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It is actually easy to resize pictures in W10 once you have unlocked the secret - and it truly does seem to be a secret.  Took me weeks to find it.

 

Go to your files and find the picture.

Click on it (just once, if you click twice it will take you into the .jpg photos program where you can do fancy arty editing but not what you want to do.)

Now click on the edit button.

This will open the picture in paint and you can resize there with the resize button.

Save the resized picture and there you go.

 

Alternatively

In RMWeb go to "apps and content" at the top of the page and go from there.

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Thank you Andy.

 

post-7150-0-58357100-1521904037_thumb.jpg

 

 

I have done this by way of a trial but I think I need to work on the technique.

 

(A cracking kit by the way. I am looking forward to getting round to building this one.)

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It is actually easy to resize pictures in W10 once you have unlocked the secret - and it truly does seem to be a secret.  Took me weeks to find it.

 

Go to your files and find the picture.

Click on it (just once, if you click twice it will take you into the .jpg photos program where you can do fancy arty editing but not what you want to do.)

Clicking twice opens it in Microsoft Office Picture Manager and it's easy to crop and/or resize using the 'picture' menu in that (as well as doing other things).  I use it for all my pictures.

 

Jim

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Yes cropping is done there but I cannot find re-sizing - even now.  Any clues Jim?

In that 'picture' menu, bottom two items are 'resize' and 'compress pictures'.  You will have to close any other menu item you have open first.

 

Jim

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I have an "Edit and create" button but there is no resize or compress in there.

 

Never mind, I can do it in paint.  More than one way to kill a cat.

When I click on the 'picture' button I get the options 'Auto correct / Brightness and contrast / colour / crop / rotate and flip / red eye removal / resize / compress pictures'.  Try clicking on the 'tools' menu and select 'Customise' (only choice I get) and under the 'Options' tab see that the 'Always show full menus' box is checked (has a tick in it).  I tried to take a sreenshot of what I get, but when I open Snipping Tool the menu disappears.

Jim

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In the Microsoft Office 2010 picture viewer, I go to "Edit Pictures" then "Compress Pictures" and choose "Compress for: Documents". This reduces a roughly 2,500 kB jpeg downloaded from my Panasonic Lumix camera to around 200 kB, which is a comfortable size for posting on here. I usually crop top and bottom to save a bit more space.

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OK now I have got it.  When I double click a photo in my files it does not open photo editor.  It opens photos - which is why I have fewer options for manipulation.

In that case, right click on the photo and select 'open with', then chose 'Microsoft Office Picture Manager'.  this, of course assumes that you have Microsoft Office installed.

 

Jim

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have found part of the station platform was slightly out of true. Leaning forward just enough to catch certain vehicles. After a little time trying to ignore the problem and hoping it would go away, I have today ripped up the section in question, which has unfortunately decimated half the platform, which will all have to be done again.

 

Consolations: 1. It's a wet Easter Monday and there's nowt else to do anyway. 2. I haven't actually started the station buildings yet - phew! Otherwise even more work might be being undone.

 

Elsewhere on the field, the first three points have been stripped down ready to be rewired and put in place. This will enable me to lay the second track at the front of the station which doubles as a headshunt and layby. Which in turn will allow me to complete the station scene. I am almost certainly putting in a multi-purpose loading dock, having seen a rather nice photo of the arrangements at Bridgehouses (GC goods station in Sheffield) where the cattle pens were set back, and were not next to the track as usual. (I imagine animals were loaded with suitable portable boards or hurdles used to "persuade" them.) This will enable other traffics to be handled from time to time. 

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Aaagh, it is even worse than I thought. Pretty much the whole platform edge needs moving back, albeit only by a tiny fraction. But worse, I have detected a dog-leg in the main line, and although most locos will live with it, the 0-6-2t (LNER N5) won't. The funny thing is that when I tested it with this very loco some weeks back it gave no trouble. I have no explanation for this, unless in some unexplained way the track has crept.

 

The track is of course ballasted now, and rock-hard. It is going to be an absolute lady dog to take up, and will certainly damage (no ifs or buts) the foamboard beneath when it is parted. So there may be no option but to take the whole bloody thing back to ground level (or rather ply level) and start afresh, as I cannot live with that loco not being able to take the curve.

 

To say I am frustrated is putting it mildly. Frankly, at this precise moment I feel like putting the whole bloody lot on E-bay and taking up another hobby. Doubtless I shall recover. Eventually.

