no gradients and no scenery outside the works area, except for hills to hide the fact the route doubles back on itself; neither is there any signaling, so AI trains are not possible."), a variety of activities for UK routes (and they have some excellent ones - report on the News page next month on one or two of them), a cab view or two (Class 59), diesel locos (EWS 66, Class 87), a "T" class heavy freight stream loco plus a Class 14 steam loco,

• 10 January - 9 activities for UK routes, 5 DMUs, 2 diesel locos (class 87 & 03), a class 1400 steam loco, and a class 122 Bubble car (a railcar).

• 6 January - various utilities (TkUtils, ConBuilder 2.2.9, XTracks reference route), 10 activities for various UK routes, 8 locos (e.g. Class 31, Class 37, Class 20), a DEMU, a Turbostar, plus a few miscellaneous files (e.g. a sound pack).

• 2 January - another busy week, with some DMU packages (Regional Railways), 8 steam locos (including an 0-4-4 and a 0-4-0), cabviews (e.g. Class 37) and sound packages, 4 sets of sleeper coaches, activities for a range of UK routes, some diesel locos (e.g. a shunter, Class 37, Class 35, Class 66, Class 90), and freight wagons.

• 27 December - all sorts of different things this week: lots of activities, cab views, route patches, rolling stock, new Common loads files for wagons - but not a very busy week for this site. And they have a thread running in their forums where people can report other people selling freeware TS stuff at a profit - apparently becoming a problem over there!

• 20 December - a busy week at this site. Since the last update, there have been the following additions: 33 activities and activity packs (e.g. for Swanage route, 3 packs for the Thames-Mersey route), 16 steam locos (6 for LMS), 10 diesel and electric locos, a old US railcars, 1 LNER rail carriage, 2 diesel Class 14 locos in their preserved liveries (shaped like the US 44-tonners), LMS snow ploughs, 2 EMUs, 12 other pieces of rolling stock (including a set of LNER coaches), 15 other files (including cab views, sound sets, and route objects). Plenty to keep the anglophiles out there occupied - some excellent looking material!

• 10 December - steam locos plus activities plus new skins for more locos. Not such a busy week for this site.

• 3 December - lots of great looking steam locos, but a fairly quiet week on this site.

• 28 November - lots more locos, rolling stock, activities, and, for those keen on narrow gauge material, some wagons, and also something very different - a Baguely Tractor - "These petrol locos were built for frontline use delivering supplies to the trenches in WW1. Although powerful, they tended to be rather noisy - thus drawing artillery fire. Coupled with their tendency to have glowing hot exhaust pipes (shells at night time) they were less than totally popular with the crews. However, the locos put in sterling work in the many forestry parks and lumber mills that served the needs of trench warfare. Many survived the war and were used by industrial concerns all over the world. At least one representative of the breed is preserved - at the Moseley Trust (they have a collection of industrial narrow gauge equipment and are hoping to build a demonstration track and museum). This is a truescale representation. Although it will work fine with regular MSTS... it will look odd when not running on UKNG track." Plus an update for the Great Western Railway route from v211 to v220.

• 26 November - more locos (diesel, steam and electric - some requiring you to already have some payware items installed), rolling stock, and activities.

• 20 November - an update to the Blackpool Tramway route (now V1.3). More diesel and steam locos (much more steam equipment available over there than at t-s.com). An interesting trainset for Anglophiles is the Brighton Belle - an electric multiple unit pullman car set (claimed to be the only one in the world) that started running in 1933 - the cabview is available at www.kimsim.co.uk/pages/kimsim.htm - this website has a large collection of freeware UK material for download (the site is linked with the payware Severn Valley route and the Blue Arrow equipment). And more activities for the UK routes.

• 14 November - even more steam-era equipment - a great variety lately! And some more recent diesel material, plus some activity packs. A lot of new additions in the past week - busier than t-s.com!

• 10 November - if you like driving steam, this website has some more UK locos.

• 8 November - some good-looking steam locos this week, plus the usual collection of activities and stock for UK routes - wish that I had the time and space to run some of those routes!

