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


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I have downloaded the Ashington layout & I like it a lot. The author wrote 

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I built this 18+ miles long double tracked ficticious branch line solely for the purpose of running suburban tank hauled (GWR prairie is ideal)...

:yes:

 

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...or DMU trains.

:O

The branch line to Ashington is the major part of this layout, but there are also a few miles of main line with a station named Castleton.

1974033967_EdwardII@Castleton.png.2840939dc5839d92f9977a6bbdb3c4c3.png

 

So there is some space for these magnificent Kings & Castles & Manors... :sungum:

Are you working on 'Ashington' in TS12 or TANE or TS19? & are you going to upload it to DLS?

 

& now for something completely different. :)

Some time ago I wrote that one day I might start a real model railway, & and this summer I have done so.

Sorry, it's not British, it's American, more precisely Baltimore & Ohio in H0 scale. It's not very large, but at least it has 2 circuits for 2 continously running trains & a 3rd one with an Inglenook & a few more sidings. Right now all I have are 4 inexpensive small B&O locos, a dozen boxcars & other goods wagons from various railway companies & 3 heavy 6-axle Pullman cars, & I guess I will have to buy at least a Pacific to haul them. :scratchhead:

 

Edited by Jake The Rat
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1 hour ago, Jake The Rat said:

The branch line to Ashington is the major part of this layout, but there are also a few miles of main line with a station named Castleton.

1974033967_EdwardII@Castleton.png.2840939dc5839d92f9977a6bbdb3c4c3.png

 

So there is some space for these magnificent Kings & Castles & Manors... :sungum:

Are you working on 'Ashington' in TS12 or TANE or TS19? & are you going to upload it to DLS?

Yes I'm definitely running ex-GWR 4-6-0's on the mainline Jake.  I mostly run a modified Hall and a couple of County class engines rather than Kings and Castles though.  The Counties are really for my Cornwall project, but the Ashington mainline makes for a good test track while I'm setting them up, - especially since the layout's mainline now has loops at each end.  The modified Hall isn't on the DLS as it's an older still slightly unfinished TS2009 model made by a member of the creator group I belong to.

 

6998  Burton Agnes Hall.

 

akAHmjG.jpg

 

I'm working on Ashington in TRS19 SP3 as that's where I'm doing the majority of my layout building now.  I would like to upload the layout to the DLS, but I'll need to talk to the layout's original creator first in order to get permission.

 

Good luck with your B&O H0 layout.  I had a go at making a start on a 1900s American layout a good few years ago now, but then I got distracted with British coarse scale 'O' gauge instead.

Edited by Annie
can't spell for toffee
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can't spell for toffee

Me neither: I buy it in a shop. Much simpler.

 

(For this [old] joke, I am indebted to the late Spike Milligan. Now help me off with this red nose…)

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I had my second COVID Jab yesterday so I'm feeling trashed again today.  A small bright spot though was discovering that a fellow content creator on the Trainz Forum had done a layout in TANE of the Waiau Branch here in New Zealand.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiau_Branch

 

The situation for the old NZ Government Railways isn't brilliant for Trainz models as most were made back in TS2004 days and there are problems with some models that need to be fixed before they can be used in the later versions of Trainz.  Some creators are still making NZR models, but they tend to be all for later modern error dismal times which interests me about as much as a poke in the eye.  Having seen the destruction wrought on our historic railways here in NZ by a succession of useless, shortsighted, brain dead and greedy Tory governments who were in the pockets of the road transport industry (sound familiar?) I have no interest at all in modelling the wreckage of our railway system.  It was only after electoral reform broke the clutch the Tories had on our government that regulations were brought in forbidding the removal of disused railway tracks as they were an important national resource that might well be needed during a national emergency.

Unfortunately too late for many of our railways here in the Waikato, but at least the preservation societies did manage to save some of it even if it was only a very small part.  I most probably won't be posting very much more about this layout even though my main period of interest for the NZGR is the 1900s-1920s.

 

B914KJz.jpg

 

4JtXI8X.jpg

 

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3 hours ago, Northroader said:

I do like “Frog Rock” on that link you gave, it would make a marvellous model.

Yes it's very much a landmark up in the Weka Pass.  The Trainz layout version of the Waiau branch has a reasonable representation of it.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Annie said:

Yes it's very much a landmark up in the Weka Pass.  The Trainz layout version of the Waiau branch has a reasonable representation of it.

 

 

 

Could almost be Middle Earth (well, until recently;))

 

Seriously, absolutely beautiful.  Why don't we all model NZ railways?

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8 hours ago, Northroader said:

I do like “Frog Rock” on that link you gave, it would make a marvellous model.

We drove past Frog Rock on a visit to NZ in 2016 - it only happened because it was a few days after the earthquake and we had to divert from the coast road!  From this angle, the reason for the name is more apparent.

 

Frog-Rock-2016.jpg.6d09deeb5a309b88cbea280be68b33d6.jpg

 

On the same trip we also saw the magnificent No.1274 (JA class 4-8-2), enclosed in its glass mausoleum at Dunedin

 

No1274-Dunedin-2016.jpg.02434dbecf59eed421606a83e9fd8f6e.jpg

 

Mike

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3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Could almost be Middle Earth (well, until recently;))

 

Seriously, absolutely beautiful.  Why don't we all model NZ railways?

 

I suppose the stumbling block is the gauge, 3’6”, same as other beautiful countries with interesting railways such as South Africa or Japan. If it was 2’ or standard gauge it would be so much more simpler. It ain’t really one thing or the other. Great pity.

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Is it the gauge or the scale ? I understand that 16.5mm gauge with 1/64th / S scale represents NZ railways - changing the scale rather than the gauge always seems much easier rather, than the other way round (and I say this as someone who models in EM !).

 

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But you need to stick with 00 chassis, and giving it a larger scale makes the spoke spacing out of kilter to a worrying extent. Otherwise you do it in G scale, and tell everyone it’s 3’6”, but then you need to do the smallest, oldest prototypes you can find, in a Frog Rock situation, or it just needs too much space.

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14.2mm gauge?  You can even get plain flexi-track according to the 3mm Society website, who will also sell hand-built turnouts as well as components.

 

It cannot surely be beyond the wit of man to put 4mm scale wheels on axles for 14.2mm track? 

 

old-railway-station-moorhouse-ave.jpg.a6e056dad4e655b334e43feded68525a.jpg

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42 minutes ago, Northroader said:

makes the spoke spacing out of kilter to a worrying extent.

I was, of course,  going from my own recent experiences of modelling in 4mm, namely that I can't really identify the number of spokes without looking very closely...

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2 hours ago, CKPR said:

Is it the gauge or the scale ? I understand that 16.5mm gauge with 1/64th / S scale represents NZ railways - changing the scale rather than the gauge always seems much easier rather, than the other way round (and I say this as someone who models in EM !).

 

'S' scale on 16.5mm track has been pretty much the standard here for NZR modelling, but if you really want to see magnificent models try 9mm scale on 32mm track.  I had some involvement with the 9mm scale group in Auckland for a while and helped out at some of their exhibitions.

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My grandad drove 'Ab' Pacifics here in the Waikato.  The Ab's were very much maids of all work capable of working passenger trains and goods trains and were found all over the NZGR system.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZR_AB_class

 

I took various snaps of this Ab locomotive at work on the Waiau branch after managing to repair several faults and it ran very well, but something was going stupid with my screen capture software and these two snaps were the only useable ones.

 

3WeQmlD.jpg

 

CczQK0W.jpg

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On 14/08/2021 at 08:44, Edwardian said:

 

Could almost be Middle Earth (well, until recently;))

 

Seriously, absolutely beautiful.  Why don't we all model NZ railways?

 

I haven't logged in here for some time but I couldn't let this go unremarked.

 

Modelling NZR would be like modelling the steam days when I grew up in the 50s and 60s, 16-carriage 500 ton trains overnight between Auckland and Wellington, my Dad and his father having been railwaymen we kids got 1st class free for month each year, and 1/4 fare otherwise, and didn't have to travel with peasants in 2nd class smoking,... refreshment room stops while 4-8-4 engines watered, or were added or changed. A lot of double heading over the 1-in-50 uncompensated for curves including the Raurimu Spiral, towering steel viaducts, moon-lit scenes with the steady beat of exhaust quite clear even eight carriage back. During holidays there were 5 trains each way overnight, single track, tablet  the Somerset and Dorset on summer Saturdays, on steroids.

 

I haunted the nearest steam shed, 2 hours by suburban trains away, and at 11 yrs got my first cab ride on an express 4-8-4 all ready to take over an express, from shed to main lines, then backing up,  "stay off the fall plate there"  was the stern warning, the driver had taken pity on me I guess, armed with my plastic camera, I photographed it leaving with the express wreathed in steam.

 

However, back to 16.5mm or S scale 1:64  it does look good, here is 'my' first ride, modelled by Ajin of Korea in brass, grafted onto the exact shed as it was then.   Annie I know that NZR suffered under management but I was young then.

 

954_NZR_paekok_1abc_bw_r2080.jpg.a69e1a85cd81fb39d2ba914a9900b924.jpg

 

My grandfather was more of the era you prefer, cleaner in the 1890s, top link driver by 1920 when his compound A class 4-6-2 was his favourite...    here is one back around 1906 at Petone where I was born in 1950.  But just to add perspective here, my mother was born in Guildford in 1921...   hence with a Hornby childhood I will happily model BR.

 

419_A_class_3a_r2080.jpg.2245f4741012ccfdfcc126aaf0653888.jpg

 

1927 Royal Train Pilot.

 

472_gilbert_mcgavin_472_from_railway_observer_235_spring1998_r1200a.jpg.49051ef8cc87d65d962ff49fb40821fc.jpg

 

And just to show one of my beloved Ka class 4-8-4s again....  you won't believe the haunting whistles these engines put out on night-time trains in the King Country,  it almost makes you weep when you here the reverberations off native bush clad valleys and cuttings.  A short 'pop' as a warning to close windows with each tunnel, 22 of them from memory, and if there was a moon you could see far below the land beyond 200'+ high steel viaducts.

 

So indeed why don't we model NZR?   Simply because we would all go mad as you cannot re-create that stuff.

 

I do mess around with pictures still... S scale Ajin Korean model...

 

1083045616_944_Ka_NZR_paekok_31abc_r2080.jpg.fd79be69299df9eb6a753d0ffa952987.jpg

 

This is 944, one of the King Country engines, rarely seen at 'my' shed, Paekakariki.    And as a sad an mildly relevant aside I was nearly 3 yrs old when Xmas day 1953 brought the sombre news of the Tangiwai disaster, I recall the mood in the house, Dad had been called away to work that morning. The engine No.949 made it to the other side of the volcanic lahar, the first five carriages didn't, 151 died they never found the bodies of the engine crew, engine was in emergency and in full reverse gear.  Repairable but engine crews said they would never drive her, she was scrapped.  

 

Not a very nice note go finish on, but Annie I enjoy your thread and apologise for raving about things which some here already know.   Many modelers here are not too pleased by my messing photos of 00 models of BR, so I made a call to stop putting them on RMweb.  (just broke my own rule!)

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by robmcg
grammar
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Just another aside, while I am logged in, I was looking at that last pic of 954 and the shed in the background was built in early 1942 by Americans shortly after 'Pearl',  and when my parents married. Dad wasn't allowed to enlist he was 'essential service' and my grandfather stayed on after retirement age because of the war.

 

What the Americans achieved in 1942 was astonishing, given that we in NZ expected to be occupied by the Japanese (at which ironically I became fluent at in 1984),  and this was before Midway or Coral Sea  and more importantly the big naval battle which took out most Japanese naval supremacy, Leyte?

 

but this is too far from Victorian railways, I'll have a quiet cup of tea.

 

Best, Robbie 

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Thanks very much for your post Rob.  When I was in Primary School I went on a class trip to Wellington on the overnight express from Auckland and I can still remember the marvel of travelling over the Main Trunk Line in those wonderful 1930s sleeping carriages that were in use at the time.  And the whistles, yes I remember those too.  All gone now of course (sigh).

 

My grandad and uncles were 'essential service' as well with working on the railways and my Mum was a porteress during the war.  Mum told me quite a few amusing stories about having to deal with the American soldiers on passenger trains.  The most amusing one was how my Mum's best friend Gloria decked an American who pinched her on the behind.  The ticket clippers in her fist helped a lot with that.

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Just a short clip from the start of the Ab mixed goods session for the Waiau branch layout.  I think my GTX660 video card is starting to show its age so the colours and lighting aren't the best.  It's a fairly long session that ends with descending the Weka Pass at night in the pouring rain with 454 tons pushing from behind.  So yes, - just wee bit challenging.

I'll be good after this and not post any more NZGR stuff in my thread.

 

 

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15 hours ago, Edwardian said:

14.2mm gauge?  You can even get plain flexi-track according to the 3mm Society website, who will also sell hand-built turnouts as well as components.

 

It cannot surely be beyond the wit of man to put 4mm scale wheels on axles for 14.2mm track? 

 

old-railway-station-moorhouse-ave.jpg.a6e056dad4e655b334e43feded68525a.jpg

 

14.2 gauge flexi track is certainly available, I used it for the track on an aborted model of the 3ft6in gauge funicular at Bridgnorth. 

I was impressed by it.  

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15 hours ago, Annie said:

I took various snaps of this Ab locomotive at work on the Waiau branch ...

 

I find it interesting to see the many advanced features on the products of The North British company and other builders for export, when compared with their contemporaries on British lines.  Features like high running plates, outside Walshaerts gear etc  were much slower to appear 'at home' in UK.

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That's very true Mike.  The first Ab Pacific prototype was put together in 1906 and you only have to look at what was being built for the 'home' railways in Britain at the same time to see just how advanced they were.  The last Ab's were withdrawn in the early 1970s and their very high level of standardisation of components whether they were built by the NZGR workshops or by the North British company certainly was a contributing factor.

 

And now back to our regular program.  It's been far too long since I had a look at my Minehead branch layout.  I had basically transferred it into TRS19 SP3, checked it over to see if everything was alright and somehow forgot about it.

 

LMCMSrD.jpg

 

tUfXJrR.jpg

 

Q8KlxDZ.jpg

 

XEhpYw6.jpg

 

6aCtP6G.jpg

 

58DJojY.jpg

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I have always taken the view that the BR 7MT pacifics  were little more than a Pennsylvania RR K4s, modified to suit British conditions and loading gauge. BR standards: what Americans were building in the 1910s…

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5 hours ago, Regularity said:

Churchward’s designs caused a lot of upset when they first appeared. Wonder what the reception would have been like if he had added outside valve gear?

You reminded me of a post I made on the Imaginary Locomotives thread when I speculated on what might have happened on the GWR if someone more imaginative than Collett had taken over from Churchward. 

 

Perhaps these NZ engines give some pointers!

 

Mike

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