Miss Nessie's Wild Ride

Well, there are exciting things afoot in Athetis... One of the features that makes out little place special to me is that the Linden Rail Road runs between Nessie's Respite and the Agricola at the middle of the hill. I've seen single car train on the tracks there a time or two. I even chased one one night, my right index finger pressed on the up arrow key as I flew behind it, and my left hand typing: "hey, hey, hey there: stop, stop!" until it disappeared. No one else had seen these apparitions. I was beginning to wonder if I was having in-world hallucinations.

Then, I get a RW phone call from Nessie, where she begins to recount her Railroad exploits of the night before. She was visiting in the Respite with a friend, when she see a train going by. She says it has hover text indicating she should click on it (remember the saucerjacking incident??) so she clicks it and off she goes!

Here is the intrepid Miss Nessie's first hand account of her trip:

"I was very excited, night before last, to see a passenger car riding along the RR below my little Romani Respite. My friend, Hulaboom Voom, has seen several go by, but this was my first. I clicked on it, really just to see what information I could see and there was a “sit” option so, of course….. there I went. I met a very nice fella sitting there as well, Moundsa Mayo, who explained that they were testing the car. When I apologized for intruding on a test, he encouraged me to hang on and enjoy the ride. And what a ride it was! They are still working some of the kinks out, which actually made it a very unique, exciting and interesting ride, but when it’s done you’ll be able to tour the mainland by rail. I was having too good a time to snap many pics but did get this one, showing that we were really moving along. I invited he and the other engineers to the Agricola Hulaboom for a celebration bash once they get it up and running. Y’all come, y’hear? LOL

Nessie Tripsa, reporting

What she failed to indicate here but told in colorful detail on the phone was how the view from her screen became wildly distorted at times and and how they would crash. Then she'd get an IM from Mr. Moundsa saying "are you ok?" ... as if she might have been physically harmed in the rail crash. He would TP her back to the car, and off they would go again. She also had her priorities in order, IMHO, as she had to ditch poor Snug in the process after clicking her way into the car the first time. A few IMs later they both understood that she had, for a short time, entered another dimension of SL...

I could not have been more excited! Not only was Linden working on a running train system, but I was also not being visited by the Ghost of Casey Jones in the machine! Thank the Maker! As a follow-up, I went to see Jack Linden during one of his weekly in-world office hour to ask some questions. Here's a part of the meeting transcript:

Jack Linden: wow that's a relaxed pose. :)
You: Well I am new to all of this
You: but I have my questions already typed-up
You: but I'll be patient
Jack Linden: go ahead Hula!
Jack Linden: I'm here for the next hour or so
You: ok thanks

(…Some content edited-out…)
You: ok thanks :) two more questions...
You: Two other things I am very interested in are running trains on the Rail Road Tracks there (I understand that you folks are actually working on this – have seen a train or two and a friend took a “ride” this week – yay!) and whether you plan on extending the Great Wall. Any comments on those infrastructure developments?

Jack Linden: right.. the Great Wall wasn't quite finished at the end, so I expect the DPW may well address that
You: great!
You: Will we be able to request a train stop at a particular place? I would like to provide a spot and suitable build for that purpose. Is there someone I could talk to about that?
Jack Linden: more trains.. etc.. yes
Jack Linden: we'd like to do more of that. i think we want to see how Havok 4 goes first
You: Also a suggestion: the Great Wall, particularly inside, is a great unused SL asset. Any thoughts to develop the inside spaces?
Daedalus Young: art gallery :P
Jack Linden: hehe, i get asked quite often if we'd let people live inside the wall
You: there are three secret entrances I have found
Jack Linden: we could think of fun things to do with it though
You: I can think of a few
Jack Linden: for all that sort of thing, we will be creating a way for people to make suggestions to the DPW teams via the support portal
Jack Linden: so you will be able to make suggestions there

So I suppose that settles that. We will have running mainland trains soon! I cannot wait. And Linden is really pondering the use of the Great Wall. All of these things are very exciting news. I think we are up for plenty fun times on Athetis here very soon!