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


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Rebuilt E&GR Beyer Peacock single No.8, 

4o2tffm.jpg

 

Reaching the stage where all the lines I envisaged for my affiliated (imaginary) railway companies are now in place has brought about yet another major revision of engine allocations on my GER Norfolk layout.  Finally connecting in the line to Foxhollow has meant that the B&FER 'Sharpies' are now working exclusively over their old line whereas before they could be found working trains between Great Mulling (E&GR) and Moxbury or anywhere else a useful engine was needed. 

With the departure of the 'Sharpies' I now have three E&GR Beyer Peacock single driver engines working the passenger service between Great Mulling and Moxbury; - Nos. 3, 8 & 28.  Because I was a little profligate when I purchased my Beyer Peacock single driver engines I could potentially allocate a further three to the engine sheds at Great Mulling, but that might be overdoing it a little.

 

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With longer distances and heavier trains having displaced them from main line jobs the three 2-2-2T single driver tank engines, - Nos. 5, 7 & 8, - are now all allocated to the small sub shed at Great Marsh on the Windweather loop line.  Chasing the horizon across the fens on the loop line is what these engines do best, though they do stray a little on lighter local services in the surrounding district.  They do need regular water stops though, - which of course was their downfall over longer distances.  I set them up with an engine spec from a small shunting engine which amazingly enough works very well for them in terms of their performance, but the virtual boiler must be just about constantly glowing red hot going by the amount of coal and water they consume to keep them steaming.  Not having found anything better for them in the way of an engine spec that doesn't turn them into a super 'Race to the North' contender I've provided a number of water stops on the routes they work over and after a bit of experimentation and swearing I even managed to get them to stop and pick up water as a part of their regular work schedules.  So the single driver tanks aren't going to be put in the sales siding at Stratford just yet because they are still useful engines provided they are given the right jobs to do.

Edited by Annie
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33 minutes ago, Hroth said:

A terrific station roof!

I'm a bit concerned about the arches, they appear to have a pronounced list to port....

The are buttressed arches Mr Hroth.  They are actually a retaining wall model, but with a roof as wide as that one I thought it might be a good idea to make sure the supporting wall looked like it was up to the job.

 

37 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Majikthise and Vroomfondel, I suspect....

My son has my copy of, 'The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy; - a trilogy in five parts', so I can't fulfil my sudden desire to read it again.  Douglas Adams was a genius and he died far too soon. 

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11 minutes ago, Annie said:

The are buttressed arches Mr Hroth.  They are actually a retaining wall model, but with a roof as wide as that one I thought it might be a good idea to make sure the supporting wall looked like it was up to the job.

Given that the roof will be pushing the sides outwards, are the buttress on the correct side?

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46 minutes ago, Annie said:

Hi Anne, thanks for your sharing of your simulator modelling.

 

Is the train in the picture of 2-2-2 rebuilt E&GR Beyer Peacock single No.8, a realistic train for one of these small types of locos. ( Two posts above )

It seems a bit to big for me.

I have an 00 model of one of these and it can just about manage three small bogie coaches, 7 compartment types and that with a lot of slipping and spinning of the wheels. Very dramatic it needs a careful hand on the control knob.

In modelling a small loco like this does not have much room for ballast weight after even a small motor fills up the boiler.

Can your railway simulator allow for tractive effort of each type of loco?

RH

 

RH

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39 minutes ago, Annie said:

Douglas Adams was a genius and he died far too soon.

 

Yes, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Iain M Banks. 

 

Its terrible when favourite authors die with so much potential to explore.

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2 hours ago, relaxinghobby said:

Hi Anne, thanks for your sharing of your simulator modelling.

 

Is the train in the picture of 2-2-2 rebuilt E&GR Beyer Peacock single No.8, a realistic train for one of these small types of locos. ( Two posts above )

It seems a bit to big for me.

I have an 00 model of one of these and it can just about manage three small bogie coaches, 7 compartment types and that with a lot of slipping and spinning of the wheels. Very dramatic it needs a careful hand on the control knob.

In modelling a small loco like this does not have much room for ballast weight after even a small motor fills up the boiler.

Can your railway simulator allow for tractive effort of each type of loco?

RH

Unlike 00 models simulated digital models can be configured with the specifications of the prototype.  So my Beyer Peacock singles have the same actual weight of the prototype as well as the same boiler specs, cylinder size & etc.  I've been fairly fussy with the engine spec config file and have tracked down the prototype's specifications and suitably edited the config file to hopefully end up with something close to how the actual prototype would function.  So yes tractive effort can be individually adjusted for each locomotive type.  I'm no great expert at doing this and sometimes there are a lot of trials and a lot of errors, but I seem to get there in the end.

