Now, that the World of Subways is out, many game play movies are cropping up on You Tube. This clip gives a very good representation of game. I really liked the sound and lighting in the game.

As mentioned before, you need to have a pretty good computer to get the good stuff.

Strobist, gives detailed instructions on how to build a cheap Macro Studio. You may already have the cardboard box and tissue so it would basically be free!

My macro studio

Most of the pictures of my scratch build structures were taken in this light-box. Here are some of my observations while taking these pictures:

1. Always use a tripod and use your camera's timer to snap a picture. Sometimes by clicking the shutter, the camera might shake, so always use the timer.
2. Use the Macro setting (flower icon) on your camera. Also check your manual as to how close you can go. Usually between 6 to 9 inches is close enough.
3. Set your White Balance to "Tungsten"
4. Most better cameras, allow you to set the aperture/f-stop setting. Use a bigger number to get most of the model in focus. My camera, does not give me that option so i have to keep the model parallel to the lens to keep all of it in focus.
5. And, the most important tip is CLEAN your model. You will be surprised how dirty they look after you have taken the macro shot.

A Popeye cartoon. Onion pacific verses the Sudden pacific race

I try to seek out Trainz content hosted on other sites because of the erratic nature of the CMP. I would like to add this find to my previous list.

Neoklai & Lana have created excellent content for trainz. Notable among them are the building/warehouses and animated people/machines.

Video by spikerod shows the various animated people.




To Download, click on the title link above the picture.

You will be taken to item page, where you start the downlaod by clicking on the title above the image.

Note: Since this is a personal site, it may go away. Please save your downloads in a safe place, if you liked them.

12 questions about the National Parks and railroads, posted by Bob Janiskee. I got only 2 correct! My knowledge about national parks and railroads is seriously lacking :-(
Let us know how you all did!

The download version of the Subway Simulator is now available for $36.62. This covers the New Jersey and New York City PATH route. UKTrainSim has posted a review of this sim.

There are two EXE's that you get when you purchase it, one is the LOW version and the other HIGH version. The HIGH version has the eye-candy but my PC will not be able to handle it.


System requirements:
Minimum:
Processor: Pentium IV 3,0 Ghz
Microsoft Windwos XP/Vista
Free hard disk space: 2.5 GB
RAM Memory: 2 GB
Graphics card: 128 MB NVidia GeForce 66xx or similar ATI

Recommended for a very good framerate in the HIGH version:
Dual Core or similar AMD Processor
Microsoft Windwos XP/Vista
Free hard disk space: 2.5 GB
RAM Memory: 2 GB
Graphics card: NVidia GeForce 8600 or similar ATI

Its movie time. Paradise Express(1937) is an B&W movie about the bad trucking company trying to squeeze out a small railroad business. This movie is in the Public Domain.



[IMDB link]

This is a very entertaining show about railways from around the world.The host Mark Found is very funny and spirited. He is based in UK and so he reports from there. Jonathan Newton is based in Melbourne and will do 6 shows from there. Though between them, they will cover UK and Australia, Mark plans to put in some clips from other railways too.

The first show covers the Garden gala event held at Llanfair, the Welshpool & Llanfair light railway, Youtube clips of a couple of train chasing brothers and much more.

I love Mark's style. Give them a viewing and bookmark them for future shows. I hope though they put in a RSS feed to make it easier for us to get the updates.

5 high-speed railway projects as evaluated by Popular Mechanics.

Gmax software is used to create structures and models for the Trainz simulator. Gmax, is free but has a steep learning curve. I gave up on my first attempt but recently found some great user-created tutorials that i can go through to give it one more try.

Start with Ianz tutorial on setting up Gmax. He also teaches us about creating backdrops. TaFWeb has also an excellent tutorial about preparing an image for Gmax.

However, the newest, Jytte's tutorial is the best for newbies. He takes us through each step with detailed screenshots which makes it very simple.

Since i love scratchbuilding structures in the model world, with the help of these tutorials i decided to give the virtual world a try once again.


Note: Please printout or save these tutorials to your local drive. These are personal sites and hopefully they will be still there when you need them but just in case...

