Q. Hello! How did you get to know the Trainz game series?
Hello! My name is Eugene, and I am from Russia. in Trainz I am The_Reactorzz.
As a child, during the summer holidays, I went to my grandparents in the city of Liman, Donetsk region, Ukraine. My brothers lived there, with whom we fell in love with the railway. Every day we spent time near the railway, escorted trains, waved to drivers, and they, in turn, honked in response. This caused a crazy delight in us. We even kept a journal, where we wrote down the type of electric locomotive driven and how many railway cars it carried.
Gradually, interest grew into a computer. In 2004, my father gave me a disc with the game Trainz Railroad Simulator 2004. The game made a very good impression on me. As I remember now, my favorite route was Queensland, very fond memories. After that, I played Trainz 2006, Trainz 2012 and Trainz 2019, of course.
Q. We know that you are building a route Road to the Donbass. Can you tell us something about the route.
For a long time I was an ordinary player. Spent time in the game running the train. And after many years of the game, I thought: Why not try yourself in the construction of routes? Prior to this, I had no experience in this matter. Of course, I had some primitive skills, but to build a real route it was necessary to hone my skills. As we say in Russia: "What the eyes fear, the hands do".
And soon there will be a year as I build it. The guys from those places help me with photo and video material. One of them, German Panchenko, the train driver, later became a co-author in the construction of the route.
The route runs through the territory of Ukraine. The first version will be 86 km long from Izyum, Kharkov region to Kramatorsk, Donetsk region. Donetsk region is rich in coal. In this regard, a huge flow of freight trains goes along this highway. In addition, suburban transportation and long-distance transportation are carried out too.
Q. What rolling stock is used on this route?
This is an electric train RVR ER2T, ER2R. Electric locomotives VL11, VL82m, CHS2, CHS7 and, of course, the veteran VL8, which is currently being developed by the TSW Team, and it will be very useful on my route.
Q. What difficulties did you encounter while building the route?
Well, firstly it's based as closely as possible on the real world. Our Russian community helped me with this, and thanks to the Transdem program, it became possible to almost exactly repeat the profile of the path.
Secondly, there are few photos and videos from those places. Of course, I was able to build something from memory, but for everything else, it took a long search for photos and video material on the Internet. Special thanks to those who responded to the request for photos. They help a lot in the development of my project.
You can see some more screenshots on my Flikr account.
Q. Well, do you work on the railroad in real life?
Of course, love for the railway is forever. At the moment, I work in the Russian Railways company, on the high-speed train Sapsan. I am a Chief Conductor training and looking after service personnel.
Q. How much time do you spend in the game and how does your family relate to your hobby?
I give almost all my free time to the game, of course. Building a route is a very complicated and painstaking process, you know.
My family has a positive attitude towards my hobby and strongly supports me in all matters. I hope that when my son grows up, he will continue my work :) And I try to pay attention to everyone: both my family and the game. This is not difficult, as it turned out.
