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

[Annie]

Something a little different.  This is a layout named 'Ashington' which was built as a GWR branchline in BR days with a junction station on a double track mainline that runs between portals.  Fair enough, but then he converted the branch to 3ft gauge leaving the GWR infrastructure in place which is just a bit odd.

 

It's a nice looking layout though with a nicely modelled landscape so it set me thinking.  I will of course be taking it back in time to pre-war days and have already been doing a little work on that, but since I have an interest in 3ft gauge lines the NG tracks will be staying and I'll be doing my best to make the line more plausible by removing all the mainline GWR buildings and trying to give it its own identity. 

 

The GWR mainline can stay  and I'll need to do something about interchange sidings with the NG line.  A present there's some dual gauge track which I have severe doubts about since I don't think that was the kind of thing that was done with NG lines or if it was it would have been fairly rare.

The besmirching of the Broad Gauge with dual gauge trackwork being an entirely  different kettle of fish of course.

 

Anyway some snaps.  The Beyer Peacock  2-6-4T is of a type that was built for Malta and it runs very nicely despite being an older Trainz model.  The coaches are from the Tralee & Dingle and are models by Steve Flanders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the stations.  All a bit too grand for a 13 mile long 3ft gauge line.

 

[Schooner]

Gah, since when was Ignore Topic a thing?!

 

Just returned to the fold, and had the real pleasure of catching up with the goings on here. To you digital modelers all: excellent stuff all round! Thanks for the smiles and the inspiration. It's good to be back, looking forward to normal service resuming 

[Jake The Rat]

This thread is too good to stay away, so you had to come back schooner or later. 

(I guess, I'll get an earful from the Department of Bad Jokes again. )

[Annie]

This is only a representational model that's full of errors, but it will help to set the scene on 'Lynborough'.  I finally got around to finishing off this goods wagon properly and it will eventually find its way to the DLS in company with a few other number variations.

 

 

Work on 'Lynborough' continues not helped in the slightest by me falling asleep more often than usual.  Yes I know that's a yellow distant, but since I'm planning to upload this layout to the DLS I have to use Trainz assets that are available on the DLS and not my own red distant reskins.  The maker of these M&H slotted post signals recently uploaded some further very useful M&H signal types to the DLS and he has assured me that he is going to make red distant versions once he gets a spare moment.  He knows that I'm a keen user of his signals and that my focus is the pre-grouping era so hopefully I won't have to wait too long.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Annie
more to say

[Compound2632]

On 26/07/2020 at 02:36, Annie said:

One of the stations.  All a bit too grand for a 13 mile long 3ft gauge line.

 

 

But that's exactly how all those 3 ft gauge Irish lines set about going bankrupt...

 

... and some of them were rather more than 13 miles, including Ireland's Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway, the County Donegal. The ratio of the County Donegal's mileage to that of the English Midland & Great Northern was just about the same as the ratio of their track gauges!

 

 

40 minutes ago, Annie said:

This is only a representational model that's full of errors, but it will help to set the scene on 'Lynborough'.  I finally got around to finishing off this goods wagon properly and it will eventually find its way to the DLS in company with a few other number variations.

 

 

 

 

Nice representation but try applying those brakes?

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Nice representation but try applying those brakes?

It's a really old mesh with the brakes and everything included Stephen so I couldn't change them for something better.  That's why I ended up deciding to commission some properly accurate GWR wagons from the same chap who made my B&ER 4-4-0ST.  Messing around reskinning old meshes with no sign of anything better being created simply ended up with me being constantly frustrated by what I have to work with.

 

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

But that's exactly how all those 3 ft gauge Irish lines set about going bankrupt...

 

... and some of them were rather more than 13 miles, including Ireland's Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway, the County Donegal. The ratio of the County Donegal's mileage to that of the English Midland & Great Northern was just about the same as the ratio of their track gauges!

True enough.

 

Steve Flanders has models of Irish stations on his website so I was considering using some of those.  At the moment I have a GWR branchline where the track gauge has suddenly been reduced to 3ft and it just does not look right.

13 scale miles is plenty for a Trainz branchline otherwise it gets very tedious trying to operate it.  At least the landscape is interesting so it makes driving an engine an enjoyable experience.  On the Trainz forum I hear about American diesel era lines over a 150 scale Trainz miles in length and the most common criticism is that they are boring.  Why am I not surprised.

