2014 January-Happy New Year

2014_01_03 Friday

G'Day to you all and a Very Happy and prosperous New Year to all of you :p

Still have not done any wiring, but my parcels did arrive from London and the USA. So I have fitted a couple of sound decoders as well, as started to fix in the Wodonga Station track that was delayed by missing points.

You might like my Future of the Hobby that I posted elsewhere?

I just looked into my magic copper water bowl (It has a great history too being handed down from generation to generation and once belonged to Uncle Nostodamus )
Actually I see things are going to change in a big way.

I have this thing in front of me, and I don't know what it is called (because today it is unnamed :)

It is a development of the 3D Plastic Printers of the early 21st Century but other technologies have been added to it. in those times Imaging machines were called Flat screen TV's, maybe you still have one?

Some of these machines could have simulated 3D but you needed to wear green and red glass lenses in front of your eyes.

Samsung actually spent billions developing a 3D system that was brilliant for its day and glasses were not needed. Alas they were much too late because a young fellow from Belgrave in Victoria combined his love for Computer Train Simulations with his Fathers interest in Haleophotography And invented lifelike and life sized 3D images that could operate at 500 frames a minute and fooled the eye into believing a real steam engine, or anything else was sitting in his work room.

Simply put, this changed the face of operating model railways over night! (it actually split the hobby amongst Museum Quality solid modellers who spent most of their time created fantastic models and train operators who just wanted to drive their trains)

Now you download a Trainz map which uses modern photo realistic constructions of Railways anywhere in the World.    You download any models you want and following the easy instructions, you build your empire.

When you are finished, probably 3 or 4 Hours , you switch the lights down low and climb into your  chair and start the simulation.  In a small 3.3 m square bedroom, your brain is tricked into seeing you at the controls of a full sized engine.

Today we are riding Heavy Harry out of Spencer Street on the Spirit of Progress. It is November 1953 and as we pass by PascoeVale platform a small 8 year old boy is standing on the third rail of the gates with a stunned look on his face. You see he always ran down the Gaffney Street hill to wave to George Lynch, or any of the Drivers who ran his favourite engine up the hill any night. The look of disappointment in his eyes was there and the Driver waved back to the little kid, hiding the fact that this old man was excited to have Harry on the front, just this one time. The kid was me :) and I did learn to love Harry just as much as I did Matthew or the other blue machines whose job was to get the SOP up to Albury and back every day.

Anyway on the way our simulation comes across a glitch. Its a view of Broadmeadows station from 1963 that has accidentally been included in our simulation. So it is paused and changed out, showing Broadmeadows in the 50's.....  to be continued

Ha Ha

Rod Young  Happy New Year to all of you ;)