Site updated 2300 Saturday 31 January 2009  (AU Eastern Summer Time)

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What's new

Saturday 31 January 2009
Released at last is the third and final instalment of Brian Bere-Streeter's Illawarra lines project - the Main Illawarra v3, based on the Main Illawarra railway lines running down the coastal strip of the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia, around the 1950 to 1960 period, from the Steam Platforms at Sydney Terminal to the terminus of the line at Bomaderry (Nowra). MSTS pioneer route-builder Paul Woozley's original "Illawarra Stage One" has been merged into and forms the southern part of this route.

Click here to go to the Routes page for more information and to access the download page.
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Thursday 25 December 2008

This morning Chris Nelson, Brian Bere-Streeter and team-ALCO are proud to release the exquisite Tumulla Bank route. Only 16km in length, the real Tumulla Bank tested the skills of the great steam drivers of the 50s and early 60s.

Click here to go to the Tumulla Bank page to commence downloading this route: the route is packaged in a single Clickteam installer. Xtracks 3.20 and Newroads 4.00 are required.

Enjoy.

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Monday 1 December 2008

It's back! And better than ever! The long-awaited upgrade of the Central West route is now available for download. There are new tracks, improved yards and access and many additional scenic items - Brian Bere-Streeter has performed a "makeover" on this popular route.

Click here to go to the CWRv1.6 page to commence downloading this route: the route is packaged in a Clickteam installer. Xtracks 3.20 and Newroads 4.00 are required.
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Saturday 8 November 2008:  

I've now added "Detect Changes" boxes to the three most visited pages on this site - this should notify you whenever I update this main page, the Route Riter page or the Tutorials page.

Over the past couple of months, I've added a few tutorials to the tuorials page as well as tidying up

Mike Simpson's Route-Riter is now at version 7.1.18. Full installation packages and update packages (from 7.0.85 or higher are available by clicking here.
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Tuesday 22 July 2008:  

Mike Simpson's Route-Riter is now at version 7.0.97. Full installation packages and update packages (from 7.0.85 or higher are available by clicking here.
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Friday 27 June 2008:  

Mike Simpson's Route-Riter is now at version 7.0.94.

Astute watchers of the site may have noted that I've had time to return the Victorian Railways' L class to the Electric Locos section. As time permits, more rolling stock will be returned (see 17 April 2008 comments below for others in the pipeline: there are no "copyright nazi" issues with these models, simply a lack of time to update the physics and rebuild the installers).
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Friday 6 June 2008:  

Mike Simpson's Route-Riter is now at version 7.0.92.
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Monday 26 May 2008:  

Mike Simpson has released v7.0.90 of his world-famous utility: visit the Route-Riter site for this latest update.
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Monday 12 May 2008:  

To those who say that Australian MSTS in general and this site in particular is dead - 150,000 hits to this site since the beginning of the year says otherwise. And there's lots more coming on through, both payware and freeware.
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Wednesday 30 April 2008:  

Mike Simpson has released v7.0.89 of his world-famous utility: visit the Route-Riter site for this latest update.

Thursday 17 April 2008:  

There's been a few tutorials posted over the last couple of months that might be of interest: one on unsticking frozen points, one on passenger views and a work-in-progress on the ichk file produced by TsUtils. Browse over to the Tutorials site and scroll down through the list and look for the rotating NEW icon to see what's new in the past four months.

We now have approval for most of the models still outstanding to make a return to the steam4me site (with only a couple of exceptions). These models will be returned as soon as possible: at the moment, however, team-ALCO's efforts are directed towards the completion and release of the team-ALCO VR N Class which is expected before the end of May.

In the pipeline for return after that are the NSW 35, 45, 48 class diesels and the electric V, S and Tangara sets. Time (and my health), not copyright issues, is the limiting factor that determines when these models will be returned to the site.

Sunday 30 March 2008:  
Mike Simpson has released v7.0.85 of his awesome "Swiss Army knife" utility for MSTS - Route Riter. This has involved a major rewrite using Carl-Heinz Rave's TsUtils Java functions to compress/uncompress .s/.t and .w files wherever this is necessary in the program.

Mike has had to do this as previous compress/uncompress utilities don't work under Vista, and this release consolidates one version of Route Riter for both XP and Vista.

This major rewrite means that there is no longer any requirement for Microsoft .Net Framework to be installed for RR to run A recent version of Java is necessary. Visit the definitive and complete Route Riter site for the latest full and update installs as they become available.

Versions less than 7.0.85 are no longer supported. A full install of 7.0.85 or higher is recommended to ensure that you have all the most recent files (you do not need to uninstall an older version of Route Riter first).

As if all that wasn't enough, there are now 12 tutorials on using the various components of Route Riter to help you in both route-building and rolling stock upgrades.