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The Art of Coarse Platelaying

 

My initial plan was to take out the joint and about 15 scale feet either side, level the site and insert a new curved section using individual sleepers and chairs. I'm sure that's what a pro would do.

 

Any road, after banging away with a chisel at the ballast around the joint a thought hit me and I decided to try something simpler. I cut the two sleepers nearest the joint on the inner rail, thus establishing a bit of gauge widening. With some hesitation I ran the loco over it. Fine in one direction (yay!) derailed coming back.

 

Inspection showed that my work with the chisel had caused the inner rail to rise a tiny bit. So I drilled holes in several places around the inner joint and pinned it down. (Shock horror).

 

This time the loco ran perfectly in both directions. So I am going to try it a few more times during the next week or so, and, if all goes well, will simply replace the hacked ballast. If there is trouble I can't fix, then it's back to plan A.

 

(Cosmetically at least, the dog leg has effectively vanished. I'm sure a proper PW man would still find it, even with the naked eye, but as long as trains run through without derailment, I shall be satisfied. The real railway's track was/is not always perfect either.)

Edited by Poggy1165
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To say I am frustrated is putting it mildly. Frankly, at this precise moment I feel like putting the whole bloody lot on E-bay and taking up another hobby. Doubtless I shall recover. Eventually.

 

Not just me then.

 

Fortunately, you and I know that this lot won't let us give up!

 

 

The Art of Coarse Platelaying

 

My initial plan was to take out the joint and about 15 scale feet either side, level the site and insert a new curved section using individual sleepers and chairs. I'm sure that's what a pro would do.

 

Any road, after banging away with a chisel at the ballast around the joint a thought hit me and I decided to try something simpler. I cut the two sleepers nearest the joint on the inner rail, thus establishing a bit of gauge widening. With some hesitation I ran the loco over it. Fine in one direction (yay!) derailed coming back.

 

Inspection showed that my work with the chisel had caused the inner rail to rise a tiny bit. So I drilled holes in several places around the inner joint and pinned it down. (Shock horror).

 

This time the loco ran perfectly in both directions. So I am going to try it a few more times during the next week or so, and, if all goes well, will simply replace the hacked ballast. If there is trouble I can't fix, then it's back to plan A.

 

(Cosmetically at least, the dog leg has effectively vanished. I'm sure a proper PW man would still find it, even with the naked eye, but as long as trains run through without derailment, I shall be satisfied. The real railway's track was/is not always perfect either.)

 

Bravo!

 

That may not be how a pro would do it, but it seems to be a prototypical and effective response to the problem

 

Fingers crossed.

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(Cosmetically at least, the dog leg has effectively vanished. I'm sure a proper PW man would still find it, even with the naked eye, but as long as trains run through without derailment, I shall be satisfied. The real railway's track was/is not always perfect either.)

I think I've posted this before somewhere, but I once read that each time they relaid the track at the North end of Preston Station they imposed a pretty severe speed restriction for several months until the trains knocked everything into alignment!

 

jIM

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I suppose it shows the progress I have made with depression that I was able to handle that little crisis yesterday with minimal annoyance. I still have the rebuild half the platform, but in the scheme of things that is no big deal. The rest I have managed to patch up, although some filler and painting will be needed. At one point I thought I was going to have to undo practically everything I had done so far.

 

The 0-6-2t can now get through, both hauling and propelling her train, without either stalling or coming off the rails, which is all I wanted. However, she will have to go into Gorton Works before long, as despite my desperate efforts at lubrication she still sounds like a coffee grinder. New motor and gearbox upgrade looks like the best solution. Also some more weight because - rather to my surprise - she is considerably lighter than the plastic-bodied Kerr Stuart Victory. Although she can handle as many wagons as I am ever likely to need her to haul on this layout, I still like, on principle, to make locos as powerful and sure-footed as possible. On a more positive note, she is going around a 5 ft. curve with an unmodified pony truck. The GCR 9F (N5) is a fairly small loco by mainline standards, but has a surprisingly long wheelbase. Frankly, if you can get her round a curve, you can get any of the sort of locos I am ever likely to possess. A4s and Princess Coronations really don't belong on this little branch. 

Edited by Poggy1165
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  • 10 months later...

It is a long time (getting on for a year) since I lasted posted anything about Wathboro, so I thought I had better reassure everyone I'm not dead - yet.

 

Relatively little has been done, partly because my energies, such as they are, have been elsewhere. Also, I was not sure what I wanted to do with the RH side of the layout, and it had to have a severe coat of thinking.

