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January 2025 Newsletter

Just a short one this month but we hope you've all had a good start to the new year. We're certainly feeling fired up to get the content machine spinning with more frequent releases compared to last year. Fewer gargantuan 6 month projects and a bit more bish, bash, bosh to plug those holes in your collection.

Class 92 Enhancement Pack Released!

A few days ago, we released our Class 92 Enhancement Pack to you all.

Fascinating locomotives with a chequered history, this pack brings the class up to modern day standards with glorious sounds, liveries & functionality.

The Workbench

Having just released the Class 92 Enhancement Pack, there isn't much to report as even we haven't decided what our next major project will be yet. In the interim, we are finalising a yet-to-be-announced wagon pack so look out for that. After that, who knows, so stay tuned!

To provide an update on the HST, many of you may have noticed the return of our Class 43 (Valenta) Enhancement Pack, which had been withdrawn from sale in anticipation of a Valenta version of our recently released HST (MTU) Pack. As we've already mentioned in this newsletter, this new version is pretty much finished apart from the cab. Our expectation was that a new cab would be forthcoming from the infamous Magic Cab Man but this hasn't materialised as of yet.

One thing you should know about Magic Cab Man is that he can't be tempted with money, charm or adulation. He works his magic at his own pace in his own time, and with the quality of his work as shown on the HST (MTU) Pack, he has earnt this privilege. As a result, we are delaying the release of this pack for a while to see if he can come up with the goods. If not, we will revert to our original plan of using an enhanced version of the cab used in our existing enhancement pack. Rest assured, this pack has far too much to offer to hold back indefinitely so the plan is for it to appear in the next few months, new cab or not.

You might be thinking, get someone in who works to deadlines; it can't be that hard! Well, it really is. Train Simulator Classic simply doesn't work like that if you want a quality product. Individuals capable of working on demand, on anything of our choosing, to the standard expected in this day and age, are as rare as hen's teeth and honestly, we don't know of anyone who fits the bill. We have a very small circle of trusted individuals who we ask if they fancy taking on a project, but at the end of the day, it's up to them and nearly always depends on whether they have the required enthusiasm and time. This isn't a mercenary transaction, it requires passion, time & motivation.

To summarise, we will always try to create the best quality product we can at the current moment in time. Nearly every aspect of product development is now handled in-house, by one person, from liveries, to audio, to scripting, but modelling will always be where we have to rely on outsiders, so if a pack ever doesn't meet expectation because it "could have done with a new cab", it's not because we don't want to, it's that we are unable to unless the stars align for a particular project with a particular modeller.

We hope you appreciate the insight into how development works and 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.