• 29 October - and the pressure on the site has decreased. There are 20 new version of the Canadian Via P42 locos - all in the same livery but with different numbers - 900 to 920. You need two other downloads to make them work properly - the cab view and the sounds, both available at t-s.com. Lots of boxcars in recent days.

• 25 October - and the web site is still very, very busy. The MBTA downloading must be still going on - it is about 1Gb of files. Now the author is saying that he will try to use Route-Riter to compact it - and he has made some changes to it already!! There has been some other new material available from the web site - wagons and activities mainly.

• 21 October - and still another route - the MBTA one that is mentioned in a news item on the main News page. This site has been very busy today - it happens each time that there is a new route to download. Also lots more boxcars in all sorts of liveries, plus a patch for New Roads fileset (I'll add it to the Other Downloads page as soon as I can get it from the file library), some Belgian electric locos, an activity for the Wupper Express v8 route, a large file with 55 trackbeds and rails texture files, and F40PH loco sound track - enough new stuff to keep you happy for a few days!

• 18 October - another new route! This is the "Marias Kootenai Route. Created by Frank Carver, assisted by Otto Wipfel, it covers 363 miles from Shelby to Athol, adding a 210 miles long extension to Bob Siederer & Paul Doty's Marias Pass 3.1 Route. Features all season environments in an attractive landscape. The latest version of XTracks is required." The download is 5 files, each of about 35Mb. There is a thread at t-s.com with more information and a link to some locos and rolling stock - 3 files, each of about 30+Mb. The stock is also available at t-s.com in one big file of over 100Mb - "includes MLT Dash 9, NAWL Big BlowUP, GP38, SD40-2, Cyndi's BNSF-DASH9, 250 mph Santa Fe Explorer, and improved by Teemu Saukkonen, Okrasa Ghia and Otto Wipfel. MSTS US2Freight wagons, couplers adjusted, and all wheels aligned with the top of the rails." The t-s.com thread also has a link to a map of the route.

• 15 October - the big news this week has been the Wupper Express 8 route and the various fixes and extra bits - e.g. new sounds. Apart from this, there have been more items of rolling stock and more locos (including for the recent Cape Cod Colony route), with a couple of cabeese(?).

• 9 October - the pack of equipment that will be used for the new Wupper Express 8 route (Germany), to be released this weekend, is on the site now. It includes "two diesel switchers V60/360, 23 freight cars, 7 driveable steering cars, 26 coaches and carriages in assorted liveries (Eurocity with restaurant, Intercity with bistro, Interregio, TEN sleepers, interurban double deckers, S-Bahn, Regionalbahn), with sound by Wespe. By Juergen Wolfersheim and Ralf Koelsche, Graphics 15 Team."

There is also the usual new equipment for US railroads - Nickel Plate Road GP 35 and Alco RS-36 plus some more rolling stock. Yesterday, there was a mini-pack of "three/four Norfolk Southern locomotives developed with Canton in mind. Includes SD40-2 #3203, GP40-2 #3009, GP38 #2817 and GP38 #2817 (with the driver's door open). By Dick Cowen." and some Conrail GP20s (both blue and black).

• 6 October - a fix for the Cape Cod Colony route was noticed by one of our members (Jim - Intelvet, ID# 260 - thanks for the message) - it adds some missing files that some people have reported as having problems with when they installed the route.

• 2 October - lots of locos and rolling stock since the last update. You could run different consists every day and not duplicate any for weeks! It amazes me that people can still find so much more new material to model!

One new route - Cape Cod Colony - was published during this time - over 220Mb download - it does not use the default textures or objects. "The route is set on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. No particular time but heavily influenced by NY, NH & H (New Haven Railroad) days. Tracks run from Wareham, through Buzzards Bay, to Woods Hole, Hyannis, Chatham, and Provincetown. Estimated 150+ miles of track and 50+ station/stops along the way. Works only in summer."

• 20 September - a few interesting items today:

  • a small fix for version 5 of the Bear Mountain Pass route;

  • an activity pack for the Clinton Subdivision route - the route developed by one of our members, CraigH;

  • more locos and rolling stock.

• 19 September - some update collections of locos and rolling stock for the Canton-Suddenly route, as well as more items for general use (e.g. cryo-reefers).

• 15 September - an update for the Clinton Subdivision route - "A replacement sigcfg.dat file for those who want to use the new BNSF signal shapes (USA2SIGR.ZIP). No editing required." By Craig Hatlestad (one of our NERR members).

There is also a whole gaggle of locos and rolling stock for the Severn Valley Railway route in the UK, but you need to have the original stuff installed before you try to use this collection. It looks good.

• 14 September - a new version of the Bear Mountain Pass route (version 5 - said to be "the final version) is available now. There have been 832 downloads by today. Also some more equipment and activities.

• 9 September - another new utility - Ace It - a replacement for MakeAce and MakeAceWin (supplied with MSTS) - will convert most graphics formats to ace files. plus a whole collection of Danish locos and rolling stock.

