By joining this forum you have agreed to the terms and conditions stated below:

In order to use these forums, users are required to provide a username, password and email address. Neither the Administrators of these forums, or the Moderators participating, are responsible for the privacy practices of any user. Remember that all information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to share any of your personal information. Any user who finds material posted by another user objectionable is encouraged to contact us via email. We are authorized by you to remove or modify any data submitted by you to these forums for any reason we feel constitutes a violation of our policies, whether stated, implied or not.

This site may contain links to other web sites and files. We have no control over the content and can not ensure it will not be offensive or objectionable. We will, however, remove links to material that we feel is inappropriate as we become aware of them.

These forums give users two options for changing and modifying information that they provide in their profile:

1. Users can login with their username and password to change any information in their profile.
2. In case of lost password, users can use the "Lost Password" feature

Cookies must be turned on in your browser to participate as a user in these forums.
Cookies are used here to hold your username and password and viewing options, allowing you to login.

You have also agreed that you, the user, are 13 years of age or over.

1. This forum has a "no flaming" policy. This means that we will not tolerate offensive or threatening posts aimed at other members, the moderators. The defining of offensive behavior is the sole privilege of the owners/administrators and will include (but not be limited to), foul language, personal threats, personal insults, and statements generally considered to be slanderous.
2. By their participation in this forum, it is implied that the users agree to hold the owners/administrators free of liability brought on by the actions of said user. Users/members of this forum have no rights other than the right to participate in forum discussions by making posts or other actions based on the login and password rights given to them by the administration. These rights cannot be transferred to another person and are subject to revocation by the owners/administrators based on the compliance or non compliance of the user with the stated rules.
3. No Politics, political discussion, etc.
4. No direct selling, trading, giveaways or links to E-bay items.
5. No personal attacks on other forum members or people/companies not on the forum.
6. Posts are to be made in the relevant forum. Users are asked to read the forum descriptions before posting.
7. Members should post in a way that is respectful of other users. Flaming or abusing users in any way will not be tolerated.
8. Members are asked to not act as "back seat moderators". If members note an issue which violates something in this policy document they are welcome to bring it to the attention of a Moderator. Only do this if a moderator has not replied within a reasonable period of time.
9. Members are asked to respect the copyright of other users, sites, media, etc. Re-printing material without permission will receive a warning and the post will be removed.
10. Members should post in a way which is consistent with "normal writing". That is users should not post excessive numbers of emoticons, large, small or colored text, etc. Similarly users should not SHOUT or use excessive punctuation (e.g. ! and ?) in topic titles or posts.
11. Spam is not tolerated here under any circumstance. Users posting spam will be warned and their post removed. See specific item on spam and 3rd party linking for more information.
12. The Forum Moderators reserve the right to edit or remove any post at any time. The determination of what is construed as indecent, vulgar, spam, etc. as noted in these points is up to Forum Moderators and not users.
13. All posts made to the Atlas Forum become property of Atlas.
14. Images must be 100KB or smaller in size, 800 pixels or shorter in width. This includes animated GIFs. If you need to share a larger picture, link to it. If you are making a post with many images, for example a bunch of screenshots of a new train, please try to keep the sum of the size of all the images below 100KB. If you are making a thread where many people will be posting big images or need to stretch the 100KB rule a little, please note that the thread is Not Safe for 56K (NSF56K) in the title.
15. Surveys and polls are not permitted in the forum. Electronic polls have already been disabled in the forum, but this rule includes regular posts that serve the same function as they only serve to clutter the forum.
16. Other manufacturers are welcome to participate on the Atlas Forums. Manufacturer's representatives should be clearly identified in their profile and their signature.  Manufacturers are also permitted to make announcements of their new products, provided the announcement is a brief statement containing what is being announced, and including a single link to the manufacturer's web site where all of the other information can be found (item numbers, road names, pricing, etc).  Announcements that do not follow this format, or that are posted by someone other than a manufacturer's representative, will be removed. Discussion of officially announced products will be permitted, but links to the announcements or product pages may only be posted by a manufacturer's representative. Posts that do not follow these guidelines will be removed. Repeated violations of this policy will result in suspension of posting privileges.

Members found in violation of any of the above rules will be subject to the following:

1. Atlas operates a three strike policy. Users will be warned a maximum of three times for any and all offences. If the need arises for a fourth warning a temporary ban will be put in place.
2. Arguing with Moderators after having received a warning will lead to an immediate additional warning. Should this exceed three strikes a temporary ban will be put in place as above.
3. Any attempt to circumvent a temporary ban will lead to that ban being made permanent. Circumvention includes re-registering under a non-banned username, changing IP addresses to evade an IP ban, registering a new email account to evade an email ban. Circumvention includes posting as an anonymous user.
4. Permanent bans are a last resort and thought is given before implementing them. While Atlas may consider lifting permanent bans from time to time this is a rare occurrence.

An exception to the three strike rule applies when users contact Moderators personally (via any method) and post insulting, indecent or vulgar material. Such users may be subject to an immediate permanent ban.

The recommended maximum size for sig images is 500x60 pixels, and most sig images should be kept below 20KB. While we understand that your particular design may require slightly different dimensions or more bytes, please try and remain near these limits.

Signatures may contain up to five lines (one line being that displayed on a browser opened to 800px width) of text (of small or normal size) and/or one image, valid combinations include; a single image of no more than 60px high, 468px wide and 6KB in size. Signatures containing an image this large may also include one line of small size text. Signatures containing an image of 30px high may include up to three lines of small size text or two lines of normal size text. Images of 15px height or less may allow up to three lines of normal size text or four lines of small size text.