For A Limited Time: The Ozark Northern route...

[Coonskin]

MMCdude

magmateus

You are very welcome!

Andre

[Coonskin]

Only 1 more download left.

After the dust settles and many of you have had an opportunity to install and use the route, I would like to find out if any of your installations prompted for a password, or if there were difficulties, etc.

IF there were few issues (compared to typical installation procedures of freeware routes), then I may hand it off to Eric for inclusion in the appropriate library category here at Trainsim.

Eventually I intend to do the same for the St. Louis & North Arkansas route and the A&O Sub route.

All fer now!

EDIT: No more downloads. Wormhole has deleted the file.

Andre

[Coonskin]

Andre,

Thank you.

Robert

You are very welcome Robert.

I hope you have a ton of fun with it!

Andre

[magmateus]

MMCdude

magmateus

You are very welcome!

Andre

No antivirus warnings here.. Successful download.
Once again, thank you, Andre.
Regards.
Mateus

[SD40-2]

Only 1 more download left.

After the dust settles and many of you have had an opportunity to install and use the route, I would like to find out if any of your installations prompted for a password, or if there were difficulties, etc.

IF there were few issues (compared to typical installation procedures of freeware routes), then I may hand it off to Eric for inclusion in the appropriate library category here at Trainsim.

Eventually I intend to do the same for the St. Louis & North Arkansas route and the A&O Sub route.

All fer now!

EDIT: No more downloads. Wormhole has deleted the file.

Andre

Hi,

The copy I originally had, which was two separate installers, needed a password. This one did not ask me for a password.

I had no difficulties installing it.

[Coonskin]

Hi Andre,
Many thanks for making Ozark Northern available to us

I've only started one activity (Passenger Run) but it runs OK in Open Rails.
I, too, didn't need to use the password!

Cheers,
Ged

You're welcome Ged!

I'm glad you got it downloaded, up and going!

Enjoy!

Andre

[geepster775]

Whats with all this messing around with a limited time and download count thing? An installer that is 230mb in size is not going to break the storage bank here. There are routes in the library that are over 6gb in size. That's 30x the size of this one.

[Coonskin]

Whats with all this messing around with a limited time and download count thing? An installer that is 230mb in size is not going to break the storage bank here. There are routes in the library that are over 6gb in size. That's 30x the size of this one.

Because that's what I chose to do. IF there were issues with the installer on end-users machines/etc, I wanted to learn that beforehand before sending it to Eric. Once I send it to Eric, it becomes his problem, too. Plus, it's very simple for me to upload to Wormhole and EVERYBODY can access it, which is not always the case with Dropbox or some other temporary file hosting services.

As for here at Trainsim: It's been a LONG time since I've uploaded any content to this site, and I've never uploaded a route to this site. So, instead of using this site to learn if my old and outdated installers would work/etc, I chose to use Wormhole.

The beautiful thing about this is, if you don't approve of my methods, or my name, or where I live, whatever, you don't have to download any of my stuff if you don't want to.

Choice is good.

Andre

[pschlik]

Thanks for investigating paths to offer the route at all instead of letting it disappear into the ether. The Midwest, late 19th century steam, and all-in-one installs for such routes (without the need to chase down dozens of bits of freeware just to still have 0 activities!) is an all too rare combination, and that better not be lost to history! It's simply too interesting rambling around on unnecessarily steep grades in engines weaker than the original EMD FT. And besides that, the route isn't ancient like some other things still on sale... I see custom terrain textures, obviously loads of custom scenery, heck the steam locos are properly quartered and have animated stephenson valve gear. There's content half the age which doesn't do that!

The route seems to work cleanly, just with the caveat of requiring MSTS core files (though it uses so little default MSTS content that freeware equivalents are probably out there) and the unsurprising deviations between OR and MSTS. Unfortunately, 'fixing' things like that AI train not spawning because it would get in the way of the player (when the entire point is to get in the way of the player...) would almost certainly break other activities which rely on that behavior. If it were 2015 and people weren't making things for OR specifically that might be different, but now with the way people complain when something is changed at all, risking breaking something new to fix something old is a no-go.

While I'm sure someone could hypothetically make an Open Rails overhaul for the activities and rolling stock, anticipating such a thing happening is foolish. As much as I have done exactly that for some Streamlines content, I don't do steam locomotives so don't expect me to come to the rescue. Really, the route is functional enough as-is that there's plenty of entertainment to be had. I figure similar will be true of the other routes, not built for OR but still work fine in OR (even if there are a few workarounds needed).

[Coonskin]

pschlik

Thank you for your candid assessment of the route.

Credit for the equipment goes to Jon Davis, whom I commissioned ($$$) to create the equipment. He was a superb modeler and creator of textures.

You are correct, I wanted to make the route available so it can be enjoyed by any that are interested in same. This route represents a LOT of route work, model work, terrtex work, etc, that I accomplished in the distant past. That so, I have come to the conclusion that I would rather it out there to be enjoyed than languishing on my hard drive.

