What's In A Name?

As September is upon us again, it is nearly time for what has become something of an annual event; RailSimulator.com's latest instalment of Railworks. Except this year, it isn't.
From September 20 2012 users will automatically receive a free upgrade to Train Simulator 2013 when they log in to Steam.
As usual, there are a host of new features and improvements coming our way (I'm not going in to detail over these here, they can be found at http://www.railsimulator.com/newsdetail.php?Ref=428), but there is, to me at least, one glaring omission; no mention whatsoever of the word "Railworks".
Now, this isn't me ranting about RailSimulator.com continuing to evolve the program; over the last 2-3 years this has brought us some massive leaps forward in the realism stakes, such as interactive road traffic at level crossings, variable ride quality, superelevated curves and improved ambient lighting to name but a few.
However, one of the things that led me to pick up Railworks over any of the other railway simulators out there was the name. Railworks as a name is just brimming with potential and reflects the vast possibilities within the program itself. You can drive pretty much any type of rail traffic imaginable from many regions of Europe and America; create your own timetables, missions or scenarios or one of the many high quality routes available for the program; you can create your own route or railway within the vast, open world editor; you can build 3D models in other programs such as Blender to place in, decorate and customise your routes.
On the other hand, the alternatives are all rather lacking in the naming department. Trainz sounds rather frivolous with that somewhat juvenile "z" appended to it. BVE offers no indication that it is a rail simulator. And (significantly) Microsoft's Train Simulator sounds rather po-faced and serious (and, dare I say it, just a little dull).
Yet RailSimulator.com have chosen to adopt the Train Simulator moniker for their program, evolving from Railworks to Railworks 2: Train Simulator to Train Simulator 2012: Railworks 3 to this years forthcoming Train Simulator 2013.
I'm sure there are sound commercial reasons for adopting this change of name. As mentioned above, it is important that the name of the program gives a strong indication of the content, especially for newcomers to the genre who have limited foreknowledge of the programs that are available. Train Simulator is undoubtedly a "Ronseal" name; it does exactly what it says on the box and that can only be a good thing in terms of attracting new users to the program and for the commercial success of RailSimulator.com.
But I can't help but feeling that Railworks is a far more evocative and fun name for the program, and one that does convey to the potential buyer the core gist of the game while also hinting at the huge possibilities for more creative use contained in the program.

Steve

Tanks Very Much!

Malcolm Mackay has just released another pack of very fine freeware wagons over at http://www.dpsimulation.org.uk/, this time the two axle TTV tank wagons that were a common sight on Britain's rail network in the 70s and 80s. Download them here: http://www.dpsimulation.org.uk/rollingstock.html. Massive thanks to Malcolm for another impressive addition to his fleet of completely free rolling stock for Railworks. Appalling pun courtesy of me!

Steve

Ten of the best... freeware edition

AKA A Sunday evening list

In no particular order, and with the only criteria for inclusion being that I like 'em! I have tried to highlight some of the routes that are perhaps a little bit less well known or publicised though, so there are a few "obvious" routes that I have omitted as their quality is well known and I often see them talked about around t'interweb (Cresston, Wales & Borders to name but two; there are obviously many, many more).

As usual, non-inclusion is indicative of nothing more than that I have not gotten around to giving a route a good drive. Sorry!

1. Four Counties (AKA Yeovil Back From The Past)
2. The Central Route
3. The Mayflower Line
4. Ribble Island (R.I.) Lines
5. Settle to Carlisle 1960s
6. Blyth & Tyne
7. Kanturk to Newmarket (Eire)
8. Westhouses & Blackwell Branch
9. The Crabenmore Branch
10. Western Rails

Steve