And you lot thought Australian MSTS was dead.................. hah!

Saturday 9 February 2008:  

I'll be "off the air" for a few weeks so here's a few more updated items that are now available again: Russell Beer's VHJA gypsum hoppers and OT tank wagons, Richard Lauder's ELX reskin, as well as his reskin of T387 into interim CFCLA colours. Find them in Freight and Diesel sections respectively.

Saturday, 12 January 2008:  

I'm on the other side of the world at the moment, but the 14 hour flight across the Pacific gave me time to continue updating files on the site. The files continue to return: over the past couple of days, I've uploaded the updated Flexivans, the West Coast VLCX and Gavin McLauhghlin's VR Y class diesel.

Monday, 31 December 2007:  

Newroads v4 has been released, in both a ZIP form as well as an all-in-one EXE file designed by yours truly. Click on the Newroads link at right to get the files you need.

Friday, 28 December 2007:  

Well, Christmas is over and you've opened all your presents; in the interests of family harmony (mine), today's release was held over till now as this route is so engrossing you are likely to lose track of time.

Yes, Brian Bere-Streeter has been working hard on his "Northern Illawarra" route and this new version (v2) now covers all the way from Coniston (just south of Wollongong) to Sydney Central station. Sydney suburban goods lines are included as well.

This is an excellent piece of work - I thoroughly recommend it to you. Click here to go to the Routes page for more information.
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Tuesday 18 September 2007 @ ~2300:  

Landmark: the number of visitors to this site since its inception in September 2001 passed the 2,000,000 mark a short time ago. What started as a site to showcase a couple of new models in the MSTS field (with Joseph Spinella's Garratt and R Class tram, and Phill Stokes' B Van and GY wagons being the first Australian MSTS models) has grown into the definitive site for Australian outline models as well as hosting the world's largest number and variety of tutorials on every aspect of content creation for MSTS. Downloads average over 400G per month with an all-time high of over 950G shortly after the release of Allan Lownsborough's Adelaide route.

Special thanks to the Railpage owners - Brian Evans and David Bromage - for their unfailing generosity in hosting this site over the past six years and to Michael Greenhill and James Morgan for their ongoing "behind the scenes" technical support.

......previous news items - click here

Permanent Content

Tutorials

Motive Power

Rolling Stock

Routes

Infrastructure ( or anything added with Route Editor)

Utilities

Other

New Simulators (actual and proposed)

Contact me


DOWNLOADING INSTRUCTIONS

Click on the image to the left of the description for more details and images of the model and for instructions on how to commence downloading your model:  after downloading each item, full installation instructions will be found in the readme.txt file located within each ZIP file, or you simply run the .EXE file (from the web site or from your "Downloads" folder.

Model equipped with release3 or release2 physics in our enhanced installer
 This icon indicates that the rollingstock model contained within this (enhanced-type) installer has had the most recent release3 (released late June 2006) or release2 friction, braking and physics by team-ALCO in order to present you with the most realistic operation in MSTS to date.

Enhanced model within enhanced installer
 This icon indicates that the rollingstock model contained within this (enhanced-type) installer has had modifications to the "physics" for more realistic operation.

Enhanced 
installer
 The installer will find your MSTS installation from the registry.  Information text significantly enhanced.

Standard Installer -
Obsolete!
 Our original installer: check the folder into which the file is to be installed.  Basic instructions.  This installer being phased out: these models will be the first to be upgraded to release2 physics: there are only 5 of these left..

All will install into their own folder whose name will be prefaced in the folder by "AU".  You will also find the AU in the name description in the Consist Editor: this will increase recognition and bring some order to the rapidly expanding list of MSTS add-ons.

In the table below, you will also find an icon against each item -  all files on this page have now been changed over to Clickteam or Qsetup installers: no more ZIP files to wrestle with.  Once all the files have been updated as part of the current programme,  all installers will be gold or blue standard as described in the table below.

These installers are quick, efficient and safe to use: they retrieve the location of MSTS from your registry: they read-only, they DO NOT WRITE to the registry; they place all necessary files in their correct folders in their correct position in your MSTS game; they do not add icons or short-cuts to your Start menu.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Site Design
This site has been re-written employing many of the principles espoused by Jakob Nielsen's Usability Website (even to "borrowing" his layout)in order to make it easier for you to find the information and files you need.

Features include: No frames: you can bookmark pages on the site successfully; Verdana and/or Trebuchet MS fonts for readability by both human and virtual eyes; high contrast, easy-to-read text (no red-on-black or dark blue-on-black nonsense); no "crippling" of your ability to simply change font sizes on the pages according to your preference (whether in IE or Mozilla); drill-down menu top of each page showing that page's location; all content will be dated; removal of images not showing content; separation of news and permanent content.

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