The Chill Out Zone

[reworht]

G'day all - I know, I'm late on parade again.
After a rubbish night's sleep on Sunday, followed by a 5.50am alarm call yesterday morning for the school run, |I decided to have a lie in this morning. After that lie in, I stuck my nose out of the duvet - and it was flippin' freezing, so I had another lie in

[stevestrat]

Originally Posted by Lancpudn

we had the lightest dusting of snow overnight and it's trying to snow again by the looks of things

Morning, plain cold and damp here, no white stuff, not even on the hills.

[Lancpudn]

Originally Posted by stevestrat

Morning, plain cold and damp here, no white stuff, not even on the hills.

It thawed out & started to rain here around 10:00am and it soon turned to sleet, The sleet is coming down quite steady now, Brrr feet up in front of the fire for me today.#


At last!



#




I've been trying to win an ebay auction for a better spec PC to play the Train Sim World train simulator games on for the last few days.


A water cooled Intel i5 16Gb GTX 970 4 Gb Vam GPU.



Finally won one last night It's not easy winning one against those guys, this was my 6th attempt I've no fingernails left

[stevestrat]

I'm one of those sneaky bugrs on Ebay. If its something I'm really after I use a sniper, stay hidden til the last seconds.

[Lancpudn]

Originally Posted by stevestrat

I'm one of those sneaky bugrs on Ebay. If its something I'm really after I use a sniper, stay hidden til the last seconds.

Yeah I noticed how it went crazy in the last 5 seconds. I had a set amount of dosh to spend and no more so it was impossible to outbid those guys.




Cant wait til it arrives, I may be AWOL for a day or two playing me games I've bought in the Christmas sales at 60% off

[stevestrat]

The Class 31 in the upper picture were rare visitors to the Scottish region, only with a Newcastle crew who brought them up and worked back south with them. I was never trained on them although did move them around the depot. Every loco was the same to drive, just a case of finding battery isolating switches etc before you could start them.

The HST in the lower picture, never trained on them but did drive them during the driver training. In those days the instructor took you on anything and everything to gain experience. Mind you, in those days nobody who went on the training course didn't know how to drive. Most drivers, once they knew you weren't an idiot, were quite happy to hand over the controls, indeed with some drivers it was a fight to get into the secondman's seat!

I was trained on, 08, 09, 26, 27, 37, 47, 56, 60, 86, 87 & 90.

[Lancpudn]

Originally Posted by stevestrat

The Class 31 in the upper picture were rare visitors to the Scottish region, only with a Newcastle crew who brought them up and worked back south with them. I was never trained on them although did move them around the depot. Every loco was the same to drive, just a case of finding battery isolating switches etc before you could start them.

The HST in the lower picture, never trained on them but did drive them during the driver training. In those days the instructor took you on anything and everything to gain experience. Mind you, in those days nobody who went on the training course didn't know how to drive. Most drivers, once they knew you weren't an idiot, were quite happy to hand over the controls, indeed with some drivers it was a fight to get into the secondman's seat!

I was trained on, 08, 09, 26, 27, 37, 47, 56, 60, 86, 87 & 90.

Very Cool Steve, These Simulators are supposed to be identical to cab controls and the way they feel when driving, the scenery is supposed to look identical to the route/stations you're driving on too.


That AP (Armstrong Powerhouse) site has some new audio tracks "Add-On's" with some of these loco's and they sound very realistic through this surround sound.


This is the class 37/9







You can buy individual scenario's from routes from all over the country.

[stevestrat]

Yep, I was trained on all variants of the Class 37 including the 37/9!

Does it include the scenario where you're in the middle of nowhere in heavy snow during the night and the blue general fault light comes up quickly followed by the red engine stopped light. Had that one night, pre mobile phone etc days, driver only operation ie, I was on my tod! Full power climbing a hill, heavy snow, there was a brilliant blue flash lit the place up, before I had a chance to say "WTF was that?" the general fault light popped up immediately followed by an engine shut down, wouldn't restart, stone dead. Had to secure the train (freight) by applying handbrakes on the wagons then walk about 2 miles in 2 feet of snow to get to a lineside telephone, declare the loco (37/0) a failure and request an assisting loco.

Later discovered the brilliant blue flash was snow getting into one of the traction motors causing a massive earth fault (about 2,000 amps going immediately to earth on the traction motor casing!) that blew the sh.t out of the wiring.

[Lancpudn]

Originally Posted by stevestrat

Yep, I was trained on all variants of the Class 37 including the 37/9!

Does it include the scenario where you're in the middle of nowhere in heavy snow during the night and the blue general fault light comes up quickly followed by the red engine stopped light. Had that one night, pre mobile phone etc days, driver only operation ie, I was on my tod! Full power climbing a hill, heavy snow, there was a brilliant blue flash lit the place up, before I had a chance to say "WTF was that?" the general fault light popped up immediately followed by an engine shut down, wouldn't restart, stone dead. Had to secure the train (freight) by applying handbrakes on the wagons then walk about 2 miles in 2 feet of snow to get to a lineside telephone, declare the loco (37/0) a failure and request an assisting loco.

Later discovered the brilliant blue flash was snow getting into one of the traction motors causing a massive earth fault (about 2,000 amps going immediately to earth on the traction motor casing!) that blew the sh.t out of the wiring.

Blimey!that sounded rough Steve. there are bad weather/rain/snow/lightening etc scenario's though.


There are some of those big Canadian freight loco's and routes in that train sim world, I think you can pick your season, Winter or Summer, rain or shine.
The guy I bought the computer off just emailed to say he's done a clean install of Win 10 & the courier is picking it up today. yabbadabba do.

[trikey]

Originally Posted by Lancpudn

It thawed out & started to rain here around 10:00am and it soon turned to sleet, The sleet is coming down quite steady now, Brrr feet up in front of the fire for me today.#


At last!



#



A water cooled Intel i5 16Gb GTX 970 4 Gb Vam GPU.

Water cooled! You had better check the head gasket!!