A U R A N . C O M

Trainz Community Express Archives

Hi everyone,

In last week's Community Express I focused on the more lengthy layouts that have been emerging recently; this week I will continue the theme of the fantastic third-party content available for Trainz by taking a look at some of the steam locomotives that have been released for Trainz recently.

I have mentioned the excellent Steam-work of Prowler in a previous Community Express, you simply must stop by Prowler's Den and download his narrow gauge D&RGW models (C-21 360, C-21 361, K-37 494 and K-36 485). Thanks also to Josh Harvey who made the original models that Prowler's creations are based on).

You've also got Narrowgauge's 36" gauge Climax, a 25 ton beast that is very impressive. It is also available to download from Prowler's Den. Great work Narrowgauge.

Then of course you have the P10 recently released by Marlboro, Bobo88 and Gary Hoorn. Great work guys. The P10 can be downloaded from here.

You also have the Garratt GMAM class created by austin316hockey. For some screenshots of this beauty together with fascinating background reading take a look at this forum thread. You can download the Garratt from Jon's Trainz Station: Warehouse. While you are there check out the other projects that he is currently working on including CPR Budd cars and Peter Witt Street Car.

For more steam, take a look at the AT&SF Class 2900 (4-8-4) put together by Dennis Marus, Gary Hoorn and Bob. You can find it in the downloads section over at http://www.berlin-trainz.de.

Yet more Steam is on the way as well, with SteveDark currently working on the Baltic Tank 4-6-4T. For work in progress reports and pics take a look at this thread - It is looking awesome Steve and we look forward to seeing the finished model.

I've no doubt also missed a few of the steam projects that are currently underway. The Trainz third-party community has made a wonderful contribution by bringing steam to Trainz. Thanks guys!

A new Trainz website, Trainz.nl is on the scene for the Dutch community. Proksie1, the webmaster of Trainz.nl comments that he aims to provide a resource for Dutch Trainz fans that will include information, FAQ and an active forum. The site looks superb, excellent work Prokie1.

Continuing with the Steam theme, for this week's screenshotz I just could not go past these of the forthcoming UP Big Boy being constructed by Strat. I'm really looking forward to seeing this baby powering through a few layouts. Check her out:

Beautiful work Strat, very drool worthy!

With the third-party creators busy with updating content for Trainz v1.3 there is a lot of material going up on Download Station, make sure you stop by to update your content and also take a look at the new contributions:

Currently available from Download Station:

Animals 1

Buildings / Structures 233

Layouts 98

Locomotives 207

Miscellaneous 41

Road 21

Rolling Stock 600

Scenarios 2

Terrain Features 9

Textures 39

Track 49

Trackside Accessories 56

Vehicles 16

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

1. Sagatukett
[Downloaded: 2914]

2. New River Rail
[Downloaded: 2743]

3. SAR Passenger Station 2 Tracks
[Downloaded: 1851]

4. Razorback Railway
[Downloaded: 1666]

5. Rail Ale
[Downloaded: 1582]

This Week's Top Five Downloads

1. RB30A
[Downloaded: 269]

2. OCR Logging Camp Warehouse
[Downloaded: 217]

3. MB-Brick Rail Viaduct
[Downloaded: 217]

4. N Scale
[Downloaded: 215]

5. Union Pacific DD35 A unit #84
[Downloaded: 208]

The Current Top 5 Uploaderz are:

1. majekear 281

2. tafweb 49

3. psycho_aussie 46

4. gjvh 45

5. Mike10 38

The Trainz forum waffle thread of the week has to be the return of the master waffler himself, Redroo13 in "eheheh". There are some pretenders to the throne posting to the thread, but there is only one Red ;)

Last week, we put out the call for new beta-testers. Thanks to everyone who sent in an application, I have been working my way through the emails all week and we selected the new group yesterday. The new testers will be sent an introductory email together with non-disclosure agreement over the course of the next day or so. In order to keep the beta-test group at a manageable level we could not unfortunately include everyone who has applied or reapplied to participate. Many very capable people with a lot to offer have missed out, but there will be further rounds in the future. I would like to particularly thank those beta-testers who are moving on to make room for the new testers, your contribution and effort has been greatly appreciated. We will also be finalising the details for the Third-Party Support group early next week, I will be in touch with the participants very soon.

On a final note I would like to thank PikkaBird for his help over the weekend with demonstrating Trainz at a local model railroad exhibition held at Bald hills, Brisbane. Yet again Trainz was well received and the local clubs attending the event were very welcoming, and doing much drooling over Trainz. A big 'Hi' in particular to the guys from the Logan City model rail club.

Until next week,

Cheers,

--JB