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

[MikeOxon]

22 hours ago, Annie said:

......Most of these very clever scripts were developed back in Trainz Classic 3 days around a decade ago, but they ended up getting broken in an 'update' for TS2019 about a year ago.

So much modern software suffers from being modified by people who are more concerned with 'eye candy' than the underlying operating principles.

[Annie]

2 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

So much modern software suffers from being modified by people who are more concerned with 'eye candy' than the underlying operating principles.

Good to hear from you Mike.  With hardly any posts here over the past day or so I was starting to worry that the Vogons had demolished Britain.  True enough though about software 'updates'; - another one of N3V's 'updates' changed menu lettering to a dark charcoal grey on a slightly lighter charcoal grey background.  All very trendy, but also completely impossible to read.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

I was starting to worry that the Vogons had demolished Britain.  

 

They're working on it.

[Annie]

This afternoon I felt like returning to making textures for GER area PO wagons.  These are of course only representational models since they are based on a generic 16ft 5 plank wagon mesh, but they're better than a poke in the eye or having no wagons at all.  I still want to make my own wagon body meshes, - but getting over being double jabbed took the wind out of my sails for a while there.

 

[Annie]

Broad Gauge cheer up picture:  Plymouth Millbay circa 1870.

 

[Compound2632]

The B&ER wagon sheet on the left appears to have a full width and length cross on it. This was quite a common motif, e.g. LNWR sheets, so I wonder if it does have its origin as a mark to help with centring and squaring up the sheet.

 

The way the sheet is supported is curious too. The wagon next to it seems to be the well-known tilt wagon type with fixed semi-circular hoods at each end; this wagon is square-ended and seems to have a couple of hoops, reaching down over the sides. Possibly something similar on the wagon between the two tilt wagons towards the right. 

 

I'm puzzled how to read some of the carriages. The one on the left, for instance, seems to go: blank panel / door with droplight / fixed light / narrow blank panel / fixed light / door with droplight / fixed light / narrow blank panel / fixed light / door with droplight / wide panel / then the same repeated. Four coupe compartments?

[Annie]

13 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm puzzled how to read some of the carriages.

From what I understand from the comments on the BG Society page the old coaches in the foreground of the photo have been converted to guards vans/break vans.

 

14 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The way the sheet is supported is curious too.

Yes very like the mysterious trestles you were seeking information about Stephen.

This is the first Broad Gauge era photo that I've seen that has visible wagon sheet details so I'll be giving it the magnifying glass treatment as well.

[Compound2632]

In 1870 Plymouth was a South Devon station, so the B&ER stock will count as "foreign". Is it possible to determine which vehicles are SDR, B&ER, GWR?

[Annie]

I have some mid-1880s South Devon carriage drawings which I can use as a reference and I can see a SDR 3rd coupled to a SDR 2nd on the nearest platform road and there's a SDR first standing opposite them on the other platform road.  I wouldn't have a clue what the other coach to the left is.

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

 

Full pedant mode on. Tare on the left, Load on the right - an RCH requirement (from some date...) I believe. The Great Western and probably some others ignored this, though.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Compound2632

[Annie]

19 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Full pedant mode on. Tare on the left, Load on the right - an RCH requirement (from some date...) I believe. The Great Western and probably some others ignored this, though.

I was working from a sketch in the GER Society Journal and that was how the Load and Tare was shown on the sketch.  I almost did it the other way around until I checked the sketch again.  Unfortunately while Craske & Co still exist they don't have their wagon records anymore so the sketch was worked up from an old photo and some pretty spare details.

I copied the lettering details as best I could from the sketch so unless more information comes to light I suppose that's it.

[Annie]

Interesting carriage, possibly cheer up picture:

 

Mawddwy Railway Carriage No5 in a derelict state.  This was posted on the 19th Century railway enthusiasts page on Farcebook.

 

 

Drawing borrowed from the HMRS website.