• 3 November - an interesting range of equipment there today, including an unusual "Dubs 0-4-0 Crane Tank & Runner" - "History: Affectionately known throughout its life as "Dubsy" but never actually named, the prototype locomotive was built by Dubs and Co of Glasgow in 1901 and delivered to the Shelton Iron & Steel Works in Stoke-on-Trent. It remained at Shelton Bar throughout its life and was used on various lifting jobs and rerailing locomotives or wagons that had come off the track. Unlike many Shelton locomotives which endured a hard life on a system of three continuous shifts per day, the crane tank was only required on a single daily shift. 'Dubsy' has a conventional lifting and slewing mechanism on the crane, which has a single hook and chain. The crane cylinders are 4.5in diameter by 6in stroke, the jib radius is 14 feet 6 inches, and the maximum load is 6 tons. Large dumb buffers are fitted, and photographs show that the locomotive was often seen with an old flat wagon to avoid the overhanging crane jib fouling other stock. "Dubsy" was originally coal fired but was converted to oil firing in 1962. This modification prolonged the useful life of the locomotive, but not by much as it was taken out of regular use in 1968. The locomotive is now preserved at the Foxfield railway."

• 2 November - lots of new steam locos, some activities, DMUs, rolling stock (including a nice set of passenger coaches), and route objects. There is also a busy set of forums at this site.

• 17 January - the bandwidth used by people downloading the new equipment below caused them no end of problems; ended up having to get a new internet address - everything is fine now. Expect some corrections soon for some of the downloads, which have been having problems. In general, the material is excellent, from all reports.

  13 January - Wow! From the website: "A great set of new locos and rolling stock today! An unprecedented move today as the steam4me site releases over 90 items of rolling-stock in 142MB of downloads. I do need to acknowledge the support of everyone who's been involved in bringing this mammoth project to fruition - the guys of team-ALCO, namely Matt Austin, Russell Beer, Ian Bowles, Richard Lauder and Joseph Spinella: thank you to for your support - you've all been fantastic and so responsive when changes have been needed - they were done FAST! Outside team-ALCO, I need to recognise and acknowledge the following: James Brook was very supportive and generous in supplying source files to allow important shape and texture changes to be made to many of his models to make them as realistic as possible - thanks James for entrusting your models to our care. To Gary Ball a big thanks for supplying the parts we needed and critical beta testing. Gary's patience and forbearance in understanding the delays in releasing his models was also much appreciated. Models released today include:

  • Freight Australia S301, S303;

  • NSW 4201 in "125th anniversary of NSW Railways" livery in both 1980s and 2000s versions;

  • Victorian S301, S315, S317 in VR livery;

  • Victorian A class diesels in V/Line, V/Line Passenger, Olympic, Bicentennial and Freight Australia liveries;

  • The complete West Coast Railway fleet: B61, B65, B76, B80 (two versions), S300, S302, S311, T363, T369, T385 plus a bonus: S302 ex-WCR in V/Line Passenger colours;

  • Freight Australia's X35 and X38 3000HP upgrades;

  • South Australia's 830 class diesel locomotives by Gary Ball - ten locomotives in SA "Mustard Pot", red/silver ANR and green/yellow Australian National;

  • New South Wales 45 class diesel locomotives again by Gary Ball - eighteen locomotives in NSWGR Indian Red, Reverse Tuscan, "Red Terror, Candy and FreightCorp liveries;

  • High hood cab view to suit 830, 48, 45, 600, 35 class diesel locomotives;

  • South Australian Railways' F class Pacific tank steam locomotive;

  • The complete Steamrail passenger car fleet;

  • and last but not least, the long-awaited Victorian Railways' D3 steam locomotive by Matt Austin in Victorian Railways' working black, as Commissioners' engine, one version with shunting steps and two versions of the Steamrail's D3639 preserved locomotive. with animated cab by Kenji Kimura."

• 6 January - version 6.1.87 of Route-Riter and version 1.4.57 of Shape Viewer - no new locos or other equipment.

• 27 December - version 6.1.70 of Route-Riter is the newest thing here - has caused a few problems for some people.

• 20 December - Paul "Decapod" Gausden released a new version of his Shape Viewer utility (v1.4 build 151) - new features and smaller download.

• 10 December - no activity lately.

• 26 November - new grain hoppers for the New South Wales railway system. The website has now achieved the 1 million visitor mark - in just 3 years. Avery popular Australian MSTS website.

• 20 November - a quiet time at this website for the past week, but an update  today, with a link to the latest version of Route-Riter - 6.1.49 - exe file only. And in the Tutorials section of the website, "Paul De Verter continues to pour out tutorials: his latest two are entitled "How to Make an Alpha Channel Using Paint Shop Pro and TGATool2" and "How to Make Additions to an Alpha Channel Using Paint Shop Pro". Scott Brunner has produced a tutorial -checklist on "Using the Rod Animator Plug-in in 3D Canvas Pro"."

• 15 November - link to another new version of Route-Riter - 6.1.46 - exe file only. This is the 2nd or 3rd update to this program in the past week. The program is also available here on the Other Downloads page of the NERR website.

