Hello Andre!

As it has been a bit quiet the last days here in the forum I am very curiuos if there
are some news about the probably most beautiful PayWare route which is under
construction

Some new pics would be fine, finer the finest!

Can`t await to get tthem

BTW: Here at a German Trainsim Community forum http://www.tssf-forum.de/yabbse/index.php?...art=30#lastPost is a very interesting discussion on american routes.
I will keep you up to date and I will surely postmy 1st impressions on the ON here!

Great route to come!

Christian

Hallo Christian!

Danke for the mention of VSC at the Deutsch site!

As for the Ozark Northern:

There have been several distractions the last few days, so not as much forward progress on the route has been made.

Further, there will now be delays to the equipment eng/wag files as Bill Hobbs seeks to learn more about the coupler and damping statements within an eng/wag file. Much conflicting information exists. I seriously doubt the time that Bill needs will impact the release of the route, but it IS time away from further development of the sound pack, which was hoped to be introduced with the Ozark Northern.

We press on!

I thought maybe hunting season had opened. Whole board's a ghost town this last week.

Nope. In my case what has happened is: Life.

Oooh, yeah. THAT.

I am around and working on things as time permits. I think I finally have a fair understanding of what is going on with the couplers and may soon want some help testing some revised specs. I have also learned from Captain Bazza how to notch the throttle and have been trying those out (when I initially tried to notch the throttle, I didn't think of adding a "Dummy" token, and so ET called home on me and I gave up)
Sounds are progressing. I have one rod engine that sounds good and have the shay sounds working fine, but am trying to recut the chuffs for the K27 and Eureka Springs #1. Ambient sounds in the recordings can make it difficult to blend sounds taken as little as 20 seconds apart together. Its something you don't realize until you string all the "cuts" together and listen.
Trackside recordings are very difficult to work with because of the doppler effect. One can only get a cut from the very middle of a runby and not hear a noticable doppler effect that gets very annoying when put into a loop.
Frequencies of chuffs go as high as 25 per second on my files, which equates to 6.25 revolutions per second or 61mph for a 55 in diameter wheel. Of course for a shay with a 32 in diameter wheel and 12 chuffs per revolution, its only about 12mph.
I should note that I will be out for a while later next week to attend the annual Sn3 Symposium in Seattle.

Bill Hobbs

Did someone say "K27?" Is there a 450 class lurking out there somewhere?

All very interesting, Bill. Thanks for the hard work.

As per usual, for any beta/prototype comparision work that you'd like I'd be glad to help.

Steve,
I was hoping you might be willing to do some testing.
Bill

Herb,
Yes, I am trying to get a set of sounds together based on my Trowbridge charters on #463 over the years. As noted above, the trick is finding a series of chuffs at different rates that don't have too distinct background sounds. The mountains up there can add LOTS of reverb in some locations, while others are quite flat. On one trip, the cylinder packing on one side must have been leaking because it can be heard on recording that were made close to the loco. And then there is the whistle: a lot of participants wanted a whistle on each runby -- and that spoils a lot of the chuff sequences.

Bill

Ahh, all the more reason for a nice, generic cab ride ...

Hello Andre!

Hope you could defeat the problems regarding the ON-progress.
Can`t wait for begin hauling Zinc ore down the 4% grades!
Yeah, I think that also in Germany there`s a quite interesting
fan-coounity regarding US addons.

Best wishes from Munich,

Christian

Hi Andre!

It became a bit calm regarding the Ozark Northern.
Hope that you could defeat the troubles and you may
soon share again news with us. Will be fun the ON!

Christian

I had time this weekend to work both on sound and couplers. Last week, I finally understood how couplers work in TrainSim, thanks in good part to Doug Jones testing of oscillations. I have developed a spreadsheet to do some setup calculations for couplers, but haven't yet been able to produce a simulation that timesteps through coupler behavior (the math is quite a challenge). I do have some coupler settings to test and hope to post them tonight. Also have working some new setting for a throttle that replicates (to mine and Steve's satisfaction) the behavior of a single port throttle better than earlier ones.
K27 chuff sounds were redone yesterday and are being tested along with the coupler settings. If I like them, the same technique will be used to redo the Eureka Springs #1 sounds. Shay sounds are working fine, with just a bit of tinkering required to finish up.

Bill Hobbs

I have a hunch that Shay is going to be worth the price of admission!

You're correct, Uncle Herb. Our Bill has been quite busy!