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

[Northroader]

Begging your parsnip, you’re right, of course, I’ve mixed my Bedwyns up. It’s Little Bedwyn, not Great Bedwyn.

[MikeOxon]

A nice photo, Northroader and it shows that, allowing some artistic licence, the painting wasn't so wrong after all

[Northroader]

Thanks, Mike, not  my photo, but lifted from a google, and I expect when Annie spots it I’ll get grief for using a diesel. Still it’s the season of goodwill to all, innit? 

I suppose about now it’s dawn of Christmas Day in New Zealand, and there’s the rustle of wrapping paper as Annie excitedly unwraps what Santa has left her.. Ah.. Bless!

Edited December 24, 2019 by Northroader

[Hroth]

It seems that the artist didn't do too bad a job after all, though there was a little bit of lateral compression that mangled some aspects of the image. 

 

I still think that by the 1920s the K&A was more or less moribund and in 1926 the owners (the GWR!) moved to have it closed completely but were refused and were required to improve maintenance, even though the financial losses of the canal were plummeting rising year on year. 

 

At  the period illustrated, the canal certainly wouldn't have looked so manicured, especially around infrastructure.   For comparison, I know what BWB maintained cruiseways (which were the best maintained parts of the system) looked like in the late 1970s and some of them were barely usable.  The lock in the painting looks more like a BWB show lock, tarted up for a special occasion, the one in the photo looks more like I would expect an average working BWB lock to look like!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2019 by Hroth
I KNOW what I meant...

[Annie]

It's Christmas Mr Northroader so I am willing to forgive you.  The photo does show that the artist didn't get too carried away with flights of fancy though.

Yes it's Christmas here and I've just woken up from being somewhere off in the dreamworld for ages so I'm still feeling a little disorientated.  My biggest Christmas present is having my daughter back home after her stay in hospital and that she is very much on the mend and getting back to being her old self again after being ill.

 

So Merry Christmas to all my forum friends from down here in the colonies and may the New Year be a blessing to you.

[Compound2632]

20 hours ago, Annie said:

 nobody has mentioned the 100mph thing yet.

 

 

Humm. 

 

4 hours ago, Northroader said:

Begging your parsnip, you’re right, of course, I’ve mixed my Bedwyns up. It’s Little Bedwyn, not Great Bedwyn.

 

 

Well, the beech hedge seems to have grown up since the picture - which shows an alarming lack of fencing of the railway.

 

7 hours ago, Annie said:

My own abuse of the goodwill of the GWR.  A de Glehn compound in Cornwall hauling SG converted Broad Gauge coaches.  My excuse is that I was testing a new install of TS2019 and these were the only GWR models I could find.  

 

 

On the subject of fencing, I'm worrying about those substantial stone walls on the top of the embankment... Apart from any other considerations, the railway boundary would be just beyond the foot of the embankment.

 

Happy Christmas to all those for whom it is already Christmas Day, and to those for whom it will be, in due course.

[Annie]

42 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

On the subject of fencing, I'm worrying about those substantial stone walls on the top of the embankment... Apart from any other considerations, the railway boundary would be just beyond the foot of the embankment.

There's a lot of problems with that version of the Cornish Mainline (not mine).  It's a monster of a layout and I don't feel particular moved to start trying fixing them all.  I just use it to run my GWR engines up and down on when I feel like playing engine driver.  If I can make my own smaller 1880's version as prototypical plausible as my skills allow I'll be happy.

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Well, the beech hedge seems to have grown up since the picture - which shows an alarming lack of fencing of the railway.

 

In the painting, the canal was owned by the GWR so the boundary fence of the railway property might have been considered to be on the other side of the canal.  With Nationalisation, it ceased to be owned by British Railways and became part of a separate organisation under the BTC, which became known as the British Waterways Board (BWB) but little was done about the Kennet and Avon Canal and large parts of it dried up.

 

Restoration work on the K&A started in the mid-1960s and really took off in the 1980s so the beech hedge might have been trimmed to the height in the photo and away from the railway ever since the painting was made, but on the canal side would have  been a tangled thicket until BWB and the various bodies involved in the restoration of the canal restored the lock and its environs.

