Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[Edwardian]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

 I'm fast coming to the conclusion that my present computer is too wimpy to run my Norfolk layout and that many of the problems I'm having are due to lack of processor power.  

 

 

 

Can't cope with the gradients, I assume. 

 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I have a Hewlett Packard tower server powered by a pair of Xeon processors that I purchased some months ago and I think it's well time I stopped procrastinating and made it my next Trainz computer.

 

Just threaten to install Raspberry Pi Desktop on it and it'll see sense and run all your Trainz on time and to timetable!

 

You've got to be Cruella de Vil to be kind...

 

[Caley Jim]

Pardon me for hijacking your thread, Annie, but I thought some parishioners might like to see The True Line in operation (though there are some errors and anachronisms - like the wrong type of signals and some strange goods rolling stock from the future).

 

 

 

Jim

[Annie]

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Can't cope with the gradients, I assume. 

That's a lovely endless horizon picture James.  If it was only so simple a matter as a question of gradients (sigh).

 

5 hours ago, Hroth said:

Just threaten to install Raspberry Pi Desktop on it and it'll see sense and run all your Trainz on time and to timetable!

 

You've got to be Cruella de Vil to be kind...

My present computer is an ex-lease 'CoolerMaster' i5 powered machine and while it's well made with a professional grade 'ultra-durable' motherboard that same motherboard has an older architecture that's becoming increasingly a bottleneck as Windows 10 continually 'upgrades' towards ultimate bloatwaredom.  Installing 16Gb of RAM has helped and giving it a faster C: drive than what it's got might help as well, but the writing is on the wall that it needs to be replaced.  

The Trainz simulator itself is becoming much more demanding of computer resources as well which isn't helping any.  That's why I'm seriously thinking of rebuilding the Xeon server I've got into a Trainz computer.  If eight Xeon computer processing cores and 32Gb of RAM can't beat Trainz into submission I'll give up and collect souvenir teaspoons instead.

 

4 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Pardon me for hijacking your thread, Annie, but I thought some parishioners might like to see The True Line in operation (though there are some errors and anachronisms - like the wrong type of signals and some strange goods rolling stock from the future).

No need to apologise Jim.  Dovetail Games's latest version of their Train Simulator is pretty darn impressive despite the strange anachronisms in their promo video.  This is why N3V/Auran have got their knickers in a twist over madly upgrading their own Trainz Simulator in an effort to compete.  Really though they are two different kinds of simulators with Dovetail being heavily into payware and routes that their customers can buy ready made and whizz trains about on; - whereas N3V fosters community involvement with their huge library of freeware as well as promoting their simulator's world building tools.  Trainz also has a high level of compatibility between model assets like signals & etc where as with Dovetail's simulator every model creator has used their own scripting system so that compatibility between different types of signals is limited.

I do own Dovetail's simulator, but I hate their control interface and I've found it to be buggy and difficult to use so I don't bother with it anymore.

 

Keep it blue.

 

[Tom Burnham]

Shows you how progressive the Scottish farmers were, ordering a smart blue tractor even before 1923...

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Tom Burnham said:

Shows you how progressive the Scottish farmers were, ordering a smart blue tractor even before 1923...

For the 1950's it should be a wee grey Fergie. 

 

Jim 

[Regularity]

14 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

Pardon me for hijacking your thread, Annie, but I thought some parishioners might like to see The True Line in operation (though there are some errors and anachronisms - like the wrong type of signals and some strange goods rolling stock from the future).

A very North American style of loco coal bunker, too, plus rather modern dress on the part of the photographers/spotters...

 

[rocor]

13 minutes ago, Regularity said:

A very North American style of loco coal bunker, too, plus rather modern dress on the part of the photographers/spotters...

 

 

I would guess that the inclusion of many of the period inconsistencies come about from the preferences as to what a digital modeller wants to expend their time and effort into creating. For instance, how many would be interested in modelling passengers in strictly accurate period costume?. As to road vehicles, If the period being modelled is pre-motor vehicle, then your road transport is going to remain somewhat stationary, or you will have the strange sight of taxidermied horses being pushed along by their carts.

[Jake The Rat]

This thread seems to be heavily infected with the Great Eastern mutation of the Trainz virus, & now I have caught it, too.
After a few month of aimlessly toying around well-planned layout development with Canadian, US-American & German railway I thought it was time to come back to Britain & finally resurrect 'Rhye on Sea', which I had abandoned after the ACSlib disaster. It used to be an LNWR/L&YR layout located somewhere near Blackpool, but it might be in Norfolk just as well & run GER trains. So Rhye is now no longer on the Irish Sea but on the North Sea. (Watching Caley Jim's beautiful video I get the feeling that some day I  might move it back to the Irish Sea, a little further up north in Caledonian territory.)
This layout is far from finished & I don't have a complete schedule yet, but I can set the junctions & take a lap on autopilot; preferably by night, so you won't notice all those ugly details that I still have to change.

