Poll: Some like it hot!

Which is your favorite type of motive power?

  • Diesel Multiple Unit / Railcar

    Votes: 13 6.2%
  • Electric Multiple Unit

    Votes: 8 3.8%
  • Light Rail (e.g. Trams)

    Votes: 10 4.7%
  • Steam Locomotive

    Votes: 87 41.2%
  • Diesel Locomotive

    Votes: 75 35.5%
  • Electric Locomotive

    Votes: 14 6.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 1.9%

  • Total voters
    211
Actually, I don't really like it all that hot. I mean, I've got sunburn right now!

Oh... you mean what loco? Steam of course! :p

Cheerio,
John
 
Only steam for me. I haven't DLed but one diesel since I've been playin' Trainz and that one is the 'new' FT.

Rick
 
I'm too young to remember steam but I have seen some excursion real steam trains in California and Arizona. They do seem cool but they look like gross polluters in this day and time; however no pollution from Trainz. :)

Cheers

AJ

You've been living in Cali too long:p

Personally I don't particularly care what it is, so long as it's standard gauge and doesn't look incredibly hideous. I guess the biggest stuff on my list would be ancient German electrics, Einheitsbau steamers, and first generation East German diesels; the more clag the better!

WileeCoyote:D
 
Last edited:
Steam and electric seem a little stupid and "wimpy" to me. Diesel-Electrics are the only way to go. (American only, I have no desire to drive bumper-cars around) There's no thrill compared to the feeling you get when throttling up a couple AC44s with 9000 tonnes behind you. Release the brakes, with that nice hissing sound, bail off and pull back on the throttle until you hear it click twice. (Run 2) You'll get jolted a bit as the slack runs in and out as you start to pull. You'll hear a beep and a message display on the screen "EOT FWD". Once you see this, you pull back the throttle and let it click once more and you're in Run 3. After you're confident that the slack has ran out of the train you grasp the throttle once more and pull it straight back. The harmonic but crisp 'clicks' of the throttle are music to your ears. Soon you will hear the prime movers start to chug and the TE meter rising. You look back and see a greyish cloud of smoke bilowing from the stacks. The speedo starts to climb.

There's nothing like experiencing that!
 
Steam and electric seem a little stupid and "wimpy" to me. There's no thrill compared to the feeling you get when throttling up a couple AC44s with 9000 tonnes behind you. Release the brakes, with that nice hissing sound, bail off and pull back on the throttle until you hear it click twice. (Run 2) You'll get jolted a bit as the slack runs in and out as you start to pull. You'll hear a beep and a message display on the screen "EOT FWD". Once you see this, you pull back the throttle and let it click once more and you're in Run 3. After you're confident that the slack has ran out of the train you grasp the throttle once more and pull it straight back. The harmonic but crisp 'clicks' of the throttle are music to your ears. Soon you will hear the prime movers start to chug and the TE meter rising. You look back and see a greyish cloud of smoke bilowing from the stacks. The speedo starts to climb.

There's nothing like experiencing that!

Hmmm, let me see...

Spend a few hours warming up a cold piece of metal, listening to it sigh, breathe, hiss. Oil around the motion, getting intimately connected to all the machinery, understanding what it is you are soon to be in control of.

A roar as the safety valves lift, the trusty steed impatiently panting to be away. Gently moving off shed, clearing out the passages till everything is nice and hot, coupling up, testing the air by watching the gauge.

Open up the throttle on a couple of hundred PSI, feeling the limit of adhesion through the seat of your pants, knowing when to back off a little, not because a computer told you, but because you can feel when its right. Watching the end of the train follow you through the track work. Helping out your mate, working as a team, men and machine lifting the tonnage.

Out on the main, flying through the 'burbs and out onto the flats, knowing what is happening through all the senses, the smell of the steam oil, the sound of the motion, the light of the fire, the touch of the throttle, the feel of track.

Now, I wonder, what should I vote for...

Cheers
Tony
 
NARROW GAUGE (and VERY narrow gauge) dmu's, emu's, stored energy mu's.

basically anything that runs on a guideway, opperates in multiple and carries passingers, and any two out of three as the song goes, ain't bad.

i favor 'little people sized trains' for more reasons then most people would probably care to have me go into. and the aesthetics are even the least of it and i absolutely love the aesthetics of little people sized trains winding their way through gardens and forrests.

but i'm really not focused on history, nor on any one form of propulsion. yes steam is cool, even myraculous in its own way, but i'm one of those goofy ecotopians, but one who just happens to see little people sized trains and something that wouldbe, couldbe, shouldbe, as a way of still having mechanical transportation when the kind of infrastructure we have now, so dependent as its become on the personal automobile, becomes no longer practical, or as practical as it is currently, which may not be all that long from now. or it may. i can't really tell. i've guessed wrong about that before. but at any rate, whether sooner or later, at some point, whatever is comming will be signifigantly different from what there is now. will be forced to be.

and my point is, to me, that won't be a bad thing. and in the form of little people sized trains and monorails and the universe's infinite diversity of who knows what ever guideway based forms, not just not a bad thing, but a very wonderful and gratifying good thing.

so for me, its dmu's, emu's, semu's, fuel cell mu's, squirells in cages running arround on their little exercise wheels turning generators, what have you, as long as there can be something, a place to sit that moves, without tearing up half the country side in order for there to be.

but also especially in a rural or relative rural setting.

windmills on every hilltop, solar cells on every roof, and little people sized trains in place of cars, winding through forrests and gardens.

gardens and parks that used to be, are now, streets, highways and parking lots.

if that makes me a crazy dreamer, that's ok. that's my dream anyway.

=^^=
.../\...
 
Steam, the life of the big snorting behemoths of yesteryear. They were indeed alive, each with it 's own personality. To be a locomotive engineer, you were required to become one with your engine. to learn of it's many moods and quirks and to 'talk' to it via the engine controls. The steam locomotive was never idle, but a restless, living and breathing beast made of iron and steel, unlike the haughty, aristocratic diesels and electrics that proceeded it. The day of steam has passed, but will always live on in Trainz.
 
The days of old!

The wonderful age of steam......

They belched black coal smoke,
they blew great plumes of steam,
the bell, the whistle, the hiss and pop
a mighty roar and rythmic chug....
the living, breathing beast....

still holds the dreams and imaginations of young and old alike!

(not very poetic, but what do you expect for a brain dead guy like me!:p )

Have Fun!

Brian
 
Steam, even though my avatar is a diesel. Couldn't find a Pennsy S2 turbine in any of the avatars, so had to go with second choice. :)
 
Last edited:
Back
Top