 

And finally

 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

 

Edited December 24, 2019 by Hroth

[Annie]

 

B&FER 'Sharpie' No.10 with a train of B&FER coaches (at last!) heading for Moxbury.  No.10 would have come off the joint line which actually follows the old B&FER formation as far as Foxhollow before continuing on to wherever it goes.   No.10 would have been following its old schedule though and run around at Foxhollow to return to Moxbury.

The layout boards for Foxhollow are in place on the layout, but I haven't done anything with them yet since I want to finish a good few other jobs on the layout before starting on Foxhollow.

[Annie]

Typical Kiwi Christmas here, - it's pouring down with rain.

 

'I'm dreaming of wet Christmas, - just like the ones we used to know.........'

[Annie]

I have been assured by a member of the creator group I belong too that this is completely genuine.  (Image reduced in size)

Edited December 25, 2019 by Annie
More information

[Hroth]

A beautiful Christmas Morning here, bright and sunny with the church bells ringing for the 10am service.

 

I suppose the Mk2 is for when its foggy and Santa has to use that self-illuminating reindeer?

 

[Annie]

Unfortunately our original historic church was demolished during the horror clearances of the 1970's when many of our wonderful old buildings here in New Zealand were disposed of by zealot modernists.  It's replacement was something hideous in brick of typical 1970's tasteless modernist design without a bell tower.  So for us no Christmas morning bells unfortunately.  

 

My only consolation is the knowledge that the roof on our 1970's horror of a church leaks like a sieve in heavy rain.

[Annie]

Work continues on the E&GR mainline to Eastlingwold.  I often adapt parts of other layouts to suit my own projects, but by the time I'm finished all that remains of the original layout is the landscape.  Landscape sculpting is something I really struggle with so you can see the reason why I do this.  Some parts of my GER & etc layout have been worked up from flat bare baseboards and while they did turn out alright in the end it was a not an easy task for me to do.

Most of the Eastlingwold section has been adapted from a layout made by worshippers of a certain blue engine that shall not be named.  While their landscape sculpting and town building in general is very good when it actually comes to making a railway based on prototypical practice they haven't a clue so I pretty much end up rebuilding  the entire line.

 

This is a perfect example of the dumb stuff I have to fix.  On the left is the original track formation, on the right is my realignment correction.  The original alignment was deleted right after I took this snap and it was only left in place while I was laying out and adjusting the new trackwork so I wouldn't end up with any trackwork moving out of position.

Down at driving from the cab level those 'S' bends were horribly tight and were real flange squealers at any speed.  There was absolutely no reason for the trackwork to be like that and no railway company would have ever built anything like that on a main line route.  I've smoothed out the original formation's cutting and blended it into the landscape.  A bit of further ground texture work and moving stray trees and cows and it all looked like it had never been such a mess.  The final bit was to lay in place the boundary fences and the job was done.

 

[Annie]

And for completeness this is the finished realignment.

 

[MikeOxon]

7 hours ago, Annie said:

I have been assured by a member of the creator group I belong too that this is completely genuine.  (Image reduced in size)

You'll be in trouble with the Ministry for posting RESTRICTED information!  Happy Christmas.

[Annie]

Well I guess the ex-service woman who posted the old manual cover in our creator group's forum will be getting into trouble as well then too Mike.  I think with the age of the thing it doesn't contain any secrets that will bring about the collapse of the British realm so I doubt that anyone will care very much.

[sem34090]

The Men in Malachite are watching with interest, Madam...

 

Never assume.

 

Don't trust anybody.

[corneliuslundie]

On a completely different topic, but on topic even if not Pre-Grouping, I have just been enjoying a drive, on Microsoft Train Simulator rather than Trainz, up the  Taieri Gorge from Wingatau to Middlemarch. If the rather old MSTS route is anything to go by I can understand why the tourist trains are so successful.

Jonathan

[Annie]

I think I managed to get that route working one time on MSTS and I agree it's fairly impressive Jonathon.  Nice scenery is something we have in abundance once you can get away from the awful sprawl of the cities.  I certainly know that living in the rural Waikato like I do.

[Hroth]

11 hours ago, sem34090 said:

The Men in Malachite are watching with interest,

 

Don't they ever sleep?

