It was 20 years ago today....

Paulsw2

Ambling on the slow line
Well actually last Wednesday: on 1st October 2005, just after 3.00pm I found myself in the local Woolworths (can't remember why) and stumbled upon a game in the bargain bin. A snip at £9.99 For Trainz Ultimate Collection. The rest, as they say, is history (and 7 iterations of the game later that I've personally bought and installed). It's been a wonderful hobby, some frustrations (often played out on this forum!) but much joy as well. And sometimes a life-saver - back in 2012 when I was at a very low ebb (around the time of my autism diagnosis), I learned how to reskin and completed and uploaded the Ashburton-Windrush route, so it kept me going. I was proud to support the crowd funder for TANE and have been a subscriber for most years out of the last six (I've just rejoined Gold.)

My thanks to the original 'brew crew' and originators of the game and the staff at N3V who've kept it going. Long may you carry on. (Actually, please do otherwise the game will stop working instantly!) Above all my thanks to all the members of this great community (and also thinking of those we've lost along the way), my colleagues at TCWW and the very talented young creators I've had the privilege of working with in the last few years. That kept me going as well!

This is the earliest Trainz screenshot I could find (from March 2006). As you can see, I was still learning how to do trackwork. And at only 7fps, I'd already worked out I was going to need a new PC!

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By contrast, here's a few of my latest screenshots: back on Gold and trying out the BR blue pack. I think my trackwork has improved!

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It's been a great ride. Here's to the next 20 years!
 
The Trainz virus caught me one year earlier. I have been making a precise plan for the Potsdamer Bahnhof Berlin in n-gauge, calculated the amount of turnouts and went to Modellbahn Pietsch at Friedrichstrasse to purchase the first lot.
Living seven years in Indonesia I must have lost track of the price development of model railways ... I could have afford maybe 2% of the material I needed -:)

Totally frustrated I made my way to the shop exit and stumbled over a rack with movies and software and I saw Trainz Raikroad Simulator 2004 which I purchased.

Very enthusiastic I started to build a route.My choice fell on the Woltersdorfer Strassenbahn, about 5km long, so not too unrealistic to make. After a while I realised that the main tram of this route wasn't available.
So I got Gmax and started the Gotha T57, a project I never finished due the lack of a fitting engine.
2617-gotha-t57-b57-in-trs2019

The 'problem' was that now I was infected by a far worse virus called 'content creation' ... :-)
From now on I used Trainz only a a testing platform for my assets (902 by now).

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to all the CC-dinosaurs here who helped me with endless patience to overcome the countless pitfalls of content creation!

mick1960!
 
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