 

That goddamned dog-leg in the main line struck again, and this time I decided bodging was not the answer. So a suitable section was ripped out and a new piece laid, made from individual sleepers and rails. Guess what, at first this threw locos off the track too! I almost broke my heart, but then I took up a track gauge and found that (in part) it was narrow to gauge. This was sorted and all is now well. 

 

At last I have got around to laying in the goods shed siding, and the pictures show it in incomplete form (very) with no ballasting done as yet. But at least we have a proper GC stop block. (Ragstone kit).

 

In the old layout this space contained no less than three sidings but it always looked stupidly overcrowded, especially as the sidings were way too short to be construed as a marshalling yard. I considered two sidings, but the less is more philosophy persuaded me to lay just one and put in a goods shed. Even this is cramped, but the siding will easily hold nine wagons, which is reasonable. The theory is that much of the traffic is dealt with down the road at Wathboro Junction, and as this is supposed to be a coal field I would imagine domestic coal is supplied by way of land sales, and is not usually transported in by rail.

 

Wagons depicted:

GCR 3 planker, diagram 6B. One of the few wagons on the layout not built by me, it was picked up at a GOG event some years back for peanuts. I don't know who built it, unfortunately, but he was a fine craftsman, and this is one of my favourites.

GCR diagram 12 van. From JLTRT kit, with the running gear thrown away and replaced. The body casting is superb, but I could not get on with the JLTRL chassis design.

LNWR diagram 33 from an excellent kit by ABS, changed only by the fitting of older brake gear. I have only yesterday reluctantly painted over its white roof, which was not applicable to period. Still not 100% happy with the new roof colour. 

GCR diagram 17 van, built from Connoisseur kit. A relatively easy brass kit.

(I believe Mike Osborne mastered the bodies for the diagram 33 and diagram 12.)

 

The old station can be seen in the background. This will be demolished shortly and sold off.

 

I have yet to finalise what will go at the back. A private siding for Howarth's Mill is a virtual certainty. There may also be room for a small loco shed, on the basis such will not require shunting. If possible I should like to fit in a loco coal road as well, but I can't see it being shunted very often as I do not have the arms of a gibbon.

IMG_2760.JPG

IMG_2761.JPG

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The new goods shed takes shape.

 

This is a generic model (supplied by Laser Cut Railway Models at a very modest price) but it reminds me very much of certain GC goods sheds in the Manchester area, for example Levenshulme. So, while it might not be 100% kosher it satisfies my eye. To be brutally honest, for the supposed location it should probably be stone, but we can always assume the original burned down and had to be replaced, possibly in the 1890s.

 

It fitted together beautifully, with only one or two curse words before the parts clicked together. What annoys me is that the corner joints, which were originally perfect, have sprung apart. Perhaps, unusually for me, I did not use enough glue. It is going to be hard to remedy this, I can only thing of clamping (as far as possible) and piling on weights while another layer of glue resets. And if that does not work, we shall have to resort to the dreaded filler.

 

Of course, painting all those bricks is going to be the hard part. It should keep me quiet for a while.

IMG_2762.JPG

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The siding track looks better now it is ballasted and painted. Why, I have even added some cosmetic fishplates.

 

The diagram 15 van is from a D&S kit. This particular van retains its roof doors. Some had these removed even before grouping, and I believe they all lost them eventually. Some were, of course, reclassified as fish vans by the LNER. Quite an old van one of the first kits I built in this scale, circa 1993. It really should be "weathered" after all that time! I think this is the one I had to rebuild after it came off the road at high speed. Lesson learned that day, crashes in 7mm scale can do damage!

 

In the background the goods shed has received a coat of red primer, over its initial grey primer coat. Now just the small job of picking out individual bricks remains.

 

PS the ballast is meant to be ash. Photos suggest that the GC used ash ballast on the Sheffield Barnsley line - of which this is supposed to be a twig - although limestone was more normal on the main line. Not 100% happy with the rail colour, I think I need to put on a coat of something slightly different.

IMG_2767.JPG

Edited by Poggy1165
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Thank you. I will try a dark brown, maybe with a hint of black added. The funny thing is, in real life it doesn't look too bad, but when photographed - ye gods! Blue pencil awful.

 

There is a moral here. Possibly "don't photograph your models." I have found by experience that the camera lens is very unforgiving. It has made me more tolerant of the defects that show up in so many photos of layouts, and even more admiring of those layouts/models where no defects appear.

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