 

The coaches are all 6 wheelers and the train you see in the screenshot is about what I would normally couple up to my Beyer Peacocks.  Of the top of my head I can't remember the tonnage of the train, but it's somewhere around 100 tons.  And that is another thing about simulators, - coaches and wagons are set up with their own config files for weight, rolling resistance & etc so it is possible to be fairly accurate about what an engine can handle in the way of a load.  A loaded wagon is heavier than an unloaded one and combining that with accurate braking specs means that a loose coupled coal train can be a challenge on a hilly line.  Most of my 19th century engines aren't brilliant in the brakes department which is why I have all the brake vans on the layout setup with braking specs so they are essential and not just decorations at the end of a goods train.

 

I hope that I've managed to answer your questions, if not I'm happy to go into more detail.

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3 hours ago, Regularity said:

Given that the roof will be pushing the sides outwards, are the buttress on the correct side?

And you can tell I'm not a construction engineer because I didn't think of that.

 

It's simple enough to fix though and I'll do that next time I'm working on the layout.

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10 hours ago, Edwardian said:

And the Ship Sails On .....

 

Lovely scene.

 

Does a virtual brass band exist somewhere?

There's a not very good set of brass band figures from the earliest days of Trainz that I found and while they look terrible close up they look adequate at a distance.  I'm going to use those as placeholders until I find something better.

There was a rumour that a French content creator for Trainz was working on a set of brass band figures so I'll have to see if I can track those down.

10 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

There she goes, the Great Eastern, laden with cable to connect New Zealand to the 19th century www.

I know it's not very likely that the Great Eastern would have been seen off the coast of Norfolk, but it's a magnificent model and I like it so it occasionally sails by when I'm running trains on the layout.

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You could do with two figures in red so we know if we're coming or going.....

 

The ethereal appearance of the Great Eastern suggests that what we're seeing is the appearance of a Ghost Ship!  "An early example of breaking-up a structure by use of a wrecking ball, the Great Eastern was scrapped at New Ferry on the River Mersey by Henry Bath & Son Ltd in 1889–1890, it took 18 months to take her apart. At the time Everton Football Club were looking for a flagpole for their Anfield ground, and consequently purchased her top mast. It still stands there today at the ground—now owned by Liverpool Football Club, at the Kop end. In 2011, the Channel 4 programme Time Team found geophysical survey evidence to suggest that residual iron parts from the ship's keel and lower structure still reside in the foreshore."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern#Break_up

 

 

Edited by Hroth
Grate spelin mistakes...
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Since my layout is supposed to be circa 1910-1913 Great Eastern would indeed be a ghost ship by then.  The sailing track that I set up for the Great Eastern is at the edge of where the sea mist starts to thicken up when I've selected the appropriate 'cloudy' settings.  So the ship emerges from the mist just a little as it passes Hopewood on Sea and then gradually slips back into it as it sails past.  I don't mind the anachronism because it is my layout afterall and I've already bashed parts of Norfolk about severely so I might as well do some time distortion as well.

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

You could do with two figures in red so we know if we're coming or going.....

I'm having a stupid Annie morning this morning so could you explain that.  I have the feeling that I know about this somewhere inside my head, but my brain keeps telling me to go away when I ask it any questions.

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It's rare for one of the E&GR Hawthornes to be seen on the mainline since the mineral branches are their usual haunt.  The Hicks 0-6-0 shedded at Oakmarket that usually does this run needed attention this morning so the old Hawthorne was borrowed from the shed at Grimwold.

 

KlPBXPy.jpg

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6 hours ago, Annie said:

 

I'm having a stupid Annie morning this morning so could you explain that.  I have the feeling that I know about this somewhere inside my head, but my brain keeps telling me to go away when I ask it any questions.

 

 I suspect our Hroth of too much subtly here.  Might he be referring to red and green harbour lights ("red right return", IIRC)?

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6 hours ago, Annie said:

I'm having a stupid Annie morning this morning so could you explain that. 

 

Don't worry, MY brain was on a late-evening meander! 

 

Its just a bit of maritime lore concerning navigation lights, that if you can see green (Starboard/Righthand*) and red lights (Port/Lefthand*) ahead of you, then a vessel is approaching on a head-on collision course.  Green only means that the vessel will pass to your right, red only that it will pass to your left.  Masthead/steamer lights can also give clues to manoeuvering, but we won't go into that.  Theoretically a green on your right and a red on your left, would mean that the vessel ahead was moving away from you, but as they are baffled from astern, they wouldn't be visible, just a white stern light....

