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

[Annie]

4 minutes ago, GWR57xx said:

Freudian slip? Or a spell checker with a sense of humour?

 

No it's me with the sense of humour  😎

Using 'error' instead of 'era' was a deliberate choice.

[MikeOxon]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

No it's me with the sense of humour  😎

Using 'error' instead of 'era' was a deliberate choice.

Perhaps we need a glossary of technical terms. Off-hand I recall ‘dismals’ and ‘coal cart gauge’ but I feel sure that there are many others 😃

[Annie]

9 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

Off-hand I recall ‘dismals’ and ‘coal cart gauge’ but I feel sure that there are many others 😃

Oh I'm sure that there will be more if I can set my mind to it.

 

Spent far too much time asleep today, but I thought I'd take a snap of of the new goods shed and goods yard at Rathtyen from the other direction.

I'm not sure what is going to happen with the gasworks just yet as some of the models made for London's Beckton gasworks are a wee bit on the gigantic side for Rathtyen town.  Nearly all the industrial buildings at Rathtyen are going to get changed for something better and since Steve Flanders has given me a concrete pipe factory kit I'd like to see if I can put that somewhere.  A fair bit more terraced housing and some proper streets need to be done as well, but that's not exactly hard to do, - it's just a little on the tedious side.

 

 

[Caley Jim]

11 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

Perhaps we need a glossary of technical terms. Off-hand I recall ‘dismals’ and ‘coal cart gauge’ but I feel sure that there are many others 😃

Diseasals for one! 😁 

 

Jim 

[Annie]

It's a good while ago now that I put together 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' as a kind of generic pre-grouping Scottish layout in TS2012.  At first it was no more than a test track, but little by little it got added to until it eventually became a  reasonable looking layout. Made up of 12 standard Trainz layout boards it had portal tracks at each end and three stations in between.  It eventually ended up on the Trainz DLS and people seemed to like it.

 

When I first took up with Trainz TRS22 I rebuilt 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' as an experiment to see what this new version of Trainz was like.  The layout was lengthened by a standard Trainz board at each end and hidden return loops and sidings were added in tandem to the portal tracks.  Bridges and a tunnel were rebuilt, various parts of the landscape were smoothed out and reshaped and each of the stations and their surroundings received additional scenic detailing and improvement.  The only problem was I wasn't happy with the way N3V was developing TRS22 with every 'update' patch causing problems, - and with many of the engines I was using on the layout being older models it was plain that they were vulnerable to having their scripting and animations broken.  

 

So I packed the layout away and archived all its dependencies and rolling stock in the hope that I might be able to resurrect it in one of the earlier versions of Trainz.  As it happened when TRS19 reached the end of active support the final update patch it received from N3V made it a close enough match to the TRS22 build version 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' was last saved under that I could successfully load it into TRS19.

Since I was feeling quite a bit better this morning I set about installing the first of the engines and rolling stock back onto the layout.  In TRS22 I'd put together a session in 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' for some of my collection of N.E.R. engines and rolling stock.  Possibly a slight stretch for a Scottish layout, but for quite some time they haven't had a layout to call their with my old installation of Trainz TS2012 having been archived away.  Later on I will do a session for my mid 19th century collection of NBR engines and rolling stock.

 

Part of the goods yard at Cairnrigg with the MPD in the background.

 

My pair of William Bouch designed ex-SDR 4-4-0's are a slight anachronism compared to my other N.E.R. engines, but they happened to be favourites of mine.  They are Trainz TS2006 era models and despite only having basic detailing they do resemble the prototype engines in a way that pleases me well enough.  After a little fettling on my part they run very nicely.   No.161 'Lowther'  has a tender fitted with double buffers for dealing with cauldron wagons.

 

 

The other N.E.R. engines on shed.  Class 'C' left front, Class 'P' right front, Class '124' left rear and Class '59' right rear.

 

 

[Annie]

Supplementary snaps:

 

 

[Annie]

This is the little engine I need to put back together again for use on the plateway at Rostyre.  I forgot to take a saved copy of it so I'll have to reassemble it again.

