A U R A N . C O M

Trainz Community Express Archives

12th June 2002

Hi everyone,

Welcome to another installment of Community Express

This week's websites in the spotlight are Trainz Portal Schweiz hosted by TalkieToaster and TRAINZ.SIM hosted by Daniel.

Trainz Portal Schweiz is an extensive German language based website. TalkieToaster comments that the sites main features include:

translation of official Auran newsletters in to German
selective mirroring of user files (that we encounter on other servers) on our Europe based server
free hosting of user files
free hosting of user screenshots
a forum to discuss all trainz topics
a hyperlink collection (50+ websites and growing)

TalkieToaster is eagerly looking forward to the German retail release of Trainz and the anticipated growth in the German Trainz online community. Thanks for the support TalkieToaster! TRAINZ.SIM is a new site on the Trainz scene, following the recent French retail release. It is a French language based site and offers a great resource for all French speaking Trainz fans.

This week's screenshots of the week starts off with a contribution from the Fat Controller himself. Barney has a prototypical route in progress (now at baseboard #14); here's a sneek peak:

Barney comments that the layout in progress features only Trainz original assets at this stage. Thanks for sending in the screenies Barney, and we look forward to driving the completed route!

You might like to also check out this fantastic screenshot that features magnificent sky textures. If you want to include the textures in your layouts they are available as a download package, Environment Pack 1, from the Trainz Download Station and also from the website where the screenshot is taken from, The Virtual Bulgarian State Railway. The Environment Pack 1 was put together by Chip McClure (vhm3). Thanks Chip for the excellent work!

Here's the week's Download Station report:

Currently available from Download Station:

Buildings / Structures 118

Layouts 65

Locomotives 113

Miscellaneous 24

Road 15

Rolling Stock 228

Textures 8

Track 5

Trackside Accessories 22

Vehicles 15

The Download Station current hit parade of top five downloads are:

1. Sagatukett
[Downloaded: 2468]

2. New River Rail
[Downloaded: 2251]

3. SAR Passenger Station 2 Tracks
[Downloaded: 1541]

4. Rail Ale
[Downloaded: 1467]

5. SAR Passenger Station 3 Tracks
[Downloaded: 1389]

The Current Top 5 Uploaderz are:

1. majekear 92

2. gjvh 41

3. tafweb 41

4. RailroadKing 21

5. tony-meredith 19

The Trainz forum waffle thread of the week goes to Ships. Barry started this thread back in April and it continues to steam along, now reaching some 8 pages. There is some great discussion and links to screenshots in the thread about the growing Trainz fleet. Barry has been a strong advocate and supporter for all things shipping and naval in Trainz for a good while now. So if you're into Trainz and ships check it out.

Stay tuned for more details on the Trainz promotional initiative that I've mentioned over the past few installments of Community Express. Don't forget, if you know of any local model rail club events or exhibitions coming up in your area where it would be appropriate to promote and demonstrate Trainz, please drop a line to helpdesk@auran.com with all of the relevant details.

Well that's about all for this week's Trainz community express. I'm about to take my life into my own hands and head over the Trainz developers' area and see how Service Pack 3 is advancing (it is looking good!). Uncle Rob looks particularly mean today, but what the hell, I may get a peek at one of those new scenarios he's been working on ;)

Cheers,

John Banks