In Google's collection of digitized books I found a lot of books on model railroading. All the pages are not available due to copyright concerns but you can browse these books just as you would in a bookstore, but you won't be able to see more pages than the copyright holder has made available.

Not to bash them, but Kalmbach publishing has a lot of books that are similar in topics. Just on scenery there are many books. By using google book search, you can now preview and see if thats what you really want. If you like it, google provides direct links to the merchants for you to buy the book.

However, before you buy, click on the Find this book in a library to see if its available in a public library. If you happen to be near one, i envy you!

For the history buff among us, older books are available for full preview and download. I found rather interesting titles like the Growth of Steam-Engine and Locomotive Engine Running and Management.

If you do find any interesting books, please share with us via the comments.
Happy searching/reading!

I created PDF sheets of some common textures we use for scratchbuilding structures. These were done in Model Builder. Click on the images to download them. Note: These are in HO scale.

Bricks



Also, posted previously,

Roof


Siding

The upcoming subway simulator, posted their system requirements. The HIGH version has a very powerful light simulation system, a huge number of sound effects. My PC just about meets the minimum requirement and that is a bummer as the new screens, on a higer-end PC just looks great!

London Transport Museum in Covent Garden has their collection of over 16,000 photographs available online. Most of the photos are made up of the old London Transport photographic archive of over 150,000 black and white photographs.

For us railfans, the mainline railways and the underground b/w photos are worth noting. Or you can view the online museum by gallery or by collection.

Between the 5-14 September they are having a eBay fundraising auction. Don't know if people outside the UK can bid but the auctions for a lesson at the train driver's academy at Hornsey and the Tube stations signs are worth bidding for.

Trainz allows users to create really long prototypical routes. But, if the long route is well detailed and includes a lot of vegetation, it crawls on a non-high end pc. And also, i loose patience if i have to drive a train for more than 20 minutes without arriving at the end. Are we there yet?

Because of these reasons, i tend to look for smaller routes. Today, let me showcase Zwabberaar's micro layout called Niedergemunden.

This small layout, fits in one baseboard and offers a lot of shunting possibilities and is very nicely detailed. It has a lot of grasses and trees, a town with rows of houses. It has a terminal passenger station and 2 multi-industries. You can setup any product at these industries. The "world" connected to this layout is a portal.

Industry...grain loading?

Industry...General goods

However, there was a slight problem with a couple of double slips in the layout. Because the individual arrows to switch the points are very close, its difficult to select the one you want. To solve this problem, i used AI command, Go To Trackmark... It worked like a charm.

Double slip. Tough to switch

On the whole, i really loved Zwabberaar's layout. The route and all the objects in it is free and available at the Download Station. If you are into operations or shunting and have half-an-hour to spare, you will love this route. Give it a try.

I made a movie clip [YouTube High Quality link] of a simple shunt at Niedergemunden. Enjoy!

CMP or Content Manager Plus is a standalone program that comes with Trainz 2006. It allows you to connect to the Trainz Download Station and download/install user created content, which is the best part of owning Trainz.

However, CMP, has a mind of its own. There are times when it just doesn't work. Here are a few things you can do to get it to work. (This is for Trainz 2006 version)


Updating the Trainz Asset Database. Please wait...

• On launching the CMP, if you see this message and you have been waiting 10-15 minutes, press the ESC key to bypass the updates.

• If this does not work, go into Task Manager, Process tab and kill the Launcher.exe and ContentManager.exe. and then try again.

• Now, if this does not work, you need to do something drastic. Go into C:\Program Files\Auran\TRS2006 and delete the assets.tdx file. Sometimes this get corrupted but dont worry, Trainz will rebuild it.

• In my case, even this did not help so i did the final step, go to the cache folder (C:\Program Files\Auran\TRS2006\Cache) and delete all files/folders in there.

After this when i launched CMP, it took 5 minutes to update and then everything began to work as it should. I downloaded some new routes and will be showcasing them in a subsequent post. And while CMP's working, i better go and get more fresh content...