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

[Annie]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Though I expect the consumption might be terrific with all the extra chimneys that were installed to improve the draughting...

Oh my I had a good laugh after reading that. 🤣

[Annie]

The question of coal capacity has become a fairly serious question indeed on the tramway as I've recently given the G15's a G15 engine spec that was devised by an acknowledged expert in such things instead of the NER class H (LNER Y7) one they were running about on before.  Running under the command of an AI robot driver the coal consumption is unbelievably shocking, but if I'm driving on the steam controls it's all as one would expect with coal consumption being quite properly modest instead of something like the raging fires of hell living inside the firebox when an AI driver is in charge.  I haven't tried running a G15 under the DCC controls yet, but something tells me that it might not be all that good.

TANE does run things differently to TS2012 and the steam controls are certainly better in TANE, however I'm left with the impression that outside of the steam controls it's like an electric trainset and you turn the knob and it goes.  Coal and water doesn't enter into the equation.  What I want for the tramway is for the passenger service to run automatically under AI robot control, - which I seem to have achieved so far, - and for me to do all the shunting and trip working using the steam controls.

It's a wee bit of a fine art keeping a newly overhauled and rejuvenated G15 under proper control using the steam controls as they don't think much of trundling about at 8 mph and they want to be off and going places in a hurry.   They are a lot of fun to drive though and I'm looking forward to getting out and about on the tramway and doing a spot of trip working.

 

 

In other news I've managed to get red lamps fitted to the G15's and the H.T.Co.'s own homebuilt C53's.  Being foggy brained sorting out something that looked like a red painted GER lamp and then putting them in the right places on the tram engines took me longer than I wanted it to.  The real fun started when I attempted to edit the red corona textures to look more like an oil lamp and not some kind of LED powered supernova.  In Trainz it's a common event to see engines with their code lamps blazing like they have 1000 watt bulbs inside and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible.  In TRS22/TS2019 the problem is a lot worse than it is in TANE, but even if that is so, - the lamps are still far too bright.

After a lot of trials with adjusting the lamp corona size I think I've ended up with something passable.  At night the light is visible without being too bright which I think will do for now.  I'll frown at them over the next couple of days and make up my mind about them then. 

The tramway is all single track so the GER red light to the front lamp code works for every situation.  I'll see if I can sort out some red discs as well.  I have a white and a green disc already, but I think they are too small as the GER used 15 inch discs.

 

 

 

 

This is a snap of the orchard sidings.  I've made the curve in off the road too tight.  A G15 and a train of vans can make it around the curve alright, but it's more than a bit untidy.  The curve into the potato fields is a lot wider so I'll have to do some revision work on the orchard sidings before any fruit picking can get under way.

 

 

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Surely they could have "borrowed" an old wagon for coal if the situation had got that bad! 

The CR (and I believe the NBR, though I'm open to correction on that) had 'pug* tenders'.  These were old mineral 'bogies' which had been stripped of their bodies and a new body fitted to carry coal for small shunting pugs which had limited coal capacity.  They also had footboards and handrails so that shunters could ride on them while working in yards.

 

*Pug is a Scots word for a tank engine, of any size.  Even the CR's 944 class 4-6-2Ts which were known as 'Wemyss Bay Pugs' and the G&SWs 4-6-4Ts which were simply 'Big Pugs'.

 

Jim

[MikeOxon]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

A favourite Cheer Up Picture

I can't resist this photo including a well-decorated 'coffee pot' at the opening of the 2nd Tay Bridge

 

[MikeOxon]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

They also had footboards and handrails so that shunters could ride on them while working in yards.

Rather a lot riding on this one!  Another from the Tay Bridge opening

 

[Hroth]

10 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

I can't resist this photo including a well-decorated 'coffee pot' at the opening of the 2nd Tay Bridge

 

 

That's not decoration....

 

Nice photo!

 

The wagon the blokes are perched on in the second photo must be an example of one of Caly Jim's Pug tenders.

 

Edited October 13, 2022 by Hroth
addendum.

[MikeOxon]

6 hours ago, Annie said:

Oh my I had a good laugh after reading that. 🤣

They were added because no-one noticed the cap was on the main chimney 🤣

[Annie]

8 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

I can't resist this photo including a well-decorated 'coffee pot' at the opening of the 2nd Tay Bridge

 

 

8 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

Rather a lot riding on this one!  Another from the Tay Bridge opening

 

Those are great old photos Mike, - wonderfully clear.  I would imagine that they were taken with an old monster of a glass plate camera to get that level of detail.

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

 

Those are great old photos Mike, - wonderfully clear.  I would imagine that they were taken with an old monster of a glass plate camera to get that level of detail.

 

Checking the dates, the photos were probably taken using the dry plate process, on full plate glass negatives of 6.5" x 8.5" size, so yes, it'd be a bulky camera, habitually mounted on a robust tripod. At least the photographer's assistant would only have to lug that and some boxes of plates, etc about. Much easier than a complete darkroom as required for the wet plate process!

 

[MikeOxon]

10 hours ago, Hroth said:

Checking the dates, the photos were probably taken using the dry plate process, on full plate glass negatives of 6.5" x 8.5" size

If we compare the size of full plate with the sensor in a phone (about 6 mm across), the size ratio is 1:36 is very close to O-gauge scale!  This means that, if you take photos of an O-gauge layout with your phone, the results have similar scale depth of field and angle of view to the old plate camera!  It can produce very 'realistic' photos as I have pointed out on my blog.

