Well, I admit it's a little dusty in here having been quiet the past month or so after the release of Rascal & Cottonwood. So I'll catch things up to speed in here and let you know what's going on.
Living Waters Jazz:
But first, a musical interlude from my favorite band, MINE! I released a music CD about a year ago and in the past couple of months have been remixing and revising some of the tunes on it with a little more get up and go. Here's one of the tunes featuring me on drums, Give It All!
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7064630 (Be sure to click on Hi-res play)
I should have a new tune up in a few days. And, thanks for listening!
Rascal & Cottonwood:
This little route did very well considering I thought there wasn't much of an audience for Rail Simulator. I had a target goal I had hoped to meet which I thought would have been a miracle to do so inside a year. Instead I went over that before the first month was up. No, it's not a large figure but considering the lack of enthusiasm for Rail Simulator there is, a smaller number seemed approrpriate. I have received many nice emails for the Rascal & Cottonwood route and no negative feedback. I understand if some of you will say "I haven't seen it talked about much." Neither have I but what's important to me is the sales number. RS seems a different kind of community where it's more user based than developer base. I thought it would be more equal but so far I think it's the former.
Trackplan2:
This is my second route for Rail Simulator borne from the success and my desire to not pull what's left of my hair out from long hours in MSTS. Trackplan is just the development name as I don't have names laid out for the towns just yet. It's a combination of a longer route than Rascal & Cottonwood that I actually built in N scale some years ago and nearly finished. It's based off a track plan found in 101 Track Plans by Linn Wescott. I keep saying it's by Jack Armstrong, I don't know why. If you have the book look up track plan #45 or #47, I can't remember which and the page is missing from out of my book.
Anyway, I've been working on this route since shortly after I released the Rascal & Cottonwood. It's about 2/3rds the way done. It features many many more industries than the R & C did and the mainline run is much longer too. It does do the wrap-around mode so it's very possible to see AI trains running within scenes longer. The mainline is a mixture of double-track and single track. You'll run through numerous very detailed towns which are longer than what you're used to in my previous routes except maybe Grove City. The towns on average feel about that long though I can't say proof-positive that is the case so I don't have a means to measure the distances.
I have a picture thread over at TS Rail Simulator Screenshot forum you can take a look at. By no means are the pictures anywhere even close to representing the scope of this route. I believe with RS it's too easy to make too much and unlike MSTS, where a small area tells the whole story, that is not the case with doing scenery in RS. Here's the link:
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/showthread.php?t=276703Pricing for the route will be similar at $15.00. You will still need RSDL's Foliage pack (now at $6.00) and Marc Nelson's (3d Trains) Rural Landscapes ($12.00 I believe). If you already have these packages you do not need to purchase them again. The new route will automatically see the installation of both of these packages.
Model Railroader Ad:
If you haven't notice I've been running an ad in Model Railroader. Fortunately for me, the R & C did what I had hoped the Model Railroader Ad would have done and increased my presence in the virtual market. Because of that I discontinued the ad and it's last showing should be in February of 2009.
So, this year's public disclosure is All Aboard is still doing good in spite of taking nearly a year off from the train market to do the music CD. I'm doing a second Rail Simulator route and I hope to release it mid to late December or in January. And I'm working on a second music CD. Shortly new threads in this forum will be started to talk about the new route. And that's the All Aboard 'state of the union' update for ya.
Rich
All Aboard! Update, *turning the lights back on in here*
Dec 10 2008, 6:28 AM
