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


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TPO testing.  I managed to work out a schedule for the mail train and it seems to work Ok.  I'm thinking of installing another set of lineside TPO apparatus at Mirely St Marys which seems to be a good site for it.

 

Being a very important express it only makes a station stop at Brenton Wood.  Pictures are in chronological order with the train heading south.

 

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1 minute ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Is there a minimum speed for the exchange to work?

I know that on the preserved Great Central line they had to get permission to run their TPO demonstration train faster than 25mph so I would imagine there is an optimum speed for it all to work properly.  With the Trainz version though the train automatically slows down from the normal line speed of 40-50 mph to around 15-20mph since I don't think the interactive scripting would function very well at a faster speed.  I thought it was a bit odd the first time it happened. but there's just some things in the Trainz simulator that you just have to learn to live with because they can't be changed.

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1 minute ago, Edwardian said:

Magnificent.

 

When you're ready, can we see a filum of them in action?

 

Pretty please.

I think that would be very possible James.  I've just installed the trackside apparatus at Mirely St Mary's so that gives me two sites I can experiment with.

 

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1 hour ago, Annie said:

I think that would be very possible James.  I've just installed the trackside apparatus at Mirely St Mary's so that gives me two sites I can experiment with.

 

2ntynoZ.jpg

 

With their little huts, they remind me of the weather devices where one figure pops out if its going to be dry and the other when rain is expected...  Perhaps a little modification to the script (if possible) so the postman pops out of his hut when a mail train is approaching?

 

Anyway, looking forward to seeing the demonstration runs!

 

 

 

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Rush hour at Mirely St Marys.  I did set out to do a demo TPO run, but after checking that Mirely St Marys did indeed have a post office in the village I ended up doing all kinds of scenic jobs around the area instead.

 

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I decided that the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's Beyer-Peacock No.8 'Sebastopol' would do the honors of starring in this little video clip.

As the Eastlingwold's top link engine No.8 would be in charge of working mail trains so it was a good opportunity to see how she would do.  Some of my older models for Trainz had needed updating repairs to work properly in TRS19 SP3 so I also wanted to see if No.8 needed any attention.

The train consisted of;  Passenger Brake; Mail Stowage Van; TPO van with twin traductors: Mail Stowage Van; 2 X Luggage-Lav Composites; Clerestory Lav 1st; Clerestory Lav 3rd; Brake 3rd.  158 tons, which is about as much as I'd want No.8 to be in charge of. The T26's can of course cope with a bit more than that.  However No.8 ran just fine with a good turn of speed arriving at the southern loop storage sidings at 3 minutes under three quarters of an hour which is pretty darn good going for one of my Beyer-Peacock singles.

 

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I did have a problem with filming the video in that I forgot about the signal box at the level crossing and with getting tangled up with that I almost missed the mail bag exchange.  I might have another go with a run on the up line instead and see if I can do any better.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Annie
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Thanks James.  It was the T26's turn this time with a 10 coach train weighing 228 tons.  I used the other TPO van with the single traductor on this  test run using the Mirely St Marys lineside apparatus so I could avoid stray signal boxes.  While the clever mechanism  dropped off the mail bags just fine the incoming mail bags seem to be picked up just that wee bit too late.  Perhaps a bit more experimentation is needed to find the sweet spot.

 

 

 

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I'm most probably being completely boring now, but here's one last video.  No.8 'Sebastopol' at Hopewood.

 

 

For some reason or another after Paul of Paulz Trainz made a cab to my specifications for 'Sebastopol' I never got around to setting up the cab view properly.  The older type of cab view that came with the Beyer-Peacocks doesn't work in TRS19 so I'm using one of Ed Heaps's cab view modules for 'Sebastopol'.  Apart from this hanging out the side of the cab with my Box Brownie view there are several others as well which make riding on the footplate a lot of fun.

I really should ask Paul for a couple more rebuilt Beyer-Peacock singles fitted with my custom Eastlingwold cab since as lovely as they are the other B-P singles in original condition are a bit of an anachronism for circa 1910.

 

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So I've been able to find the base model with cab that I used for the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's No.8 'Sebastopol', which means that I can make rebuilt versions of my original condition Beyer-Peacock singles.  I'm able to reletter the nameplate so now I'm wondering what names I could I could bestow upon the rebuilt engines.  I have lists of the names given to Broad Gauge engines, but I would like to have names that aren't plainly influenced by the real 19th century GWR.  

So do I follow the 'heroic' mold of which 'Sebastopol' is one example or do I follow the direction indicated by the inspection engine 'Eastlingwold' and use the names of towns served by the railway?

