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


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Not doing much at all today except sleep and/or feel brain fogged which is annoying.  I went out yesterday to the optometrists again to have final frame fitting done for my new super specs and now it's over to the technicians to grind down a couple of old tugboat portholes to become new lenses for my specs.  They will be possibly ready in a week which will be really good as I've been feeling a bit fed up over not being able to see things properly unless I use my big magnifying glass or wear a pair 4.0 power specs in front of my prescription specs.  I should have really done something about it before, - only I got caught out by the lockdowns once the Delta variant got loose here and I had to wait until our local optometrist was able to open her clinic again. 

It was nice to get outside and walk with my daughter down to the clinic and I did enjoy the walk especially since there were hardly any people about, but by the time I got back home again all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep.  Plenty of interesting dreams, only I can't live in the dreamworld no matter how much I might want to sometimes.

Hopefully I'll be more awake tomorrow and I'll be able to carry on with working on the Tenpenny branch.

 

GGMmP2X.jpg

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5 hours ago, Northroader said:

23A6FD0A-59A5-4938-BC35-ECA2B7A75321.jpeg.ac920ed2d5c0fb0bdd864c411599adca.jpeg

Actually apart from the mad red hair it's not too bad a likeness.  I don't own a crystal ball though, - I wonder if I should get one?  I could get a job advising the government then.

After I last posted here I fell asleep and I've only just woken up.  Was dreaming about building a garden railway which was fun.  Not so much fun waking up and discovering I didn't have a garden railway afterall.

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Doing better today, - still sleepy, but not falling asleep all the time.  I had some problems with hypnic jerks instead though which are a fun thing I get sometimes when I'm sleepy.  When they are bad they hurt.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk  All part of the glorious experience of living with narcolepsy.

 

My thoughts are still running in the direction of light railways and tramways and I found this photo taken on the Saturday 24th September 1949 of Laxfield station on 'The Middy'.  Some silly person had written that the locomotive in the photo was a 'J15' when it's not at all it's a 'Y14'.  They shouldn't let people write descriptions for photos if they don't know wot things are.  That appart the weatherboard made from planks on the Y14's tender is of interest and I haven't seen one like that before; -  very light railway.   I really like the corrugated iron station buildings as well and I'd like to have a go at doing something like that.

 

iNpC2N2.jpg

 

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5 minutes ago, Northroader said:

There’s a bit of this line running in a sort of preservation attempt. One station at the back of natties and a couple of hundred yards of track out Into a field. Good luck to them, say I.

https://www.mslr.org.uk

 

Not short of interesting rolling stock, though.

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On 22/07/2021 at 06:51, Hroth said:

Timber viaducts have a relatively limited lifespan and a railway that would want to run heavier locomotives on the line would consider replacement of timber structures with cost effective masonry ones worth the cost and effort.  At least they didn't think of slapping concrete around the existing viaduct a viable solution!

 

Having said that, the timber Barmouth Viaduct, built for the Aberystwith and Welsh Coast Railway (later the Cambrian) opened in 1867, operates in an even more severe environment than the Cornwall ones and is still going strong! Even so, the GWR and later WR didn't consider running anything larger than a 43xx or Dukedogs across it, or that in more recent times only DMUs were allowed to cross it, though apparently loco hauled trains are once more permitted.

 

image.png.900a3f2e2355ff678cc75191180e2d31.png

Wikipedia: Barmouth Viaduct


For limited lifespan you could try the Duhamel Trestle. Possibly a record holder in a most unhappy way.
 

Construction began in autumn of 1909 and was completed during 1910. However the Duhamel Trestle Bridge was in use for only 14 years before it was dismantled and its timbers re-used elsewhere. The Grand Trunk Pacific's Calgary to Edmonton Line was a victim of company amalgamation and growth and the river crossing here became redundant.
 

At any one time 120 men were employed in the construction with others, some of them farmers, hauling the uncut timber from the township of Camrose where the railway company deposited them, to the bridge site to be cut to size. Still others hauled the cut timbers out into the valley to the construction site. At almost 4,000 feet long and carrying the rails 120 feet above the river the Duhamel Trestle was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, timber constructions ever built.

393664103_DuhamelBridge.jpg.75dd57fd82fabaf1ad918f4c4cea7cb4.jpg

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On 25/07/2021 at 11:18, Annie said:

Oh that really made me smile James, - thank you.  

