Welcome to my

Train Simulator Page

Hey, here's one still on the tracks!
This was supposed to show a person standing at the station but it came out too dark so I'll just show you the killer nightlighting.



Here is the cab of one of the steam engines. I finally figured this one out.



Here's a couple of trains on the line.

This is my first try with the consist editor. I found a Union Pacific engine at Train Sim and added some different cars that come with the sim. There are 30 cars in this consist.

I found another goof up. There is a section in the Northeast corridor that has power wires but no poles supporting them. How do they do that?

I have coined a new accronym. YADES, it means Yet Another DeadEnd Spur. There are a lot of them in trainsim.

OK, let's have a look at some of the points of Train Sim.
If you're wondering how I can rate Train Sim after only having it for 3 days, that's easy. I'm a know it all. Now, read on to see what I have to say about MS's newest release. Note: I bought my copy so this is an honest opinion not some lovey dovey, paid for review.

The Good:
The trains look pretty good.
There are moving animals and cars. The deers are animated and run away from the train.
The sounds are pretty good but some are repetitive. I got tired of listening to my fireman shovel coal over and over again.
The scenery is pretty good. Nice valleys and tunnels to run through.
There is a built in editor to make scenery and new consists. You'll have to use this to add your downloaded engines.
Good over-all feel of riding the rails. Kind of like a really mild roller-coaster.

The Bad:
There are too few paint schemes for the engine types. I think there's enough variety in types but only one scheme for the -9 engine. Too bad.
The controls are supposed to be mousable but if you hate the way your mouse acts when it needs cleaned, this will drive you nuts. I just use the keys.
The trees are flat but that doesn't keep them from causing stuttering but to be fair Train Sim stutters anyway. Especially with snow/rain and cars and another train coming. Another train really causes it to jerk. I am running it in a fairly high res though.
The rain and snow come down at the same angle whether you're sitting still or runnin flat out. It looks goofy at 80mph.
It runs in full screen mode and no option to change to a window. There is supposed to be a work-around for that but they should have built it in. So if you want to check your e-mail, look in some folder or even use their own MSN messenger (the mess) you have to hit alt-esc which pauses and minimizes the sim.

Overall, Train sim is about what I expected. I never thought I'd be blown away (except by MS hit droids or something) but if you want to have a sim to run the rails with, this one certaintly does the job. As usual, it seems that MS is counting on 3^rd parties (us) to make up for their shortfalls in the delinquent areas so that we'll start saying it is a good sim, even though 3^rd parties are the ones that made it so. This time out they did give us some built-in tools to make new scenery and stuff with though.

I say give it a try but try not to pay the $50 it's marked at now. $30 or less, unless you just absolutely have to have it now.

For another review of MSTS, click here. Of course, it was written by a group of people and they actually took the time to read the docs and use it before they put finger to keyboard. Still, it says about the same as I do and it took them alot longer to write. Anyway, it's good. Give it a read.

I've started an Easter Eggs page if you'd like to skip finding them yourself. Only one so far and I didn't find this on my own. I'm such a loser. So if you find any more let me know.

If you have any pics you would like me to put here, send em.

To contact the Engineer clickety-clack.