Well can't believe I've been at this program for a dozen years. This is by far the longest lived computer program I have ever used. It has out lived 6 computer systems, 5 OS upgrades, and it continues to keep me interested. I started officially with Trainz TRS2004 SP0 on the 28th of December 2003. I was running MSTS at the time and I had purchased Auran's MSTS Paint Shed add-on for MSTS. I never did get that program to work like I wanted, nor could I get the route builder to operate properly in MSTS either as that would crash with a GPF in Windows XP if I looked at it with a blinking eye. Seriously, it was bad and also awkward to use.
So one day I took a look at the Paint Shed box and low and behold there's the www.auran.com website listed. This was the ancient red and black website and all the famous people are on there along with Greg Lane discussing their new Trainz program, content, and so on. It was probably late 2002 when I did that. Not being one to purchase stuff online at the time, I was hesitant to do so and I waited and watched. I downloaded the demo, a single loop of what looks like a bit of the British Midlands route. I drove that, and poked around Surveyor which worked but I couldn't do much with it being a demo. The program crashed too very badly because my old ATI Radeon 8500 didn't like it. This card didn't like much of anything now that I think about it. I kept watching the progress of Trainz and the forums, though I stayed outside the community. I then saw the announcement of TRS2004, a new version, to be released by Merscom in the USA. As soon as it was released, I picked up my copy at CompUSA for $29.99. I still have the box with the price tag on it on my shelf. Little did I know at the time that this was going to be a life changer in many ways.
Around this time, I had some odd health issues going on, which unbeknownst to me were the early signs of things to come. I had a good sized N-scale model railroad in my bedroom which I started a year or so before that. I got the lumber, the framework actually from some old shipping crates from Polaroid where I was working at the time. The frames were perfect because they were table-sized and all I needed to was to put the plywood on the top of them and start model building. Everything went together nicely and I started painting model buildings. This is when I had troubles with paint being slobbered on instead of finely painted. I thought it was just me being a slob, but I could paint for awhile, then I started to drop things, or my hands would shake. And dropping things I did! I dropped an expensive Alco-RS3 model on to the floor. It smashed to a gazillion pieces and that's when I realized something isn't right.
Time went on and the N-scale route became a spider city and a place for my cats to sleep while I spent my time building routes in TRS2004. My new life began so-to-speak, and Trainz proved to be my go-to place when things went rotten. After a diagnosis f focal dystonia, I spent the day using Trainz to escape. Later on in 2006, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and Trainz became my hiding place. To this day, I spend my time, now fully disabled, in Trainz most of the time as it gives me my peaceful respite from the nastiness around me.
During this long journey, I made many friends here, and a few enemies at the time. My time as a moderator was interesting and frustrating, and I would not do that again! Nope. Done with that trick forever. I'd rather be a technician instead and fiddle and fix than play babysitter. Take no offence guys, it just ain't my thing; I don't even like watching my nephews when they visit... During this time I saw the community grow, shrink, and grow again after the great crash along with the loss of some really great folks due to life in general. I miss Alistair, Ed, and so many of whom the current generation will never know personally. I also had the chance to finally meet a couple of local Trainz users right in my area. In 2013 Frank Bartus and I got together for the first time. He lives a short distance, perhaps 10 km away in North Andover, the next town over. We get together and chat often on the phone and Skype. I also got together with Steamboateng and the three of us get together for cookouts, and various events. I even traveled with these guys separately to PA and to Western Mass to investigate the eastern PA coal country and the Berkshires, respectively. This brings a different perspective on the hobby because what was just a typed conversation in the forums became actual contact with real people that shared the same interest. We can sit for hours talking about the same stuff we type about here in the forums, but it's easier saying it instead!
But anyway, Trainz is like and old friend. As I've gotten to know its capabilities, I've also gotten to know its faults. It's not perfect and neither are we. Keep this in mind as we move forward into the future with T:ANE. T:ANE right now is where TRS2004 was back in 2003. There's so much it can do if we give it a chance. As we used to say before, what we can do in Trainz is only up to the limitations of our imagination.
