Passing Loop

Friday Fun: Javascript Train Simulation

2008-12-26T03:04:00.000-08:00

Train Kit Simulation is a web-based simulation using train icons and a scrolling background developed by Opaku. Basic instructions are given if you want to develop one for your site.

Trainkit Hungary has a lot of trainsets (links marked "Katt!") that uses Opaku's kit. You can use the mouse or the keyboard but i was having issues with the mouse. Keyboard works great.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

Christmas has a special meaning for us model railroaders. Many of us got our start in railroading with a model train or a Lionel set on Christmas day. Maybe you are frantically wrapping a train set for your kids. Its more fun railroading with the whole family.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year! Share love and joy with family and friends this blessed holiday.

Isaiah 9: 2-6,7
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Friday Game: Train Director

2008-12-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

Train Director is a copy of the Train Dispatcher simulation software. With Train Director you can simulate the work of the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC). Your task is to direct trains to their final destination, by throwing switches and clearing signals. Train Director is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Oh! and its free.

The track plans currently, cover most of Europe and you can even create your own layout. I tried out some easy layouts and they were fun. The more complex ones were very challenging. Be sure to check the manual for screens and general instructions.

Free Paper Railroad Layout

2008-12-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

These cute looking trains are more for the little ones. They sure would love to push and pull these "happy face" locomotives using their 0-5-0 switcher (aka their hands!)

All the elements of the layout are printed including buildings, signals and trees. Each "layout" has three PDF's. Click on the train icons to get them. All you need are scissors and glue. The kids can now enjoy building their layout with Dad's help!

Model railroading during recession?

2008-12-17T04:18:00.000-08:00

Now that we are in a recession and with all the bad news about people losing their jobs, i was wondering if trains stores, both physical and on the web are seeing declining sales. At the last train show i went, i did notice a smaller crowd. I also found out the Citigroup Center in New York cancelled their model train display citing "operating expenses".

Some say that the recession is good for the hobby. People will be spending their time in their basements building things. Yes, but will they be spending $200-$300 on new craftsman structure kits or limited edition locomotives?

The reality about model railroading is that it can be as expensive or as
cheap as you want it to be. Human nature is such that in bad times, we seek comfort in doing things that make us feel good and for us, its playing with trains. We will find ways even in these times to do just that.

If you were planing to build a layout but now want to save it for a later day, check out the layout design sites and podcasts. Learning is still free.

If you were planing to purchase tracks or points for your layout, check out ebay listings. You may find a good deal.

Join a model railroad club in your neighborhood. Get your modeling fix till the job or money scene become better.

If spending $$$ on that must-have laser-cut structures seem silly now, look into scratch building. They are plenty of stuff lying around the house that
you can use. Check out my scratch building series. I have posted a few basic HO scale brick textures that you can use.

If haven't looked into virtual railroading, try Trainz or Rail Simulator. I am a bit biased towards Trainz as its very easy to get into, quickly lay tracks and run trains. I know its not the same as real model railroading but you do get more bang for the buck with the tons of free content that's out there.

But it seems that not all are feeling the pinch. The projection seems on schedule for Long Island, where Gscheidle, whose toy-train shop is in its 25th year,says that "We do about 90 percent of our business between November and January". Calabrese who is not only CEO but part-owner of Lionel says "We have both gone through some really hard times, and we're both still alive."

So, how are you doing? Are you spending the same amount on the hobby or have you cut back?

Papercraft GG1 Locomotive

2008-12-15T04:49:00.000-08:00

"The GG1 electric locomotive was built by Pennsylvania Railroad (aka Pennsy) between 1934 to 1943 with a total of 139 units finished. It ran through New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Harrisburg."

Canon has created a papercraft model of the GG1 electric locomotive that was designed by M. Kajiwara. Get the file [PDF - 23 pages] and assembly instructions [PDF - 17 pages] and make yourself a GG1.

Note: As with any papercraft models, have a sharp craft knife and go slow. The diagrams looks complicated but go slow and take plenty of breaks in between.

I'll take the top berth

2008-12-12T10:27:00.000-08:00

An overcrowded passenger train is seen in Dhaka, Bangladesh on December 8, 2008 as pilgrims return home ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Adha [slow connection warning!] holiday.