Here we go...

A Claud Hamilton with a rake of 8 coaches at Rhye on Sea platform 1...

 

...approaching the northern tunnel...

 

...at the MPD...

 

...passing Rivendell, the small town in the southeastern corner... (An express train like this doesn't stop at a such tiny station.)

 

... crossing the viaduct...

 

 

... around the bend near the old castle in the northeastern corner.

 

To be continued...

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by Jake The Rat
1 more pic...

[Annie]

This thread has always been a GER zone Jake.  And of course there's the pre-1900s GWR era that features as well from time to time.  Once in a while I will drift off somewhere else into other railway subjects, but it's the GER and ultramarine blue that calls me back again.

It's very nice to see Rhye on Sea again even if it is at night and lit by lamplight.  I do take your point though about the cloak of the night hiding all the ugly and unfinished details.

For some reason I've not run a 'Claud' all that much on my Norfolk layout.  For the time period of my layout they would be absolutely brand spanking new so not very likely to be found running on obscure secondary lines unless they'd been diverted for some reason.

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

This thread has always been a GER zone Jake.  And of course there's the pre-1900s GWR era that features as well from time to time.  Once in a while I will drift off somewhere else into other railway subjects, but it's the GER and ultramarine blue that calls me back again.

It's very nice to see Rhye on Sea again even if it is at night and lit by lamplight.  I do take your point though about the cloak of the night hiding all the ugly and unfinished details.

For some reason I've not run a 'Claud' all that much on my Norfolk layout.  For the time period of my layout they would be absolutely brand spanking new so not very likely to be found running on obscure secondary lines unless they'd been diverted for some reason.

 

 

 

I think you'd need a Royal Claud conveying a member of the Royal family or similar foreign type in order to justify one.  At least, that's the conclusion I came to. 

[Annie]

11 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

I think you'd need a Royal Claud conveying a member of the Royal family or similar foreign type in order to justify one.  At least, that's the conclusion I came to. 

That was my thought too James.  When the new 'Intermediate' digital model engine for Trainz becomes available that would be far more use to me and my little railway.

[Annie]

A small project; - Annie for the cheering up of.  The trackplan has been shamelessly stolen snatched borrowed from the digital edition of, 'The BRM Guide to Trackplans & Layout Design' page 41, and the layout is 'Bragborough', - a 3mm scale Broad Gauge Layout.

The plan has a lot in common with several small Broad Gauge branch line termini, - or at least those ones I frowned at on the NLS OS map webpages looked much the same.  Since it is rare for a main stream publication to propose the Broad Gauge as a possibility for a layout I decided to have a play about with the plan.  

I enlarged the plan to 'O' gauge size, - 18ft X 4ft, - but I'm finding that I'm having to stretch out some parts of the plan in order to get the trackwork to fit together smoothly.  I could convert the station into a through station, but I won't as I think it makes a very nice little terminus.  I did think about a junction station that could provide a destination, but when I looked at the 1840s plan of Bath station my brain told me to stop it immediately.  I still think it would be very nice if it was condensed a bit, but perhaps it's not one for this present project.

In case you're wondering the trackplan can be easily deleted once I get to the stage of doing all the scenic bit's and bobs.  After that I have to decide if it's going to be an 'O' gauge layout or something that's fully built into a landscape as a form of simulated reality.

 

 

[Jake The Rat]

Rhye-on-Sea at night, continued...

 

Crossing the bridge on the northern rim of the layout...

 

...approaching  Bree Station...

 

...stopping at platform 1... 

(In the foreground you see an R24 with a 2-coaches push-pull train; loco made by gotty, coaches by Annie. The 'Claud Hamilton' model was made by Edward Heaps, by the way.)

 

...entering the southern tunnel...

 

... leaving it again...

 

...& back at Rhye-on-Sea Station.

I'm planning to run 2 express trains, 3 local trains & 4 or 5 goods trains. A lot remains to be done before I will dare to show this in broad daylight...

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Jake The Rat
,

[Annie]

Nice work Jake.  I'm having a rotten time with not being able to stay awake which is why I'm not posting anything.  Hopefully this will pass soon enough.

[Annie]

I crashed out deeply asleep for ages and ages and it took me a good while before I decided it was worth coming back to Reality (TM).  I'm still feeling time displaced and a bit confused, but hopefully I'll get past that before too long.

 

A lovely surprise was seeing the first  screenshot of Edward Heaps's new GER 'Intermediate' that he's been working on.  It has a borrowed tender from a Y14 at the moment, but I don't think it will take Ed long to fix it up with something better. 

