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November 2024 Newsletter

Powerhouse Thursday

For one day, we're offering a gargantuan 'up to 50% off' most of our catalogue. The sale ends today (28th November) at 23:59 GMT.

HST (MTU) Pack Released!

In case you hadn't seen, our much anticipated HST (MTU) Pack was released on 22nd November. It's now your turn to take the controls of this British legend of the rails!

To find out more about what is included in this 9 month labour of love and to pick up your copy, please click here.

To those who have already purchased, thank you. We really do appreciate your support in helping us keep Train Simulator Classic as the premier train simulator on the market. We intend to stick at this pursuit for many years to come and we hope you will come with us!

Gradient Correction Updates

The gradient correction feature, as first seen in our HST (MTU) Pack, which overcomes Train Simulator Classic's faulty implementation of shallow gradients on the physics of a train, has now been extended to a wide range of our packs. Please see our 'Update Log' at https://www.armstrongpowerhouse.com/update-log for which ones have been updated.

The Workbench

With many months of detailed 'Workbench' items, we're going to keep this one a bit shorter as we take it easier after the release of the HST (MTU) Pack.

As mentioned before, the Valenta & VP185 versions of the HST have been developed at varying rates simultaneously with the MTU. The VP185 is complete in terms of liveries and external variations but work has yet to begin on the sounds. The Valenta is complete except for scenarios. In terms of cabs for these packs, we are in the process of bribing Magic Cab Man with his favourite treats to work his wizardy again, so hopefully that comes to fruition, but as is often the case in our business, nothing is for sure until it's in the simulator...!

What about beyond the HSTs then? After working on such a gruelling pack for so long with more liveries and variations than you can shake a stick at, our attention turns to some quicker enhancement packs; paying particular attention to old withdrawn sound packs that featured good functionality but to modern standards, lacked on the liveries and sounds front, hence their withdrawal. Stay tuned to see where that leads.

Blast From The Past

The return of our look at a sound recording session from the past.

Location: Midland Railway Centre

Date: 13th & 14th October 2022

Class: 43

With the release of our HST (MTU) Pack, now seems a good time to look back at the recording session where a lot of the sounds were recorded for it. In a first for us, it was split over two days, the first with 43159 and its MTU engine, the second with 43048 and its VP185 engine. Both operated by the 125 Group who have done a brilliant job of keeping these beasts alive and kicking after their retirement.

43159 was our first target then with microphones duly attached in the usual positions. To start, we recorded the engine revving up on the spot with no load to provide a base for the sounds. Under load engine samples are then layered in on top as the engine takes power and increases in speed. After about 20 minutes of making a lot of noise but going nowhere, a plan of action was agreed where we would shuttle up and down the line, with 43048 on the other end providing ETS but no traction power, meaning 43159 would be doing all of the work throughout the full engine rpm range from 750rpm to 1500rpm. From memory, the section of line we were using had a ruling gradient of around 1 in 120 so we concentrated on doing the lower power settings downhill whilst doing the high power stuff uphill.

The key with recording diesel engine sounds is to get nice, long periods of the engine at the same rpm/load so you can create a sample to loop in the simulator where the loop is unnoticeable. HSTs are a bit troublesome in this respect as whilst the engine rpm can happily stay the same, between 0mph and 35mph, the load on the engine constantly increases and with it, the note of the engine changes. The ideal situation then is for speed to climb very slowly so the load isn't changing too quickly to create an acceptable loop; hence why 43048 wasn't providing power.

This all went to plan and as is hopefully audible in the pack, the recordings came out excellently. They did require a bit of cleaning up though as the railway was prone to a lot of flange squeal. On the up side though, it meant we had so many flange squeal samples, we were able to implement these in the pack!

One thing we had noticed throughout the day was that 43159 had a different sounding brake to what we were familiar with on HSTs, and after chatting to technical guru James Trebinski from the 125 Group, we were informed it was the 'DW2' brake which some HSTs were fitted with opposed to the more common 'E70'. We already had recordings of the E70 but jumped at the chance to record the DW2. Even better than that, memories of cab ride videos with a loud, haunting brake sound which didn't sound anything like the E70 or the DW2 in 43159 led us to ask what that was. We discovered this was the DW2 as well, but the unsilenced version which existed pre-privatisation before drivers had enough and demanded a mod to save their ears. To our delight though, James said "if I unscrew this nut, I can make this one unsilenced again". We then proceeded to spend the last 30 minutes of the day making lots of lovely brake noises. The unsilenced version of which you will hear in our Valenta pack.

The day after, we did it all again with the arguably more exciting 43048 and its VP185 engine. After the flange-fest of the previous day, the secondman the railway had provided the day before had kindly gone out that morning to grease the rails in an attempt to reduce the flange squeal, and it worked like a dream. Not at our request at all and shows the kindness and enthusiasm that is found at preserved railways. Apart from that, it was a repeat performance of the day before and left us with quality recordings of the MTU & VP185 engines properly under load; something we've been after for years but has only recently become possible following their entry into preservation.

We leave you with a video from the day showing 43048 on its way home after a hard day's work. With only it powering and the uphill gradient, progress was slow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lMNYH9d6c

See you next month! If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please do get in touch via the Contact Us form at https://www.armstrongpowerhouse.com/index.php?route=information/contact.

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