Freericks, I suppose one of the things that keeps my son into MSTS and everything else about trains might be that he has a wide range of other interest too. There are some people who live, eat, and breath railroading their entire life and never get bored of it, but never enjoy or appreciate other things of equal or greater value. Sean balances his time responsibly between computer, TV, reading, outdoor activity, etc. Running trains and doing the existing activities was fun enough for both of us, but what really opened things up was when we learned years ago how to go into the Editors & Tools and not only create our own trains and consists (like having an unlimited budget and being able to buy every piece of rolling stock off the hobby shop shelf) but create our own activities with these consists, placing cars and other equipment on yard tracks and industries for pick-up, arranging other traffic and their paths so we could meet along the way, etc. About a year ago, Sean began working in Route Editor and found it was just as much fun to be able to add or correct track, place new buildings, expand scenery out beyond the existing horizon in order to add branches that weren't supplied with the route, etc. Much of what drives him in this area has been photography and articles, and his own first-hand experience out in the field with me, which show him how a place really looks, and then he refines the simulator scenery elements to more closely match what he saw. Operational stuff inspires him too. Got his hands on the Carrizo Gorge route, so I had to show him some of those classic Steinheimer B&Ws from the steam and early diesel era, plus Glattenberg's (I think it was his) fantastic Carrizo color feature in RailNews. Had his first real visit to Marias last summer (he was there in 1996, but only 1 year old), so he's been applying a lot of what he saw there. He spends almost as much time on the Japanese and European routes, too. All of this has taught him some tremendous computer skills which will serve him well in the future: proper file and folder management, naming conventions, etc.