Ukts Will Close 31st Of August 2023

I think I remember SWW going missing, too, as I went looking for a route I just could not find. More than one, actually, but that one stands out.

I have created a backup on an external drive, but I'm thinking of creating a second backup on another drive in case something ever happens to my original backup. Backups for backups, yay!

 

I think I can recover the files eventually. They seemed to be stored as .chk (in found.xxx folders) in roughly the same amount of GB so I'll get round to sorting it at some point. They were on an external sdd which lost connection to the pc brifely which corrupted a lot of files.

As for SWW I think a chap called Traveller54 took over from Pacerpilot and created a web site to host it. But I believe it has gone now.

 

It was also that core assets, Isle of Wight and the foliage pack were considered the route makers absolute minimum ask if you wanted to make a route that didn't need to load a whole host of products or require a bunch of downloads when the internet was still powered by hamsters. I do wonder these days if Woodhead and Riveria are now also considered minimal scenic requirements ? They do have a lot of route enhancing stuff in them.

 

An end of an era. *sighs*

 

Trainsim operates essentially under the same premise as UKTS does/did -- you register for free as a member, upload your files as zip archives, and others can search & download as desired. You decide if you want to upload under the GNU or with your own EULA, and if you want to pull your files from circulation, that's possible as well.

 

Ah, thanks Eric, thats very clear.

 

That username reminds me of "Jake from State Farm" BTW.

 

DTG Matt

 

Is the offer for just the forums or for the file library too?

 

The whole lot afaik.

 

In that case hopefully Matt gets back to them.

 

He is a bit of a conspiracy theorist in some of his comments. I do have most of the UKTS freeware software.

 

I wouldn't know tbh, just trying to let Matt be aware of the offer, I have no interest in DTG forum politics let alone any UKTS forum ones.

 

I posted something similar in this thread on the 4th of June, although not as eye catching as Reef`s post. Matt did respond !

 

Either Matt or someone else within UKTS renewed the domain thru 2025 back on July 18, so perhaps there's some hope for a Plan B.

Our offer to lifeboat the forums over at Trainsim.com also remains.

 

It’s great to see the community pull together to keep one of the most active websites open that has kept the train sim hobby alive for so long. Thank you to all for trying and I hope something can come good of it’s continuation.

 

Hmm UKTS, must had flicked the switch early. I can't even access it?

 

I tried earlier this morning, looks like its been down for a few hours now.

 

It is currently down. ETA on it being backup unknown but afaik the intention is to not shutter until the 31st still

 

Same, I checked last night and it was down then. I was too tired to post

 

Maybe it has closed its doors early instead of the 31st as planned. It's August after all.

 

It hasn't at all *sigh* it is suffering technical issues right now.

 

Maybe it shut early to take the focus off of AP hiking it's prices to £50 per pack and Alan Thomson not getting discovered and outed as the bearded lady at the circus, oh and aliens in there somewhere too...

I mean if we're gonna do conspiracy theories let's at least make em believable eh!

 

Yes, it's down this morning too. I checked with down for everyone or just me, and they indicated it was down for everyone. Maybe people waiting until the last second (like me) to download stuff and simply overloading the UKTS server(s)?

As for taking over the site, there have been two credible offers and no movement that I'm aware of has been made. Just like the FTP ability went down the drain, I'm afraid this incredibly valuable resource will die too. Please Matt move forward with this!

 

I hope you are wrong, but fear you are right.

 

The site went down last month for a while I noticed but came back up after a few days.DTGMatt said to let him know if there are any issues with the UKTS site on this thread, so hopefully he will read these posts soon and arrange for the site to be fixed.

As there appears to be a couple of firm serious offers from people to preserve the UKTS site (thankyou!), I like many hope that an arrangement can be made to transfer to a new custodian for archiving.

 

AP charging £50 for a pack sadly wouldn’t be a conspiracy lol

 

[EDIT - Jan - Quarrelsome]

^ Not at all quarrelsome, it is called British humour, the Welsh take the mickey out of the Scottish the Scottish take the mickey out of the Welsh and everyone takes the mickey out of the English, just because you don't understand our culture don't just blanket assume every comment is "quarrelsome"

 

Yes and

 

It was a joke... And you know it. :p

 

UKTS site is now backup and running

 

We don’t spend our money because the weather is that bad up here we don’t like going out in the wet lol

 

UKTS down again!
I guess the site is not keeping well lately, now just over two weeks left!