 

Of course, that explains their often erratic behaviour!

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

On 25/12/2019 at 00:57, Northroader said:

Begging your parsnip, you’re right, of course, I’ve mixed my Bedwyns up. It’s Little Bedwyn, not Great Bedwyn.

 

As Shakespeare so eloquently put it "I come not to Bedwyn but to praise her"

[Annie]

My Christmas present to myself.  A NER diagram 116 driving composite.  As is usual with my Christmas presents to myself I had it all pulled apart and re-painted the moment it was downloaded.  Livery is the E&GR's serviceable brown they sometimes use as an alternative to teak.  Teak would have been possible, but not with my brain going off-line all the time like it is at the moment.

I've used push-pull sets before with success on my early period BR layout and I wanted to give them a try on my GER & etc layout.  Trainz gets all confused when passenger coaches are propelled so I did the same trick as I did with my BR 'blood & custard' driving coaches and converted the ex-NER driving composite into a faux locomotive.  It won't be a very powerful locomotive, in fact it will be fairly weedy, but Trainz will treat it like a locomotive which means it will stop at interactive platforms with the other coaches in the train positioned correctly at the platform without them hanging off the end past the platform ramp.

One thing about this driving composite I'm none too sure about is that it's set up for only 24 passengers with the passengers spread out through the coach and one compartment completely empty.  I think the idea was it's supposed to replicate a passenger service on some quiet backwater branchline by having the coach half empty at maximum load.  Setting attachment points on seats for passengers and doing the scripting for it is a tricky business that I haven't dared to try as yet so I'm not game to modify it for more passengers.  As it stands the E&GR's 6 wheel coaches can carry more passengers than this driving composite so I guess I'll just have to use a 6 wheeler as an attached strengthening coach or else my new driving composite won't make it past the first station without it being full up despite looking half empty.

Screenshots seem to be coming out a bit indistinct in their details at the moment which is annoying.  I'll have to see if I can find out why.

 

 

Around the time that the B&FER was starting on the slide to financial ruin the other independent companies in my imaginary part of Norfolk worked out a plan whereby they would share resources with the ultimate goal of eventually amalgamating into one company.  When an approach was made to the B&FER board they clutched on to the proposed plan as if it was a life preserver cast to them when they were about to drown in a stormy sea.  The first and only step the newly formed affiliated companies made towards fulfilling their grand plan was to buy five second hand Terriers from the LBSCR and paint them black lined in red with polished brasswork.  Rather than numbers they were named after stations on each of the independent companies lines.

Then disaster.  Outraged creditors hauled the B&FER's directors off to the bankruptcy courts.  And.............. Dun Dun Dun....... The GER swooped in and purchased the B&FER.  And after the remaining independent companies had barely got over the shock they discovered that the GER now had very sizeable shareholdings in their companies too.

So no more engines were painted black with red lining and engines would be blue from now on.  Only after some of the formerly independent companies' engines were repainted in the E&GR's paint shop it was noticeable that the shade of blue was a bit lighter than proper GER blue.  The paint shop foreman swore he got the mix right and then to add to the confusion the old company crests had been applied to the newly painted engines as well.

The man the GER sent round to check progress said, 'Stop, no more.  We'll paint them at Stratford when they come in for overhaul,' but he did hold his head in his hands and moan a little before saying that though.

 

So the time period of my line represents those in between years before it became GER blue for all and most of the E&GR's truly ancient engines still painted in their original green livery went to Stratford works and never came back.

 

And after all those wild outpourings of my imagination here's a snap of the five Terriers.  When I asked if anybody could remember what their original LBSCR numbers were it seemed that nobody could so it's a bit of mystery.

 

Edited December 28, 2019 by Annie
fumble brain and an awful spelling error

[Northroader]

Stratford, dear lady. Nice little locos to have, though.

[Annie]

As I've often mentioned Mr Northroader I can't spell for toffee.  Thanks for the correction though and I shall edit my post.

As is usual the Terriers have been much fettled and run very nicely.  They are proving to be useful engines too and are handy for all manner of tasks on my layout.  I decided that black was a nice safe livery for them as well as looking very smart.  Painting them blue might have caused some forum members to become gripped by a fit of severe emotional outrage.