• 2 November - no new material since 27 October.

• 22 January - nothing this week not mentioned above.

• 17 January - locos (Italian Class E464), and Bruno Astorg's current project is a set of RIO 77 Rhone-Alpes carriages, including a driver trailer - there's a good screenshot on his news page. The MSTS 3D Model Making - Using Simple Freeware Programs thread at UKTrainsim may be of interest to those wondering how to get started without spending a fortune.

• 10 January - a few new European items, but most of the news is from Train-Sim.com.

• 6 January - more information his activities for the Wupper Express 8 route (if only there were not so many equipment downloads needed! - it is an excellent route), plus news of some new European downloads (but not many this week).

• 2 January - he has developed several new activities for the Wupper Express 8 route. There are more links to European websites (French, German).

• 27 December - Version 1.4 of Shape Viewer (with warnings for people with Windows 98 and ME), TS-fastfix (an utility to simplify the job of adjusting the first friction line and the adhesion line in .eng and .wag files using Joseph Realmuto's FCalc2 calculations and data), .

• 23 December - A new French route: "Longueur de l'itinéraire : 101 km (63 miles). Ceci est une modernisation totalement imaginaire de la ligne Orient Express, (partie de l'itinéraire qui va de Paris à Vienne), qui va de St. Anton et de la passe d'Arlberg jusqu'à Innsbruck. Vous apercevrez les spectaculaires sommets alpins et visiterez les magnifiques villages tyroliens. La ligne a été rebaptisée "La Route des Vins", et chaque gare porte le nom d'un chais (à vous de trouver sa région...). L'itinéraire est maintenant à double voies, et parfois trois et quatre voies. La vitesse limite est de 160 km/h en vallée et en moyenne montagne et 120 en haute montagne (120 et 80 respectivement pour les trains de marchandises). Un port a été rajouté à Innsbruck, ainsi que de nombreuses zones d'activité." That was for Claude. For the rest of us: "Length of the route - 63 miles. This is a totally imaginary re-creation of the part of the Orient Express route (part of the route from Paris to Vienna) that goes from St Anton through the Alberg Pass to Innsbruck. You will see spectacular alpine peaks and visit magnificent Tyrolean villages. The route has been renamed "The Wine Route", and each station carries the name of a winery/cellar. The route is double track, with some triple and even quadruple track. The speed limit is 160kmh in the valley and lower mountains and 120 en the high mountain areas (120 and 80 respectively for freight trains). One yard has been added at Innsbruck, as have numerous industrial areas."

• 20 December - he has had a holiday long weekend. Before that, there were links to his new activities for the Wupper Express 8 route - definitely a favourite route with him. And news that, if you want a bound, hard copy of the manual for Train Store 3.1, you can buy either a black-and-white or colour version from www.lulu.com/jaf (Tony Formoso's store - Tony is the developer of that excellent utility)- for $US9.99 or $US29.99 respectively. Earlier this year came the news that Clem Tillier, of Speedworks, was closing his business down. He has apparently now given his TGV Generation 1 project to the Project ESK Team led by Edouard Staniczek (they produced the excellent TGV Duplex models, among others).

• 10 December - most news is from t-s.com. The author has also developed some more activities for the Wupper Express 8 route in Germany.

• 3 December - mainly the news from other sites mentioned elsewhere here, but some new activities for Wupper Express 8 that he has developed.

• 28 November - a link to another French MSTS website that has a lot of material and a very good links page for European routes and accessories - Microrail.

• 26 November - a couple of activities for the Wupper Express V8 route, plus links to a number of new items for European railroads (French and Italian).

• 20 November - mainly US news, plus his own work in developing activities for the Wupper Express V8 route in Germany - he has a lot of material on that route - both the VRoute and the RW.

• 14 November - he's back in action again - finished supervising exams, which took a lot of his time. Check from now on for information about happenings on European MSTS sites. if you are into European railroads and equipment, this website is the best place that I know of to find out the major developments.

• 8 November - listings from the other sites on this page above.

• 2 November - the owner of this site is developing activities for the Wupper Express 8 route, and he has a couple of new pages dedicated to this route, including a long list of RW sites relevant to this German route. He has just posted the first of the activities on the site.

• 22 January - they are adding the new Arkansas & Ozarks (payware route) to their Shortlines division.

