Me Again

*Sneaks in hoping no-one notices*

Wow... Its been a while.

I could lie and say I spent the last couple of years in Japan, but where's the fun in that? The truth is, having some time off, away from my computers got me thinking about other things, and my priorities kind of changed for a while.

This project has always been in the back of my mind, but several factors stopped me from getting back to it. The 'priorities' mentioned before, troubles with my job - hearing that Auran went bankrupt didn't help either - for a long time, I thought, "Well.. thats the end of Trainz". I was also wrestling with texturing the Tangara Control trailer, and in the end, it became too hard, and I put it off for a while. With everything else in combination, that "while" got longer and longer.

In the last couple of years several things have changed for me. I still love electric trains, that much hasn't changed (especially the Tangara and the 86 Class of New South Wales, but increasingly also the Shinkansen (Bullet Trains) of Japan, as I got to know them more) but there are a few issues that are still keeping me away from this project.

In recent months Ive been yearning to do some more work on the 86 Class locomotive, and see it running in Trainz, as I envisioned it (Did I mention it would be fully operational, including the awkward way its driven? (ie: 1-2-3-2-3-2.. etc, for those that know). I'd even like to finish the Tangara, which isnt really that far away from loading up and running - the motor car, and variations (G Sets) wont take a lot of work, although the scripting I had planned for it will take some time).

The issues keeping me away right now, are firstly that my PC died (along with all of the Gmax files on it) and has been out of comission for probably over 18 months now. In fact, since it died, 5 other computers have died as well (I have a lot of computers on a big network). All of these are still dead, and right now, I'm on the oldest, slowest machine I have (excluding the unix systems, which run web services and other work for clients) and it just wont handle Gmax.

Originally, the problem that caused the demise of my PC was hard to diagnose. It was a hardware failure, but I didnt want to replace working components, and I didnt have any good way of figuring out which part was broken, so I just used another computer for a while. Finally (just recently as it happens) that other computer also died, and I had a chance to swap components. The good news is I narrowed the problem (on both machines) down to the motherboard. The bad news is, with 2 dead motherboards, I still cant make one working good machine.

The other big issue thats affecting me right now is that I left my job mid last year (it was long overdue), and so far, havnt found another. I dont have the money to repair the machines at the moment, so Im stuck on this slow one for now.

I heard about Trainz 2009 being released, and that gave me some hope that all this work wasnt wasted. Its re-kindled my interest in finishing what Ive started, as it seems that there is a future. The other good news is, as partial payment for building and maintaining a web site for my wife's business, she has agreed to pay for repairs to all of the dead computers, though that will depend on when she can afford to do that, and is conditional on me getting a job again.

So, the upshot is that things are slowly coming full circle, and I'm beginning to think more and more about this project. I said to myself at the beginning of this post, that I wouldnt apologise for being away so long, and I hope that you understand that we (content creators) do this because we want to, and have the resources. We are not obligated to do it. For a while I wasnt able to spend the time, or didnt have the resources (or both), but in the near future, that should be changing, so consider this post the first buds of spring :p

Another thing that helped keep me away, was the disapointment I felt about the way Railcorp approaches heritage issues in New South Wales. I touched apon it in previous posts, but since then time has shown that the token gesutres made thus far have had little real benefit (if any). They seem to have no interest in "Heritage", other than generating goodwill with a few well composed press releases. Unfortunately that goodwill on the part of the public, doesnt seem to be balanced by any real advances in rail heritage. Despite their words I can cite many examples where Railcorp's own actions could be viewed as having little concern for rail heritage. Private groups are doing far more, but its Railcorp's bat and ball (its even their ballpark), and they dont seem to want to play - they just leave the lights on so that it looks like they're interested, and when someone else kicks the ball around, they can say that by leaving the lights on they enabled them to do that! Perhaps in future posts, I'll give a few examples.

