Trainz has a lot of British-isms.

I was looking for a large passenger van, like a Ford Econoline bus conversion, to put on my route to shuttle people from downtown Jonstown where the train station is to Groves Campground where the stagecoach route start point is for 5 mile long stagecoach amusement rides in the woods. The Groves family has a monopoly in these parts with a large pine forest campground, stagecoach rides and horse carriage rides around nearby Lake Drummond as well in the fictitious mountainous and woodsy Squatch County in northern Idaho of America's Pacific Northwest; Bigfoot Country: there's even a Bigfoot content item (yeti people) hidden in my route's boonies too!

Anyway, I was looking for a shuttle van, one of those small bus things. I entered VAN on the Objects search in Surveyor and came up with a bunch of things called "caravan". In America CARAVAN is a kind of popular Dodge minvan. The thumbnails showed pictures of travel trailers that people go camping in. I asked myself is Caravan a brand for travel trailers? I was thinking this over for a while and I figured that since Trainz is Aussie-based and CARAVAN might mean TRAILER in Aussie lingo, I then looked caravan up in the dictionary out of curiosity and it was listed as a British-ism for HOUSE TRAILER. I guess the Aussies and Brits speak the same dialect. No wonder I could never find any travel trailers when I wanted them before. Now, I have a whole bunch of travel trailers behind cars and trucks on my route and some in my route's campground as well to go with some tents and Ford Rimor Unico mid-size motor homes at various campsites there. The camp master at the Groves Campground in living in such a Rimor RV now. I got rid of that camp master's former big, clunky single-wide mobile home that had the weird porch lights suspended up in the air.

I am a Yank. In America one might use a Dodge Grand Caravan to pull a small TRAVEL TRAILER as an aluminum Airstream Bambi, but Down Under, what kind of minivan might pull a "caravan" to a campsite? A vee-dub Kombi?

Well, there are no small shuttle buses available so I use a big baby-blue 1957 Plymouth Suburban station wagon for Groves Stage Line shuttle service now.

PS: I also have some Ford F250 camper specials with big white oversize campers on them as well. I have at least one in my campground and two or more on my route's roads. That and the Rimor motor home is available at the DLS in TS12. :wave:

Exactly what is your point? British people call things by their British name. Shock.

Russians call things their name in Russian. Is that worth a post too?

America ain’t the center of the world you have to admit there’s other countries with different cultures and manners.

Greetings :wave:

JonMyrlennBailey said:

I guess the Aussies and Brits speak the same dialect.

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No we do not. There are many differences between the dialects spoken here in Oz and over there in Pommieland (look that one up). There are just as many, if not more, differences between here and the US. Its not just dialect. Your spelling as evidenced by the way the builtin spell checker in my browser rejects the perfectly correctly spelt colour, neighbour, favour, behaviour, and many others, is atrocious. Even your light switches are upside down.

Seriously though, the differences between cultures, languages and dialects amongst the members of the Trainz community makes us a very interesting and diverse group. One side effect though, searching for items in the DLS can be frustrating ("railway sleepers" = "railroad ties", "guard's van" = "caboose", "caravan" = "trailer", etc).

Content creations are made and named by content creators. I guess you need a few more American content creators.

Cheerio John

The point is American Trainz users may have difficulty finding content if it is called something they are not accustomed to.
I am just making a casual observation that others should be aware of. You may have spent hours trying to find something
because you didn't know its name. The time I have spent doing such digging deserves a post for my mind to be spoken.

One time for fun I changed the voice on my Garmin Nuvi from American to British. I got totally lost when I was told by the elegant pommy male voice to drive onto the "slip road" which I found out shortly after to mean something known by us Yanks as an on-ramp (aka entrance) or off-ramp (aka exit). I do know in Germany that an off-ramp is called an "ausfarht" and an on-ramp is called an "einfahrt" having been stationed there in the American army and have driven on the "autobahns".

Now, I only navigate in my car with the GPS American accent talking me through the directions.

Its called becoming accustomed to how the rest of the world operates.

JonMyrlennBailey said:

The point is American Trainz users may have difficulty finding content if it is called something they are not accustomed to.

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Im using your logic: the point is that the game is made by aussies

Anyway what kind of minivan, if not a Dodge Caravan, is typically used by Aussies to tow their caravans to possibly camp by a billabong as a swagman was once fabled to have done in a folk song?

