Pictures

Well here are some more pictures of the project. The red cab is a cab that was donated to the Minnesota Transportation Museum Jackson Street Roundhouse and will be the simulator cab. The stand is a stand that was also donated and is originally from an EMD SD45.  The completed simulator of course will be an exhibit at the Jackson Street Roundhouse.

 

The throttle and reverser are built into the same module. I have already modified it and tested it with MSTS. I am posting the before modification pictures below and I will post the modified controls later. All the modifications are 100% removable and the controls could in theory be put back into service if needed.

The next project are the brakes. There are two brakes: the independent brake valve, which is the brake just for the locomotive(bottom lever) and the train brake valve is the brake for the entire train (top lever). There is a third called a dynamic brake that at the moment will not be included in the setup. I believe that lever is located where the blank panel is just above the throttle lever in the reverser unit.

I will post some more pictures and some links soon. If you are interested in building a train simulator I would suggest checking out this yahoo group: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/locosim, that is where I started out.

YouTube channel

Ok so I started a YouTube channel with some videos of my hardware and software. Check it out http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTelephonator

First post regarding Train Simulators

So I have decided to start a blog, documenting my building of a train simulator utilizing a cab stand from an EMD SD-45 and Microsoft Train Simulator for software plus other various hardware and software for the interface. I started this project last march and have made some significant progress. I will post again in the near future with pictures specifications, history of the project, etc. I don't want this blog solely to focus on any particular software or hardware, so if you are doing something different I would love to hear about it.
 Thanks,
               Mike