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

[Edwardian]

17 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

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.

 

Part of the 'joke' with the Isle of Eldernell, which must be the epitome of Small & Pointless in railway terms, was that it's locomotives were small and quaint, the twin 2-4-0Ts with the heroic names being of the Sharp Stewart Cambrian 'Seaham' ilk.  The contrast between the grandeur of the names and the diminutive nature of the line and it locomotives was intended to be at once both rather wry from the modern perspective, and at the same time a sincere recognition that these little local lines and their engines were justly the matter of great and genuine pride.

 

Your case is rather different, however, as Singles are 'flyers' and deserve august names appropriate to their undoubted status.   

 

2 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

 

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

 

Caution is urged where Earls are concerned, however.

[Annie]

23 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Part of the 'joke' with the Isle of Eldernell, which must be the epitome of Small & Pointless in railway terms, was that it's locomotives were small and quaint, the twin 2-4-0Ts with the heroic names being of the Sharp Stewart Cambrian 'Seaham' ilk.  The contrast between the grandeur of the names and the diminutive nature of the line and it locomotives was intended to be at once both rather wry from the modern perspective, and at the same time a sincere recognition that these little local lines and their engines were justly the matter of great and genuine pride.

The Tenpenny branch on my Norfolk layout is very much a nod in that direction with the cabbage harvest and Summer day trippers being all that's keeping the bailiffs away.  Your Isle of Eldernell is dreamed to great depths of realisation though. 

 

32 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Your case is rather different, however, as Singles are 'flyers' and deserve august names appropriate to their undoubted status.

Yes with a load that they can handle they can fair get along.  The singles only had a brief time in the sun, but they certainly were magnificent.   It's easy to tell the Beyer-Peacock singles are very much my favourites in my collection of digital locomotives.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Caution is urged where Earls are concerned, however.

 

If they've never heard of anything larger than a 4-4-0 then there shouldn't be any problems...

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

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

 

You know perfectly well I was teasing.

 

St Edmund K&M is my patron. I was much into things Anglo-Saxon in my early teens (my mother was doing a degree in medieval English literature and history and I'd overdosed on Tolkien); our parish priest asked me what confirmation name I'd chosen; "Edmund" I said, "Edmund Campion" he presumed and was a bit taken back when I explained that this one had been killed in battle fighting the Danes. (Not accurate: in fact beaten up and shot with arrows when he refused to pay Danegeld. He ought therefore be the patron saint of tax dodgers.) Feast day 20 November.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

You know perfectly well I was teasing.

 

I suppose, then, that the Midland didn't name its locomotives in order to avoid the cost of two sets of plates per train?

 

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

St Edmund K&M is my patron. I was much into things Anglo-Saxon in my early teens (my mother was doing a degree in medieval English literature and history and I'd overdosed on Tolkien);

 

Yep, been there!

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

our parish priest asked me what confirmation name I'd chosen; "Edmund" I said, "Edmund Campion" he presumed and was a bit taken back when I explained that this one had been killed in battle fighting the Danes. (Not accurate: in fact beaten up and shot with arrows when he refused to pay Danegeld. He ought therefore be the patron saint of tax dodgers.) Feast day 20 November.

 

Excellent

[Northroader]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

 

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.

Sorry, beg their parsnip, I was being guided by your header picture of the inspection engine. Stay in after school, 100 lines “I must pay more attention”.

 

  “Leave room on your layout for the fairies to dance”

 

 

[Edwardian]

 

[Northroader]

[Regularity]

55 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Why is that one called "Beer No. 44"?

Is it because of the barrel of (presumably) a barley-based liquid refreshment above the main axlebox?

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

 

Pah. That's a large engine. This one's Tiny:

 

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Regularity said:

Why is that one called "Beer No. 44"?

Is it because of the barrel of (presumably) a barley-based liquid refreshment above the main axlebox?

You are fortunate that I'm afflicted with my superpower 'Mega Sleep' at the moment or I might have been very much annoyed by that quip.  It is not a beer barrel it is a vital part of the locomotives suspension system and quite innovative for the time.  Mutter mutter.... blasted secret Churchwardists they're everywhere.......

[Regularity]

1 minute ago, Annie said:

It is not a beer barrel it is a vital part of the locomotives suspension system and quite innovative for the time.

Probably essential, to help keep the wheels on the rails, as they appear to have lost their flanges…

 

[Annie]

I was about to stick some very nice long pins into a little dolly I'd just made only my daughter saw me when I was about to do it and told me off and said she'd tell the priest I'd been practicing witchcraft again.

[Hroth]

11 hours ago, Annie said:

... only my daughter saw me when I was about to do it and told me off and said she'd tell the priest I'd been practicing witchcraft again.

 

There's your getout, you were only practicing, not actually DOING it!

 

 

I can imagine the scene.  "Forgive me Father, for I have Pinned...."

 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Hroth
Just had a Thort! Then spotted a spelin missteak.....

[Hroth]

8 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

 

Nice to see the Pearson well tank Single* being given an airing again!

 

Beer No 44.  Is that its shed code?

 

* With the excellent flangeless drivers, well it had to get around bends somehow. Now we know where Triang got the idea...

[Annie]

5 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Nice to see the Pearson well tank Single* being given an airing again!