Photo by Alan Taylor via The Big Picture

First came DC, then DCC and now MC?

2008-12-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

MC means Mind control. Hitachi has successfully tested a brain-machine interface that allows users to turn power switches on and off with their mind.

In the experiments, test subjects were able to activate the power switch of a model train by performing mental arithmetic and reciting items from memory. Though this allows only simple control of switches more work is being done to control more complex mechanical operations. The company has been working on this since 2006.

FarRail Trip reports and galleries

2008-12-10T04:56:00.000-08:00

FarRail Tours operates tours visiting the remaining active steam railways in the world. If you can make it, they have some upcoming tours. However, for the rest of us, the trip reports and the galleries are a great way to visit these places.

Most of their trip reports list the locomotives and show hand drawn route maps. The photos in the galleries are a treat to watch. They look professional and show the trains together with the human factor.

Making Scenic Express Supertrees

2008-12-09T05:16:00.000-08:00

For yesterdays post, while I was searching for Scotty Mason's tutorial on making peppergrass trees, i stumbled upon a great tutorial on making Scenic Express Supertrees.

Scenic Express Supertrees are incredibly realistic and Bill Carl shares with us his method on using Supertrees that involves boiling it! He also has a scenery clinic where he teaches us how to do a basic scenery on a module using foam board insulation.

Model Train Show December 08

2008-12-08T01:37:00.000-08:00

The HUB Division's Annual Train Expo took place this weekend in Marlborough, MA. There were quite a number of layouts. HO scale was quite well represented here by 6 layouts. The Bristol S Gauge were running a "Grinch Special" which had a Grinch riding a coal tender pulling hoppers and flat cars filled with Hersey's kisses, M&M's, candy canes. It sure attracted all the kids like bees to honey!

I went on a Saturday, Ticket prices were $7. I might be wrong but did notice that it was not very crowded. I don't know if people are cutting back or saving for the big one next month.

I met Scotty Mason at the show. He was showing his excellent modules and selling his DVD's. Apart from this structure that caught my eye, i noticed the almost realistic trees that he had on his module. He told me that it was Peppergrass. You get them at craft stores like Michael's or you could buy in bulk (cheaper) from his site. His site describes the method to create realistic trees. I used to think Scenic Express made great trees but these peppergrass trees were equally great.

Though i am into HO, I enjoyed looking at the bigger scales like ON30, S and O. The N scale is getting small for me. Getting old perhaps?

Click on the picture for the show gallery:

Here is a small clip of the layouts.

Decorated trains of Japan

2008-12-05T04:46:00.000-08:00

Somes trains in Japan are decorated with anime, manga characters and colorful ads. You would clear the tracks if you saw one of these coming.

Layout Design interviews at Modelrailcast

2008-12-04T06:02:00.000-08:00

Will, Ryan and his team over at the ModelRailcast Show have been recently doing informative interviews on layout design with the great's of the railroad modeling world like Joe Fugate, Craig Bisgeier, Bernard Kempinski and Marty. If you haven't yet subscribed, give them a try. The tips they provide will save the starting-out layout builder lots of money and headaches. Though these rules will immensely help the model builders, even the virtual modelers will benefit by their experiences.

I too am noting their ideas and with the help of the Track Planning for Realistic Operation book, try to incorporate them and in my to-be started Trainz layout. Virtual modeling seems to be fun without any space or monetary restrictions but it too has its issues. More on this in a later post.

Swiss love travelling in trains

2008-12-03T10:01:00.000-08:00

The UIC annual report on rail travel around the world gives credit to the Swiss for traveling more kilometers and taking the train more times than any other nation in 2007. They took 47 trips a year on average and traveled 2,103 km per person.
Japan came second followed by France, Germany, UK, Netherlands and Belgium.

[via Genevalunch]

Searching in Trainz 2009

2008-12-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

The past few days i have been spending time with the new Trainz 2009. Trying to see whats updated and whats new. I was pleasantly surprised with the new search feature.

Trainz over time gets very cluttered. Because of the tons of great freeware third-party content, you start to collect them all and when it becomes time to build your layout or use your favorite trains, it becomes a pain to look through and find them all.