[Annie]

Broad Gauge cheer up picture taken at Stoke Canon.

 

 

I'm struggling a lot with sleepiness at the moment with not being able to stay awake much past four hours so any kind of progress on anything is limited.  I've been hunting around for Broad Gauge drawings with the aim of commissioning digital models for Trainz since the last Broad Gauge models for Trainz were made a good while ago now back in TS2004 days and they are definitely showing their age.  They tend to be for the early era as well which is fine, but my interest lies in the 1880s period and apart from Steve Flanders's magnificent clerestory coaches and a single 'Rover' model there's nothing available.

I have found some drawings for South Devon Railway 6 wheel coaches which are nice to have, but since the GWR declared SDR coaches to be substandard when they took over and quickly converted them all into various types of vans the drawings aren't a lot of use.

[Northroader]

There’s some SDR coaches appear in the “Swindon Dump” picture, they ended up on branch line services.

[Annie]

Well that opens up some possibilities Mr Northroader.  I have some other goods rolling stock that I want to get commissioned after the ones that are being done now so after that I'll see if I can get a quote on the SDR coaches. 

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Broad Gauge cheer up picture taken at Stoke Canon.

 

 

 

 

Nicely manicured railway property both moving and static!

 

[Annie]

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Nicely manicured railway property both moving and static!

 

That's why digital layout builders who claim to be modelling the pre-grouping era and subscribe to the view that the area inside the railway boundary was a strangely fertile zone really annoy me.  Same goes for those who heavily weather pre-WW1 era engines.  If they want either of those things why don't they go bother the BR error era.

[Annie]

First progress render of one of the wagons I commissioned.  In terms of what it's costing me it works out to be the same as a decent quality RTR wagon for each digital wagon in terms of price.  The advantage being of course that once I have a digital wagon model I can place dozens of them on a layout without it costing me anything more than the initial price.

 

[Annie]

Progress renders of the three wagons I commissioned.

 

 

 

[Annie]

I got fed up with layout building so I played trains on my GER alternative Norfolk layout; - something I haven't done for ages.  I had a lot of fun too.  I'm going to have to make sure I do this more often.

 

I took a lot of snaps, but most of them were horrible.  These two were alright though.

 

Morning passenger train arrives at Elgar Wood on the Hopewood Tramway.

 

Mineral train passing through Morrow station on the E&GR's Grimwold branch.

[Annie]

This is a brilliant video.  It's my thread so I'll post it even if it doesn't have anything to do with digital railways.  I model country railways so I'm calling it research.  The title isn't very informative since the video and the following videos in the series are about rural country life and a project where the three members of the project live as Victorian farmers for a year.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by Annie
More information

[Schooner]

Other periods are available etc etc 

[Annie]

For some reason the Victorian Farm episodes are a bit scattered and aren't in a playlist which makes them individually hard to find so this is a link to all six episodes.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ_C3Ja4awg

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Hroth]

They also did a series on the social history of the Victorian railway called "Full Steam Ahead".

 

Its on Utoob - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=full+steam+ahead

 

 

There's an Open University tie-in too.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/tv-radio-events/tv/full-steam-ahead

 

 

 

Edited August 4, 2020 by Hroth
Added link for series

[Annie]

Thank you for the links Mr Hroth I shall certainly have a look at those.

 

More progress with the wagons I commissioned.  The tarpaulin is a placeholder until I can find out what a 19th century GWR wagon sheet looked like.

 

[Compound2632]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Thank you for the links Mr Hroth I shall certainly have a look at those.

 

More progress with the wagons I commissioned.  The tarpaulin is a placeholder until I can find out what a 19th century GWR wagon sheet looked like.

 

 

Looking good but I would say that wouldn't I? Nice brakes - since I posted my sketches I've been adding those, I seem to be in good agreement with your designer except on one point - the crossrod doesn't go all the way across, V hanger and brake lever on the brake side only. I think it is probably supported by a vertical piece behind the tumbler as on the later iron framed wagons but I haven't worked out how far back or to which underframe member it is attached. Unfortunately on the best side-on photos in the Saltney book, the official photographer has been over-zealous in blanking out the background, taking this detail with it...

