Jon Searles' videos

Originally, I had planned on using my first Blender project for Trainz as an assignment at Prague College. To my surprise, it was too long when presented live, and of questionable relevance to many students (who were my audience) who (surprisingly) were unfamiliar with some of the concepts such as UV mapping. My professor recommended that I do a presentation UV mapping instead, which while broader, can be explained in less time. Therefore, this is a video version of that live presentation, using most of the same content. Some of the content used in this presentation is from Wikimedia, some of the slides were developed in Microsoft Powerpoint, and the other applications used are available here: www.blender.org www.gimp.org www.sketchup.com unity3d.com

I recently learned how to export Blender models to Auran Trainz, and built my first Trainz model, of a generic (and semi-fictional) Phillips refrigerator box. This instructional video explains how to export Blender models to Trainz. Blender is available here: www.blender.org The model exporter for Trainz is available here: sourceforge.net/projects/blenderextrainz Gimp, the image editor used in this video, is available here: www.gimp.org

Although I have enjoyed Microsoft Flight Simulator for years, not all of my enjoyment has been from flying the planes. I have also made numerous repaints, and added literally thousands of new AI traffic routes. I've also modified all of the built-in ones, although not always with precision. This video summarizes how to build AI Traffic files using TTools and Notepad. TTools can be acquired here: flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/1231/traffic-tools-v202

I made this playthrough on the same day, and in the same studio, as the Street Rod 1 playthrough. As such, it has some of the same bugs. As with Street Rod 1, Street Rod 2 was previously a California Dreams product, but is now being developed by Marco Kleijer: streetrodonline.com

This is one of my favorite games of the 8-bit era, so this was actually my first-ever playthrough video (although not the first one that I uploaded). You can hear some voices in the background because the recording studio I used had a thin door. It was actually a post-production studio rather than a proper recording studio. I was also using a borrowed digital audio recorder, which I wasn't familiar with. There are also other bugs like the image not being centered. At the time, I was still learning how to use Open Broadcaster. obsproject.com Although it was originally developed by California Dreams, actually a Polish company, the rights are now owned by Marco Kleijer, who subsequently developed Street Rod SE, based on the car disks produced for Street Rod 1, and who is currently developing Street Rod Online. His website is here: streetrodonline.com

The team over at Trainz.cz, headed allegedly by Asrajer, produced this Trainz 2006 route between Prague and Brno, based on the real mainline (Linky 011-230-250). The route is so long that I have used the freecam to explore between Klanovice and Velim, rather than driving the route. I already love it, but my copy is missing a bunch of assets. This is because they are missing both from the Trainz Download Station and Trainz.cz. They are: kuid:109628:25036 kuid:143730:2510220 kuid:193885:40001 kuid:193885:40003 kuid:193885:40007 kuid:193885:40008 kuid:193885:40009 kuid:193885:40010 kuid:75263:27313 Any assistance in finding these would be welcome, as would advice on how to join Trainz.cz website (I've tried to answer the security question with basic Czech, and failed repeatedly). The specific download page for the route is: www.trainz.cz/download/mapy/realne/1575-praha-brno

Railsim is one of the oldest train simulators I own, and it looks even older. However, it is still one of my favorites. In this playthrough, I try out the fictional Redwood-Blacktown commuter route (in the USA/CAN version of the simulator) with a freight train headed by 4 SD40-2 diesels. Railsim can still be downloaded from: www.dmg-berlin.info/page/lok/lok.php Jens Schubert has since developed a sequel known as ZUSI available here: www.zusi.de/zusi-3-hobby.html

This is an excerpt of the video I took on the last day of the NRHS Convention, during the Father's Day excursion on the Green Mountain Railroad. This is a brutal cut from the original, as I needed it to be under 10 minutes, and under 30MB, so it's less than a fifth of the original cut, with the original MOD files being much longer.

This was the excursion to Hoosic Junction mentioned in my earlier photo from North Bennington. My camera battery started to die when we got to North Bennington, so footage beyond that point is not included. To reiterate, this excursion included Vermont Railway #301, an EMD GP40, and #311, a GP40-2LW, for motive power, and Green Mountain Railroad coaching stock. You can see Amtrak's Ethan Allen Express at the beginning.

This was about where I discovered that the Pentax MZ-10 wouldn't be working for the convention, so this video starts as we arrive in Florence, Vermont, where Omya have a Limestone quarry and slurry plant. This excursion was operated by Vermont Railway EMD GP40 #301, and GP40-2LW #311, using Green Mountain Railroad passenger stock.

