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

[Annie]

My digital copy of the February issue of Railway Modeller has arrived which I shall settle down with a good cuppa and read in a minute.  There's a large two page spread in this issue promoting the fact that subscribers now have access to the RM digital archive going all the way back to the first issue published in 1949.  This is no small thing as having recently (6 months ago) spent far too much time and money searching out ancient and crumbling copies of RM to obtain GER carriage drawings available nowhere else I can heave a sigh of relief at no longer having to do such a thing again.  And of course the nostalgia trip of reading magazines again that I last read when I was in high school is really quite wonderful.

The big takeaway from reading these old magazines is that back then railway modellers made a large part of their layouts themselves from raw materials.  Here in New Zealand when I was in my late teens there was very little available in the shops apart from a not very good range of Triang items as only the basics were imported and never the full range and an increasing amount of old second hand Hornby Dublo* which nobody seemed to want.  There were some Superquick card building kits and of course Airfix kits available along with a locally made range of dyed sawdust scenic scatter materials, but that was pretty much it.   With the aid of RM articles I had a go at making all manner of things with varying degrees of success and I did have an awful lot of fun doing it too.

 

*I used to buy HD LMS tinplate coaches and rewheel them as poor girl's Exleys.

[Regularity]

Is there any mention of when they might improve the quality of some of the scanning?

[Annie]

15 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Is there any mention of when they might improve the quality of some of the scanning?

Nothing that I've seen Simon.  It is plain though that some of the old back copies they scanned were not in the finest of condition, but compared with nothing at all or hunting all over the place for a second hand copy that's likely to be in the same condition I'll take it.

 

[simonmcp]

Are the RM scans low resolution or is it that they are out of square with straight lines a little  not quite straight? Are you able to print the plans out? I ask as I am contemplating splashing out on a subscription.

[Regularity]

Some are distorted, some are poor quality. A few are both. Some plans and drawings are of poor resolution, with blurred lines, and require cleaning up. I was already a digital subscriber, so it was no big deal, but it gives the appearance that someone was in a hurry to meet a deadline and quality control was largely absent, and frankly I was disappointed, although not for the first time with RM or Peco.

I had thought that I would be able to clear out my erratic collection of issues mostly from the 70s, but I am not so sure.

[Annie]

The scans that I've hunted out so far have been straight and square and I had no problems with copying drawings using the 'print screen' key and then editing them in graphics software.  It's just that some of the magazine weren't in the best of shape to start with and at some point things were starting to get a bit rushed with less care taken.  Overall though the archive is useful especially for anyone who doesn't have a collection of older RM's readily to hand as a resource.

[Regularity]

Some basic text from a screen shot of a 1965 RM: just who is the editor, etc, and just a snapshot. A lot of it isn’t like this, but occasionally the resolution of the scan seems a bit suspect.

 

[MikeOxon]

On 11/01/2022 at 20:53, Annie said:

The scans that I've hunted out so far have been straight and square and I had no problems with copying drawings using the 'print screen' key and then editing them in graphics software. 

I 'right click' on the page and select 'copy image' from the drop-down menu that appears.  I then 'paste' the full page image into my photo editor.  In my opinion the quality is fully adequate for my purposes and I really enjoy having access to all this interesting material.

[Annie]

On 13/01/2022 at 10:23, MikeOxon said:

I 'right click' on the page and select 'copy image' from the drop-down menu that appears.  I then 'paste' the full page image into my photo editor.  In my opinion the quality is fully adequate for my purposes and I really enjoy having access to all this interesting material.

I have to agree Mike, - I'd rather have access to it than not and while some of scans could be better they'll do if nothing else is available.  Some scans of books done by Google's digital project weren't much better, in fact some were worse.

[Annie]

Morning cheer up picture:  'Lion' as recovered from the pump house on Graving Dock in 1928. (Photographer unknown)

 

[MikeOxon]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

I have to agree Mike, - I'd rather have access to it than not and while some of scans could be better they'll do if nothing else is available.  Some scans of books done by Google's digital project weren't much better, in fact some were worse.

