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=276703

Pricing 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

'Tain't right that there is no reply here - Listening to the music as I type - excellent Rich, especially the rhythm provided by the drums

Still enjoying R&C - I find it is the only US route that I drop into and run short sessions on - Cajon is too, well too long without any real interest within a decently short running time.

Looking forward to the next (going to have to get 101 Track Plans for myself from somewhere ! ) especially having seen the farmland.

Keep it up

Rod

hey, they call me buddy Rich!



That's great to hear. An outfit I talked to today is considering publishing the route. There's some hurdles though.



I would have liked to shown the plan but I can't find that page from the book. I built the layout in N scale but I made some hefty modifications to it. Maybe I can dig up some pictures of the layout but I can't recall if I even took any.

Rich

Rich, love the music, if I could convert it to a wav file I'd use it in my observation cars

Jim

Thanks Jim! I appreciate the compliment.

We did something just like that with my Bodiddly Music. Do you guys remember that? That's going wayyyyy back. Back in my Ohio Rail days I wanted to complete the environment of the route by adding bluegrass music. But not the tinny sounding midi generated stuff you typically hear. Back then I was doing this digital music stuff as well so I found some bluegrass midis' and applied the sample technology to it and it turned out fairly decently. Dick C liked it enough to put some of them in his observation cars for the WV&O and OR&W. It was definetely a hoot! Nowadays we take that stuff for granted but it was .... *trying to remember their name.... still thinking... oh yeah!* TA or Trains Artisans that changed out the observation car default to their own music. I guess Dick figured it out how to do it, mind you, this is back in 2002 and surprised me with what he had done when he sent me the beta. Back then Dick Van Der Hoven was working with us and he was pretty excited by it as well. I haven't heard the tunes in ages but I think you can still get it at avsim.com. I don't know if Ed has that stuff on his site or not.

Rich

Thanks for the info Rich I'll have to look around. Last year I found a replacement wav for the TA observation cars, but I don't remember where. Its a lively tune along the lines of Chattanooga CHOO CHOO. Now I have added it to all my observation cars. Your Jazz would be great in there also...

Jim

Here's another Living Waters Jazz tune. This is a latin sounding jazzy piece featuring a moderate tempo bouncy melody and three solos (trombone, alto sax and trumpet). Very schmultzy ending. This is a lenghy song at over 5 minutes. Made to sound realistic.

Jesus, My Joy (Be sure to click on Hi-res play)

Rich

There is some music, of sorts, in the EMRR caboose too

Dick

Yep, releasing routes and still doing the jazz stuff too! Here's one of my latest, There Are Struggles. This is a short piece (2:45 I believe) with an art deco flavor. Kind of like a mystery private detective sounding theme I did in contrast to my more upbeat tempo songs. Give this one a listen, I hope you like it!

There Are Struggles

Boy Rich, you moved at light speed to reply to this one

The music sounds great, Rich! I wish you every success with that as well as your MSTS & Rail Simulator endeavors.

Rich

Thanks Rich!!

WOW! Very nice, Rich. I'm more into the deep down blues but that was a sweet light swing, that's for sure.

As far as converting it to wave format goes, that's an easy matter to accomplish using Audacity.

Enjoy!

Thanks Rick! I convert from wav to mp3. The wavs are pretty big so I convert to mp3. That's all anybody allows you to post is to mp3 anyway.

Rich

Like the song and the title of the group even better.

Keep the Son in your eyes,
Kinnie

Thanks Kinnie! Much appreciated!

Today's All Aboard update will be posted as a separate thread, stay tuned!

Announcement

Got a new tune, Praising His Way! This is a nice tune which I revamped from from my CD, Get Up! It's a snappy bossa-nova "like" tune with alto sax playing the melody and a solo. Love the sax, that's what I play ( I had a Selmer Mk 6 which is not to be confused with the Rail Simulator patches). The song opens with a trumpet solo and then the sax guy does his thing followed by a piano solo actually performed by one of our own who wishes to remain anonymous. And that's me on the drums! Give a listen at:

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7481634

Thanks!

Rich Garber
Living Waters Jazz

Rich,
For some reason the link does not work for me. I just get some odd, some very odd, pictures

Dick

Should be fixed now... sorry!

Rich

Typical route builder - can't even link to a file on the 'net!

Cheers!
Marc

typical greaser!! It's not a link to a file, it's a page!

he's so jealous!!

AH we need some music to calm the savage breast. or is it beast? I can never remember!!!

A book has pages. An HTML "page" is still a file. Sheesh, some people's children (and route builders).


Well, at least I ain't RICH...

...oops, wait a sec, that didn't come out right...

Cheers!
Marc

And the on the music front, here's a new jazz swing piece to strut to while you're workin' on the railroad

Struttin Onward!

If you look way... I mean way in the back... that's me on drums!!

Okay.. okay... it's a tamborine, but still....

Just call me Buddy Rich!

Buddy

R&C is an excellent little route but almost as important - it provided some much needed additional 3D items for route builders everywhere. The generic factories look just at home on an industrial park in Scotland as they do in the USA as of course do many of the other bridges and structures.

Okay, so what has All Aboard been doing the past month? Not much to do with trains, that's for certain!

All Aboard... er-uhm, I mean Living Waters Jazz (who can tell those two apart?) is excited with this new tune called... and how appropriate for RailWork's fans... Turmoil. Reminescent of Glenn Miller's Song Of The Volga Boatmen the struggle.. the fate of man against the odds... the hope that some day somebody will put out a train game that will make everyone happy (couldn't resist), .... ohhh I lost my train of thought. Anyway, here's the link to my new tune

ladies and gentlemen... Turmoil!

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7725787

'Fats' Garber (it's too true! )
Living Waters Jazz

Nice to see you on the right track. Where is the vulgar boatman??? Isn't he in the pirate sim you mentioned somewhere. (pirate NOT pirated)

This is where I get confused (Easy to do) Isn't there a U Boat sim. That's not a railway one is it?

I have got a model here with torpedo tanks on the roof and a U Boat to do so do I put them in RW or what!!!

Confused

Progress is taking its course with the Ft. Kent to Eagle Lake route I'm working on currently. Aye carumba as learning anything new has its curves! Hopefully soon I'll have some pics to show of the route. In the mean time....

Living Waters Jazz has a new number to perform, The Sound Of Jesus Name originally written by a fellow who likes to be known as Muffit (L. Meinecke). I arranged and rendered the tune for Living Waters Jazz with Dave Bentley doing the vocal. Give a listen, at:

Living Waters Jazz

Rich G

Great music Rich. Just wondering, what do you do in your spare time?

Bert

Thanks! What do I do in my spare time? The music? - Rich

Always calling me asking "how do you do this?", "how do you do that?", and "hey, I just got a great deal on a new saxophone!"

Cheers!
Marc

He's just jealous, I got two good deals on saxophones

Lookin' at another?

Rich

Can you do the "Chattanooga Choo Choo" on that thing?

Now that's an idea for a new route with Marc's Fs. But then it wouldn't be choo choo would it