 

I have been told that the L&Y was able to bring freight into Norfolk via the Isle of Axholme Joint Line and then onto the GER-GNR Joint Line at Haxey Junction.  The setup at Haxey didn't really allow for trains to run through, but wagons could be exchanged.  I think it would be too much a wild stretch of the imagination to have a L&Y engine running into Moxbury, but certainly mysterious sheeted L&Y wagons and the like could find their way there.

 

Bd44iim.jpg

 

I was much intrigued by the Isle of Axholme Joint Line, but I'm really am going to have to do my best to ignore it for the time being since I'm back doing things in Cornwall again and I don't want to be distracted.

Park Drain. Now there's an inspiring name for a layout.

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A project that's been staggering along is revising the trackwork and junction connections for the mainline from Foxhollow with the GER-GCR joint line.  Originally much of the layout boards for this northern part of my Norfolk layout was assembled from sections taken from another abandoned project and the existing trackwork was patched together in what I now freely admit was a fairly unlikely old lot.  The landscape itself was basically fine which is why I reused the layout boards, but the connection for the former B&FER mainline onto the joint line was pretty darn awful.

So what I've done it take the B&FER tracks straight across country to make a junction with the joint line about three quarters of a mile on the northern side of Mirely St Marys and what was a double track line passing through Foxwood and Bleakhorse Road has now become a single track branchline which is the single line disappearing towards the left hand top corner of the picture..  The continuation of the single line to the right hand side of the picture was a double track line leading to a pair of portal tracks which were hardly ever used, but I decided to leave a single portal track in place until I can make up my mind as to the scheduling for the new track formations.  Things are going to be in a WIP state for a while though with me being so darn sleepy at the moment.

 

6np3iGt.jpg

 

One benefit of doing this fairly major rearrangement is that I can finally sort out a whole lot of less than best scenic work along what is now the Foxwood branch.  While I put together Foxwood station and village reasonably well along with Bleakhorse Road station the rest was a somewhat hastily done lot of 'that will do for now' half measures that I've never been happy with.

There were four very unlikely looking brick over bridges crossing the line that never looked any good.  They were spline models which meant that they were easy to place and that was all that could be said for them.  Last night I demolished one of them and installed a much nicer humpbacked bridge model which involved quite a bit of scenery bashing and scenic work to get it to fit properly into the landscape.  It still needs a little bit of finishing around the edges, but this is basically what I'll be doing with the other three bridges.

 

csH2qy0.jpg

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On 27/07/2021 at 15:47, Annie said:

Rail joint sounds in Trainz are something that has been complained about for years and is something that I can't do anything about unfortunately.

 

One thing I remember from the original MSTS was that you could edit the plain text ".wag" files (the attribute file that gave the wagon its weight, rolling resistance, coupling type, spring strength, bounding box dimensions and sound file) and you could do almost anything you liked with this, including any sound file you wanted. If I recall there was a rail joint beat that could be defined by wheelbase, so your 9ft wb wagons, 10ft wb wagons and longer wb vehicles plus bogie freight when they were all in motion made the most amazing discordant cacophony! The sounds were one of the nicest things about the sim but you wouldn't want to have the volume turned up with headphones on.

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30 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

One thing I remember from the original MSTS was that you could edit the plain text ".wag" files (the attribute file that gave the wagon its weight, rolling resistance, coupling type, spring strength, bounding box dimensions and sound file) and you could do almost anything you liked with this, including any sound file you wanted. If I recall there was a rail joint beat that could be defined by wheelbase, so your 9ft wb wagons, 10ft wb wagons and longer wb vehicles plus bogie freight when they were all in motion made the most amazing discordant cacophony! The sounds were one of the nicest things about the sim but you wouldn't want to have the volume turned up with headphones on.

Now that kind of things would be really amazing to have in Trainz.  Considering that Trainz had its early origins in MSTS it's a pity that something like that wasn't retained.

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17 hours ago, Annie said:

 Some silly person had written that the locomotive in the photo was a 'J15' when it's not at all it's a 'Y14'.

