Max Anderson

Glad to see you use the sticky method. maxand down in Aussie would be proud of you. Just as an aside and sorry to hijack the thread but has anyone heard how he is?

Geoff

At the Brum meet Clive told me he failed to meet up with Max on his down under trip, it is thought sadly he may well have passed away. I'd be pleased to be proved wrong though.

At the Brum meet Clive told me he failed to meet up with Max on his down under trip, it is thought sadly he may well have passed away. I'd be pleased to be proved wrong though.

He told me some time ago that he had terminal cancer and did not expect to see Christmas. I was in regular PM correspondence with him but he hasn't opened any of the messages I have sent since 18th. November. I fear the worst.

" said:

At the Brum meet Clive told me he failed to meet up with Max on his down under trip, it is thought sadly he may well have passed away. I'd be pleased to be proved wrong though.

He told me some time ago that he had terminal cancer and did not expect to see Christmas. I was in regular PM correspondence with him but he hasn't opened any of the messages I have sent since 18th. November. I fear the worst.

John (Postal) and I have done a certain amount of research already and have drawn a blank all over. I won't say what John has done but he has (as you'd expect) been extremely thorough and Max has covered his tracks very well indeed.

Max clearly wanted to be a very private man. He didn't use his real name on the forum; in deference to (what I imagine were) his wishes, I'm not going to disclose more than that. Nor did he want his situation to become known more widely, hence (I presume) his rather enigmatic message in August telling us he was leaving.

Like John, I was in correspondence with him in the autumn. The person I met then was quite different to the opinionated and sometimes abrasive persona he wore as Max. Some of his postings had a positively lyrical quality. He knew what was happening and he was living through it with courage and good humour. We know he had a partner and a circle of good friends around him too, and in the last message I had from him he was enjoying the early summer, feeling very well all things considered and hopeful he might see Christmas. But he hasn't logged in since 5th November and my last contact with him was 19th October. Even that, as I understand it, was probably beyond the end of the time he'd been given.

My conclusion, sadly, is that Max is no longer with us. It's pretty clear that he didn't want his going to be any sort of big occasion and, being the private man he was, he seems not to have wanted much in the way of response from us. Without any indication what he would have supported, if anyone wants to donate in his memory the best thing I can think of would be a cancer charity.

Personally, I'm sad Max isn't around any more. But he has had an impact - a number of Simsig features had their origins in his ideas. So maybe his epitaph could be the same as Sir Christopher Wren's : 'Lector, si monumentum requiris, Circumspice' (Reader, if you require a monument, look around you).

May he rest in peace.

Beautifully put Keith and thanks to you and John for looking into the situation.

I didn't know him clearly as well as John or Keith and my own correspondence was only through the forum here and while he appeared to be quite difficult to reason with on the forum at times, I certainly agree with Clive that his posts were very thought provoking indeed as he made you look at things a different way. Numerous times, after posting something, rather than writing a post opposing his comments or views, I'd end up thinking to myself "You know what, why does SimSig do such-and-such like that?" or "Why can't SimSig work that way he suggests?".

If he has indeed, to use a railway parlance from a friend of mine, "Caught the last westbound train..." then then that's very sad news indeed. His legacy will continue on in SimSig in the features some of his ideas created. I will miss him too.

Does anyone remember the save file of Derby he once posted up, where every track circuit was occupied by a train, and a few of us played on to see if we could clear it?

I might look for it later, if I've still got it, and play through it again.

As many have said, Max was far from the easiest person to deal with at times, but he'll certainly be missed by the SimSig community. I'm glad some of his suggestions made it into the core code and small as it may be, a part of his legacy will stay on in SimSig.

Does anyone remember the save file of Derby he once posted up, where every track circuit was occupied by a train, and a few of us played on to see if we could clear it?

I might look for it later, if I've still got it, and play through it again.

Playing default Derby TT. At 16:40 6M50, travelling UP is stopped at WALSALL (signal AS1), just before it exits the sim on its way to ALREWAS. Its headcode is not indicated (all we see is the red stripe), but the exit indicator states LAST SENT: 6M50, so maybe the sim thinks it's already exited.

To support this, 1Q24 has just entered the sim from ALREWAS, moving DOWN, but is stopped at SAS5. There is no alternative exit point so we have an impasse. The only way out is to remove 6M50 (which I did) but as 1Q24 did not seem to want to move DOWN either, I removed it as well.

Has anyone else experienced this and is there a better solution? There are other trains bound for ALREWAS.

Does anyone remember the save file of Derby he once posted up, where every track circuit was occupied by a train, and a few of us played on to see if we could clear it?

I might look for it later, if I've still got it, and play through it again.