 

I am really saddened and disheartened that after 6 months and what looks to be at lease two credible offers of help to keep the site up and running we are still no further forward. It would be a real shame to not preserve over 20 years worth of creative files and invaluable information contained within the UKTS forums. The help has been offered but unfortunately I am not seeing a response.

 

http://treinpunt.treinenwereld.eu/RW/

 

That contains a lot of files from different locations with nothing apart from the title to give people a clue what is in the file.
Or even where it came from

 

UKTS is working again, for now!

 

I have identified a lot of files in the first half of that list already. I even found the old Hamburg-Bremen route, which seems to have spawned out of another route.

I will disclose that I have everything in the Train Simulator, Railworks, and Rail Simulator categories on UKTS, and intend to try to match up what I can find. Provided I don't lose my collection somehow, I will have those backed up and safe.

 

I have done something very similar. I have used the UKTS file list, and over the months downloaded the "Rail Simulator, Railworks, Train Simulator 2013", files I have also downloaded the "The Not Sim Specific" and " Blank" files as some of these also relate to Train Simulator.
Quite a number of files in total.

 

Indeed. I started downloading some MSTS and OR items as well. It's helpful that there is now another site that MSTS authors are using to store their items for when UKTS goes, but those who have passed on or otherwise left the community may not even know their productions are going offline.

 

Some very interesting points here and of course I suspect Matt and Atomic Systems would have read this thread and other comments!.

I'd like to say that I put an offer out to Matt and Atomic System just after it was announced it was closing to take over the running of the site and the hosting. I would have the capacity to host the UKTS files and website and also gave them a detailed explanation as to what I would do with the site if I was to take it over. Unfortunately, I never heard back.

One of the first things I said I would look at would be the User Interface and essentially using a team of designers to bring it up to modern standards and make it faster and better using the latest practices.

 

Thanks Gareth, I suspect that like yourself quite a few people have offered help to keep the site up and running in some shape or form. Its a real pity that Matt for some reason I can only guess at wants UKTS to be no more. The fact that Matt is not responding to these offers of help, tells its own story. A real shame.

 

Indeed.

I know of several individuals who've done the same mass collecting...

Thus the files will live on. It's the forums that will be the real loss.

 

It's such a pity that there seems to be no one able to export the forums and host as a static archive, it would be such a valuable resource.

 

Archive.org

 

I think you're probably right that, for some reason, DTG Matt doesn't want to transfer the ownership of UKTS. I really don't buy the idea that he's so busy he can't reply to an email; I fully believe it is a conscious decision to ignore the honourable people trying to save the site, and us. It's very upsetting and lots of people will be angry at him for a long time, but with less than two weeks to go it's a lost cause I think. Of course, if Matt is so busy he can't reply to the emails sod's law says that he'll have loads of time after the 31st or whenever UKTS will be deleted...

Matt, I'm pretty sure you'll read this since you're quite active on the forums - please take up the offer and save one of the most important sites not just for TS, but BVE, MSTS and Trainz too. And if you really can't, please do the honourable thing and explain why it can't be done...

I have been archiving some of the TS forums but as I don't know much about the UKTS forums I don't have much knowledge of the major threads to archive.

However, for those who want to help out with the project I have a guide if you don't know what to do:
Make sure you have an account for Archive.org or you won't be able to do this in the most efficient way possible.
Method 1:

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and install the Wayback Machine extension.
2. Go into the extension and make sure you're signed into it.
3. Open the UKTS page you want to archive and open the extension. Under the 'save page now' button, make sure Outlinks is ticked. Then save the page.
4. Saving outlinks also archives every page linked to on the first page; I am not sure to what extent it does this but according to the explanation on the website it can save hundreds of pages at a time.

Method 2:

1. Sign into Archive.org and click on the Web button at the top of the site.
2. In the Save Page Now box, paste the link for the UKTS page you want to archive.
3. Press save, and on the next screen make sure Save Outlinks is ticked for the same reason.
4. Save the page.

 

Thanks for the update and most importantly, backing up and preserving the site for any future owners. Renewing the domain name will be a great help going forward. At least that provides a possible redirect to a static archive somewhere.