 

iNpC2N2.jpg

 

 

Isn't that the same, a GER Y14 & an LNER J15? Not sure though what BR called these locos, but I guess, they kept the LNER classification, didn't they? :scratchhead:

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2 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

Isn't that the same, a GER Y14 & an LNER J15? Not sure though what BR called these locos, but I guess, they kept the LNER classification, didn't they? :scratchhead:

As a GER enthusiast Jake 'Y14' is the correct designation.  As to what the the Late and Never Early Railway may or may not have called these fine locomotives I could not care less.  As for BR, - please don't use bad language in my forum thread. 

Edited by Annie
Um.........
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5 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

Not sure though what BR called these locos, but I guess, they kept the LNER classification, didn't they? :scratchhead:

 

3 hours ago, Annie said:

As for BR, - please don't use bad language in my forum thread. 

 

At considerable personal risk, I'll offer that BR, whilst retaining the official classification in use from 1923, gave these engines the unusual power classification 1P2F - reflecting the fact that although originally goods engines, these useful machines were widely used for passenger work in East Anglia, per the photo. BR used the LMS formula for calculating power class - tractive effort at 50 mph for passenger, at 25 mph for freight - with an empirical curve for de-rating effective pressure as a function of piston speed. But I rather doubt that much East Anglian branch line passenger work saw speeds much above 25 mph, so the 1P classification was probably rather redundant!

Edited by Compound2632
improved syntax
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5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

But I rather doubt that much East Anglian branch line passenger work saw speeds much above 25 mph, so the 1P classification was probably rather redundant!

Yes exactly that.  Most branchlines were laid with light weights of rail which is why some GER classes such as the T26 2-4-0's lasted as long as they did.  20-25mph is the maximum speed limit on my layout's branchlines, - though  I wish I had a Bullhead track model that used a lighter weight rail.

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14 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

 

Isn't that the same, a GER Y14 & an LNER J15? 

Am I not correct in saying that the letter indicated the wheel arrangement?  'Y' = 0-4-0, 'J' = 0-6-0, 'D' = 4-4-0, 'K' =2-6-0, 'B' = 4-6-0, 'A' = 4-6-2, 'P' = 2-8-2 and 'W' = 4-6-4.  BR kept these descriptions for ex-LNER locos, at least that's how they are described in my Ian Allan ABC Combined Volume for winter 1960/1 (with the exception of the last two, which were gone by then.).

 

Jim

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30 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Am I not correct in saying that the letter indicated the wheel arrangement?  'Y' = 0-4-0, 'J' = 0-6-0, 'D' = 4-4-0, 'K' =2-6-0, 'B' = 4-6-0, 'A' = 4-6-2, 'P' = 2-8-2 and 'W' = 4-6-4.  BR kept these descriptions for ex-LNER locos, at least that's how they are described in my Ian Allan ABC Combined Volume for winter 1960/1 (with the exception of the last two, which were gone by then.).

 

Jim

That's the LNER system Jim, the GER class designations were completely different and not based on wheel arrangement.  'Y14' is the GER class designation, 'J15' is the LNER designation which I don't much care for.

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The system the GER used for class designations was introduced by Adams, I think, as it was also used by the LSWR. Each build taken on by the Works was given a number to charge the work to, and jobs could include abatch of replacement boilers, tenders, or things like cranes. The number had a letter and numbers in sequence, so there was no real obvious linkage between classes as built when given this number.

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1 hour ago, Annie said:

That's the LNER system Jim, the GER class designations were completely different and not based on wheel arrangement.  'Y14' is the GER class designation, 'J15' is the LNER designation which I don't much care for.

 

The LNER system was based on the GNR system; I'm not sure if this originated with Ivatt or Gresley. The really confusing thing is that the class designations were changed, so Ivatt's Class J21 0-6-0s became LNER Class J1, and all GNR atlantics were C1 until the LNER reclassified the large-boilered ones C1 and the Klondykes C2.

 

4 minutes ago, Northroader said:

The system the GER used for class designations was introduced by Adams, I think, as it was also used by the LSWR. Each build taken on by the Works was given a number to charge the work to, and jobs could include abatch of replacement boilers, tenders, or things like cranes. The number had a letter and numbers in sequence, so there was no real obvious linkage between classes as built when given this number.

 

I think that must be right as the system was not used at Nine Elms before the first batch of Jubilee 0-4-2s, A12, all Adams' earlier LSWR engines having been built by Beyer, Peacock or Neilsons, and taking a class designation from the number of the first class member. Similarly, Drummond's 700 Class 0-6-0s buck the system, being built by Dübs. The T9s are a curious case: 31 were built by Dübs so have no order designation but the first of the class were G9 and K9 of 1899, followed by O9 and T9 in 1900, and X9 and G10 in 1901. 

