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(Reviews of older programmes retained for posterity)

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13th May 2013

There's been plenty of truck driving games over the years and several urban orientated bus driving sims, but no long distance coach simulations. That may be about to change as SCS Software have hinted just such a title may be under development in a recent blog entry. See here for more.

7th May 2013

I'm pleased to report that with a little help from RSC I have managed to get the Blackpool Tramway route running again - thanks guys, much appreciated. The route has now been uploaded at Trainsim.com for your driving pleasure (link to file). Now to consider my next project!

11th April 2013

My Blackpool Tramway Route For Railworks (at UKTS File Library)

It has come to my attention that a number of people have reported problems running my Blackpool Tramway route in TS2013, with a SBHH exit to desktop in the Norbreck area. I've finally had a chance to check this out and confirm I have recreated the problem in TS2013. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how to solve what is causing the problem. Checking the route in RW Tools reveals a couple of missing assets but nothing which should cause a catastrophic fail. Going into the editor, as soon as I approach the Norbreck area the same crash occurs, so I can't randomly delete or even check objects which might be at fault.

I attempted to analyse the TS2013 dmp file but the only tool I could find on line which turns the hexadec scramble into English couldn't identify the fault either.

So as things stand there's little point in leaving a broken route up for download and as it's third party work I can't expect to enlist RSC Support on the case. So I'm withdrawing the file - if at some point a solution presents itself I will re-upload to the file library at Trainsim.com but until then the route is gone from public distribution.

8th March 2013

Just a quick heads up for anyone considering downloading my Railworks routes from UK Trainsim. Several of these routes reference content that was made available by RSC for "community" route building via their AP Stations Pack and through the Project Platform/Phorum Peninsula add-on, the proceeds of which went to charity. The latter in particular supplied some basic tramway and narrow gauge railway assets, including rolling stock. Both packs have been removed from Steam for download/purchase by those who don't already have them - the upshot being if you haven't already purchased and download my routes (the narrow gauge and tramway ones in particular), these will probably not work or be missing required items of rolling stock. I emailed RSC Support asking if there were plans to put Phorum Peninsula back on sale and finally received a reply that there are no plans to re-release the add-on.

So basically if you haven't already got Phorum Peninsula, you're stuffed. Quite why RSC have made this decision defies any logical explanation. If it is to free up bandwidth for newer releases, neither was a particularly large add-on. If it's because all they want on Steam is stuff that makes money, rather than items to help the third party freeware community or to support charity, that is a shameful decision. The spirit of train simming has drifted very far from the vision I had when I set up my first web site - working together has been replaced by corporate greed. The message also seems very clear to anyone thinking of referencing a RSC add-on in their own route - don't expect it will be there in the future for people to purchase, as soon as it's not viable it will be gone from Steam.

I'm now thinking carefully about the next step as regards my routes as there seems little point leaving them "live" if they are not going to work for many people. Perhaps I should withdraw the lot and rebuild in Trainz instead...

22nd February 2013

A very belated New Years greetings to all site visitors, unfortunately I haven't had much time recently to update the site.

I must start off with some very sad news that has just reached the train sim community via N3V. That is "Barney" (aka Branko Špoljaric) recently passed away. Barney was a familiar figure in the heady days of the early 2000's when the train sim hobby was starting to pick up. He was a larger than life and immensely likeable character, notably his love of European "Krokodil" type electric locomotives. For a while we co-hosted a train simming forum on his Crotrainz site. Barney tended more towards a liking for Trainz and BVE while I drifted towards MSTS but his wisdom and input were invaluable, although we lost contact in more recent years.

I am now considering what could be done (perhaps in terms of building a special route) to honour his memory.

In the meantime, rest in peace old friend.

07 November 2012

Just a quick heads up that I've uploaded (successfully) another Trainz (TS12) route to the DLS. Actually, it's more of a doodle than a behomoth being based on the old Dalmunzie estate railway in the Grampian mountains of Scotland. With a fictional extension to Spital of Glenshee it's only around 4 miles in length, but I'm secretly quite pleased with it. To download you will need to be running the latest version of TS12, open CMP and search either for Dalmunzie or KUID2:30024:20252:1 . Unfortunately after building the route I discovered there's not a whole lot of narrow gauge stock (especially 2ft gauge) on the DLS so you may need to search external sites like Trainzone or SubPar for suitable items.

23rd October 2012

I've finally managed to upload a short review of Run 8.

30th September 2012

Just to confirm my Mount Hood route for Trainz TS12 has now gone live, however for now I could only upload at Trainsim.com due to issues getting it on the N3V DLS. So if you're a member at TS, just log in and do a search for file mthood.zip . NB: You'll need to install the cdp's via the Trainz Content Manager and obtain the required dependencies from the DLS.

In other news, it looks as if the Zusi 3 demo has received another update. Grab it via this page. Hopefully that means full release not far away though I'm still not holding my breath.

27th September 2012

I've just updated the Railworks page with a few thoughts on RSC's latest incarnation of their game, now known as TS2013.

In other news, I'm getting quite close to releasing another route for Trainz (TS12) based on the Mount Hood Railroad in Oregon USA. It's just undergoing final testing and it will be uploaded to the N3V/Auran DLS in the next few days. More information to follow.

9 September 2012

Unless you've been living under a train simming rock for the last few weeks, you've probably read elsewhere that Railsimulator.com are undertaking their round of annual changes to the Railworks programme. First off, it will be called Train Simulator 2013 (TS2013) and it appears all references to Railworks have been dropped. Detail on core changes of particular interest to simulation enthusiasts are thin on the ground, but what has been announced is support for the XBox 360 (PC) game controller to drive a train, a new "Quick Drive" feature to get started on a route quickly and access to Steam Workshop which is essentially a repository for user created material.

The upgrade path is also somewhat complicated.

Existing users of Railworks 3 will get the TS2013 upgrade but no additional content.

However as TS2013 includes new routes, in a departure from the normal Steam process existing users will be allowed to order TS2013 and add it to their existing install as a means of getting the routes cheap. The new routes are Sherman Hill (US), London to Brighton (UK), the reworked Isle of Wight (UK) and the Northeast Corridor (US). Of these only Sherman Hill is not already available as payware DLC. There was also mention of a German high speed route (Munich to Augsburg) but this is not referenced on the UK Steam order page.

The sting in the tail is that all new users to TS2013 will only get the "new" routes. They won't get the original routes such as Somerset and Dorset, Cajon Pass etc. or the associated motive power and rolling stock. More importantly they won't get the assets in the original Kuju folders. That means new users to TS2013 will not be able to use 99.9% of the existing freeware (and some payware) which relies on these assets. Now it appears RSC are working on some method of making this content available via Steam, but whether this will be complimentary or paid for remains to be seen.

What this may lead to in practice is multiple levels of TS2013 ownership, depending on which content you have and when you started with the programme. In my view, not good news at all for the hobby (freeware) developer or the independent payware producer for that matter. More to follow when TS2013 arrives...

Older 2012 news now moved HERE.

Out with the old, in with the new...all 2011 news has now been moved to the Archive Page.

(2011 Archived News is Here)

(2010 Archived News is Here)

(2009 Archived News is here).

The following are links to message boards which may be useful:

Auran Trainz Forum - the official board to discuss Auran's train sim products.

Densha de Go Board - English language forum for users of Japanese console train driving games.

Train-sim.com - US orientated discussion site.

Transport Tycoon Forum - For TT etc. & Locomotion discussion.

Truck Pol Forum - C'mon good buddy, 10-4, rubber duck (plastic chicken) discuss all those road transport driving games out there!

Zusi - Official board of the German sim. English language section available.