I like trains too…

by on January 20, 2007

Rick Selby writes on his blog: “I like trains.” He better, he’s helping to build another version of Microsoft’s Train Simulator.

I remember first seeing Microsoft’s Train Simulator back in the late 1990s at a train show.

Maryam, tonight, was telling my dad and my step mom how I took her to Tehachapi Loop on the way to Las Vegas on the trip I asked her to marry me. “He was chasing trains,” she said.

Oh, give me a camera, and a train to catch.

By the way, I blame this on Steve Sloan, my former boss at San Jose State. He’s a far deeper train freak than I am.

It’ll be a load of fun hanging out with photo and train geeks on Sunday. Can’t wait.

And can’t wait to get the new Train Simulator. I thought the coolest thing was being able to put my own photos and logos on trains. Here’s one I did for Scripting News.

One thing I hope Microsoft lets me do is to run Train Simulator in a Window. If you’re really a simulator freak, you want to load up a big train and then head across country. That’s pretty boring as game play goes, but it sure makes killer eye candy. Put that up on Vista’s sidebar and watch everyone rave when they pass by your cube!

  • Oh, come on -- you've got to paint the train, don't you? It still looks like a BNSF....

    ;-)
  • John Blair
    Aw, Come on, Robert, You were a MAJOR FORCE in the MSTS Community for the period just before and just after the release of MSTS 1. You founded the MSN-MSTS Group which was the leading forum for the MSTS community before Nels Anderson's Train-Sim.com came on the scene. The MSTS community will always owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank You, Mr. Scoble, your contributions helped to shape the MSTS/virtual railroading community TO THIS DAY.
  • Wow, the things you learn on blogs that don't come up in real life.

    I was a train chaser starting as a teen-ager back when there was still steam in the yards and a giant Milwaukee Road Mallet graveyard in Tacoma. The Tehacepeh loop was always famous to me and I remember going through the tunnel on my first ever real train ride (on Northern and Southern Pacific from Tacoma to Glendale) in 1957.
  • I look forward to it as well - I got a copy of the original MS Train sim as a prize in a SQL Server beta about 5 years ago, really a lot of fun.
  • Robert - this time it's based on the Flight Sim X engine which means it'll work windowed fine. I'm assuming multiple windows with multiple different views will work too...
  • A new Train Simulator built on FSX -- holy procrastination, bring it on!

    I love your widget idea. Hey, you could keep various trains in operation while doing other work ... brilliant. :)
  • Anyone want to go back ten to fifteen years and use Kodachrome SP as a paint scheme? Perhaps the latest MSTS will let us have a "limited maintenance budget" flag, so our SP trains can only go 45 MPH? ;-}
  • Want more trains? My husband is a huge railfan. :)

    http://www.railfanwindow.com

    Check out his gallery of more than 10,000 photos.

    I don't know how he'd react to a new Microsoft Train Simulator game... I might not see him for awhile.
  • Hi,

    I'd think it'd be a cool Idea if you could integrate this Train Simulator engine into some model railroad-control software and control you minature fleischmann trains from an MSTS "cockpit?"


    Greetz,
  • The trains are coming every were.
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