 

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If I go with town names 'Oakmarket' and 'Sudden' could be contenders for the names of the two proposed rebuilt engines with 'Grimwold', 'Morrow', 'Mulling' and 'Monkton' being possible names in reserve.  However suitable historic heroic names that the E&GR board might have been moved to bestow upon their engines is a subject upon which I'm drawing a complete blank.

Edited by Annie
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Well, there's characterful - e.g. Arrow, Dart, Flirt, Sunbeam, etc - classical, and heroic.

 

All are delightfully characteristic of the period, but I will put a word in for 'heroic' names, because they represent the Victorians' pride in their war-fighting and empire-building that so makes people squirm these days.  Generally I consider myself a pretty liberal chap, but do consider that this constant wringing of one's hands over things chaps did 120 years ago rather futile. It was what it was and denying it or airbrushing it does no good. If you want your layout to reflect how Victorian's named their locomotives, you will come across some that are commemorative of violence!

 

With mid-century locomotives, you may well come across names related to the Crimean War, or, a little later, the Indian Mutiny (e.g. Sebastopol and Lucknow). 

 

For my freelance schemes, I have reflected this reality; not on the WNR, which ceased to name locos fairly early on. but on the Isle of Eldernell & Mereport Railway. There names tended to reflect both the period and the locality. We had some purely local names, e.g. the folkloric Black Shuck (a black Hudswell Clark 0-6-0ST that I am considering transferring to the WNR or the Norfolk Minerals), and some purely of the period, e.g. an 1850s contractors locomotive, Manning Wardle Old I Class, Lord Palmerston.

 

Other names are chosen to reflect both the period of the locomotives and local associations. One of a pair of 2-4-0Ts from the 1860s is  Hereward the Wake, a local Fenland hero but also, of course, popularised at the time by the Charles Kingsley novel. The sister locomotive was Hero of Aliwal, relating to a contemporary local hero, Sir Harry Smith*.  Aliwal is named for one of the few brilliant actions in the wars against the Sikhs, which were generally unimaginative and bloody slogging matches**. Sir Harry also gave us a goods 0-6-0T, Boomplaats, this time a, relatively rare, victory over the Boers. A locomotive dating from 1876 was, inevitably, named Queen Empress.

 

* Who had married a Spanish lady he'd rescued during the Peninsular War and subsequently had been a governor in South Africa, hence the town of Ladysmith.  'The Hero of Aliwal' is also a fairly rough pub in Whittlesy!

 

** Wars which do not fit well with the modern view of colonial oppression and the use of modern weapons to massacre natives armed with nothing more than sharpened fruit.

 

 

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If you want to go for heroic names, the "What happened in 18xx" lists , eg 1855 in the UK  could be useful.

 

"Sebastopol" would be linked to the siege and capture of the town in 1855, so how about "Victoria" to commemmorate both the end of the Crimean War in 1856 and the creation of the Victoria Cross?  The exploration of Africa by Livingstone would be in the public mind too, he discovered the Victoria Falls in 1855.

 

While looking at the lists, its amazing how many ships left Liverpool carrying hundreds of people (immigrants for America?) which just never arrived.

 

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Thank you both for the excellent suggestions.  I'm afraid I have no time for folk who wring their hands and howl over what was done in the past, - especially the 100 years plus past.  And as for trying to paint it out and sanitise it all it's just plain stupid.  What was done was done and nothing can undo it.  All we can do is try not to make the same mistakes again (even though we know we bl00dy will).

 

My thought were very much along the lines of British Empire pride when it comes to naming the Eastlingwold's rebuilt Beyer-Peacocks.  It would have been simpler to rename 'Sebastopol' with the name of a town on the line and then the rest would follow on from that, but it struck me that the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's board were proud Empire men who firmly believe that the British Empire is a shining light in the world and victories made by brave and resolute men should be celebrated with brass nameplates affixed to steam locomotives; - which afterall are the crowning engineering marvel of the age.

 

Searching the year lists is a awfully good idea Hroth and thank you for suggesting it.  I've already pencilled in 'Zanzibar' as a possibility.  'Queen Empress' and 'Victoria' are good suggestions, but I have a feeling that I won't be able to fit 'Queen Empress' into the space available on the plate blank.

I did wonder about local heroes/folk heroes, but nothing really came to mind.  East Anglian saints and kings might be a bit obscure for steam engine names.  Names from Greek legends always make me think of the real GWR; - so really it's very much un-PC British Empire battles and colonial exploration that I have to go with.

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4 minutes ago, Annie said:

Thank you both for the excellent suggestions.  I'm afraid I have no time for folk who wring their hands and howl over what was done in the past, - especially the 100 years plus past.  And as for trying to paint it out and sanitise it all it's just plain stupid.  What was done was done and nothing can undo it.  All we can do is try not to make the same mistakes again (even though we know we bl00dy will).