The previous versions had a search option but was not very intuitive. Trainz 2009, World Builder Edition addressed that issue by revamping the search feature. You can now fine tune your search by categories, names, asset number, author id and many more. Once you get a set of objects you want to work with, you can save it and quickly get back to it every time. No more remembering what the name of the object was. I love this new feature and and currently sorting through and saving my favorite item groups. This works with Train objects, structures, tracks and even paint textures.

I have created two small tutorials showing how you can use these features. The first one shows how you can filter and save your searches. Click on picture for the tutorial:

Searching in Trainz 20009

This one shows how you "pick" or quick save you most frequently used paint textures. The older versions had a similar function but this time they made it much easier and faster to use. Click on picture for the tutorial:

Using the Pick List in Trainz 2009

Trainz 2009 has arrived

2008-12-01T05:33:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving day Auran, started to send the download version of Train 2009, World Builder Edition to all who had preordered. The file size was around 2.5 GB and the download took me around 25 minutes.

I did not want to upgrade the previous version so i uninstalled Trainz 2006 and did a fresh install of the new version. It took me about 10-15 minutes to install.

The first thing i tried was the Content Manager. I had a lot of problems with the previous version so wanted to see if they fixed it for this version. It did look good. I could connect to the Download station but then i don't have a lot of third-party content installed so will see if the CMP holds up later. I had purchased some locos for the previous version. Wanted to see how that played in the 2009 version. Imported the 10 CDP files and commited the changes. This whole process seemed to take around 20 minutes. The commiting process was a tad bit on the longer side and i was wondering if something's wrong here or if my PC is getting old.

So here are my thoughts on the Trainz 2009, World Builder Edition. There seem to be very few visible changes. I believe, they have overhauled the game engine to provide support for higher resolution textures, support for gloss materials and ground details. The included SD40 locomotive and one track show off these new textures and look awesome. I know that the talented Trainz community will rise up to the challenge and provide content to take advantages of the newer features but as of today there aren't many visible changes.

Regarding content, they have included a ton of content(trains and routes) from previous versions. This is a good thing because it provides backward compatibility for the many payware content, users have already own. All my payware content is working nicely though the sound of some locomotives from SteamLocomotiveWorks has changed.

So should you go for it?
If you are new to the world of virtual trains, Trainz 2009 is a great way to design your world and run trains in it.
If you have Trainz 2004 and older versions, the new content and features might be enticing.
If you own Train 2006, you will not get a "newness" factor when you buy this. You might wait till the free third-party content, using the new features, start appearing.

Click on the picture for the screens in Trainz 2009:

Friday Fun: Train Wallpapers

2008-11-28T03:13:00.000-08:00

A few great looking train wallpapers to spice up your desktop. These are available in various resolutions: 1024x768, 1152x864, 1280x1024, 1600x1200

This one is quite impressive.

Animated Train Pocket Watch

2008-11-25T05:41:00.001-08:00

Now you can get yourself a layout on a pocket watch. This has two trains running around in a circle to the tune, "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Oh! and you can use it to also check the time. Available at QVC.

[via boingboing]

Greenberg Train Show November 08

2008-11-24T04:47:00.000-08:00

This Sunday I went to the Greenberg Train Show that took place at Wilmington, MA. The Greenberg shows usually do a fall/winter and a spring show every year.

The admission tickets were $7 and despite being a bitter cold day many had turned up. I was only able to spend time with a few layouts. The New England LEGO Users Group to me is not a "model railroad" but more of a toy railroad. But, i seemed to be drawn to it every time. Maybe it the scale of the buildings or perhaps the fun details in every inch of the layout, i found myself trying to take it all in.

The other layout i spent all my time in was a HO scale called Better Late that Never. They had a few modules that were detailed exceptionally and other modules were work-in-progress. I found the unfinished modules appropriate in a train show as it gives me and others a good sense of "how-to's". Sort of a learning tool. This layout was sponsored by My Dad's Trains, a model railroad shop based in Wrentham, MA which is a few towns over from mine. The members meet in the basement of My Dad's Trains every Thursday night. They currently have 4 members and were looking for more. Since i am no where near to my own layout, this will give me a good opportunity to learn and interact with other modelers.