 

 

There is this 3D model being made for Dovetail's version of a railway simulator, but when I asked about it I felt a bit like a heretic that had just been sighted by the Spanish Inquisition. (Elias Dobner image)

 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Annie
Um.........

[Regularity]

Wonder if that could be used for a 3D print?

[Annie]

4 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Wonder if that could be used for a 3D print?

Not without a lot of reworking as all surfaces on a 3D simulator model are too thin to be printed.

[Annie]

DWWR Class XIX 'Rathdown' by Vulcan Foundry.  Ed Heaps had a hand in the creation of this lovely locomotive.  A creator of Irish locos and rolling stock for Trainz who goes by the forum name FiachraIR asked for some assistance recently to complete a number of engines he had made a start on and Ed very kindly answered the call.

Now what on earth am I going to do with this lovely locomotive apart from run the wheels off it all over the place.

 

[eheaps]

On 11/10/2021 at 18:45, Annie said:

I turned the the three Y14's steam effects back on and experimented with directly editing the volume and duration values in the magic incantations.  I've now got it so on starting the engines aren't disappearing in a cloud of steam, but it's a bit variable with it sometimes working and sometimes not.  Compared with how it used to be with the Y14's going everywhere with themselves and most of their train hidden in a cloud of steam I'm going to call this an improvement and not mess about with it anymore.

 

EDIT:  Fun fact.  The offending virtual steam attachment points are named 'snuffle0' and 'snuffle1'.

 

 

 

If you change the attachment point names to a.drain0 and a.drain1 you can turn the drain cock steam on and off by pressing alt+D when driving in cab mode (most of my locos include this feature).

[Annie]

Thank you very much for that Ed I'll give that a try and see how it goes.

[Annie]

I spent part of this afternoon playing trains on the Hopewood Tramway with the majority of the activity centred around the sawmill and wood product works at Elgar Wood.  It's been far too long since I spent some time working the somewhat puzzle-like yard at the sawmill and I had a lot of fun with it.  Even though this is one of the older parts of the layout  and relatively well sorted I still found a few small niggles that needed to be attended to.  I've always maintained that shunting and trip working on a layout is the best way to find the bugs.

 

When I transfered my layout from TS2012 to TRS19 nearly all of the trees on the layout had to be replaced since they either weren't compatible or just looked plain terrible in TRS19's environmental lighting.  The bulk replacement tools made changing out the trees fairly easy, but the only problem was that the new trees were not exactly direct replacements for the old ones with many of them being a lot taller.  So what I've had to do is progressively work my way around the layout and individually adjust all the trees.  The most important ones to fix were any that were too close to the railway boundary as well as any that were plainly just too big for their location.  Needless to say this is all very tedious, but I am getting somewhere with it all now with the worst places having been dealt with.

 

 

[Skinnylinny]

All looking good there, though, Annie. Lovely to spot one of those slotted-post signals peeking in there too!

The irish 4-4-0 is rather gorgeous too, although is it not 5'3" gauge?

[Annie]

23 minutes ago, Skinnylinny said:

All looking good there, though, Annie. Lovely to spot one of those slotted-post signals peeking in there too!

The irish 4-4-0 is rather gorgeous too, although is it not 5'3" gauge?

Slotted post signals are mainly found on the tramway and light railway sections of my layout Linny.  The tramway sections also use some disc signals here and there as well.  I like old signals and I have quite a collection of them.

 

Yes the Irish 4-4-0 should be 5' 3", but its creator has chosen to make his Irish engines and rolling stock to standard gauge measurements.  5' 3" gauge track is available in Trainz and creators for Trainz who make Australian models certainly work to this gauge, but I suppose it's his choice as to the gauge he uses.  I'm not complaining since I now have a Vulcan Foundry built Edwardian 4-4-0 that I can play trains with.

