On these pages you find a huge collection of pictures in the size 1
pixel = 10 cm. The pictures can be used in several programs (Traffic Screensaver,
MM&MM screensaver, BahnLand, Railway32, Train Side View - if they are
stored in the right format. The BahnLand and Railway32 formats are included
in the last weeks, the Train Side View format is missing at the moment
- it is coming soon.
There are more purposes for me to maintain this collection:
I make all this pictures simple useable in the Traffic screensaver.
You can download the pictures in the proprietary picture library format
( *.tvl) - the whole collection is stored in about a dozen library files.
So it consumes only a moderate disc space: at now the total need of the
free pictures is below 20 MB. With the Traffic Screensaver you have the
chance to use all of the pictures shown here without to need individually
download more thousand pictures.
You can have an overview about the available pictures. As the number
of pciture authors is above 100, usually there are more authors drawing
vehicles from the same state, same railway company. You can easily determine,
who makes what, and which vehicles are already drawn, which are missing.
At the moment there are pictures from about 140 different authors in the
collection.
I believe in the cooperation of the communities of the different programs.
To make a really good picture the most work is to find documents, drawings,
photos about the original vehicle and to draw it - it is indifferent, that
you draw it for Railway32, MM&MM, BahnLand, Train Side View or Traffic.
The differences between the programs are large enough that this is not
a simple change from BMP format to GIF oder backwards - it is hard to automate
with existing general-purpose programs. But the work of the format conversion
is not for a human, it is for the machine. So, I collect the pictures from
all the communities, and want to convert them with my program to the other
formats, if it is possible (There are several limitations: BahnLand and
Railway32 needs transparent pictures, Train Side View cannot handle animations,
the smoke of the steam engines is generated in other way in Railway32 etc.
).
This site is in no way a replacement for the author's sites, because
the individual style, the descriptions about the vehicles are missing here.
On the authors site's you find often photos, the history of the vehicle
- and you find the newest pictures on the authors's sites first. There
are more and more sites of railway clubs, fans, who draw or show the vehicles
they are interested in or they own - and they know the most about them.
At each picture the author's site is only one click away from you!
The pictures are sent directly to me, or I collected them from the internet
(only one site's pictures are missing due to lack of the author's permission).
The copyrights of all of the pictures belong to their respective authors.
They belong to 3 different categories regarding the usage of them:
The pictures shown in smaller size or with missing pixels are part
of a program or picture collection, which is to buy from the authors. The
traffic screensaver can use this pictures - if you have the files containing
them. You can use the pictures of the MM&MM V3 screensaver only, if
you are a registered user of this screensaver.
The most part of the MM&MM V3 and Nimo Extension Kit 1 pictures are
shown already, about the half of the BahnLand pictures is here too. The
NEK2 pictures coming soon.
The pictures shown uncrippled, but without a download possibility are
part of a demo or freeware program (from the Meyers). You can use this
pictures in the Traffic screensaver, as it reads them directly from the
.scr files (and, of course, you can let this programs run too). You are
not allowed to extract the pictures from this programs.
The pictures shown and available for download are free for personal
use in the screensavers. For other purposes (for example: to put them on
homepages, to include them in programs) please contact directly the authors.
This pictures were converted to the Traffic Scrensaver formats. Simetimes
I separate the coaches, wagons; change the way the pantographs are defined,
make them transparent; if the picture has more than 200 colours, I decrease
the number of colours in it - of course the author shown here is the original
author. The other download formats - MM&MM, BahnLand, Railway32 - are
generated by my program from the Traffic format, so the picture files found
on this site are not identical with the picture files of the authors!
The authors for the MM&MM screensaver use the _SAR
pictures for two different purposes:
To show the pantographs of an electrical engine in reverse state: left
pantograph down, right pantograph up.
To show the other side of an unidirectional vehicle (tramway, bus).
As I need to differentiate between this two things (the _SAR
pictures are used in the Traffic screensaver to animate
the pantographs, the connection between the two sides of a vehicles is
needed for the BahnLand format), this collection uses the
convention to append an L to the picture name to denote
the left side's picture.
The pictures are often renamed:
You write the picture names in the Traffic Screensaver into the "Timetable"
file, which controls the vehicles. As you edit this file mostly manually,
it is better to have shorter picture names. The place of the description
of a vehicle is not the filename - you can use the Label field in the MM&MM
user_bmp.ini, and the Description page in the Traffic Screensaver.
Many special characters - and leading numbers too - can have special
meanings in the Traffic Screensaver "Timetable" file, so, they
are causing problems in picture names for me. The name should begin with
letter, and have only letters, numbers and underscore in it.
The left side of the same vehicle is named identical the other side,
with an L appended to the vehicle name. I need an easy way to find the
left-right pairs in order to convert the pictures for the BahnLand program.
I try to follow the convention <company>_<vehicle_type>
, but to leave names used often already (the picture names of the MM&MM
screensaver) unchanged.
The pictures of the same vehicle, same livery from different authors
have the same base name, a postfix with tilde ( ~ ) and a short code of
the authors differentiates. The traffic screensaver handles this version
system: if you use the name without the postfix, it uses the first existing
version of the picture.
The numbers following the section titles show the amount of the pictures
contained in the section. The format is: <total number> (<free
pictures> / <from demo programs> / <protected pictures>).
Please feel free to report errors, suggestions about the collection
(and the Traffic Screensaver too). If you have ideas for better chapter
titles, description item titles (it is hard to find the english or german
words for some railway related words even in big dictionaries), how to
sort and separate some subsets into sections (based on era, line on which
they ware used or something other) - write me. For example, the german
passenger coaches collection needs a total reordering - but I do not know
this coaches good enough to make a better organisation in the collection
(Everywhere, where the titles are only numbers, it means, I had no idea
for any names, but I should cut the set not to have huge web pages in the
collection). Notices about the pictures itself please write directly to
the authors - ( but before writing please check the authors site, possibly
there is already an update) - the author's e-mail addreses are also available
at the pictures.