| Archive for urbanglasgow.co.uk For lovers of Urban Exploration of Glasgow, Scotland, UK |
| Saltmarketeer |
OK, I know I'm gonna get stick for this but...A lot of people on here have a fondness for the trains, myself included. My dad working in the Caley for 30+ years probably helped a fair bit but it's time to crack open the closet a wee bit...http://www.trainsimcentral.co.uk/ That webpage has links to a completely free cab-view railway simulator developed in Japan called BVE. For some reason it's really taken off here in the UK and there are a number of routes available. You start with the basic sim and download various routes and trains. There are a number of versions of the software. The latest version released by Mackoy (the Japanese company) is BVE4 but there is also a completely open source version called, imaginatively enough, openBVE. I was a little sceptical at first but the program itself hardly takes up any space on my machine and you can be as involved or as ham-fisted as you like. I use it if I have some time to kill although my neighbours must think I'm a complete loony with the various authentic horns, drive-trains, AWS and TPWS system sounds all very accurately recorded. Anyway. I'll put on my bulletproof anorak and hope if just one person enjoys it then this post was worth it. 
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| james73 |
I've got this, though I couldn't get openBVE to work right. 
James H |
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| cybers |
I was lucky enough to have a quick run on MSTS-2 as a tester for Aces.
But as they closed that down it was shelved indefinitely... Was a great pity as the overall level of what was on offer was amazing and it showed a lot of promise. Hopefully they will get bored with Xbox360 and this will be resurected again. Rumours are already surfacing about a DX12 model variation but not everyone will be able to run that due to budget contstraints. On another note my kid plays TrainSim which has many add-ons and whilst not free is quite good on gameplay and graphics and also includes the ability of Glesga Trams add-on. I hate trains 
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| Saltmarketeer |
Have you added all the other files they say you need? I used this guide from the openBVE website: http://openbve.trainsimcentral.co.uk/use/download_windows.html |
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| Saltmarketeer |
That's what attracted me to BVE and especially openBVE. The community IS the development and there's no danger of it shutting down anytime soon. The guys who do routes very often do it as a labour of love and slavish attention to detail is unreal. I like trains and watch the FirstGroup page every other day looking for driver jobs. The only thing which soured it a little for me was my mate applied to them a year ago, passed everything, told he had a job and has been more or less ignored since then. |
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| Fjord |
The word on the street is they now have 30 surplus drivers due to the GARL cancellation most of them are in training at present and still have a year to go. I doubt any Drivers jobs will be up for grabs in the foreseeable. Sorry to hear about your mate sounds like he did well to get so far as apparently the selection process and entrance exams are pretty tough and gets tougher with the 2 year probationary period after your finals on a one mistake and your out policy. |
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| Saltmarketeer |
I know mate, it's a bit of a pisser. I was ready to apply right after he was and saw a trainee position over at Helensburgh but my mate suggested I hang-fire because he hadn't even got an e-mail from them yet. If there was a private thing I could do where I got qualified and 'licenced' I would do it in a minute. The problem is that the companies taking you on are often the only ones doing the driver training. 
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| Fjord |
I would apply regardless as far as I'm aware all applicants are sifted and HR separate the wheat from the chaff.
Like most jobs these days a strong CV and maturity is what their after. A word of caution! they operate a similar policy used by airline industry whereby they don't employ enthusiasts as a rule. There are valid reasons for this and any chancers will soon be caught out... be warned. There's actually various 3rd party courses you can access for basics like PTS which many sub contractors require as a matter of course. Expect to pay upwards of £200 for the privilege. I'd forget about any private driving courses which preserved railways run on a regular basis as they're worthless bit's of paper when it comes to working on Network Rail infrastructure. This domain is strictly controlled by Network Rail Group Standards/ HMRI/ Dept of Transport etc. anything else is snake oil. All those fancy special trains are as a rule driven by current mainline drivers with a few exceptions. It's often termed as the rich man's hobby. To put it in perspective the driver of that boring local sprinter train has the exact same competency standards as the fancy Virgin Pendolino departing alongside the only difference being is the traction and permissible line speeds. |
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