It was the Pearson 4-2-4 well tanks that sparked off my interest in the Broad Gauge.  When I was in my teens I found a book in the school library that had photos of the Pearson well tanks and that was that I was smitten.

[Annie]

Another fine model from the master of digital locomotive building.  The N.E.R. class 'M'  3 cylinder Smith compound.

 

[Compound2632]

Not enough like buttons!

[Annie]

Newly rebuilt Beyer-Peacock engines outside the works at Great Mulling.  (No.8 'Sebastopol' was off doing important mail train things so wasn't on shed to get her picture taken.)

 

No.20 'Jubilee'.

 

No.23 'Zanzibar'

 

And the two Beyer-Peacock engines in original condition.

 

No.3 in blue has had some small alterations done last time she was in the works.

 

And No.5 still in original green.  (No.5 used to be No.23, but with No.23 having been officially rebuilt I renumbered the original green Beyer-Peacock model to No.5 which effectively gave me another engine on the Eastlingwold roster.)

 

 

 

[NeilHB]

I think we need a drool reaction - these are simply delightful Annie! 

[Edwardian]

They are magnificent, and representing their evolution in service is a good thing to do.  I find them very attractive in both iterations and liveries. 

 

I confess I have rather dodged that one with the West Norfolk, supposing that, when their Sharp Stuart 2-4-0s and 0-6-0s were reboilered, it was with boilers of the same diameter and pitch, and the original fittings were retained! I do have plans for one of the 0-6-0s to have gained a bigger boiler and a 6-wheel tender, probably done by Sharps and probably resulting in something reminiscent of the LT&SR Ottoman 0-6-0s, but otherwise all any of them ever had by way of modification was a cab!

[Annie]

Thank you very much Neil and James.  When I approached Paul of Paulz Trainz about cabs for my Beyer-Peacocks I was armed with a sketch that was based on the cabs the ex-Edinburgh & Glasgow Beyer-Peacocks were fitted with later in their working lives.  My cab sketch also had a dash of McDonnell NER '59' as an influence as well as I wanted the rebuilds to be Eastlingwold engines in their own right.  Paul did suggest the later domed boiler for my engines and after a day or two he sent me No.8 'Sebastopol' for me to frown at and play trains with. 

I've been very pleased with No.8 and now that I'm able to carry on with working on my Norfolk layout in the latest Trainz simulator TRS19 I could see that I was going to need to sort out the Eastlingwold's engines and more so after Rob Dee's wonderful GER coaches have arrived on my layout.  That sense of evolution in service was something I very much wanted to portray.  I've represented the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling as tending to collect elderly engines and keep them in service, but the Beyers have always been that bit more special so demonstrating a progression of ongoing maintenance and overhaul over time was something I very much wanted to do.  The liveries were a part of that too with No.3's older blue livery being just that bit different to the rebuilt engines.

[Annie]

In between involuntary hibernations I've been working on making a start at sorting out the Trainz Cornish Mainline & Branches route to be a plausible representation of the mid-1950s BR era.  This Trainz route was created using modern Google Earth images so despite what its creator claims it is not a 1930's version of the line between Truro and Penzance. 

What has constantly annoyed me is that the MPD at Long Rock was entirely missing from the Penzance section.  With having used Gargle Earth as a source there was a good reason it was missing because BR demolished it all during the BR Blue error.  So I decided to put it back and in doing that there was so much that had to be deleted and shifted about.  And of course the sidings at Ponsandane were all wrong and so it went on.

I'll sort out Marazion station and yard next and after that I might reinstate the missing goods shed by Penzance station.

 

'Iford Manor' in mixed traffic black engaged in track testing.  A very old model from Trainz TS2004 days and it's a nice runner too.

[AdamsRadial]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

With having used Gargle Earth as a source there was a good reason it was missing because BR demolished it all during the BR Blue error. 

I've had similar experience when I was creating the East Kent Light Railway using OS Landform DEM height-mapped data (I'm not sure if it was pure shuttle mission stuff, I think it was the OS mix of contours and shuttle radar). Anyway, at Elvington Halt I found myself facing a veritable cliff where there should have been gently rolling landscape. After several weeks of head-scratching I sneaked away from the steel mill and rode around that area on a bicycle. At Elvington I found that Tilmanstone Colliery spoil heap had been bulldozed across a mile of countryside. There was indeed a veritable cliff, but it was dirty dark grey instead of milky white chalk. It still amuses me to this day.

 

Good to see old TRS004 stuff still running in the modern trainz, by the way.

[Annie]

Thanks Adam.  Compared with some of the problems with getting engines from later versions of Trainz working properly in TRS19, the old models from TS2004 usually need a lot less messing about with to make them look good.  With 'Iford Manor' I mostly had to do a little texture editing work combined with editing the reflection characteristics of the loco body mesh, but with the 45xx you see in the background I had a few mesh material filename conflicts as well which required a fair bit of frowning at to solve.

I haven't had a lot to do with DEM data, but while taking parts of this same route back to the 1880s with my Cornish Broad Gauge project I struck more than a few anomalies where the landscape  had been either misread or had been changed in modern times.  Eventually I will go back to my 1880s project, - only I kind of burnt myself out with it, - and perhaps after doing this 1950s version I might feel like going back to it.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Annie
crimes against good grammar