So in closing I want to thank the community here for putting up with me, and I want to thank Auran and now N3V for producing a program that has kept up my interest for so long.
On to the next dozen or more years.
John
So one day I took a look at the Paint Shed box and low and behold there's the www.auran.com website listed. This was the ancient red and black website and all the famous people are on there along with Greg Lane discussing their new Trainz program, content, and so on. It was probably late 2002 when I did that. Not being one to purchase stuff online at the time, I was hesitant to do so and I waited and watched. I downloaded the demo, a single loop of what looks like a bit of the British Midlands route. I drove that, and poked around Surveyor which worked but I couldn't do much with it being a demo. The program crashed too very badly because my old ATI Radeon 8500 didn't like it. This card didn't like much of anything now that I think about it. I kept watching the progress of Trainz and the forums, though I stayed outside the community. I then saw the announcement of TRS2004, a new version, to be released by Merscom in the USA. As soon as it was released, I picked up my copy at CompUSA for $29.99. I still have the box with the price tag on it on my shelf. Little did I know at the time that this was going to be a life changer in many ways.
Around this time, I had some odd health issues going on, which unbeknownst to me were the early signs of things to come. I had a good sized N-scale model railroad in my bedroom which I started a year or so before that. I got the lumber, the framework actually from some old shipping crates from Polaroid where I was working at the time. The frames were perfect because they were table-sized and all I needed to was to put the plywood on the top of them and start model building. Everything went together nicely and I started painting model buildings. This is when I had troubles with paint being slobbered on instead of finely painted. I thought it was just me being a slob, but I could paint for awhile, then I started to drop things, or my hands would shake. And dropping things I did! I dropped an expensive Alco-RS3 model on to the floor. It smashed to a gazillion pieces and that's when I realized something isn't right.
Time went on and the N-scale route became a spider city and a place for my cats to sleep while I spent my time building routes in TRS2004. My new life began so-to-speak, and Trainz proved to be my go-to place when things went rotten. After a diagnosis f focal dystonia, I spent the day using Trainz to escape. Later on in 2006, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and Trainz became my hiding place. To this day, I spend my time, now fully disabled, in Trainz most of the time as it gives me my peaceful respite from the nastiness around me.
During this long journey, I made many friends here, and a few enemies at the time. My time as a moderator was interesting and frustrating, and I would not do that again! Nope. Done with that trick forever. I'd rather be a technician instead and fiddle and fix than play babysitter. Take no offence guys, it just ain't my thing; I don't even like watching my nephews when they visit... During this time I saw the community grow, shrink, and grow again after the great crash along with the loss of some really great folks due to life in general. I miss Alistair, Ed, and so many of whom the current generation will never know personally. I also had the chance to finally meet a couple of local Trainz users right in my area. In 2013 Frank Bartus and I got together for the first time. He lives a short distance, perhaps 10 km away in North Andover, the next town over. We get together and chat often on the phone and Skype. I also got together with Steamboateng and the three of us get together for cookouts, and various events. I even traveled with these guys separately to PA and to Western Mass to investigate the eastern PA coal country and the Berkshires, respectively. This brings a different perspective on the hobby because what was just a typed conversation in the forums became actual contact with real people that shared the same interest. We can sit for hours talking about the same stuff we type about here in the forums, but it's easier saying it instead!
But anyway, Trainz is like and old friend. As I've gotten to know its capabilities, I've also gotten to know its faults. It's not perfect and neither are we. Keep this in mind as we move forward into the future with T:ANE. T:ANE right now is where TRS2004 was back in 2003. There's so much it can do if we give it a chance. As we used to say before, what we can do in Trainz is only up to the limitations of our imagination.
So in closing I want to thank the community here for putting up with me, and I want to thank Auran and now N3V for producing a program that has kept up my interest for so long.
On to the next dozen or more years.
John