Even more future posts will probably also talk about the N Scale layout I'm planning to build in a spare room (Another thing that has got me thinking about this project). I'm hoping to capture aspects of Japan's rail system, including Shinkansen, regular passenger, freight end even metro systems.

As you can see, I have a lot to write about. I guess in a way this post is designed to put leverage on myself. Much of what I want to do, requires me to get a job, and with you lot knowing that Im still here, its even more pressure on me to get on with it, rebuild my systems, and get these models finished and uploaded to the DLS!

Update: 9 Feb 2009 - Ive just spent several hours tweaking this blog, adding tags, gadgets etc. I cant access Gmax for a while so I do what I can. I also replied to a lot of old comments, so that the answers are on the same archive page. Its been tough going because this old machine is so slow. Something is chewing up all the CPU, but it isnt as simple as a worm or spyware or anything obvious like that. Im a geek, but so far, its eluded me. Im still working on it.

Looking back over old posts I realised how much I have forgotten about Gmax, but Im sure it will come back to me when I get started again, and I have lots of notes. The hard drives in my machine are still ok, and mirrored just in case, so once its fixed, everything will be right where I left it.

Central Station's 100th Birthday Party

I have to say I was very dissapointed when I walked down to Central Station on Saturday to take part in the 100th aniversary celebrations.

This week has been an important one for rail heritage in New South Wales, with the state government using the 100th aniversary of the opening of Central Station to announce its future rail heritage plans, but the event itself clearly demonstarted to me that Railcorp is more concerned with the future than celebrating a century of transportation at one of Sydney's oldest stations.

The impression I was left with, after spending several hours wandering around the station, looking at the trains on display, was the the whole thing was a combined childrens birthday party and promotional exhibition for EDI Rail, the manufacturer of the Millenium train - one of the newest trains in the fleet.

The even newer Outer Suburban Cars (also known as OSCAR) (pictured) was also on display, but if its manufacturer, the United Group, was present, I really didnt notice them, except perhaps for one small banner which I can recall.

EDI on the other hand had at least two stalls handing out promotional material on platform one, and another in the main hall, and people on the trains answering questions.

There were a couple of guys in futuristic yet cartoonish jetpack styled outfits, acting like robots, there was also face paining, temporary tattoos, and at least 2 brightly coloured girls, making balloon anmals as they wandered up and down the platform entertaining the kiddies.

There was one old rail motor (CPH 18), a 45 class diesel (4520), idling in the escape road between platforms 3 and 4, and two steam trains running shuttle trips to Hurstville and back (3801, 3830). I got the distinct impression that the "Heritage" part of the display was the steam trains arriving and departing from platform 3 every few minutes.

Where was the electric heritage fleet? Where were the red rattlers which graced Central Station with their presence daily for over 75 years? I have no idea, and am at a loss to explain their absence, considering that Railcorp itself owns two complete and working red rattler sets, which I know were ready for the day, because I have spent one weekend a month for the last 7 months cleaning them!! I cant understand why Railcorp did not have them on show beside the Oscar and Millenium trains - there was definately enough room left on platform one for at least one, or perhaps both heritage sets.

As recently as two weeks ago I was told that at least one of them would be at Central on the day - perhaps both. and I was asked to come along to help guide people through them and answer their questions. The next time I go to Redfern Workshops, I will have a few questions of my own to ask - namely, What happened?.

A recent tour by one of the red rattler sets was postponed because Railcorp could not find drivers qualified to opertate their own heritage fleet, and I have previously been told that they apparently think that the public has little interest in these aging trains - a statement proven wrong by the popularity of the W set when it ran shuttles to Olympic Park last year.

I dont have all the answers yet, but I often get the impression that when it comes to heritage rail, Railcorp and the state government are not really trying, and as was shown today, to them, celebrating 100 years of Central Station history means promoting the two newest trains in its fleet (one of which is so new that it has not even started revenue service yet), and putting on a couple of steam trains to keep the heritage crowd quiet.

I'll post more when I find out why the red rattlers never made it to the party.