As for massaging the equipment and activities so they perform better in OR, I assure you I am not expecting you to come to my rescue. The route and equipment perform as designed for the simulator platform it was designed for. Seeing as I am not actively using OR, then it is for certain that I will have no interest in learning the significant ins/outs of what is needed to make the equipment more compatible with Open Rail's "features".

Andre

[l.k.]

Really, the route is functional enough as-is that there's plenty of entertainment to be had. I figure similar will be true of the other routes, not built for OR but still work fine in OR (even if there are a few workarounds needed).

I completely agree with pschlik. And just for the record: I haven't encountered any issues with the other activities (haven't run them all yet). All the ones I tried so far work exactly as they should in Open Rails as well (including AI traffic and scheduled train meets). As for the rolling stock: The eng and wag files have good physics as they are. That really helps with Open Rails (which needs realistic physics values to work correctly), so no major issues there.

Modifying the rolling stock for Open Rails isn't really that necessary because most everything works just fine as is. For my own personal enjoyment I will probably tinker with it a bit in future and experiment with Open Rails specific features. Just because I think it's quite fun to do when you know what you are doing...

Fortunately there is quite a bit of documentation and helpful guidance out there if anyone wants to try their hand at this stuff (more than there ever was with MSTS):

Recommended reading for anyone interested: https://www.coalstonewcastle.com.au/physics/

And the official manual is quite comprehensive as well (and available in multiple languages): https://open-rails.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Documentation on air brakes for North America (work in progress by DarwinS): https://www.elvastower.com/forums/in...north-america/

[lumberman]

Good morning Andre, It is so much appreciated that you released the Ozrak route. I love the detail. amazing!! Downloaded no problem at all.
I also thank everyone else who helped with this really cool route. have a great day!

[Coonskin]

lumberman

Thank you for your kind words!

As for contributors, those are outlined in detail in the "Manual" found in the "Documents" folder that reside within the route's main folder. In a recap, license of freeware was granted by:

Wayne Campbell: To use his watertank, and some structures that were carried over from my St. Louis & North Arkansas..

The late Dieter Penzel: He was the creative fellow from Germany that created the animated wagons, horses, cattle, and a walking man. Though we had a formidable language barrier, Deiter was such kind and giving person. When I approached him about using his creations, he very enthusiastically agreed, even creating new items for it. Upon the release of the Ozark Northern, I reimbursed him for his contributions as well as gifted him a copy of the Ozark Northern. He did his best with the online translator we had at the time, and it was heart warming to read his broken English to the effect of thanking me. He also added "You are a joy, Andre Ming!". I treasure that memory of him and it's cool that my Ozark Northern features his creations so they can live on.

Steve Thompson: This guy was so far ahead of the MSTS curve it wasn't even close. Steve is a tinkerer and experimenter extraordinaire. Steve graciously gave me open license to use his sounds he had created. Steve's sounds add SO much to the ambiance of the route. It was through Steve that I learned to create my own sound sources using the freeware "Goldwave" software. (Now long gone, I think.) My Frisco Line route has Native American sounds therein that I created using Steve's input.

Marc Nelson: Took my load screen and added sepia and distress to it to aid the "vintage" feel. Marc was a very helpful community member for years. I miss his presence here.

I think the above pretty much covers it. All else was built/painted by yours truly.

This V scale hobby and me go back a loooong ways. Shucks, I even coined the term "V scale" for "Virtual Scale"! LOL! I'm older than dirt in this hobby!!

Andre

[niknak]

Only 1 more download left.

After the dust settles and many of you have had an opportunity to install and use the route, I would like to find out if any of your installations prompted for a password, or if there were difficulties, etc.

IF there were few issues (compared to typical installation procedures of freeware routes), then I may hand it off to Eric for inclusion in the appropriate library category here at Trainsim.

Eventually I intend to do the same for the St. Louis & North Arkansas route and the A&O Sub route.

All fer now!

EDIT: No more downloads. Wormhole has deleted the file.

Andre

Hi Andre,

I'm gradually getting to grips with this fine route. The gradients in places are certainly an eye opener! lol.
You asked for any issues that we may have found - I have two so far. The OR log was asking for 'lpscrossbuck.s' which I found in the LPS route and also I noticed the mountain stream sound (mtstream.sms) had a break every couple of seconds so I amended the sms file to play it continuously which I think sounds better.
I will now return to trying to get the handbrakes on some of those loaded gondolas to hold on an incline whilst switching.

[Coonskin]

niknak

Hm. I don't recall using the Wayne Campbell cross bucks on the route, but I may have. That shape was included in the shapes that Wayne licensed to me that saw use on the StL&NA and A&O Sub as I recall.

Also, I don't recall having any issues with intermittent breaks in the water sound source. Could be an OR thing?

Seems I don't recall much, huh?

LOL!

Andre