The biggest problem with many Google book scans is that they don't unfold the plates.  So many 19th century railway books are rendered almost useless by this failing.

[Regularity]

11 hours ago, Annie said:

I have to agree Mike, - I'd rather have access to it than not and while some of scans could be better they'll do if nothing else is available.

That’s all true, and I am pleased to have such access, but I was already subscribing electronically so there is no increased cost to me.

But this is being used to “push” the digital subscription, so I think some disappointment over the standard of some of the scans is a reasonable thing to register. For model making purposes, there is usually enough information included in a drawing to be able to produce something.

I think it shows evidence of being a rushed/poorly supervised job, but no worse than some of the howlers the magazine has perpetrated over the years, so I suppose of a certain standard.

[Annie]

I've had a digital subscription for some time as well so the archive is a bonus, but I'm sure some new subscribers will be disappointed if they think the archived copies are going to look as good as the current digital copies.

I agree that a drawing would have to be seriously trashed not to get something from it, but so far I haven't had any real problems with any of the ones I've hunted out and taken copies of.

[Regularity]

Hi Annie, 

I just don’t want people running off expecting to get 21st century quality digital documents, rather than scans from old magazines, some of which may not have been very well stored over the years!

Anyone hoping to be able to open up an issue and simply take a screen dump of a drawing, and translate that directly to virgin styrene sheet (other sources of material are available, including virtual) without checking a few things first is going to be disappointed. By that would apply to a paper stored drawing, which can stretch one way or another.

[Annie]

Morning GWR cheer up picture:  I love this picture, I love everything about it even if it's not Broad Gauge.  The station building has survived apparently and been preserved which is definitely a good thing.

(Kenneth Williams Collection)

Edited January 17, 2022 by Annie
Awful spelling mistakes

[Regularity]

8 minutes ago, Annie said:

The station build has survived apparently and been persevered which is definitely a good thing.

Yes, one should always keep on trying…

[Annie]

17 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Yes, one should always keep on trying…

Thank you so much stupid Woolworths eyesight.  Spelling mistake now corrected.

[Regularity]

Mostly, I blame autocorrect for these things!

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

Mostly, I blame autocorrect for these things!

Narcolepsy has affected my eyesight in ways that my new glasses can't really correct for Simon.  Throw in micropauses on top of it and sometimes what I type can turn into a real mess.  It really annoys me because my ability to type documents without making mistakes used to be very good.

[Annie]

Broad Gauge cheer up picture:  I don't know about you, but this picture of 'Timour' certainly cheers me up.

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Annie

[Compound2632]

On 16/01/2022 at 23:00, Annie said:

Morning GWR cheer up picture:  I love this picture, I love everything about it even if it's not Broad Gauge.  The station building has survived apparently and been preserved which is definitely a good thing.

(Kenneth Williams Collection)

 

Nice to see a Midland Railway station featured.

[Annie]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Nice to see a Midland Railway station featured.

I like wooden 19th century station buildings no matter who built them.

[Annie]

Looking at Eardisley Station on a 1880s OS map it certainly looks to be an interesting trackplan and I think it would be a nice subject for a model.  But with already having a number of projects I'm trying to finish I don't think it's a great idea to start distracting myself with yet another fascinating trackplan.

 

1960 and the station still looks to be nicely kept.

(Kenneth Williams Collection)

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Looking at Eardisley Station on a 1880s OS map it certainly looks to be an interesting trackplan and I think it would be a nice subject for a model. 

 

It's a classic case of the Midland not really "doing" single-track lines, laying the station out in more-or-less the standard double-track arrangement with trailing connections from up and down lines, single slip forming a crossover and all. (Though the goods shed on the loop round the back of the platform is a little unusual.) The double junction was a Board of Trade requirement.  

[Annie]

It certainly is an arrangement I've had little experience of Stephen which makes me wonder how easy it would be to lay it out using the Trainz Model Railway format rather than going for a full railway in the landscape effort.  The lack of Midland engines in Trainz would mean that I'd have to go for at least the 1930s in order to be able to find anything I could run which would be a nuisance, but it looks like the station didn't change much over the years so it wouldn't be a gamebreaker.