• 17 January - they are trying something quite new - adding a virtual airline to their network - "Ohio Valley Aviation is a regional Virtual Airline serving the Ohio River Valley. We offer passenger, freight, and express service to the region. Modern or vintage era flying. As part of the Ohio Valley System, we provide integrated passenger and express service and intermodal freight services. With our simple Train-To-Plane service, the airport is as close as your local train station. And, we "code share" with ten other Virtual Airlines, so you can fly Virtually Anywhere!!! From the major carriers Voyager Airlines, Voyager Canada, and Texas International, to the regionals - Great Lakes Express, Florida Air, Island Air, Tidewater Express, and Paradise Tours, to the cargo carrier Voyager Air Freight. "Short hops or long hauls, Voyager's fleet covers the world with over 2,000 daily flights. Paradise is only a ride away. Mountain flying or snowy passes test the pilot's skills. A community of virtual aviators gather here for hobby and friendship. We hope you make your VA home at Ohio Valley/Voyager Airlines." It will be interesting to watch this new development in the vworld.

• 6 January - they are working hard at finishing up the fairly large number of activities in the testing stage so they can be released - not a lot of other action in the forums.

• 27 December - lots of general discussion - the Narrow Gauge forum is quite busy.

• 20 December - lots of discussion in the forums. 2 new General Managers appointed for the Narrow Gauge ("Wabash Banks") and the WV&O (Ken "Speedy" Patterson) Divisions. it sounds like they will have the Rio Grande Southern route as their first narrow gauge route. They have started a Traction Division, probably using the Mesabi route as the basis for that one.

• 10 December - main news this week is the advertising for new General Managers for the WV&O division and the new narrow gauge division of the VR.

• 3 December - talk about adding some narrow gauge routes (including Sumpter Valley). A couple of engineers have taken up the offer of a work order bidding system. The vLEU is starting to recruit staff.

• 28 November - the bidding system for work orders has started - it will be interesting to see how many engineers take up the opportunity to work with MSTS in a slightly different way - hopefully, lots of them. They are also evaluating a couple of new routes for their network.

• 26 November - discussion about introducing a bidding system for assigning work orders.

• 20 November - they are investigating the possibility of developing a promotion system that is based on time + performance in the work orders based on the MSTS evaluation reports. This will be an interesting development to watch.

• 14 November - this VR is continuing to develop on a daily basis. This might not be the best place to list what it is doing - it is doing much more than the frequency of my postings here indicates - I visit the forums daily, and there are always new threads to read.

• 2 November - the forums continue to be very active. One feature of these forums is a "Fun Poll" each day or two that members can vote in, to give feedback on a wide variety of issues related to the VR, including favourite steamer, favourite activity style, favourite modern diesel, screen resolution, ... 

• 22 January - this VR has closed, so this part of the page will not appear from the end of this month - sad to see that happen.

• 6 December - from the front page, since the forums are very quiet, and I can't get into the Announcements forum (a bit strange as I am a registered member - don't they want us to know anything?): "Hi and welcome to the new vFBL site. We have decide to use the NETS system that Bob at vNERR wrote. OK, now that the site is working (well 90%), it's time to ask for some help. I'm looking for members to write a heap of new acts. These acts will be based on a 7-day week schedule. These will be long haulage trains that need to be run each day. We will need grain, coal, auto, container trains. Also we need small local acts. Also we will be dropping some routes and adding new routes, as well as building a new fleet of modern locos and rolling stock, I'm also thinking of a new paint scheme. We will still have a passenger service but along the line of Amtrak, running Amtrak stock. vFBL will have 3 divisions, Eastern, Western and HQ; the HQ division will only have the FBL route. So we will be looking for 2 division managers. Once the managers have been decided on, it will be up to them to build a small management team whose job it will be to decide which routes to use in their divisions. Each division will be made up of 4 to 6 routes."

• 27 December - generally quiet in the forums.

• 20 December - nothing new. I (and at least one other member) can't get into some of the members' forums. A posting on the front page says that there are new look locos, but there are no links that I can find.

• 10 December - I have rejoined, as the website said that we have to - since the rebuild of the website. I also re-registered in the forums. No activity in the forums; nothing much else on the site as yet.

• 1-3 December - I have just found an email from Stuart from several weeks ago - my apologies for this omission. They have a new internet address for their website - the link above is to the new website, which they are still building.

• 14 November - the message on the website now reads: "Due to a major database problem the old site will not be returning. But in the next few days the new site will open. So please come back in a few days. StuartM"

• 7 November - Stuart Mitchell has sent us a message that says: "Just a quick note, the new vFBL site should be up in the next few days. Just have to add all the acts and fine tune some of the pages, and we are back."

• This website has shut down for the time being. We understand that it is moving to a new hosting service, so we'll wait for further developments.