Newbie Question please?

Hi everybody,. I am a Newbie to this Forum so am unsure as to what Train Sim Safe House Does In the Train Sim world.

As everybody  Is aware UKTrainSim will be shortly be ceasing operation, and I don't know what has been salvaged from this.

Are we able to recover Items Previously In UKTS such as Steam, Diesel and Passenger Rolling Stock, Guess Routes are out of the question.

My Own Interest at the moment Is If anybody Is doing any Repaints,  something that Is beyond me?

Hope I haven't upset anybody with this.

Many thanks

Paul.

Hi Paul,

Welcome to TSSH!

You've asked a few good questions; I hope that I can answer them! And no, you haven’t upset anyone, you have given me the opportunity to do a history overview of the forum. (I can hear you all groaning now…!)

Firstly, what does TSSH do?
That's an interesting one. (History lesson time) When I set up TSSH back in 2013, there was a lot of negative things happening on the UKTS forums, a lot of it was because of fans of "the other simulator" were trash talking MSTS and did not believe in letting people have their own preference (among other issues). There was a lot of rumbling and the idea of a sperate forum just for MSTS (and eventually OpenRails and a few other different things) was getting thrown around. A few of the major contributors back then were looking at walking away from everything.

So, being somewhat selfish and not wanting to see a community that had helped me in a big way and supported my early releases as well as working with me to achieve things, I decided to take it upon myself to try and provide a safe space (or safe house – hence the name) for those who still wanted to be a part of the community but did not want to deal with a lot of the negativity that was creeping in on the UKTS forums.

The footplate crew (who help keep an eye on things) have been a big help over the years, a big shout out to Mark Holding and Ged Saunders who have been a great help since the beginning and for putting up with me for so long! And a very big thank you to Alec Ralph, who in the early days was my right-hand man and hugely instrumental in getting the Helpful facts and links for MSTS and the Routes Directory made.

After a few early teething issues, things settled down to the normal quiet rhythm that we currently have where nothing much happens for a while and then there will be a flurry of activity.

From the early days of TSSH, the idea was put forward that we should have our own file hosting site. A bit over 2 years later, I set up the file hosting site that would let people have a greater access to certain files by some of TSSH’s members. Then things took another leap forward when in July 2019, I took over some of the old Making Tracks files with the help of Bob Latimer. These were then updated, some were expanded, and all new installers were made and then these were made available progressively on the TSSH File Hosting Site (TSSHFH) with a big lot of help from Ged Saunders and Bob Latimer. Within the Making Tracks files there are a number of unfinished projects which are slowly being worked on and they are progressively being uploaded to TSSHFH.

At the start of this year (2023) when UKTS announced its intention to close, I took another massive leap and started trying to contact as many of the authors on UKTS as I could, offering to host their files for free on TSSHFH, originally using my own Dropbox account. We have had quite a few authors take up the offer, although there are a large number that I have not heard back from unfortunately.

This leads into your second question: what has been saved?
You can find an overview of what is currently secured here: Saved for the Future.
I keep this up-to-date as things progress.

The File Hosting site is here: TSSHFH.
All files are now uploaded into a new Dropbox account that I pay for that is separate from my own.

What does the future hold for MSTS, TSSH and TSSHFH?
Of this I really can’t speculate, I will support everything that I have helped create for as long as I can. I would like to be able to get back into the 3D modelling work again, but my life is too chaotic at the moment. I am open to having someone step in and help out with the hosting of the files (especially if they can do a better job that what I can), the forum basically runs itself and only occasionally needs a bit of input from me. Like everyone else, I don’t know what my future will be, but I know that MSTS, TSSH & TSSHFH will be a part of it.

I do hope that you haven’t found this to be too boring to read (if you made it this far).

Regards,
Justin

Hi Justin, thanks for the Interesting reply very informative thank you.

Just a small request please,   can somebody please up the Font Size a Little,  I have tried from this end but It's not responding.

Naby thanks

Paul.

P.S. Need to amend this slightly, when reading the TSSH Files they are OK but when sending a Reply the Text Is to small. Thanks.

Hi Paul,
A warm welcome from me, too - good to see you made it

I agree with you regarding the size of text when writing posts and, although I can just about see it, need to keep clicking the 'Preview' button to check what I've typed!!

I haven't found a way to increase the font size, yet, but I'm sure there must be one!

Cheers,
Ged