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

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

 

Not pictured was my 3-volume Midland section!

 

I realise I told a lie. I do have:

J. Clements, William Dean: the greatest of them all (Ian Allan, 2012).

B.L Jackson and M.J. Tattershall, The Bridport Branch (OPC, 1976).

The latter has some rather nice photos, including a couple showing timber being loaded in section during the Great War, with an interesting mix of GW opens, several Midland wagons (one each of D299, D305, D351), and one each LNWR, LSWR, GC, and GN - an interesting glimpse of the early effects of pooling.

 

Possibly of more relevance to the present company is the branch passenger train, twice seen as a set of Ratio 4-wheelers (apart from the third brakes): T34/U4/S9/T34 - brakes are T34 not T36 (per Shirescenes) as the duckets are next to the passenger compartments. One of these photos is dated to June 1900 and shows an ex-Monmouthshire Railway & Canal Co. outside-cylindered 4-4-0T No. 1305 that is said to be the only known photo of this locomotive - now there's a challenge for Annie!

 

This same photo shows a nice row of presumably wagons - three 4-plank, one 3-plank, and two 2-plank*, along with an iron mink and a dumb-buffered PO from the Somerset coalfield. The numbers of the 4-plank wagons aren't visible. The 2-plank wagons are No. 20176 of old series Lot 97 and No. 6683, which could be from one of several Lots that took various old numbers - both these have wood not iron frames. The V6 iron mink is No. 47036 of old series Lot 949. But it's the 3-plank wagon that is curious - the woodwork looks rather tatty but the lettering has been freshly repainted - it is clearly No. 51380. This is taxing my understanding of GW wagon numbering. The 4-plank wagons of old series Lot 635 were numbered 51251-51300, 52001-52150, leaving a run of 700 numbers otherwise unaccounted for that include this 3-plank wagon. The last build of 3-plank wagons was some time earlier, old series Lo 384, and the highest number block occupied was old series Lot 333, numbered 41006-41105; later lots are listed as having "various" numbers in my notes taken from Atkins, which I've taken as being random lower numbers. 

 

Conclusion: I know more than is good for me about the Great Western, despite having hardly any literature on it.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Conclusion: I know more than is good for me about the Great Western, despite having hardly any literature on it.

 

And so it begins ....

 

[Compound2632]

10 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

And so it begins ....

 

 

Ha! If we're going to be dealing in paintings worthy of being reproduced as 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzles:

 

[corneliuslundie]

Could those numbers have ended up with absorbed wagons? I can check Cambrian, Taff Vale and Rhymney but not the others at the moment, though the late Harold Morgan spent a lot of time transcribing information from the GWR records and some time I have to type up his Taff Vale hand written records.

Beware the PO wagons disease. I have more than 25 books on the subject, though not Len Tavender's " Coal trade wagons". It is much safer modelling the NER!

Re the Monmouthsire Railway, if we all live long enough there should be a definitive history published. Hopefully next year but don't hold your breath.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Could those numbers have ended up with absorbed wagons?

 

Photo is dated June 1900 and no reason to suppose otherwise - all wagons in pre-1904 livery, &c.

[Annie]

With Broad Gauge wagons nobody seems to know anything about numbers except for stray lucky finds on old photos, but I decided a while ago not to worry too much about that.  I put numbers of a plausibly generic kind on my wagons because not having them numbered just looks odd to my mind.

[Edwardian]

41 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Photo is dated June 1900 and no reason to suppose otherwise - all wagons in pre-1904 livery, &c.

 

Whatever that was in 1900!

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

Him "Look Beatrice, it's a GWR broad gauge wonder!! Oh gosh I wish I was an engine driver!!!"

 

Her "Yes dear, very nice I'm sure. Now about my new outfit. You haven't told me that lavender suits me"  

 

Can't be Beatrice, we've had photos posted of her before, and she always wears black...

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ha! If we're going to be dealing in paintings worthy of being reproduced as 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzles:

 

 

Isn't 3000 pieces a bit coarse scale for the MRC?

[Annie]

51 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Whatever that was in 1900!

Careful James, the clouds of a storm of controversy are on the horizon.

 

For Huddleston I intend to have nearly every wagon in red and I'm going to stick to a general sense of vagueness when anybody asks me about the time period.  I just wish my two Dean Goods engines didn't have belpaire fireboxes because that does ruin the illusion slightly.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

11 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Can't be Beatrice, we've had photos posted of her before, and she always wears black...

 

That's was after he told her that lavender didn't suit her and she threw him under the train.   

[Annie]

Work in progress Blender screenshot of the B&ER 4-4-0ST I commissioned.  This makes me so happy and is a big cheer up on a morning when I wasn't feeling particularly well.

 

[corneliuslundie]

Apologies. Brain only half switched on. Mention of Grouping companies was a complete nonsense. I started out thinking originally about the possibility of the numbers being used for earlier standard gauge absorbed companies and then went off piste. They would not have lot or diagram numbers.