 

Only a two minute video.

 

 

[Schooner]

 

:)

Edited Sunday at 13:27 by Schooner
Moar pixels

[Annie]

3 minutes ago, Schooner said:

 

:)

Ooooooooooo!  Was that ancient Broad Gauge snap taken at Watchet?, - or am I getting myself horribly confused.

 

Looks like a B&ER 4-4-0 saddle tank, but with the turntable 'speed blur' any kind of detail is almost non existent.

[Schooner]

12 minutes ago, Annie said:

Was that ancient Broad Gauge snap taken at Watchet?, - or am I getting myself horribly confused.

Not dissimilar at all! It's that rather odd corner of Kingswear pre 'rationalisation'*. I had come across the gallery before, revisited in the hunt for jetty info, but had forgotten about this gem :)

 

*After which it was still an odd corner, just further away

[Annie]

24 minutes ago, Schooner said:

Not dissimilar at all! It's that rather odd corner of Kingswear pre 'rationalisation'*. I had come across the gallery before, revisited in the hunt for jetty info, but had forgotten about this gem :)

 

*After which it was still an odd corner, just further away

Now that is very strange because the NLS OS map from the 1887 survey published in 1890 shows not a jot of it and the railway was supposed to have been there from 1844.

 

 

[Schooner]

IIRC - and I may well not - the layout of Kingswear has changed significantly 4 times. As built (TT pic), followed by

 

followed by the 25" NLS map format, followed by as-is today. Still hunting for my sources though, sorry.

 

Images from https://broadgauge.co.uk/locations/ btw, but only through Google can I access the very high res versions, as posted above.

 

Other stations are available

even Watchet

I know I should be excited for the signal, but check out all that timber!

[Annie]

24 minutes ago, Schooner said:

I know I should be excited for the signal, but check out all that timber!

That photo of Watchet I know because I have the book published by Lightmore Press.  I don't know whether the logs were incoming or outgoing from Watchet, but every photo of the wharves certainly shows heaps of them.

 

The Newton Abbot photo is a favourite with that 'Hawthorne' Class engine front and centre.

 

But I still don't see how the OS maps for Kingswear show no railway at all until the 1904 OS maps were published.

[Edwardian]

On 12/04/2024 at 23:56, Annie said:

It's a good while ago now that I put together 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' as a kind of generic pre-grouping Scottish layout in TS2012.  At first it was no more than a test track, but little by little it got added to until it eventually became a  reasonable looking layout. Made up of 12 standard Trainz layout boards it had portal tracks at each end and three stations in between.  It eventually ended up on the Trainz DLS and people seemed to like it.

 

When I first took up with Trainz TRS22 I rebuilt 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' as an experiment to see what this new version of Trainz was like.  The layout was lengthened by a standard Trainz board at each end and hidden return loops and sidings were added in tandem to the portal tracks.  Bridges and a tunnel were rebuilt, various parts of the landscape were smoothed out and reshaped and each of the stations and their surroundings received additional scenic detailing and improvement.  The only problem was I wasn't happy with the way N3V was developing TRS22 with every 'update' patch causing problems, - and with many of the engines I was using on the layout being older models it was plain that they were vulnerable to having their scripting and animations broken.  

 

So I packed the layout away and archived all its dependencies and rolling stock in the hope that I might be able to resurrect it in one of the earlier versions of Trainz.  As it happened when TRS19 reached the end of active support the final update patch it received from N3V made it a close enough match to the TRS22 build version 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' was last saved under that I could successfully load it into TRS19.

Since I was feeling quite a bit better this morning I set about installing the first of the engines and rolling stock back onto the layout.  In TRS22 I'd put together a session in 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' for some of my collection of N.E.R. engines and rolling stock.  Possibly a slight stretch for a Scottish layout, but for quite some time they haven't had a layout to call their with my old installation of Trainz TS2012 having been archived away.  Later on I will do a session for my mid 19th century collection of NBR engines and rolling stock.

