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

[Annie]

Now that does look much better Sem.  I know dynamic lighting is resource hungry, but it's worth it because these new screenshots are much better in appearance than your old ones.

[sem34090]

I'd never thought to try it on my desktop, but I'm still getting decent enough framerates with it on.

[Annie]

More work has been done along the Whistletop branch including laying down miles and miles of hedges in the surrounding countryside.  I like my hedge model, - but I'm sick of sight of the thing now!

 

 

 

 

Tiptiddle has been much rebuilt.  There were old Trainz simulator interactive industries here which no longer have the game resources to work anymore so all that was cleared away and a small goods yard installed along with a wooden light railway style goods shed.and a cattle dock.

 

Cottages still need blending in.

 

 

 

 

A very light railway-like engine shed.

 

 

 

And ready for the return journey.  The locomotive is named 'Roxane', - which may or may not have been an genuine S&DR locomotive name, - and 'she' is now the engine officially assigned to the Whistletop branch.

 

 

More snaps to come once I've sorted and processed them.

[sem34090]

As I commented in the stream earlier - loving Whistletop!

 

Actually, about the streams, if anyone is interested I can be found on steam (same username!) and normally stream my train simming activities to anyone from RMweb who fancies a look, the people shown so far being Mr R. G. Alchemist, Linny and Annie. Tonight saw me show Annie a bit of my pre-grouping route, mucking around with a Thompson B1 and a J15 in County Durham (Starting from Bishop Auckland and heading over the -very steep- hills to Barnard Castle) before a brief saunter around a fictional bit of Scotland with a CR 812. Unfortunately neither of us had sound (me due to not having speakers currently and the game messed up too, so Annie had none) but it was still at least mildly enjoyable and interesting. It's also interesting trying to match up New Zealand time with BST...

[Annie]

If at all possible Sem it would be nice to have a run on your pre-grouping route as a video on Youtube because it really is a lovely route and I'm sure a lot of folk would love to see it.

[sem34090]

There are a couple of juddery videos on vimeo, but I'll have another go at some stage.

[Annie]

 

Only small things happening along the Whistletop branch at the moment as I seem to have lost a day somewhere due to being sleepy.  Most of my pre-group rolling stock is aimed towards the GER and GCR for Valleyfields which made running goods trains on the HUGE UK layout, - which is primarily NER, - a difficult proposition.  Apart from some NER cattle vans, a coke wagon and a 20 ton coal hopper wagon there was nothing identiably Nor'eastern.  By spending all this week's pocket money I've purchased some proper NER goods wagons from Paulz Trainz for general traffic on the layout as well as a couple of mid-19th century wagons primarily for use on the Whistletop branch.  Pictures will happen later once I've sorted out the new files and placed the wagons on the layout.

 

A guard's eye view of the interior of one of the tramway coaches.  As I mentioned these are Darlington Work's freeware coaches for 'Thomas' layouts, but I also have their payware 'proper' GER and LNER versions.  There's little to pick between them and the main difference is that the 'proper' coaches have very dark interiors because being older models they aren't passenger enabled and they have either GER or LNER lettering or numbers.. 

 

 

Heading back on the return journey from Bellingham.  I included this snap because the distant view of Hipton township has now changed and after a marathon effort it does look much more like a town of the era should.  Not too many problems with finding Edwardian and Georgian houses, but the shops are going to need some texture work from me, as while they are certainly period buildings in many cases the shops themselves are modern.  The worst offenders are hidden from close inspection, but I really do need to sort this as modern shops are of no use to me at all.  One otherwise nice shop building even had a McDonalds for heaven's sake!

 

 

So more to do yet on this little twiglet of a branchline, but it is getting there.  Further plans are to place more rural houses in village like formations so that all those wonderful acres of fields surrounding the branch do actually have people available to work in them and harvest the crops & etc.

 

Edited June 13, 2018 by Annie

[sem34090]

Very nice!

 

Following a discussion with Annie last night, I've now managed to get some working road vehicles into TS:

They are fully driveable, but as of yet have no sounds and they are very basic. Fun though! Top speed of around 25mph for all of them, so I need to up that for some of the more modern vehicles I've done. I've so far got some vehicles for the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s and 1950s.

[Caley Jim]

Should that not have flanged wheels if it's to run on rails? :-)

 

Jim

Edited June 14, 2018 by Caley Jim

[sem34090]

That is my reskin test route, so it just has standard track. There is a special invisible track for this to go on...