• 8 September - the biggest news on this site this week has been the Clinton Subdivision route - in both manual (with a fix) and self-installing versions. It has had excellent reviews, so you should take a look at it - it will be added to the NERR network soon.

• 3/4 September - the Frisco Fort Smith Subdivision route is available again, together with a fix for the route for those people who downloaded it a few days ago. Some more locos and rolling stock have been uploaded in recent days as well.

• 28 August - quite a few activities for a variety of routes this week, with a concentration on the Whitefish 5 route; also some new locos. Some interesting railcars from the Portland Traction Company and more Hollywood class suburban trainsets.

• 23 August - some new equipment for the Full Bucket Line and some other locos and activities.

• 16 August - Still not much new that is really exciting, but there have been some new freight cars/wagons and a couple of locos, including the one that was part of BNSFLady's (Cyndi Richards) final project before she died recently - someone else was given permission to complete it and release it in her memory.

• 11 August - not much new this week so far.

• 7 August - an update to the Sweet Grass Route - now up to v0.91.

• Don't forget to check the forums here occasionally. Some of the threads can be very helpful and informative.

• 25 October - some more interesting steam locos (switchers and mainline locos, including an A3 and some good-looking DMUs), plus more activities - almost makes me want to run steam, as those locos have more character (in their appearance, anyway).

• 21 October - new steam and diesel locos for UK rail fans over the past few days, plus some more Blackpool trams and a few activities.

• 15 October - more locos (and sounds) and rolling stock and activities (some of which sound very interesting). Included in the listing is an "invisible loco designed principally to temporarily block traffic and regulate the flow" - seems to be a different idea for a different purpose from the invisocar loco available from ts.com and our web site.

• 9 October - some nice looking UK steam locos (such as the Princess Class "Princess Mary Rose"), lots of activities for a number of UK routes (including one called Tamping Travels in which you drive the Plasser & Theurer Tamping Unit on the Thaxted route- first activity that I've seen for that piece of equipment), and some new tramcars for the Blackpool tramway route. This continues to be a very active site - the UK equivalent of t-s.com.

• 5 October - more and more locos! Also an update to the Scottish central route (see 19 August item below).

• 2 October - more UK locos, rolling stock, activities, and objects in the past couple of weeks. Today, there is a new version of Paul Gausden's Consist Manager (not a replacement for ConBuilder - a much more basic program). UK modellers also seem to provide more sound sets and cab views for their equipment than the US developers. There is a schematic for a new Russian route - Demitrov - with a link in the download to the web site where the route can be downloaded - I have had no luck getting it so far.

• 15 September - still more locos and rolling stock - they certainly produce plenty of new equipment to run on the many UK routes available.

• 8 September - lots of new locos and activities this week. Note that some of them require the ownership of payware equipment to get them to work properly.

• 4 September - there have been lots of locos and equipment files, with plenty of activities for various UK routes.

• 28 August - this site has added a number of new UK locos and items of rolling stock in recent days, with a few activities for the UK routes.

• 19 August - a new route - Scottish Central - 13 files totalling over 160Mb. I don't know the full details, but the route includes the main Edinburgh station (and surrounding area) and the beautiful Firth of Forth railway bridge (the photo on the web site brought back great memories of my visit to Edinburgh last year). I intend to get the route eventually. The route needs the UK Finescale downloads to work.

• 11 August - not much exciting and new this week so far.

• 8 August - the Kuri-Jos route - between two Nigerian towns.

• 7 August - a couple of videos of steam locos in action.

• 21 October - some discussion about how to handle the new run-through activities that Spin has started to produce.

• 15 October - action is in the forums, with information that the first multi-VR run-through activity (OVS and vFBL) is in the testing stage.

• 9 October - the site is back online.

• 5 October - it will be back soon - web site hosting problems.

• 2 October - I can't reach the site today. VASM has frozen the stock, so maybe it has gone the way of other fallen flags. That's a pity, because the FBL route is excellent - and one of the first good quality freeware routes.

• 8 September - some posts in the forum, but I can't see much other action at the moment.

• 4 September - I can't reach the site today.

• 16 August - the forums are operating; the member listing shows over 250 members.

• 8 August - the new site should be up and running in a week or two, according to an item on the main page. Hope so, as it would be a shame to lose another VR. Maybe you should join and help them out.

• 9 October - the first Northern Ireland railway stock that I've seen - intercity trainsets.

• 2 October - only about 5 items in the past couple of weeks, including a new version of the Plasser & Theurer tamping machine for MOW work.

• 4 September - a few German locos and railcars

• 8 August - Project Schweizerhof - MSTS freeware route (about 8Mb). A 30 km long, double tracked, fictional Swiss style, standard gauge route. Oriented on SBB and BLS real life rail companies.

• This is a partner page to UKTrainSim - it has only European routes and equipment and things.

• 21 October - a new page on their web site with the first series of run-through activities for NERR-OVS (4 activities) and vFBL-OVS (2 activities), together with the downloads that are needed to run them.

