State of the Site - Jan 2026

A slightly belated Happy New Year... and a happy Snowmaggedon if you happen to be in the current storm Fern's path. The site's servers should be unaffected, so feel free to download as long as you have power & internet...

I was ready to write this up two weeks ago, until the stunning loss in the first round of the NFL playoffs of my beloved Green Bay Packers to the soon to be Gary or Arlington Heights Bears, which had me in a mandatory mourning period.

That period...

I was told today (and confirmed) that FlightSim.com has changed ownership yet again, and the new owners are going to be closing down both their file library as well as their forums "temporarily"....

As someone just said to me an hour ago... Imagine the situation OUR community would be in today had we not obtained our independence three years ago...

It's heartbreaking, and hopefully the forum content isn't lost forever.

If any of you are active in...

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the site, Not a member was posting, not even a bot. The File Library waited with downloads all clean, In hopes that a First Class Member soon would be seen.

The users were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of Open Rails danced in their heads; And Eric in his RV, and I with my mouse, Had just settled down in a quiet, not yet finished house.

When out on the forum there rose such a clatter, I clicked on “Recent...

As many of you know, Steam4Me, founded by Yuri Sos, closed down in early 2024 following his death in October 2023. Unlike UKTS, where ample notice of their closure was provided, there was no notice, and no ability to immediately provide a new home for the many uniquely Australian routes and rolling stock. Some items were fortunately available from the Wayback Machine, but several key ones were not.

Thanks to the efforts of Peter O'Neill (ossie) and several content creators who were...

About this time, I expect many of you are ready for a nap in the big comfy chair, while others are just sitting down for their Thankgiving dinner.

This week, I'm grateful for many things...

First and foremost... I'm grateful for family. All three of our kids were our new property for the first time ever this past Sunday. Our youngest son works and lives in another state as a school teacher, and the timing just hasn't worked out for him to be able to come out here since...

Some of you might notice the "New Topic" button missing in a few of the subforums. This is mostly intentional.

Five existing forums for MSTS will remain open for new discussions --

• General Discussion
• Screenshots
• Route Design
• Route Specification
• Modeling & Physics

Route Specifications is being promoted to a main forum, and may eventually become a top level forum encompassing both MSTS and ORTS routes.

All of the remaining subforums beneath General,...

September.... Football has started for real, half the teams fan bases think they are going to the Super Bowl, and some of those teams who clearly won the preseason may already be looking at being eliminated from the playoffs. But that's the fun of the game. Everyone has a chance of winning when they step on the field.

It's also a somber reminder that we're coming up to the 24th anniversary of 2,958 people going to work and not coming home to their families. With my wife and I both...

Believe it or not, we are halfway thru 2025 already... I hope everyone in North America enjoyed either July 4th or Canada Day, and came away from it with all their fingers and hearing.

We had quite the celebration here in Tennessee on Saturday, with friends and family each bringing fireworks as their donation to a cookout held where my brother in law is preparing to build his new home. The donations resulted in a show almost as long as what we saw in Oak Ridge on Friday along with 30,000...

During the time I've been managing the site, I've tried to be as transparent as possible regarding its operational and financial stability. Like it or not, there are aspects that need to be managed like a business, mainly making sure costs are covered adequately by donations and memberships.

As mentioned on a few occasions, the price of the First Class Membership has remained at $29.95 since 2012, even though the costs of running the site have changed. Some (particularly storage) have...

Sorry Folks, but it's getting out of control again. I've had to lock down "Guest" access.

If you're a legitimate user who doesn't want to create an account just to browse, you can try logging in with Ghostuser as the user and password.

Older members, queue up Thin Lizzy: https://youtu.be/X5SrvSeYe9k?t=22

Younger members... here's the modern AI generated version:

Guess...