Ending this year with a set of nice images of railways in landscapes.

Ian Lawrence's photos tell a great story and he has also written several articles about railway photography. I found the "Shooting Trains in Low Light" particularly helpful. Look for more of his articles at the bottom of the page.

Happy New Year!

I admit, I have a weakness for German Steam Locos. I always wanted to get a whole fleet of them. There is something about these black beauties with the red wheels, that is breathtaking.
The HO scale models are somewhat out of my reach so settled
for the virtual ones for the Trainz simulator from SLW. They have highly detailed and excellent models. I took advantage of their 3 Euros sale for christmas and got a mix of tank, passenger and freight locomotives.
My collection so far... (Warning: graphic intensive)

Luke 2:8-14
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,"Glory to God in the highest,and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

The next train simulator version from Microsoft (MSTS 2) , which was announced and then canned, seems to be coming back to life. The renders looks very realistic but then again these are renders. It all depends on the PC requirements.

The recently released in-game screens look promising especially the cab shots but i am really itching to find out more about the machine requirements. They say that it will have "dynamic weather, highly-detailed DirectX 10 graphics"

So, lets wait and see. I do have a slight bias towards Aurans' Trainz but welcome MSTS2 and the recently released Kuju's Rail simulator. More choices means more happy virtual train simmers!

With all the snow we had the past week, it was fun to watch these youtube videos of snow ploughing train-style. The snow waves feel empty without any surfer dude on it!

Auran, the company that makes Trainz, is having some trouble. This was because of bad sales of its game Fury. Though 80 percent of its employees have lost their jobs, Auran says that a core team will keep on developing Trainz.

However, since this morning the Trainz Forum is down. Wondering whats happening? The forum is like my morning newspaper. It gives me a feel of what fellow trainzers are doing. Without it, i feel lost when it come to the world of trainz.

I usually try not to include music with trainz clips but on hearing the first few bars of Christmas Eve by Trans Siberian Orchestra, i pictured a winter snowfall in the trainz world.

I tried out new filming techniques like the changeover to daylight (1:30) by speeding the trainz clock and also sinking the camera under the ground to get real close to the tracks (2:05). Here is the result.

I scratch-build structures using card stock. My old method was to print out brick and sidings using Photoshop. I would then paint these using water colors and use them in building models. The painting did not give a good feel to the overall structure and so i started to look for alternatives.

I found out the ScaleScenes had the exact stuff i was looking for. Each material/texture sheet costs $2.50 and you get a A4 size PDF that you could use to print as many sheets as you want. The effect for me, was way better than trying to paint it. These are available in only HO and N scales. They have a free Goods Store that you could try. Please follow the instructions carefully. I messed it up the first time.

Paper Creek Models also have texture sheets but i have not tried them. Pricewise they are a bit expensive but they have HO, N, S, O and Z scales.

If you need help in laying out a building plan and arranging textures, you should give the Model Builder from Evan Designs a try. It costs $45 but it is worth it if you do a lot of structure building. Check out the video demo to see how easy it is to make a structure. The application has some in-built plans but you can import your own plans in WMF format. So, the possibilities are endless. The other reason i liked it is that by printing only the plan with textures, you save on printer ink. Their tips are helpful even if you have your own methods for building card structures.

I used Model builder to create a small tool shed and am in the process of creating an oil shed. I got the Purina sign from a Google image search. Model Builder let me import and resize the image. You can also use the same method to import other architectural textures for your models.

Tool Shed

Oil Shed - Work in Progress

I moved the posts featuring multiple photos to its own gallery. This was done to save time on loading the main page.

Yesterday, I purchased a BR18 201 express locomotive from SteamLocomotiveWorks(SLW) for Trainz version 2006.

They have excellent German, Austrian and Polish Steam Locomotives. Its highly detailed with custom cabs and great sounds. Pricewise, they are around 4.50 Euros which comes to around 6-7USD. You can pay through Paypal and usually within a couple of hours Martin from SLW, emails you the CDP files. The price is in a sweet spot unlike other payware locomotives for trainz which costs more than 15USD.

I already own a BR58 frieght and a BR94 tank loco. Stay tuned for a video sometime soon, featuring the newest star!

BR18 201

The HUB Division's Annual Train Expo took place this weekend in Marlborough, MA. I was pleasantly surprised to find a HO layout of the European Train Enthusiasts of New England. Just what i had wanted! They were a Marklin outfit and found out they are accepting members. Once a month you meet other members who share your interests. It sounds like fun and I might give it a try.

The Cape Cod Layout had a great selection of US boxcars, some of which were realistically weathered.

The Amherst Belt Lines layout had enlarged digital photographs of the protptypical location and used it as backdrops. The effect was stunning.

In all there were 4 HO, 1 S gauge and 1 O gauge layouts. Marklin seemed to be well represented as there were a few vendors selling marklin starter sets, digital control modules. Vendors and visitors all seem to be talking about the "Big One" coming next month... the Springfield Train show.

Click on the picture for the gallery: