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

[Annie]

Thanks very much for that Mike.  I've only just finished reading Brian Arman's Broad Gauge Engines of the GWR [Part 2] so perhaps it's time I read Part 1 again and take a little more notice of the words on the page and not only the pictures.

[Annie]

Test running Ed Heaps's GER T19.  A lovely sweet running locomotive in every way.

 

 

 

[Compound2632]

Is that a deliberately oily yellow exhaust?

[Annie]

25 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Is that a deliberately oily yellow exhaust?

The T19 is oil fired and is coupled to a 2649 gallon tender fitted with oil tanks.  Ed Heaps is certainly meticulous enough to suitably colour the exhaust smoke from the engine's funnel.

 

Edit:  I've just checked the snaps I took of the P43 single and its smoke is much the same colour.  All very strange, but then the P43 also has an oil tender option, - only I'm running a coal tender since my P43 has supposedly been converted back to coal for running on the GER-GNR joint line.  Now I'm going to have to go and take a look at the smoke files to see wot colour they've been set to...... grumble grumble......

Edited October 4, 2021 by Annie
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[Compound2632]

Just now, Annie said:

The T19 is oil fired and is coupled to a 2649 gallon tender fitted with oil tanks.  Ed Heaps is certainly meticulous enough to suitably colour the exhaust smoke from the engine's funnel.

 

Quite. That's what I meant.

[Annie]

I had a look at the smoke files for my new GER engines and they have the same smoke files based around magical animation incantations that I don't really understand, but are plainly very clever.  I do understand the smoke colour coding though and it's noticeably different to other engines I have though it certainly works to good effect. 

Possibly the fact that my video card is far from being what is considered cutting edge these days and that I tend to set up the environmental lighting in TRS19 with a very slight green tinge to counter TRS19's bias towards a harsh blue glare could be a factor with making the smoke have an oily appearance.

[Annie]

'Zanzibar' and 'Sebastopol' just because I can.  Schedule writing continues.  (The Beyer-Peacock singles are still waiting their turn to have their textures polished up so they look better in TRS19).

 

[Annie]

A couple more 'Zanzibar' - 'Sebastopol' teamwork snaps.  Strange as it might seem I've never tried double heading the Beyer-Peacock singles before.  They made a good team and got along very smartly with what the Trainz simulator said was a 180 ton train.

Snaps taken on the northern end of the GER-GCR joint line approaching Mirely St Marys.

 

 

The Great Unfinished Brickworks lurks in the middle distance.

 

[Annie]

Book Corner:

 

 

This useful book from Pen & Sword arrived this morning after spending more than a month safely traversing the post-apocalyptic landscapes of the world between Britain and New Zealand.  Written by a chap who has lived and worked in East Anglia as a teacher and also as a clerk at Long Stanton station it's a well researched book with a good deal of local information, lots of maps and useful pictures.  Being a book of some 140 pages it's plain that a few of the very minor lines are going to get a once over lightly couple of pages, but with the maps and information given as well as the books extensive bibliography I don't think any reader would be at a lack of knowing where to do some further research.

 

[Annie]

Broad Gauge cheer up picture.  Vale of Neath 0-6-0ST No.14.  Drawing from Clark and Colburn, 'Recent Practice in the Locomotive Engine'. Blackie, 1860. 

Goggle Books has it as a free e.book which is where I got the drawing from, but Pen & Sword's  'Early Railways' by Peter Chatham and Stephen Weston has it without the crease through the middle.  I only have 'Early Railways' as a Kindle book so the drawings are tiny, - which isn't much use at all.

 

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Annie
fumble brain

[Annie]

Beyer-Peacock cheer up pictures.  I've finally made a start on sorting out the mesh material settings on the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's Beyer-Peacock singles so their textures look better in TRS19.  I used No.3 as the test engine to see what needed to be done and as it turned out there was quite a bit more to adjust with the Beyer-Peacocks as compared to the other engines I've done so far as they seemed to have a lot more surfaces to their body mesh.

I'll be doing the rebuilt engines 'Sebastopol', 'Zanzibar' and 'Jubilee' next, but I'm not sure about No.5, - the only E&GR Beyer single that's still in original condition and still painted in the old E&GR light green livery.  For some reason it looks just fine in TRS19 without it's textures being given a matt appearance as happened with the blue engines.  I think I'll come back and have a look at No.5 once the others are done and make a decision then.

 

 

[Annie]

I decided that I would adjust No.5's mesh material settings in the same way that I had for No.3 and I'm very glad that I did because No.5 is looking a lot better now.

 

 

[Annie]

Due to a total lack in Trainz of useful GER classes such as T18 and E22 0-6-0T's I was forced to bring into being another of the Affiliated (Imaginary) Railway Companies 'standard' tank locomotives.  The new No.1 has been assigned to the goods yard at Elgar Junction on the short branch off the GER-GCR joint line.  The identical No.2 was also assigned here for a short time before being sent off to work in the goods yard at Windweather.  Both Nos.1&2  are still painted in the A.(I).R.Co. lined black livery that was adopted before the GER purchased  majority shareholdings in the railway companies.

I have one 'standard' tank engine number left, - No.6, - and I'm thinking that No.6 will be an 0-6-0T like No.3 (assigned to the goods yard at Bluebell Magna).  With the four Terriers that should give me a useful amount of engines suitable for shunting and trip working over the Affiliated Companies lines. 

 

 

 

The wheelsets for A.(I).R.Co. No.1 and No.2.  I thought you might like to see what a set of textured wheelset meshes looked like.  These are quite old models from early TS2004 days and were more than likely made in GMax.  The sharp eyed among you would have noted the absence of crankpins or crankpin bosses on the driving wheels.  This was quite common back then as it was hoped that the bearing bosses on the coupling rods would act as sufficient camouflage.  And in case you were wondering about the positioning of the connecting rods they will end up in the right place when the animation file is loaded.

 

 

Despite falling asleep in an unplanned fashion fairly often I was also able to complete a job I've been wanting to do ever since TRS19 broke the way portals work.  These two long sidings leading to the trans-shipment shed (yes it's based on the one at Didcot) used to contain portal tracks as a sneaky way to fudge the trans-shipment of goods between the Hopewood Tramway and the joint line.  It wasn't ideal and the tracks couldn't be shunted so once the portals went bung it was all a bit useless.  So what I did last night was replace the busted portals with proper trackwork and a couple of crossovers.

I want to be able bring goods trains from the mysterious North into Elgar Junction yard and sort them into trip jobs to be taken to destinations on the Affiliated Companies lines.  I also want to be able to bring goods trains from the Hopewood Tramway into Elgar Junction yard and sort them for dispatch to destinations accessed by the joint line.  This is something I haven't really been able to do very well before so I'm hoping this will be an improvement.

 

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Due to a total lack in Trainz of useful GER classes such as T18 and E22 0-6-0T's 

 

That's a broad hint if ever I saw one, @eheaps!

[Annie]

18 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's a broad hint if ever I saw one, @eheaps!

I wasn't hinting at Ed Stephen as I'm quite prepared to commision either a T18 or a E22, - most probably a E22 coz I've got a drawing for those.  I wish GER society members wouldn't use LNER class designations on drawings though as I couldn't care less about the Late & Never Early Railway as the GER was too good for that lot anyway.. 

It's something very noticeable in Trainz though that there's no end of express engines, somewhat less goods engines and hardly any shunting engines or smaller light axle weight branchline classes.

[Annie]

19th Century cheer up picture:  Redruth and Chasewater Railway’s “Miner”.  Definitely of interest to me since I'm attempting to model the Broad Gauge Falmouth Branch whenever I feel strong enough.

 

[Annie]

Continuing to potter on with jobs on my Norfolk layout.  I extended the goods yard boundary wall at Elgar junction and was thereby able to lengthen three of the goods yard sidings as well as add some additional pointwork so the yard is a little easier to shunt.  I made some of the smaller goods yards on the layout a bit puzzle-like to shunt, but that gets old really fast when it's a larger goods yard that's supposed to be handling a lot more traffic.

 

 

And just to make a change I laid some inset track and wagon turntables at the Bluebell Cocoa Works.  There's four wagon turntables altogether and they are supposed to work, but TRS19 busted something with some older turntable scripts so they're static models now.  I do have a shunting horse and a pushing man so if the turntables had worked I could've had all kinds of fun, but they don't so I can't.

Needam Engineering was the original industry on the site along with a row of space filler warehouses.  I deleted the warehouses to put the cocoa factory in place and I decided to keep Needam Engineering as the cocoa factory's neighbour.  I have no idea what they actually do, but no doubt some notion will come to me as I continue to work around the site.

 

 

[Annie]

19th Century cheer up picture:  Redruth and Chasewater Railway’s “Spitfire”.  This was their third engine that they purchased from Neilsons.

 

[Annie]

Elgar Junction goods yard.  I've been repairing Y14's so they work properly in TRS19.  They had a complicated script that controlled steam effects, only TRS19 had broken it so that steam was pouring out from around the cylinders in a thick cloud as if the glands had completely blown.  The only cure, at least for now, was to remove that part of the magical incantations.  I've also done the usual mesh material setting adjustments as well.

 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Annie
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[Annie]

On the tramway at Elgar Wood.

 

 

The excessive steam problem before being fixed.  This is at low speed at around 10 mph as the speed increases it just gets worse.

 

Edited October 10, 2021 by Annie
added a picture

[Caley Jim]

Obviously has the cylinder drain cocks open!!

 

Jim

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

Obviously has the cylinder drain cocks open!!

 

Jim

Yes that's right Jim.  In older versions of Trainz the magic scripting closes them after a short while, but in TRS19 they stay stuck on with being open and never close off again.  There's an option to turn off the extra steam effects, but it no longer does anything and the steam effects always stay switched on.  

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.

[Annie]

Interesting 19th Century cheer up pictures:

 

The West Cornwall Railway's No.12 'Redruth'.

 

 

And as converted to a Broad Gauge engine.  Along with her sister engine 'Penwith' they both became the only standard engines to be converted to the Broad Gauge.

 

[Annie]

Interesting signal cheer up picture:  David Easton photo, Isle of Man.

 

[Annie]

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'.

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by Annie
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