Wow, a Yank discovers the world doesn't start and end at his country's boarders. When I model Dutch themed routes, I look for Dutch named objects. Likewise for other countries too. Don't see why it should be different.

JonMyrlennBailey said:

The point is American Trainz users may have difficulty finding content if it is called something they are not accustomed to.
I am just making a casual observation that others should be aware of. You may have spent hours trying to find something
because you didn't know its name. The time I have spent doing such digging deserves a post for my mind to be spoken.

One time for fun I changed the voice on my Garmin Nuvi from American to British. I got totally lost when I was told by the elegant pommy male voice to drive onto the "slip road" which I found out shortly after to mean something known by us Yanks as an on-ramp (aka entrance) or off-ramp (aka exit). I do know in Germany that an off-ramp is called an "ausfarht" and an on-ramp is called an "einfahrt" having been stationed there in the American army and have driven on the "autobahns".

Now, I only navigate in my car with the GPS American accent talking me through the directions.

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Strangely enough the world does not revolve around Donald Trump and Americans. You are in a minority population wise to the rest of the world.

Cheerio John

JonMyrlennBailey said:

One time for fun I changed the voice on my Garmin Nuvi from American to British. I got totally lost when I was told by the elegant pommy male voice to drive onto the "slip road" which I found out shortly after to mean something known by us Yanks as an on-ramp (aka entrance) or off-ramp (aka exit).

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All part of the culture. I can sympathise (correct spelling). Driving in England a few years ago I stopped to ask a local for directions and he stated that I had to take the "slip road" - I did not have a clue what he meant by that.

It was worse in Glasgow and Yorkshire where, I believed, that they spoke English but I couldn't understand a word the locals were saying.

JonMyrlennBailey said:

Anyway what kind of minivan, if not a Dodge Caravan, is typically used by Aussies to tow their caravans to possibly camp by a billabong as a swagman was once fabled to have done in a folk song?

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Believe it or not but these days it is likely to be a Winnebago.

Up until the 1820s, we used the same spellings for those words here as you do elsewhere in the English speaking world. The spelling was changed after the War of 1812 to be followed later, and promoted by Merriam Webster and published in his dictionary in 1828. The purpose was to distance the United States from anything British.

While he was undoing anything British, our local railroad where I live, the Boston and Lowell, imported British locomotives, rails, and wagons for use on their newly built route between the named destinations. In the end even though we had differences, if it wasn't for Mr. Webster we probably wouldn't have changed spellings among other things.

For Jon:

There are some mini-vans on the DLS. Dave Snow made some if I recall. They may or may not be for passengers, but you can reskin them if needed. There are also other buses as well, and in fact maybe a school bus would work. I have a schulbus (schoolbus), but I can't remember where I got it from or who made it. There is also one called a Church Bus, and there are some VW vans as well, which might work.

As others have said here, you are going to run into other proper English speaking countries and we are not the only ones in the world. I recommend learning about and respecting other cultures. There's a whole world out there worth exploring.

That's OK, John. I can make do with my big American 1950's station wagon for local limousine service. I am already using school buses on my route but only for school children. I might check into the church bus for the church on my route. I had those large shuttle buses in mind that are usually based upon a full-size Ford Econoline van with a long and wide body. They look something like a motor home conversion. Narrow cab up front and wide body in back.

I can sympathize with foreign Trainzers too who might not understand the American terms used by American content creators as "truck" instead of "bogey" or "lorry" or "rail car" instead of "wagon", which is pulled by oxen and horses in America, not by locos.

The American terms for assets in Trainz do have their uses. They immediately point out to me things that I'm not remotely interested in.

KotangaGirl said:

The American terms for assets in Trainz do have their uses. They immediately point out to me things that I'm not remotely interested in.

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I'm just glad to have accidentally discovered those long-time-longed-for travel trailers (uhmmm, caravans) while searching for a SHUTTLE VAN. Sometimes I find nice surprises among the millions of Trainz assets when I'm not actually looking for them like, for instance, that People Yeti (aka Bigfoot or Sasquatch in America) by Auran while searching under the term "people" for human figure scenery and an asset called "People White" (which is actually a black (negro) woman figure, possibly Mrs. or Miss White??) also by Auran

We understood black so why telling negro just after ?

Is the OP an alter ego of Donald Trump?

Anyhow Trainz is an international programme, part of the fun is looking for what you might need into Hungarian or Spanish and searching the DLS.

Good grief