I also came across a flyer from the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts. They are organizing a "Steam in the Snow" event in North Conway, NH on January 3rd. The star would be their 0-6-0 #7470 which was built by the Grand Trunk Railroad in 1921. Lerro Productions will also be holding a night photo shoot on the 3rd and 4th of January. More information about this event is on their website.

Click on the picture for the still gallery:

Here is a small clip of the show.

Friday Fun: LIFE photo archive

2008-11-21T04:35:00.000-08:00

Google has made available 20 percent of images from the LIFE photo archives. They plan to make the entire collection online in the next few months. For us railfans, there are plenty of interesting railroad and railway pictures.

Extreme Trains: Not free for you!

2008-11-20T06:09:00.000-08:00

History Channel's Extreme Trains was free only for one episode. Sigh! Apple is now charging $1.99 for the Freight Train episode and i believe it will for the rest of the episodes in this series.

I did watch the free Coal Train episode and frankly was not all that impressed by it. Horseshoe Curve and loading and unloading of the hoppers was great but the presenter Matt Bown seemed to make a big deal about "electricity", kept asking the loader, engineer and the unloader about feeling the power they had transporting coal. He was trying to dramatise the whole climb over the hill. I agree the grade was steep but come on, Norfolk Southern do this everytime. Do we really have to sit on the edge of our seat to see if the train makes it up the hill this time or crashes!

I would have loved to hear the locomotive sounds changes as they throttle up the hill. Maybe some views of the cab controls. It was not all bad as i did learn some new things about replacing rails, wheels. I guess they had to do these in order to appeal to the general folks and not just railfans.

Trainz 2009 Pre-Order

2008-11-20T04:58:00.000-08:00

I admit, I have a soft spot for the Trainz Series owning their many previous versions. After much debating i pre-ordered the download version of World Builder Edition for $29.99, which is due to come out end of November. The file size for the download version is 2.5 GB but they are promising us a new download server which will provide downloads at speeds up to 7.5Mb/s.

Some new features that caught my attention were a much needed and better search function to sort through the numerous content. I also liked the clearer details and the smaller texture brush to give us more control in painting the landscape. Though, i admit that some payware models already have a lot of details.

In the past, Auran always promised us the world but when the new version is released and the Trainz community scream about the bugs, they do a good job to listen and release a fix very soon. So, i decided to take the jump to support them and to be the first ones to get the new simulator.

If you want to pre-order which ends on November 25, you will get 20% discount on Trainz Engineers Edition plus 60% off Railroad Lines, Bus Driver or Ship Simulator.

A train though fire

2008-11-18T01:33:00.000-08:00

A train cuts through the recent California Wild Fires
Photo by Alan Taylor via The Big Picture

Textures for modelling

2008-11-17T05:01:00.000-08:00

CG Textures has wonderful textures for modellers. Though it seems that the textures are for the virtual modellers who use sofware like GMax, we can still use these for our real models.

I found these textures to be a goldmine for anyone using Modelbuilder for scratchbuilding. Modelbuilder has a neat feature of importing a graphic (bmp, gif, jpg) file into your plans. I used the doors, windows and storefronts to bring it into my design.

Elevation in Modelbuilder using CGTextures's doors, windows and storefront.

I could not easily use the wood, brick textures in Modelbuilder. I cannot increase the graphic size without destroying the scale perspective. In the image below, the smaller wood block is in HO scale but if i increase the size, the perspective is lost.

Default size is good but increasing the size destroys the scale

In Modelbuilder, you can duplicate/copy any graphic. Though this method is tedious, you can repeat this process till you fill up a sheet with the texture. (PDF Sample of the plank texture)

If you are a good painter, you might not need the materials in CGTextures, but if you need a little help like me, use the textures, skies and roads here to improve your railroad projects. The tall buildings could be used in your backdrops. The storefronts could liven up your building interiors.

There are so many textures in this site that we can find a use for each one of them for our modelling. Definelty bookmark-worthy!

Extreme Trains episode download

2008-11-14T05:47:00.000-08:00

History Channel aired Extreme Trains last Tuesday. The US version of iTunes has the Coal Trains episode available for free [iTunes link]. If the link does not work try searching for extreme trains in the iTunes stores under TV shows.

Cannot tell if other iTunes stores have it. It seems to be free for now, so download it while it lasts.