I'm still around as you most of you know. HA! Being retired since 2012 means I have way more time on my hands for Trainzing than before. I ended up with TRS2004 because I bought the PaintShed for MSTS and saw the link on the box to Auran.com. I checked out the link and saw the stuff that was going on. I tried the demo back in 2002, but the program kept crashing on my computer. I had a really lousy ATI 8500 video card that didn't like much of anything, and it definitely didn't like Trainz. I kept following and lurking and finally I saw the sale announced and watched for it to appear in the stores. It so happened that I upgraded to an early NVidia card and was able to run the demo without issues. Then TRS2004 was released just after Christmas in 2003. I picked up my copy of TRS2004 at CompUSA a day or two after Christmas. After poking around a bit, I started my own route and that route is still here today, although it's been recently retired due to the intervening years, crashes, mistakes, upgrades, and unnoticed things getting the better of it.
So much has happened to all of us, yet for many of us Trainz is that go-to place when times are rough. It's a nice way, most of the time, to avoid the evils of everyday life and do something with our own little world. It was Trainz that got me through and helped me deal with my own ongoing health issues that lead to my retirement as well as the untimely death of my sister in 2017, and the expected, but still shocking death of my mum in December 2018. When working on my now retired route, I would think back to those better times when for me things were much better. Certain areas on the route brought back the memories as if these areas were only done yesterday.
Sadly we lost Cee Bee a few years ago as well the great Ben Dorsey, Fat Controller and many others. It's those intervening years and life that gets in the way and we wish these gents were still here as well.