Jonathan

[Annie]

The Potteries Loop Line was/is an incredible magnum opus made for TS2012 by an incredibly dedicated group of Uk Trainz enthusiasts.  A sizeable number of buildings had to be created for this layout and not just for the railway infrastructure, but for large areas of Stoke on Trent itself.  They also created a centralised signalling control system for the layout as well as a large number of special traffic control devices especially for the Loop line.  Then there are all the custom made signals and so the list goes on.

To model this section of the old North Staffordshire Railway in LMS days completely to scale must've taken them ages and I find the thought quite mind boggling to tell the truth.  The PLL as it is known to Trainz folk is paywear so the only way to get it is to buy it.  And that is exactly what I did sometime ago.  However despite owning a seriously powerful computer I could never get it to run smoothly in TS2012 since TS2012's 32 bit digital engine must've been right at the outer limit of what it could cope with due to the size of PLL and the level of detailing that had gone into it.

 

The word on the Trainz forums was that installing PLL into TANE with its 64bit digital engine was the thing to do, BUT it was not straightforward to attempt such a conversion.  Many things would need to be modified and the magic incantations within config files would need to be edited.  Undaunted I set to work and after much work over several modelling sessions victory was mine.

 

 

So here we are with me in charge of an evening suburban service in the pouring rain.  With the weather having turned fiercely hot here, brace yourself for more snowy and wet weather pictures as I try to cheer myself up.  I hate our Summer 

 

 

 

 

 

[corneliuslundie]

There is also a route covering the same area in MSTS, a fairly recent one, so pretty good but possibly not up to that standard.

I see Annie has had a makeover herself as well. Much more pregrouping, methinks.

Jonathan

[Compound2632]

Brilliant stuff. Fully-lined carriages in the 30s - as it should be, even into the war years. Not something one sees often enough on real layouts, where the 1934 simplified livery seems to have appeared overnight on all carriages regardless of age.

[Annie]

26 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

There is also a route covering the same area in MSTS, a fairly recent one, so pretty good but possibly not up to that standard.

I see Annie has had a makeover herself as well. Much more pregrouping, methinks.

Jonathan

I've been using my old steampunk aviator girl avatar for almost as long as I've been on the internet.  Back then I was very much into Victorian Sci Fi, steampunk and alternative history colonial wargaming, but it's now been many years since I last played in a wargaming campaign, - or even a quick skirmish game for that matter; - so it was well time for a change.

PLL is a big layout Jonathon and with all the model detailing and scripts running in the background my dual Xeon quad core processor computer (Deeper Thought) is running at 50-60% across all eight processor cores; - so that should give you some idea of the level of complexity built into this layout.   

 

26 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Brilliant stuff. Fully-lined carriages in the 30s - as it should be, even into the war years. Not something one sees often enough on real layouts, where the 1934 simplified livery seems to have appeared overnight on all carriages regardless of age.

The LMS coaches were made especially for this layout covering a range of diagrams with fully lined and simple lined versions of each coach type AND weathered and clean variants as well.  There was one diagram type though that had a strange fault with a mesh piece being incorrectly named (or so I've been told) and while TS2012 wasn't bothered about it TANE took a hissy fit and marked it as faulty.  For the present time a Midland clerestory is acting as a stand in replacement until such time as I can figure out how to repair the problem.

And you are quite right, - more than a few model layouts are built around the mistaken idea that on the stroke of midnight on a certain day every one of several hundred or more coaches shed their old skin for a new one.

[Compound2632]

26 minutes ago, Annie said:

for the present time a Midland clerestory is acting as a stand in replacement

 

Prototypical substitution! This I would like to see...

[Annie]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Prototypical substitution! This I would like to see...

I shall see if I can find the rake of coaches that it's now a part off and take some snaps.

[Northroader]

“Day at the races” instead of “dashing aviatrix” oh well, I suppose. LMS at Stoke, fair enough, although a pregroup Knotty would be very tasty, and your job seems to capture some of the grime, which virtual doesn’t usually manage. Talking of that area, my sister and her husband lived there for his first appointment, at Heron Cross, about a half a mile downwind of Florence colliery. Back then everybody had a vegetable patch, and my dad gave them some cabbage seedlings to plant in a row, and grow on. They weren’t all that big, but the problem came when you cut them open, as between each layer of the leaves, there was a uniform coating of black grit, so you couldn’t eat them. 

[Annie]

Amazingly enough Mr Northroader I did take flying lessons at one time, but I proved to be a terrible pilot.  But I at least I have three hours of flight time to prove I wasn't boring when I was young.  Possibly 'a day at the races' isn't quite me, but I do like the outfit she's wearing; - a touch understated, but very elegant.

 

[RedGemAlchemist]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

I've been using my old steampunk aviator girl avatar for almost as long as I've been on the internet.  Back then I was very much into Victorian Sci Fi, steampunk and alternative history colonial wargaming, but it's now been many years since I last played in a wargaming campaign, - or even a quick skirmish game for that matter; - so it was well time for a change.

Nice. It suits you. 

[sem34090]

Before I looked closer, I thought it might have been a photograph of a younger Annie...

 

(Ducks for cover - I left the tin hat in the Medstead booking office...)

[sem34090]

In my defence I didn't notice the subtleties of the fashion, taking it initially to be a mid-late 20th century photograph.

[Northroader]

When you’re in a hole, Sem, stop digging.