 

1690350982_NavLights.jpg.c5ce6c6d86d7e3a8df85fdf2391a81af.jpg

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

 

So if it was a nighttime scene, you would see the Great Easterns green starboard light as she passed in front of you!   Assuming that ghost ships carry lights...

 

10 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I suspect our Hroth of too much subtly here. 

 

Me, subtle???  :jester:

 

* In relation to someone on the vessel approaching.

 

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I read that the first cable to New Zealand was laid in 1876 from Sydney to Nelson, two purpose-built cable ships, the Hibernia and Edinburgh being employed - not the Great Eastern alas. She had been employed in the laying of six transatlantic cables between 1865 and 1874 and the Bombay - Aden cable of 1870.

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1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Don't worry, MY brain was on a late-evening meander! 

 

Its just a bit of maritime lore concerning navigation lights, that if you can see green (Starboard/Righthand*) and red lights (Port/Lefthand*) ahead of you, then a vessel is approaching on a head-on collision course.  Green only means that the vessel will pass to your right, red only that it will pass to your left.  Masthead/steamer lights can also give clues to manoeuvering, but we won't go into that.  Theoretically a green on your right and a red on your left, would mean that the vessel ahead was moving away from you, but as they are baffled from astern, they wouldn't be visible, just a white stern light....

 

1690350982_NavLights.jpg.c5ce6c6d86d7e3a8df85fdf2391a81af.jpg

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

 

So if it was a nighttime scene, you would see the Great Easterns green starboard light as she passed in front of you!   Assuming that ghost ships carry lights...

 

 

Me, subtle???  :jester:

 

* In relation to someone on the vessel approaching.

 

Great Eastern was in motion sailing from the viewer's left to the viewer's right when I took that snap.  Soooo that means she should have been showing a green starboard light.  If I could find suitable lamps it wouldn't be too terribly difficult to attach them, but something tells me that GER brake van lamps might not be suitable on this occasion.

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

I read that the first cable to New Zealand was laid in 1876 from Sydney to Nelson, two purpose-built cable ships, the Hibernia and Edinburgh being employed - not the Great Eastern alas. She had been employed in the laying of six transatlantic cables between 1865 and 1874 and the Bombay - Aden cable of 1870.

Not quite the work for her that Brunel intended, but Great Eastern did prove to be an excellent marine cable laying ship.  Built at the wrong time for a world that wasn't ready for her yet her final fate was very sad and undeserved.

Edited by Annie
can't spell for toffee
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By the time period for my layout the old MS&LR liveries would have been a complete anachronism, but I don't care.  While coaches in the later dark teak livery do exist they aren't all that good and while I have 9F's in the later unlined black GCR livery I don't care for them much in that livery.

 

Ycdaq4z.jpg

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I do like a bit of MS&LR. Sacre, Parker, and Pollitt produced some interesting locomotives with some advanced features for their time - the first to adopt the Belpaire boiler for locomotives running in Britain - borrowed from Beyer, Peacock & Co. over the wall at Gorton - and also quite early with piston valves. Robinson shouldn't hog all the glory, you know.

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If I was a wealthy woman I'd commission several Sacre engines for Trainz because they really are beautiful engines in my opinion.  I have 4 Sacre E8 2-4-0T's in late condition on the layout which is better than nothing I suppose.

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9F and train at Little Keldon right at the southern end of the layout.  The '2' on the station building is to remind me that it's platform 2 when I'm setting up passenger train schedules because I always forget and think it's platform 1 which causes absolute mayhem.

sKmivfA.jpg

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(A lazy cut and paste re-post from the Trainz forums.)

 

Driving my mid 19th century engines using the steam controls on the TS2004 Turks Castle Minehead route is always a good cheer up for me. This is my standard gauge version with minimal upgrading to run in the Classic tinware version of TS2019 SP1. I did try out procedural track on this layout, but it looked like some bad plastic trainset track from the 1980s so I went for scruffy old legacy UK Bullhead track instead which does actually look like proper steam era track.

The big (for its time) SER Crampton is superb to drive on this route and for a legacy model dating from TS2006 it does look very nice in SP1. I actually own clean versions of this engines as well, but this mucky one is my favourite. Excellent to drive using the steam controls and of course with this being the 1860's no continuous brakes so no cheating with using the train brake control.

I see the Crampton's young driver has his strange girlfriend from the future on the footplate again in defiance of company regulations, but she can shovel coal really well by all accounts so the running shed foreman turns a blind eye.

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Edited by Annie
can't spell for toffee
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