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Everything posted by Annie
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I spent most of the afternoon today at the local hospital in the next town in their Day Clinic ward. Don't worry it wasn't for anything dire as it was a routine examination to make sure parts of me are still functioning within maker's specifications. I'm still working within spec, - so that was good news and I arrived back home a little tired, but happy. A nice Cheer Up surprise was waiting for me courtesy of Schooner of this parish. This very nice photo is titled 'Small engines at Amberley'. Anything involving small and intrepid engines shunting interesting looking wagons in and around a grotty old load of old sheds and industrial buildings and I'm in. 😀
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Ooooo a shunting puzzle type nautical layout, - I like it. This could lend itself very well to a Trainz Model Railway format layout. https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1270141 'Old stores', - I definitely approve of that.
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Thanks very much Nick. Twice now I've been able to get out for a walk down to the local shops and back with my daughter accompanying me which has been really nice. I was tired when I got back home, but nothing like I used to get from just doing simple household tasks like folding washing for ten minutes or so. Being out in the mild Autumn weather was a lovely boost to my spirits. Never fear I won't forget about Tristyn and you are quite right it does make a nice contrast as compared with Minehead's Summer weather. It also gives me somewhere to run my varied collection of GWR standard gauge engines. Most of my Cheer Up Pictures come from the Broad Gauge Society, but sometimes from Didcot's archives as well. The one I posted today was one I'd not seen before so I thought it might be of interest.
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Now that the effects of LongCOVID are finally fading out and I'm starting to get some of my energy back I thought it might be a good idea to set my rubbish dump of a room to rights. Yesterday I started to sort out my books and in the process discovered books, - and not only railway books, - that I must've ordered and then forgotten about. So far I haven't found any copies of books that my foggy brain ordered twice which is just as well since with postage some of the books I found were not a cheap purchase. 🫣😬 I also found copies of the GER Society Journal and the Broad Gauge Society Journal that had been put away unread. I shouldn't be all that surprised about it though because when I saw my doctor last week she told me that I was two years older than what I thought I was. Good old Brain Fog, - not nice to know you, - and now you've gone don't bother to come back. 😠 It's not all a disaster though because I found most of my light railway books and GER books. No longer being on meds for LongCOVID and not so fatigued and fogged down is definitely a good thing and perhaps I'll be able to get back to doing some good work on my projects again. 'Tristyn in Winter' was a big help with getting some of my railway mojo back again. Being not based on anywhere in particular, but probably somewhere in South Wales and not totally serious about prototype fidelity meant that I could just play trains and have fun with it. I'll most probably continue with updating buildings and messing about with it, but I'd really like to keep focused on Minehead for now. If I can get the Minehead to Watchet section properly sorted out and complete I can then think about what I want to do with the rest of the line. Bulkeley double heading with Sebastopol. Believed to be at Reading.
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They never should have let them convert to the narrow coal cart gauge.
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Paddington Engine House 1840
Annie commented on MikeOxon's blog entry in MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog
I think that engine shed and turntable are from a later time period going by the dates quoted in the article. -
Well that's gone and done it. This Broad Gauge cross sleepered track is the magic procedural kind that does moveable point blades with proper check rails and frogs, - I didn't know that when I chose it, but I'm not complaining about it. This means that I'm going to have to level and adjust the track all over again, but I don't mind that much since the final result will be worth it. The signal box will be getting properly furnished some time soon. The job is on the list to be done. (Picture snapped in Trainz Surveyor)
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Paddington Engine House 1840
Annie commented on MikeOxon's blog entry in MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog
Yes it's easy for us to pass judgement with the benefits of hindsight, but we have to remember that railways on this kind of scale had never been done before. Even the most talented engineers of the day were having to play best guesses as to what might be the way ahead. -
Paddington Engine House 1840
Annie commented on MikeOxon's blog entry in MikeOxon's Broad Gauge Blog
Excellent work Mike. An investigative industrial archaeology project with a great result. -
It seems likely Stephen. Looking at the photo with a magnifying glass I can something that looks like an early variety of flat bottomed rail with spikes going into cross sleepers. I can see fishplates as well. With Minehead station being opened in 1874 after the line was extended from Watchet I would imagine that the section between Minehead and Watchet would have cross sleeped track at least. I know from photos taken at Watchet that the baulk road definitely went that far, - so I'll run the cross sleepered track out to Watchet from Minehead and reassess which variety of baulk road track I want to use after that.
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Minehead station in Broad Gauge times. I've frowned over this photo on many occasions and no matter how I look at it the track looks like it's cross sleepered and not baulk road track. I have got some cross sleeped Broad Gauge track of much the same age as the track I'm presently using. It's not perfect in its details, but overall no worse than what I'm using. I'm sorely tempted to make use of it instead of the baulk road track.
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Not very much has happened over the past couple of days due to me having medical appointments. Nothing dire, - in fact good news in that I seem to be getting past the effects of LongCOVID after putting up with it for close on a year and nine months. I'd been a little puzzled over Blue Anchor and why I'd left off a wood lot, a stream and a bridge, a small brickworks and a hotel when I last worked on it almost two years ago. The simple answer is that after checking against the OS map I discovered that this part of the layout had been compressed length ways so there simply wasn't any room for them. I managed to put in Pill Copse and the Blue Anchor tavern and some of the nearby buildings, but after that there wasn't any room for anything else without making it all look impossibly crowded. So I sorted the track alignment, changed the signal box and the signals and that was pretty much that.
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Definitely still a bargain. Lucky old you. 😀 What I find interesting is that a model of a very small class of early New Zealand locomotives built to a non-standard scale somehow ended up in the UK. A good many years ago I went so far as to order a set of specially machined cast iron wheels for an 'A' class with the intention of building a model to suit Gauge 1 45mm track gauge. Unfortunately far too much life happened and after I crawled out from the wreck of it all the last thing on my mind was what might have happened to a set of wheels for a model locomotive. No I'm not cross. It's an interesting thought as to what a larger standard gauge version would be like. They certainly were good locos, - not so useful once the NZ railways started to expand as their small size told against them, - and most of them ended up having far longer lives in industrial service that they ever did working for the NZ railways.
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Yes definitely an 'A' class. If it's been made for 'O' gauge track it will be to 9mm to the foot scale which is a standard sizing for NZGR models here in New Zealand. Not a bad little model at all, - it's certainly caught the character of an 'A' class fairly well. I see someone has got it already for ten quid which would have to be an absolute bargain.
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I took some snaps of Blue Anchor as a record before I started work on doing anything to it. I'm going to change the signal box for a model of the one from Helston as it's the earliest representation of a GWR signal box I have. I've always found the emptiness of the 19th century coastal landscape between Minehead and Blue Anchor to be very appealing. The original TS2004 layout had no representation of the road to the Blue Anchor tavern, the tavern itself, or the nearby farm buildings so I added those using the 1880s OS map as a general guide. As a background piece it's not normally seen from this viewpoint. The NLS site seemed to be wanting to be not very cooperative, but as you can see it wouldn't have been much help anyway since Blue Anchor is spread over four different maps. The 1900 OS 6 inch to the mile maps are better than a poke in the eye.
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Hello, long time no see indeed. Narcolepsy and recovery from LongCOVID mean that I don't get around the internet so much as I used to. As you see I am still working on digital railway projects, but I've slowed down a bit now and I'm spending time on improving my older projects rather than running off and starting something new. Oh yes the "semi-itinerant shrubs". Patch updates and code changes to the Trainz software will cause things to shift and I've particularly noticed it with some vegetation models. That's why I now tend to use the stable Trainz versions that are no longer receiving updates since it avoids a lot of problems.