After taking the Eurostar to Brussels, the next leg of the trip to Prague is from Brussels Midi to Koln Hbf, where there is the sleeper train, EC457 the "Phoenix," to Prague, which departs at 2228, and gets into Prague at 0925 the next day. In km/h, the Phoenix isn't necessarily slow (if I'm not mistaken, it's allowed to go 200), but the trip takes all night due to a 20-minute stop in Berlin Sudkreuz, and more importantly, the fact that it runs via Berlin at all. In this video, however, I'm still on the ICE, enjoying close to 250 km/h running.

After changing trains via the London Underground widened lines from Paddington to St. Pancras, to took the Eurostar to Brussels-Midi. For several years, these were the fastest trains I had ever ridden, as they operate at 190 m.p.h. in Britain. I recently found out through research (not my stopwatch) that I broke my record several months after I took this video, as I had unknowingly ridden at 330 km/h, or 205 m.p.h., on the TGV Duplex between Strasbourg and Paris. I remember the ride was fast, but that's it. The train was very overcrowded, I didn't have a window seat, and ultimately I didn't take any photos or video, which is a shame.

This is the first of a series of short railfan videos that I took out of train windows while traveling from Cardiff to Prague. "Railfan" is an important qualifier here. I didn't expect any of these videos to be spectacular by themselves, Instead, they're aimed primarily (maybe only) at railfans who like to watch high-speed train videos. Technically, in modern terms, these Intercity 125 diesel trains, introduced in 1976, aren't high-speed in the modern sense. This is because their maximum legal speed is, and has always been, 125 m.p.h., or about 200 km/h, while the threshold for modern high-speed trains is about 210 km/h, set by the Japanese Series 0 bullet trains in 1966. However, the Series 0 bullet trains ran at 200 km/h from 1964 to 1966, and when the Intercity 125 diesel trains were being developed by British Railways in the 1970s, they were referred to as, literally, "High Speed Trains," or HSTs. Today, they're still often called HSTs, and remain some of the fastest diesel trains in the world, 39 years after being introduced to regular service.

I took this video on May 25th, 2013, and several months ago I released a much shorter version of this video on YouTube. It's a bit unusual in that the sound is a mixture of this steam locomotive, plus a Zlin acrobatic plane (possibly a Z526) that kept buzzing it. There's also a barking dog on the video. Unlike the earlier YouTube version of this video, the plane is actually on this one. The back story of the video is that I happened to be in Cercany at random. This was just a lucky catch, for both the locomotive and the plane.

I've been sitting on this video ever since I made it two years ago. I always intended to release it, though, since I like Germany and I love German trains. I've never done a German railway video this long before, either. I hope you all enjoy it.

This was the first serious video (of more than a few seconds) that I shot of the CD system after New Year's. This was on April 29th, and the weather was already improving, although overall the summer was mild until late August, when it finally started getting hot. This video includes a Class 451 "Pantograph" EMU, and a Class 130 electric locomotive working as a pusher on a freight. Class 130's used to be a little bit rare in Prague, but I've been seeing a lot of them on freight trains lately. They look like 1950's locomotives, but they were actually all built in 1977 by Skoda. They each have 2736 horsepower (2040Kw), and a maximum speed of 100Km/h, which may explain why they aren't used much on passenger trains anymore.

This was from March 25th, making it one of the earlier mainline videos I got after New Year's Break. I don't expect this to make it into the NRHS show (I don't think), so it's ideal for iPernity. The locomotive is a Class 162 electric, with 4667 horsepower (3480Kw) and a maximum speed of 140Km/h (86 m.p.h.), although it's going far slower here.

This is a special sneak preview of my next NRHS show, and as such it's very much excerpted and low-resolution. The final show will be a roughly 70-minute video. In any case the cameraphone shots that I took on this day aren't too impressive, and I wanted something to mark the spot in my iPernity collection. This was a steam special on the JHMD, covering the usual summer steam route to Nova Bystrice (although only fragments are on this video). In the wintertime, the steam locomotives normally don't run. This locomotive is an ex-PKP (Polish Railways) Px48 (Some sources say Lxd2, I don't know which is right) Class 0-8-0, currently numbered #T48.001 (original works number 3073, original PKP #1916), built by Fabryka Lokomotyw im.F.Dzierzynskiego Chrzanow in 1953.