 

Part of the goods yard at Cairnrigg with the MPD in the background.

 

My pair of William Bouch designed ex-SDR 4-4-0's are a slight anachronism compared to my other N.E.R. engines, but they happened to be favourites of mine.  They are Trainz TS2006 era models and despite only having basic detailing they do resemble the prototype engines in a way that pleases me well enough.  After a little fettling on my part they run very nicely.   No.161 'Lowther'  has a tender fitted with double buffers for dealing with cauldron wagons.

 

 

The other N.E.R. engines on shed.  Class 'C' left front, Class 'P' right front, Class '124' left rear and Class '59' right rear.

 

 

 

The Bouch locos add to the Stainmore feel this layout has for me! 

 

I live very close to the Stainmore Gap before the move (and am still not very far away). The bleakness of the moor and pregnant gloom of the sky seem very familiar!

 

Now a Class 59 is not a thing often seen (or even mentioned!), so very good to see it in your line up.

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

The Bouch locos add to the Stainmore feel this layout has for me! 

 

I live very close to the Stainmore Gap before the move (and am still not very far away). The bleakness of the moor and pregnant gloom of the sky seem very familiar!

 

Now a Class 59 is not a thing often seen (or even mentioned!), so very good to see it in your line up.

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much James.  It pleases me no end when people who have actually lived near a particular location tell me that the layout I've built up has a correct look to it.  I was aiming for a bleak northern landscape under a gloomy sky and if I've managed to capture it makes me very happy.

 

I'm fond of my two Bouch 4-4-0s so there was no way that I was going to leave them out.  They were withdrawn in 1888, but I'm going to quietly ignore that.

 

Yes the poor old Class '59'.  Shunned by N.E.R. engine men and sent to the naughty chair of shame for not being as good as the engines they were supposed to replace.  Being a mixed traffic type with the Westinghouse brake and steam heating they found a niche with being useful at working secondary passenger services and that is the role my Class '59' fits into on the layout.

 

Thanks for the photo, - for all their faults they certainly were a handsome enough looking engine.

[Annie]

Ex-S&D No.161 'Lowther' having a run about on 'Cairnrigg to Balessie'.

 

 

 

 

[Schooner]

Midnight Broad Gauge Cheer-up portrait:

 

 

Silly resolution. Open in new tab and zoom to count the whiskers!

[Compound2632]

20 hours ago, Annie said:

Yes the poor old Class '59'.  Shunned by N.E.R. engine men and sent to the naughty chair of shame for not being as good as the engines they were supposed to replace.  Being a mixed traffic type with the Westinghouse brake and steam heating they found a niche with being useful at working secondary passenger services and that is the role my Class '59' fits into on the layout.

 

They were, after all, a version of the most ubiquitous and successful of Irish locomotives, the GS&WR Class 101.

[Compound2632]

7 hours ago, Schooner said:

Open in new tab and zoom to count the whiskers!

 

Does the Swindon builder's plate say "ANO 1873"? (It's well known that Swindon sometimes struggled with the spelling of names from classical mythology, so "ano" for "anno" is, I suppose, a possible error.)

Edited Tuesday at 06:22 by Compound2632

[Annie]

7 hours ago, Schooner said:

Midnight Broad Gauge Cheer-up portrait:

That is a superb image, - the detail captured by the photographer is amazing.  A Broad Gauge classic and one that is well worth seeing again.

[Annie]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

They were, after all, a version of the most ubiquitous and successful of Irish locomotives, the GS&WR Class 101.

Exactly that, - which always made me wonder what went wrong when the design was transferred to the N.E.R.

[Schooner]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Does the Swindon builder's plate say "ANO 1873"?

 

Don't think so - compare to the N of Western.

 

AUG(ust) 1873?

[Compound2632]

7 minutes ago, Schooner said:

AUG(ust) 1873?

 

Much more likely! Does that tie in with (a) standard Swindon practice of the time and (b) the history of this locomotive?