[Annie]

Todays Broad Gauge cheer up images:  Vale of Neath goods tank engines constructed by the Vulcan Foundry in 1856.

 

 

 

Also mentioned by me earlier here........

 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Annie
More information

[Annie]

Model of a Vale of Neath iron tilt wagon.  Image courtesy of the National Museum of Wales.

 

[Annie]

I first discovered these Foden geared locomotives by Steve Flanders not long after I purchased my brand new copy of Trainz TS2009 World Builder Edition.  They pumped out huge amounts of pitch black smoke from their chimneys and they could pull just about any load that could be coupled up to them.  This afternoon when I revisited these now elderly models for Trainz I discovered that a 44xx engine spec had a lot to do with their prodigious haulage feats.  As to the black smoke that was easily fixed by a quick edit of their config files.

The other thing that was all wrong with these small and intrepid locomotives was that their sound file just plain sounded wrong because it was one intended for a much larger two cylinder locomotive with Stephenson valve gear.  So it was the need for both an engine spec and a sound file that gave me something to do this afternoon and I think I've managed to be mostly successful on both counts.  The engine spec is just about done.  I figured that these wee engines would only be good for about 8 mph and they wouldn't have the best brakes in the world.  It's only the brakes that are needing just a little bit more bite to them and then I'll call that part of it done.

With the sound file I started with a recording of a Fowler traction engine and messed about a lot with it in Audacity.  I will point out that I know very little about editing sound files and not much more than that about setting up a sound file for the Trainz simulator, but somehow I managed to end up with something that more or less keeps time with the single cylinder engine bolted onto the top of the boiler.

 

Bringing a traction engine from Downes Farm goods yard up to the goods yard at Elgar junction was a bit of a stern test, but it was managed at a steady 6 mph without any stalling along the way.  Didn't half burn a lot of coal though.

There's two of these Foden locos, - one with a full length roof and this one with a basic cab.  I haven't made up my mind just yet as to which one  will be purchased by the Hopewood Tramway.  The lucky winner will be helping out with small jobs between Downes Farm and the goods yard at Elgar Junction which is a busy part of the tramway at times.  There's always grumbles when the yardmaster at Elgar Wood asks if he can borrow one of the G13¾ tram engines from the Bluebell Wood MPD so one of these wee engines should be a good solution to the problem.

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Annie]

Yet more messing about with the Foden geared locomotive.  The sound file still needs work as after 9 mph it goes silent and then when slowing down it will start up again and will keep running for about 30 seconds once the loco comes to a stop.  I think I'm going to have to do a bit more research with this one and see if I can find out whether the rotation trigger is on the driving wheel axle or on the steam engine crankshaft instead.

 

 

I did find this 16mm scale model on the interwebs that looks a lot like the other Foden engine I've got.

https://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=2636.30

 

But otherwise not much at all about any Foden locomotives.  I must remember to ask Steve Flanders if he can remember what the prototype was next time I send him an email.

 

[Annie]

I decided that the Foden loco with the long canopy roof would be the new engine assigned  to the small sub shed at Elgar Wood.  Once I have the Foden properly fettled I'll start to add some extra details like lamps and handrails.  The Foden is going to be No. 09 and it will be getting a proper numberplate.  The water tank will more than likely be lettered for the Hopewood Tramway and I'll have to do something about a set of footsteps on that side of the engine as well.  The other side has all the big gears and drive chain so I won't be putting any footsteps there, though perhaps I'll put a shunter's step at the front of the locomotive.

No.09 has been getting test driven a lot while I've been working on setting up its brakes.  It does sound wonderfully agricultural and I'm glad I persisted with what seemed like a mad idea to put together a suitable sound file.  I was surprised to discover that it's easier to drive No.09 on the steam controls instead of the DCC controls.  Though just as I was starting to have fun No.09 got the sulks and refused to move, - so plainly I still need to do a few fine adjustments to the engine specs.

 

 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Annie
can't spell for toffee