Virtual Rail-ality

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Wed, 23 May 2007 00:25:43 GMT

Could be called where the heck have you been 2! Basically the week before last I came back from a short walk to stretch my legs, I sat down to read my email and felt a twinge in my lower back, so I eased myself into bed and thought it would be ok in the morning, Guess what?? at 1am I was woken by the most severe pain I have ever had in my life, after 30mg of Morphine and a short Ambulance ride I was taken into the emergency room and sorted out by the use of mind numbing drugs!

I Must take my hat off to the driver, he really did his best to give a smooth ride - even called out when we got to speed bumps.

Anyway back home and well again, I was walking a mere 2 days after the incident but my insides felt like jelly!

So, Whats been happening? I have not done a thing since then on the development side but I thought I would post some pics of what I have in the works right now, things should start getting interesting over the next few weeks, and with 2 new sims coming I thought I had better get my act together and "Brush up"(excuse the pun) on some weathering skills!

Plus Going fishing last weekend to road test my back, I like to go carp fishing and Michigan has some really nice specimens so I had the day out with the Michigan carp Anglers group and landed a few fish round about 10lbs, I didn't lift them though since I was still a bit fragile- managed to hold them for the obligatory trophy pic though :)

I was Pretty tender the next day though! good thing is I am back walking, pain free and back to work tommorrow!

Where the heck have you been!

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 22:34:24 GMT

Well I have been a busy boy as noted in my last entry, went to Hinkle yard, came back for a week then went off to the west coast again then was back for 4 days then off to the UK!

Had fun in the UK, the main pupose of the visit was to catch up with the UK Trainsim crowd, we had a bit of a get together and also I had to do a talk on texturing which seemed to go off well, It was so nice to meet up with my colleagues at Bluearrowts and also Matt and the crowd at UK trainsim along with Paul Gausden who i try and connect with whenever I am in the UK.

It was also a good opportunity to take our company president up to have a beer and a curry in my local Town along with my Mother, on the Sunday we left early and caught up with the Nene Valley railway Diesel gala, nice to see the 56's hauling passengers!

Manged to cab a 66 and noticed the resmblance betewwen this and the US SD40!

Lastly, we stayed in the Crown Hotel in Amersham, a really nice and old Coaching Inn, found out (After I had spent the night) that the Hotel was Hainted and the room i stayed in was one of those, still had the original wall decoration too!)

Lots of Interesting things going on and I have posted some pics with this post.

Take care and I'll post soon

On the Move again

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 02:42:36 GMT

Hi All,

Well I have been out of the forums again and have moved house, all of about 30 yards!

Have now moved into a bigger apartment and its amazing that the fire next door was a few weeks ago and we thought we gave the place a good sorting out but once we started moving stuff again, out came the smokey smell ! amazing how long it stays around, anyway we are now settled in, I haven't done zip all weekend on the train front but will try and get something done at the weekend hopefully, although I am off to the UK on the 28th so its all go here, may as well empty the suitcase when I get back and then just wash and re pack it all again!

Anyway a bit more on what I have been up to later this week.

Electrifying!

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 20:42:08 GMT

For those that don't know about my exploits with BluearrowTS, I have been working on a soon to be released pack called "Electric Heritage2 - The Age of the Train" the caption comes from an old British Rail Ad Campaign back in the 70/80's where well known UK DJ Jimmy Saville did the Voice overs.

The pack is being produced with the help of the AC Loco group whom we have just helped raise funds for the purchase of a loco for restoration.

The Locomotives in the pack are primarily those that ran over the West Coast Mainline in the UK during the late 70's early 80's and pre date the Private train companies, all models are now gradually being worked into their release state.

I am currently working on 3 packs for Bluearrow which keeps me entertained over the winter evenings, with the EH2 pack containing some 30 loco's it will be nice to be able to get into something else for a change.

The AC Locomotive Groups site can be found at http://www.aclocogroup.co.uk/ they do work hard at keeping these loco's and restoring them to working order, there is some interesting stuff on their site, read the class histories!

Sundays Activities

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 01:35:38 GMT

Sunday should be a day of rest (Or so they tell me!) after some mention of Numbers being incorrect in position and that there is a join on one end where the "0" crosses the door, I decided to fix what needed to be done, the Loco's I am working on are LMS No 10000/1 Both of these loco's are late 40's build and were the UK's first mainline diesel, they do bear a striking resemblance to many of the Loco's which appeared in the 60's on the UK's Mainline, being as all the reference info that was available was a few Black and white pics online plus the plan I already had, I did try to get these as near as I could.

Hopefully it might be just enough to Impress the Rivet Counters :) Plus it was about time I actually put some of my creations on here - More soon

Playing with the big trains!

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:33:18 GMT

Had a good week this week, I work for a company called PI Engineering out of Williamston Michigan, more accurately a division called Trainmaster where we make virtual worlds for training American Railroad operators, as part of this I have been away this week with Henk Plaggemars (Ex Auran games) surveying Hinkle Yard for Union Pacific, Many Trainsimmers think this is all Glory but in truth its very hard work, Wednesday alone had us walking at least 4 miles photographing every object in the yard Complex.

Hinkle is in Oregon and is visible on Google Earth by typing "Hermiston, OR" in the search, the yard is to the south.

I have never visited anywhere like this and it is a fully automated yard which makes up the trains which deliver freight all over the US, its a really fascinating and well run place and we had full access to the entire complex.

Running the Hump where they push cars over a hill and let them run into each track makes it like a huge tetris game where they have to get all the cars into their respective roads depending on where they are going, these groups of vehicles are then made into trains which leave for other facilities and destinations to make sure all the cars get to their destinations.

The Photo's show some of the activity we witnessed, and some of the huge Freight Locomotives which are used to haul these massive trains all over the US.

Watching the cars going over the hill and into the yard is impressive, even to the noise they make as they travel through the retarders which slow the vehicles and control them as they roll down the hill, the noise is incredible and a good justficiation why hearing protection is mandatory!

I Have included a small selection of Pictures, one interesting one is the Eleveators at a a place called Stanfield, where they are made of stacked wood, the wood is basically like railroad ties, and they are pinned together to form the structure of the building.

Thats it for now, Now I get to build all this!

so here we are :)

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:11:41 GMT

An Unusual Start to the year!

Ok well things got off to a shaky start after getting home to find the apartment next door on fire!, having 4-5 Years worth of work on your computer doesn't help at all and just adds to the angst, fortuantely the fire service here were very good about things and I was allowed into the apartment to retrieve the disk with all my stuff on it, very large sigh of relief.

So we became refugees and had to stay in the Travelodge for a few days before we could get back home, its amazing the upheaval this causes, anyway we got everything sorted and are now back home with everything up and running, mind you it gave us a good excuse to clean everything and have a general tidy up, we now live in what could be termed as a clinnically clean apartment now - still, that also made us decide to move to a larger apartment so in the end it all worked out rather well!

The pics show the damage to next door, thank heaven for Firewalls in apartment blocks!