Just wanted to finally say Hi and introduce myself to the Trainz community. I've been a long time arm chair model railroader who has on occasion built a few N Scale layouts that all fell short of their original concepts. Space, time, and funds were the main down falls.
Trainz was recommended to me as a way to have the layout(s) of a life time without having the constraints I've always had to deal with. So I downloaded the demo and was hooked. I ordered Trainz 2009 two months ago, and got to work on my learning curve. Once I made it through all the basic tutorials, I downloaded a few layouts that were operationally oriented, then started to modify them to meet my goals.
I quickly came to the realization that I needed to create a semi prototypical layout that would let me have the type of operation I wanted, and let me continue to learn the basics of Trainz 09. And so the Southern Kansas Division was born.
The SKD is 35 boards in total, runs from Flynn Oklahoma to Augusta Kansas, with a interchange at Hackney Kansas for the Norfolk Southern.
Operation has, and is more then I ever envisioned was possible, as I continually fell back into the real world model railroading mindset. I made a lot of mistakes laying track, but was able to correct the vast majority of these including installing bridges and adding a few tunnels.
Scenery is so much more enjoyable in the virtual world then the real world, as no messy white glue mixtures, Hydrocal, etc are needed. And it's instantaneous. What's more, everything is correctable. I start off with basic scenery then slowly add more and more detail till my fps take too great a hit, then back it off some.
While I've only scenic about 1/5 of the layout, the operation sessions have been more then I've ever imagined. And this is with just me one running train at a time. AI operation will have to way until I figure out how to have all the track orientations in the same direction as I didn't really understand this concept till I was far into the track laying.
I've been lurking here, reading everything I can, and using the search function to solve many problems with great success.
I've also found many other sites and have downloaded content from each of them as well. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them have problems. I work to solve each issue until I can actually use the engine, car, etc, then live with the other issues. Rarely does any download seem to be complete including a percentage that are downloaded from Trainz.
I'm looking forward to becoming a more active board member in the future as my knowledge increases.
Trainz was recommended to me as a way to have the layout(s) of a life time without having the constraints I've always had to deal with. So I downloaded the demo and was hooked. I ordered Trainz 2009 two months ago, and got to work on my learning curve. Once I made it through all the basic tutorials, I downloaded a few layouts that were operationally oriented, then started to modify them to meet my goals.
I quickly came to the realization that I needed to create a semi prototypical layout that would let me have the type of operation I wanted, and let me continue to learn the basics of Trainz 09. And so the Southern Kansas Division was born.
The SKD is 35 boards in total, runs from Flynn Oklahoma to Augusta Kansas, with a interchange at Hackney Kansas for the Norfolk Southern.
Operation has, and is more then I ever envisioned was possible, as I continually fell back into the real world model railroading mindset. I made a lot of mistakes laying track, but was able to correct the vast majority of these including installing bridges and adding a few tunnels.
Scenery is so much more enjoyable in the virtual world then the real world, as no messy white glue mixtures, Hydrocal, etc are needed. And it's instantaneous. What's more, everything is correctable. I start off with basic scenery then slowly add more and more detail till my fps take too great a hit, then back it off some.
While I've only scenic about 1/5 of the layout, the operation sessions have been more then I've ever imagined. And this is with just me one running train at a time. AI operation will have to way until I figure out how to have all the track orientations in the same direction as I didn't really understand this concept till I was far into the track laying.
I've been lurking here, reading everything I can, and using the search function to solve many problems with great success.
I've also found many other sites and have downloaded content from each of them as well. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them have problems. I work to solve each issue until I can actually use the engine, car, etc, then live with the other issues. Rarely does any download seem to be complete including a percentage that are downloaded from Trainz.
I'm looking forward to becoming a more active board member in the future as my knowledge increases.
