Some Subforums Restricted for New Discussions

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...

Yep, it's May. And I skipped the April monthly site update entirely.

To be more accurate, I wrote an update, and then the bot attacks hit (all remedied....), so I scrapped it. And then, well....... as I've found out a few times in life, God has a sense of humor.

As some might recall, my wife and I bought land in Tennessee last year, with the plan to move sometime in late 2026. In early April, our plans got moved up with very little notice, and we put our house up for sale....

I'm sure you've probably noticed some server instability over the last couple days.

There's no clear smoking gun, but what I did discover digging around is that we saw a huge jump in site access starting on Saturday. By Monday, there was 20 times as much activity...

I suspect the real issue was the access logs. When you have increased activity, logs grow accordingly.... As a log file size increases, the amount of time needed to insert each new transaction also increases,...

Washington, D.C. - Amtrak and Greyhound, two of America's Top 46 transportation companies, are excited to announce a merger that will transform the way Americans travel. The merger, which has been in the works for years, will combine the strengths of both companies to create a seamless, efficient, and cost-effective transportation network that will serve millions of people across the country.


Under the terms of the merger, Amtrak and Greyhound will join forces to create a new...

Geez, time flies. I just realized what week it was.... I really hate forgetting things like an anniversary, and here I just did that.

As of March 12th, we've been a fully independent site for two years. I couldn't be happier with how the community has responded since "The Split", and how you've all continued to help make this site a fun place to stop by.

Thanks to the moderators and others who help keep the forums moving along, those who contribute to the library,...

HyRail Simulations and Run8Studios are out with a new route expansion to their Jacksonville Region -- the CSX Savannah Sub.

The new route starts about 50 miles north of Savannah, and continues south another 40 miles, where it joins with the CSX Waycross Sub and ultimately to the A-Line Sub.

There are two major yards in Savannah, two smaller yards, and some 20 industries along the way. CSX also hosts eight Amtrak movements a day across this line, including the AutoTrain,...