[sem34090]

This scene is what caused me to think about driveable vehicles:

Edited June 14, 2018 by sem34090

[Annie]

All is not well.  My new Xeon computer 'Deep Thought' has died.  According to the HP manual the beep code means the video control system on the motherboard has failed and neither the on-board video or the Quadro video card are working.  I've sent an email off to the vendor, but any fix if one is available is going to take a while.  Not a happy camper at all at the moment.  

[sem34090]

Bloody hell...

[sem34090]

Does this mean you can't access steam?

 

That'd be a bummer.

[Annie]

I don't have Steam on my XP X64 computer Sem, - which is what I'm using at the moment.  Because of it's limited CPU capacity I've kept the software I run to a minimum, - and especially programs which run in the background like Steam does.

 

Yes it's a nuisance and having got used to the performance of the Xeon it's a bit of a stepdown to be back on an ageing dual-core machine again.

[sem34090]

And I wanted to show off some vehicles....

 

Ah well, these things happen on occasion.

[Annie]

Never mind they'll keep Sem.  If I can't get this computer fixed I'll get another one (even though it will strain the budget shockingly) as after having a quad core computer to run Trainz with I don't think I'll be able to put up with my old computer for too long.

[Annie]

I did some running around on Valleyfields with my GCR 9N (A5) Pacific tank engine which normally doesn't see much running as it's in LNER livery.  It's a Darlington Works engine and I got it in a 1930's ex-GCR bundle that they were offering at $15 for five engines which I thought was very reasonable  There were a pair of class 11F (D11) 'Improved Directors' in the bundle as well so you'll most probably see them at some stage too.  It would be nice if I could re-texture these latest engines into GCR livery, but I don't think I'm anywhere near good enough to have a go at that yet.

A 9N Pacific tank engine isn't exactly the kind of engine to be normally seen on Valleyfields, but Valleyfields is a good layout for giving a locomotive a chance to stretch out and blow the cobwebs away and I was in the mood for doing a fast passenger run.

Leaving from Elgar station which is on a tucked away little side branch off the double track mainline.  I set the weather to steady rain which also kind of suited my mood.

And out towards the first large station along the line, - Pinder.

And onwards along the mainline.

The first three coaches are GCR 'Barnums' in LNER livery and the last three are LNER Gresley teak 61 foot coaches.

The signalman at that box owns a nice sidecar outfit.

No cab interior and footplate rides available on this engine unfortunately.  Darlington Works have only just started to do that on their engines and perhaps with a bit of luck they'll do an update for their older models too.

And finishing off with No. 5129 dashing through Melville station with the local passenger train standing at the platform.

I'm a tank engine fan and I had a lot of fun with No, 5129.  A very nice engine to drive as all Darlington Works engine seem to be.  The engine specs and AI physics suited the model very well and the sound file was nicely matched too,

So that's all from me for the moment.  I'll be playing trains on Valleyfields until my computer is either fixed or replaced as Valleyfields isn't as resource hungry as the HUGE UK layout and my old computer seems to manage with it better.  Valleyfields is also a just about completed layout as well which means that the process of running trains, shunting yards and doing all the usual things one does with a layout can be done without resorting to fudged work arounds which I have to do in places on the HUGE UK layout where things are still WIP.  So fun with trains is still happening despite these trying times  

[sem34090]

Yeah...

 

Coming down the hill out of Malmesbury did not go at all well!

[sem34090]

I've just succeeded in grounding the car on a riverbank coming out of a Ford!

[Annie]

Oh dear.  Poor little Austin Chummy.  Mind you such an occurrence would have been fairly protoypical as the suspension on those old Austins wasn't really up to intrepid downhill racing.  I used own a complete rolling chassis from that model and words like 'spindly' readily come to mind.

[sem34090]

It's good fun going off road in it... I deliberately made that bit bumpy and twisty in an attempt to make the driving more interesting, and it works! I've yet to complete a run of the entire Malmesbury circuit I've created yet!

[Annie]

I'm glad this vehicle project of yours has turned out so well Sem.  It certainly gives another dimension to a layout and being able to explore towns and villages beyond the railway line is a definite plus. 

[sem34090]

I'll have to show you when you are able to regain steam.

[Annie]

I now own 3 Darlington Works O4's, two in mildly modded LNER condition with flowerpot chimneys and brake piping and one in LNER black, but still in GCR condition with a Robinson chimney.  I already own two superb older models from TS2004 so I must be planning on shifting some coal about.  It would be quite possible to backdate the original condition O4 to being a GCR 8K and once I can have a proper look at the model textures I'll make a start on that.