 

My thought were very much along the lines of British Empire pride when it comes to naming the Eastlingwold's rebuilt Beyer-Peacocks.  It would have been simpler to rename 'Sebastopol' with the name of a town on the line and then the rest would follow on from that, but it struck me that the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's board were proud Empire men who firmly believe that the British Empire is a shining light in the world and victories made by brave and resolute men should be celebrated with brass nameplates affixed to steam locomotives; - which afterall are the crowning engineering marvel of the age.

 

Searching the year lists is a awfully good idea Hroth and thank you for suggesting it.  I've already pencilled in 'Zanzibar' as a possibility.  'Queen Empress' and 'Victoria' are good suggestions, but I have a feeling that I won't be able to fit 'Queen Empress' into the space available on the plate blank.

I did wonder about local heroes/folk heroes, but nothing really came to mind.  East Anglian saints and kings might be a bit obscure for steam engine names.  Names from Greek legends always make me think of the real GWR; - so really it's very much un-PC British Empire battles and colonial exploration that I have to go with.

 

Zanzibar would be appropriate for a locomotive named in 1896 or so, when the slaving-Sultanate was ended and the island brought firmly within the British sphere of influence. I'm sure one iteration of the Isle of Eldernall roster had a new loco with that name (it's set in 1897, so a little earlier than CA).

 

Queen Empress (from 1876) is at least shorter than Empress of India!

 

Sticking with Vicky, locos named in either 1887 or 1897 could be Jubilee.

 

These suggestions, and most of the Isle of Eldernell names, are later than would be likely for 1850s locos, because the Isle of Eldernell line was built in, IIRC, 1862 and the layout to be set in 1897.

 

The campaigns of the 1890s did give rise to quite a lot of contemporary locomotive naming. The Battle of Atbara was an Anglo-Egyptian victory over the Mahdists in Round Two in the Sudan in 1898. It, famously for us, gave a Great Western outside-framed 4-4-0 and its class a name. Only a fool would object to defeating the Mahdists, the ISIS of their day, but it is an example of a campaign that captured the imagination of the contemporary British public because it was payback for the death of Chinese Gordon in Round One. Heading to the turn of the Century, Boer War names crop up. 

 

Hroth's idea of looking up events contemporary with each locomotive is a good one. It should be borne in mind that some events resonated with ('cut through to' in modern journo-jargon) the public of the day whereas others didn't and it is not always clear why.

 

On local heroes for East Anglia, you are quite right! Nota bene Charles Kingsley's opening thoughts in Hereward the Wake:

 

The heroic deeds of Highlanders, both in these islands and elsewhere, have been told in verse and prose, and not more often, nor more loudly, than they deserve. But we must remember, now and then, that there have been heroes likewise in the lowland and in the fen. Why, however, poets have so seldom sung of them ... 

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Zanzibar would be appropriate for a locomotive named in 1896 or so, when the slaving-Sultanate was ended and the island brought firmly within the British sphere of influence. I'm sure one iteration of the Isle of Eldernall roster had a new loco with that name (it's set in 1897, so a little earlier than CA).

Yes I was aiming for a 1890s rebuild date with the two rebuilt Beyer-Peacock engines I want to introduce to my layout.  'Sebastopol' was named and then afterwards rebuilt at an earlier time with further rebuilds being delayed by strife and arguments amongst the Eastlingwold board over costs and whether their engines should be named at all.  A blaze of patriotic fervor must've brought them to their senses during the 1890s starting with 'Zanzibar' and then 'Jubilee' the following year with 'Victoria' on standby should I decide on a third rebuild.

 

37 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I agree. Will never catch on.

 

29 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Oh I don't know.  Mind you, I doubt Annie could fit Saint Edmund King & Martyr on a locomotive name plate.

James has it right.  I was referring to Saxon saints and kings.

 

12 minutes ago, Northroader said:

It’s quite a small loco, and names given could reflect that, besides not “dating” the loco too obviously. Suggest “Peaseblossom”, “Cobweb”, “Mustardseed”?

My Beyer-Peacock single driver engines do not like being called 'small' Mr Northroader.  They are brave and intrepid engines and are worthy of brave and intrepid British Empire names.

Edited by Annie
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42 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Oh I don't know.  Mind you, I doubt Annie could fit Saint Edmund King & Martyr on a locomotive name plate.

 

BUt Æthelred Unræd might....

 

It could be some sort of experimental Compound....

Edited by Hroth
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1 hour ago, Annie said:

East Anglian saints and kings might be a bit obscure for steam engine names.

 

48 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I agree. Will never catch on. 

 

However, local Halls might work, a bit of grovelling to shareholders would pay dividends!  Then there's castles and abbeys to consider....

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