 

One other thing I noticed on the 4-plank wagon when I revisited my sketch. There are bolt heads on the solebar about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way along - these need to be a bit more prominent since they are rather chunky with their own washers - they're the ends of the iron cross-bars that run parallel to the middle bearers and help hold everything together. On the 4-plank wagon they are not in the same place as on the 1- and 2-plank wagons but a bit further from the centre - directly underneath the bolts at the end of the diagonal strapping:

 

Lettering: the final, mid-90s - 1904 style for the 2-plank wagons seems to have been to have all the lettering on the bottom plank:

     To Carry 8 Tons                                 Tare 4_10_0

        12345                           G . W . R

and I think the 1 plank wagons were similar. For earlier styles, see the 1890s Cinderford photos here:

I believe the 4-plank wagons were for loco coal and may have had the word Loco in script on the third plank up, to the left of the door.

 

The Saltney book will make all a little bit clearer when you get it!

Edited August 4, 2020 by Compound2632

[Annie]

29 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

The Saltney book will make all a little bit clearer when you get it!

I hope so. It's supposed to arrive about mid-August.

 

I have to admit I find the whole question of how red era GWR wagons were lettered and when somewhat confusing Stephen.  At least one of the Cinderford wagons seems to follow how I asked the model designer to letter the wagons, but as a sample of early lettering styles the Cinderford wagons are all over the place.  I haven't any plans to have the wagons done in the mid-90s style since my intention was to have standard gauge wagons made that could be used in my attempts to represent the Broad Gauge era.

I'm going to ask for a Lot 167 covered van and a Lot 355 outside framed brake van to be made next, - and after that it will be Broad Gauge wagons and vans.  That's if I haven't bankrupted myself by buying reference books before then.

 

37 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I believe the 4-plank wagons were for loco coal and may have had the word Loco in script on the third plank up, to the left of the door.

I shall pass that on and ask for a four plank wagon to be lettered like that.  At least I will have covered myself by having one with and one without.

 

41 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Looking good but I would say that wouldn't I? Nice brakes - since I posted my sketches I've been adding those, I seem to be in good agreement with your designer except on one point - the crossrod doesn't go all the way across, V hanger and brake lever on the brake side only. I think it is probably supported by a vertical piece behind the tumbler as on the later iron framed wagons but I haven't worked out how far back or to which underframe member it is attached. Unfortunately on the best side-on photos in the Saltney book, the official photographer has been over-zealous in blanking out the background, taking this detail with it...

I'll pass this information on as well.  The Lot 167 van drawing I have isn't exactly brimming with detail on how the crossrod was supported either and what the support was attached to.

 

 

This picture of a SG tilt wagon borrowed from elsewhere on RMweb shows the inner support almost lost in the shadows so I'm going to assume it must be the same.  

As always Stephen I'm grateful for your helpful comments and advice.

 

[Compound2632]

I've just ordered some GW grease axlebox/spring units and ribbed buffers from Dart Castings/MJT so we'll be able to compare and contrast virtual and real models!

[Annie]

That should be interesting Stephen.  Hopefully the final results are somewhere close to being identical.

[Annie]

On 04/08/2020 at 19:38, Hroth said:

They also did a series on the social history of the Victorian railway called "Full Steam Ahead".

 

Its on Utoob - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=full+steam+ahead

What a wonderful series.  Definitely well worth watching.  Social history aspects of the railways were covered that I hadn't considered before which very much helped to round out my understanding of Britain's railways.

[Annie]

Back working on my 1880 Cornwall layout again.

The tunnels on the Falmouth branch were double track tunnels built to a proper size to Broad Gauge standards since it was intended that the branch be converted to a double track line at a later date.  Only this never happened and tunnels only ever had a single line of railway running through them.  When I downloaded the original layout it had single track tunnels intended for small insignificant standard gauge trains and they weren't even close to being something the Cornwall Railway would have built.  Before I gave up in frustration and took a break from the layout I must've tried several different tunnels and all of them looked just plain wrong.  So today I took a different approach and decided to assemble the first tunnel on the branch from individual components; - the tunnel portal, the tunnel lining and the track, - and finagle them into place with lots of frowning and holding my mouth right.  It took me a couple of hours with all the necessary adjusting and levelling, but now I feel I have something that looks plausible.