Well folks what an exciting month September has turned out to be.

Obviously the big news (and reason we've kept our heads down) has been the release of Train Simulator 2012. We decided early in the month that we'd hold back on the release of the VDA vans expansion until after the release of Train Simulator 2012 to make sure that they were behaving themselves. The indications are good and as a result the installer has now been built and is with the testers for a final check, which if clean, will mean a release in the next few days.

The more important news has been the announcement of North Staffs Minerals and our surprise ZCA Sea Urchin add-ons for Train Simulator 2012 and there are updates about these below.

North Staffs Minerals

The route has made some good progress in the last month and has grown further since the announcement with extra collieries and industrial lines being added. The project has become quite a voyage of discovery as more and more industrial sites along the route are found to have had industrial systems still in use the the 1970s. One of the latest additions has been the Florence Colliery branch linking that colliery with the sidings at Hem Heath Colliery and the main BR network.

The improvements of Train Simulator 2012 haven't passed the route by either. Reports are coming in from the route builder that track on the mainline has been removed and is being replaced with super elevated curves. A screenshot has been planned and is expected in the next couple of days so keep an eye on the blog.

ZCA Sea Urchins

These are now structurally complete and sat waiting the testers to give them a check over once they're happy with the VDA installer. It should then be a quick case of unwrapping the new bits and getting the baking and texturing done pretty rapidly.

The Night Capitals

The lull in activity as we waited for the release of Train Simulator 2012 has seen a fair bit of progress on two items for this pack.

Newton Chambers Car Carrier:The shape for this is now complete and happily in game waiting it's turn in the testing queue after the Sea Urchins.

GUV: For want of an uncomplicated description! The body is now complete with attention turning to the buffer beam and solebar details before underframe and bogies.

Happy Talk and Share

The past month has seen us starting to experiment with a few other ways of keeping in touch and having a chat with you our followers and customers.

Forum: At the top of the page you should see a link for the forum, feel free to give it a click and register.

The forum is a real experiment at the moment and a way we're trying out to try and have a bit more interaction with our over 35s as you don't seem to be using the social media like Facebook and Twitter so much as the young uns!

It's going to be up to you how the forum grows and develops (if it does at all) and is a real blank canvas at the moment because we want you to tell us what you'd like to see and how you want to use it. This is the reason why when you take a look you'll see it's empty and boring, it's because you haven't registered, made a suggestion or started a post!

Google+: It's the new social networking attempt from Google and we've decided to give it a try. If you've already got a Google+ account you can find us by searching for Fastline Simulation or go to our profile by clicking here.

We like the layout and control it gives and really want to give it a try, it could just do with a few more people in there to keep the cobwebs at bay!

Sharing Buttons: We've updated the sharing buttons at the bottom of most articles to include big versions of the most popular and various other options under the fly out at the right. Please do make use of these as they help to spread the word about what we're doing and especially the +1 one as I'm sure that's going to have effect on a certain search engine!

That's probably enough from me and here's hoping that October will see lots of you playing with some VDA Vans in Train Simulator 2012 and some rapidly developing Sea Lions.