• 15 October - more action in the forums. This is an active VR, with a variety of training programs and lots of activities. They also seek feedback from members via frequent polls in the forums.

• 9 October - the forums continue to be active. They post their new activities to an offsite storage area and send an email to members with the link - have a steady stream of a few new ones each week.

• 2 October - some new training equipment and information about several new training programs for their members.

• Lots of general activity.

• The OVS is working with the NERR now to develop some cross-continent work orders. Watch the NERR forums for further developments.

• "Ohio Valley System is a regional Virtual Railroad using the Ohio Rail route, and having trackage rights on several connecting routes. OVS Short Lines is a virtual short line operator, using the Canton RR, North Arkansas RR, and the East Metro RR. OVS Training Institute offers several courses to help get more enjoyment out of Train Sim, and run it closer to the real thing. OVS Message Forum is the communications center for the system." You can join this VR and run routes that the NERR does not use, including Ohio Rails, East Metro, Northern Arkansas, Canton-Suddenly.

• 25 October - a quieter week this week.

• 21 October - news of the MBTA route, plus a note about an update for the Wupper Express 8 route that makes the grass greener.

• 18 October - news of the new Marias Kootenai route, plus a note about the South African steam loco - both available at t-s.com.

• 15 October - lots of information about the Wupper Express 8 route this week, plus more news about new items of Italian and Australian equipment.

• 2 October - the author of this site checks a lot of other sites each day to compile his news and information - UK, US, European and Australian sources. If you have an interest that goes beyond the rails of the USA, then you should visit this site regularly.

One interesting item in the past few days was a site that has another version of a very-heavy equipment transporter (like the Schnabel that we have on our web site, but bigger!) - this site also has a Cab-Forward steam loco (6-2-2-6) in two liveries -they were built in about 1910 and used until 1952.

There is an item about the free SD60F loco that MapleLeaf Tracks has just made available for download.

• 19 September - news of the extension of a Czech route (46Mb file) - you need the original route files (219 Mb) to use this extension.

• 17 September - If you have been waiting for the 8th version of the Wupper Express in Germany, from the Graphics 15 team, you have only a few more weeks to wait, if everything goes well for them.

• 8 September - this site continues to have great links to a wide variety of sites on both sides of the Atlantic.

• 28 August - a link to a new Italian route - Turin to Milan (94Mb download).

• 22 August - a new route - the Jaszkiser-Nagybereg route in Hungary (110Mb download) - linked to this page.

• 11 August - This web site is an excellent source of up-to-date information about new material available for MSTS. The author monitors a number of US and UK and European MSTS web sites every day. The web site also contains lots of handy hints for MSTS and lots of links to other web sites. Example: "A quieter day, however a simple question such as I would like to know the history of diesel locomotives from a European trainsimmer gave experts such as Bob Boudoin ... the chance to give us all a good history lesson."

• 21 October - 12 October was the last update to this site, with two new railcars for Australian lines.
• 2 October - a new route - the Illawarra area to the south of Sydney - appeared this week - 40 kilometres of line with highly detailed scenery.
• 15 September - some new Alcos in Australian livery - nice looking beasts.
• 8 September - yesterday, there was the release of the latest version of ConBuilder - 2.1.6 - now added to our Other Downloads page.
• 4 September - Richard Osborne has released a new tutorial "Building a Coach in GMax", and Bob Latimer has provided his tutorial entitled "Fixing broken paths using Activity Editor".
• 28 August - a tutorial on how to get crisp, clear lettering on your MSTS models.
• 23 August - some more new rolling stock, plus two more tutorials - this time a primer on reducing perspective distortion in images, while another gives handy tips on Paintshop Pro and weathering.
• 20 August - if you have never seen the rolling stock that used to be the last car in freight and passenger trains in New South Wales in Australia, take a look at the latest addition to the rolling stock on this site.
• 20 August - A new tutorial - "Paul Gausden shows yet another use for his 3D Canvas Pro Pipe builder plug-in: Paul's continuing design of plug-ins for this 3D modelling software alone makes an ongoing compelling argument that 3D Canvas should be the software of choice for MSTS."
• No additions to routes or rolling stock since 30 May - this site hosts Mike Simpson's Route-Riter, which we also host on the NERR web site.
• This web site is dedicated especially to the development of MSTS material for Australian routes.

This space will be available soon!! Not enough on AvSim to be worthwhile monitoring it, so it will soon be removed.

What would you like to see here?

In the meantime, you might like to take a look at some of these other MSTS websites:

• 3D Trains - payware site (including locos and trainsets, especially F7s, E8s, and G9s) with a busy forum section. There is also a handy colour reference section for equipment modellers.

• 3DTrainStuff - payware site (mainly routes - Tehachapi Pass, Cajon Pass, Cambrian route, and the various expansion packs for these).

At AvSim:

• 2 October - Over 60Mb of locos and rollingstock for the Canton-Suddenly route have been made available in the past couple of weeks.
• Nothing new since the Norfolk Southern loco megapack in early July.