 

So if you really want to put the wind up a Southern / BR(S) modeller, learn the construction table; then you can look at their Hornby model and say "that's a nice G10 you've got there" (or whatever).

 

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38 minutes ago, Northroader said:

The system the GER used for class designations was introduced by Adams, I think, as it was also used by the LSWR. Each build taken on by the Works was given a number to charge the work to, and jobs could include abatch of replacement boilers, tenders, or things like cranes. The number had a letter and numbers in sequence, so there was no real obvious linkage between classes as built when given this number.

Yes I should have mentioned that, but I was sleepy and fog brained didn't feel like writing much.

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21 hours ago, Annie said:

As a GER enthusiast Jake 'Y14' is the correct designation.  As to what the the Late and Never Early Railway may or may not have called these fine locomotives I could not care less.  As for BR, - please don't use bad language in my forum thread. 

 

I can understand that, but I think it's just a matter of taste. As much as I like the GER & most of the other pre-1923 railway companies, i.m.h.o. the peak of steam was reached in the 30ies with Gresley's & Stanier's magnificent pacifics. :sungum:

 

I remember this thread was renamed from 'Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping Layouts & Workbench'  to 'Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench' some time ago, & you didn't reject it, did you?

Also, you refurbished the Precursor Tank & the Coal Tank in both LNWR & LMS livery; the latter is seen here on my most recent project, a still nameless small 00 model railway layout set in the 30ies, based on an American N scale trackplan I found on the net.

 

1293750674_capture20211121_042234.jpg.57825b6a34561231b35b7bde8c40feac.jpg

 

2051447389_capture20211121_042054.jpg.c2a5eeab2c5cef638321a26b22e1a30c.jpg

 

 & then there were contributions by you like this one...

 

On 11/08/2019 at 18:22, Annie said:

Ex-Caley 812 at Donabate.  It's a thoroughly nice digital model, but slightly implausible working on the LMR in the border country.  I have a pair of ex-L&Y Class 28's as well and it's because one was known to have strayed into Scotland that I took the liberty of running those on Middle Vale as well.  What I really wanted was a Fowler 3F, but the sole example available for Trainz is a really old digital model that's in a word terrible.  So my three slightly implausible 0-6-0's are standing in for the day when somebody makes  proper Fowler 3F, but in the meantime they do good work doing the many tasks a good 0-6-0 tender engine was made for.

 

EZZiee4.jpg

 

The internet forgets nothing... :D

 

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Nice layout Jake, - looks good.

 

Yes I freely admit that I do have a couple of BR layouts, but over the question of the 'Y14' I was just being a bit grumpy and perverse.  It's a bone of contention that the GER Society permits the publication and discussion of anything railway-like in GER territory right up to the present day and no doubt beyond and into the year 3025.  There's little enough researched and known about the some aspects of the GER without non GER material clogging things up.  It's my own small act of rebellion to only refer to GER engine classes by their GER designations and not what that lot up North decided to call them after the grouping in 1924.

 

It was by special request that I did all the livery variants of the LNWR Precursor and Coal tanks where it was possible to do so.  I'm pleased with how they turned out considering that the original digital models were a right mess.  I don't have a great deal of interest in the Big Four era, but I do in the early BR era.  This might be because some of the railway picture books I had as a child contained pictures of locomotives in the early BR liveries.  Back when I was small New Zealand was still very much a little Britain in many ways and nearly everything that was imported in the way of toys and children's books came from the Uk.  I know there was a lot wrong with NZ society back then including paternalistic racism and some fairly cr@p attitudes towards women, but I can't help feeling that those years up until I was 12 years old were the best of times.

 

2 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

I remember this thread was renamed from 'Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping Layouts & Workbench'  to 'Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench' some time ago, & you didn't reject it, did you?

No I certainly haven't rejected that change of title.  My 'Lickey Bank' layout has both BR (LMR) and LMS variants;  'Middle Vale' is early BR (LMR) era;  'Ashington' is 1955-1958 BR Western Region; My WIP 'Penzance to Camborne  and Branches' is mid 1950s BR Western Region.  However despite that my main focus is still the GER pre-WW1 and Broad Gauge GWR (and constituent companies).

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