The 'Claud' lurking in the background is a GER re-skin Ed did around two years ago now on a 'Claud' in lined LNER green that had been made way back in TS2004 days by pacificseven who was one of the very early makers of Uk models for Trainz.  As old as it is it's a none too bad model and it runs very sweetly.  One day soon I'll ask Ed if I can cure its tender of Arial fonts disease.

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Jake The Rat]

7 hours ago, Annie said:

A lovely surprise was seeing the first  screenshot of Edward Heaps's new GER 'Intermediate' that he's been working on.

 

Will it work in TS12? I would love to see it on 'Rhye-on-Sea'.

 

Quote

The 'Claud' lurking in the background is a GER re-skin Ed did around two years ago now on a 'Claud' in lined LNER green that had been made way back in TS2004 days by pacificseven who was one of the very early makers of Uk models for Trainz.  As old as it is it's a none too bad model and it runs very sweetly.

Exactly the one you see in my screenshots.

 

[Annie]

33 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

Will it work in TS12? I would love to see it on 'Rhye-on-Sea'.

I'm afraid not Jake.  Ed used to make his models for TS2012, but with the changes in recent Blender updates no longer being compatible with the mesh exporter for older versions of Trainz he had to make the shift over to TS2019/TRS19.  Cameron Scott of Darlington Works had to do the same thing with his models as well.

Despite having a love-hate relationship with TS2019/TRS19 I'm having to work on shifting my layouts over to the latest simulator as well so I can make use of the new Uk steam era models that are being made these days for Trainz.  With my own models though I'll be holding on to working in TS2012 for as long as Auran/N3V continue to accept them as DLS uploads.

[Annie]

Having my 'flu jab earlier in the week completely knocked me out and I've been needing to sleep a lot more than usual.  Not really doing much worth reporting at the moment, but hopefully that will change soon.

[eheaps]

On 09/05/2021 at 16:24, Annie said:

The 'Claud' lurking in the background is a GER re-skin Ed did around two years ago now on a 'Claud' in lined LNER green that had been made way back in TS2004 days by pacificseven who was one of the very early makers of Uk models for Trainz.  As old as it is it's a none too bad model and it runs very sweetly.  One day soon I'll ask Ed if I can cure its tender of Arial fonts disease.

 

Just for Annie... The models actually much older than 2 years. I made it back in the days of Trainz 2009, before I had got into proper content creation. I released it much later after someone spotted it in a screenshot asked for it.

 

[Annie]

Oh wonderful Ed, - you fixed the GER initials on the tender.  It looks so much nicer now.

[Annie]

After a little untidy pleading on my part (and the threat of a few tears) a couple of the members of the creator group are now looking at my small collection of scanned 19th century GWR & constituent companies goods shed drawings.  Network Rail mostly markets these drawings at excruciating prices to vapid brain dead trendy folk as décor, but it is possible to also purchase digital copies for only a minor slice or two off your liver for each drawing.

Presently the 1890 good shed at Wallingford Junction (Cholsey) is the subject that's being recreated as a digital model for Trainz, but I'd like to see if the Cornwall Railway one can be done next.

 

Useful photos of the Cholsey goods shed are rare, but at least some of the other GWR standard Oxford type sheds from the same era got missed when BR was doing what it did best, - i.e. demolish things, - and it is possible to find photos of them.

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

Network Rail mostly markets these drawings at excruciating prices to vapid brain dead trendy folk as décor

 

Classic Annie.  Well put.

[Annie]

A small rant:  How is it that someone can become proficient at using Blender (a variety of 3D modelling software) and have absolutely no understanding of how to read a basic technical drawing.  I've just had the said gentleman suggest that the goods shed could be built and textured a certain way because it would be 'easier'.  Done his way it would also no longer be an 1890s GWR good shed as found in the Oxford area.  He also said he has no suitable licenced textures he can use so he can't do it how I want.   

What is the particular digital modelling skill that I have?  How long have I been a member of the creator group that he belongs to?    Aaaaaaarrrrrghhh!!!!!!

 

I think I'll give up on all this digital railway modelling malarkey and write strange alien science fiction bodice rippers instead.

 

Edit:  I just had to point out that the really huge scans of the original GWR drawings have dimensions written on them in a lovely neat hand.  

Edited May 14, 2021 by Annie
Argh!

[Annie]

After complaining about the measurements on the huge drawings being difficult to read (??????) the Blender expert in the team has gone off to make the goods shed meshes.  I will be getting the meshes back coated with a temporary texture that I can herd pixels about on to create the proper textures; - which is really all I wanted in the first place. (sigh)

 

In between sleeping and herding cats trying to get the Blender expert to understand the drawings I've been doing some repair work on some older Trainz models from TS2004.  I like the simplicity of these older models as they remind me of working in coarse scale 'O'.

The layout I'm borrowing is Dearnby & District  WR 1950-1960 and it was built by an immensely talented team of digital railway modellers.

'Remembrance' runs beautifully, better than some newer engines for Trainz that I've driven.