[Hroth]

4 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

If we compare the size of full plate with the sensor in a phone (about 6 mm across), the size ratio is 1:36 is very close to O-gauge scale!  This means that, if you take photos of an O-gauge layout with your phone, the results have similar scale depth of field and angle of view to the old plate camera!  It can produce very 'realistic' photos

 

Ummmm yes.  🙂

 

What you'll get is probably a good approximation to the field of view, however depth of field depends on the speed of the light sensitive surface and the aperture range available.  I've never used something as large as a full plate camera, but the "standard" lens on my 4"x5" MPP Mk8 is a 135mm Schneider Xenar on a Synchro Compur shutter with an aperture range of f4.7 to f32. a full plate camera will use a larger lens.

 

The smaller the aperture, the sharper the image, but conversely the exposure time extends, unless you can increase the film sensitivity, which tends to increase the graininess of the image in both the film and digital domains.

 

One of the things I noticed in the first image is that the image quality appears to drop off at the edges, the figures to the left and right seem to have a slight degree of fuzziness which seems to indicate that the photographer is struggling with the balance between film sensitivity (not all that wonderful, I expect) aperture and shutter speed.  He could have done with stopping down a little more to sharpen the edges, but with the available light the shutter speed required might not freeze slight movements.

 

[MikeOxon]

11 minutes ago, Hroth said:

One of the things I noticed in the first image is that the image quality appears to drop off at the edges

Early lenses often suffered from spherical aberration, which causes fuzziness towards the edges.  Portrait photographers liked this effect, so lenses like the Petzval lens were developed for this reason

 

Your Schneider Xenar is a modern highly-corrected lens.

Edited October 13, 2022 by MikeOxon

[Annie]

Hopewood Tramway Cheer Up Pictures:  I had a huge playing trains session this morning where I was testing out the passenger service schedule as well as three (or was it four) of the set piece trip working jobs.  I had an awful lot of fun and then I fell asleep in a heap on my bed and slept happy for the entire afternoon.

 

A selection of the snaps I took this morning:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

Other supplementary snaps:

 

Nodding Halt.  A pair of slightly lost looking time travellers with briefcases turned up asking if this train could get them back to London.

 

 

The Hopewood Tramway transshipment goods shed at Elgar Junction.  The model is based on the transship shed at Didcot as you might have guessed, but with it being the only decent sized transship shed of vintage appearance in Trainz I make no apology for using it.  I haven't got as far as 'decorating' the platform with boxes and crates & etc as yet.

 

 

H.T.Co.'s Foden geared loco No.01 resting between jobs.  Its main job is shunting the tramway's transship sidings in Elgar Junction's goods yard as well as doing various light trip working tasks between the goods yard at Elgar Wood and the big goods yard at Elgar Junction.  The mainline engine crews laugh at it sometimes which is a bit cruel since it's a useful little engine in its own way.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Annie
fumble brain

[Miss Prism]

What a wonderful thread this is. I've returned to it, belatedly after a long absence, in part a reflection of the annoyance I felt after 'The Great Image Loss'. I had a binge quick scan last night of the previous 100 pages or so. Phew!

[Edwardian]

Some really great pictures in the last couple of posts, Annie. Cheered me up!

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

What a wonderful thread this is. I've returned to it, belatedly after a long absence, in part a reflection of the annoyance I felt after 'The Great Image Loss'. I had a binge quick scan last night of the previous 100 pages or so. Phew!

Thank you very much for your kind comments.  My digital trainsets are very much my own little happy place and I like nothing better than to lose myself there for a while.

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Some really great pictures in the last couple of posts, Annie. Cheered me up!

That's really good James, - I'm glad that my being hugely cheered up this morning has cheered you up too.  This morning was the first time for ages that I could settle into running the tramway properly and it was only because my eyes kept dropping closed that I finally had to stop and put my trainset away.   After the working bee sessions I've having over the past few days it was wonderful to see everything working properly to the point of me daringly running three tram engines at work on the tramway at the same time with none of them accidently bumping into each other.

 

Here's a snap I took on the Flinders Mill branch just to finish things off for the day.

 

[Annie]

Early Morning Tramway Cheer Up Picture:   It was pure luck that I got this snap.  It was about a quarter to four in the late afternoon Trainz world time and the shadows from the trees on the field boundaries were lengthening out across the ground.  I managed to click the camera shutter just as one of the tree's shadow ran up across the side of the brake van.

 

[Edwardian]

Perfect, Annie. 

[Annie]

The coal bunker in Cathill yard, - tram engines for the use of.  It doesn't look like much, but the track in front of it is infused with Trainz magic so it will replenish the tram engines' coal supplies when they stop in front of it; - Or at least I know it does that now.  For a long time I thought it didn't work since I'd stop an engine in front of it and nothing would happen.  This is the only 'magic' coal loading track of this specific type on my Norfolk layout as the others all instantly oblige with providing coal.  Some even do so with a great cloud of coal dust which is a bit dramatic, but at least I know it has done its job.

I'd thought about replacing this 'magic' coal track several times, but never got around to it; - however yesterday my opinion of it was suddenly changed.  I'd parked No.126 in front of the coal bunker for no particular reason that I can remember and I was poking about at getting some wagons ready when suddenly a green icon popped up above No.128 to tell me that it was now fully loaded with an appropriate amount of coal.  In a word I was surprised, - very surprised.  So I had a closer look at the menu options and the magic incantations and what this very clever coal loader does is load engines or wagons with coal over time as if it was being physically loaded by somebody, - or various somebodies.  It's possible to adjust the time period as well and if a train of coal wagons coupled together has at least one wagon on the magic loading track it will progressively load all of them.

I've seen this loading over time thing done with water cranes which is wonderfully realistic especially if it's an animated water crane, but not in the same way as this with coal loading.  Now I want to change over all the MPD coal loading facilities on my Norfolk layout to use this particular loading track.

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Annie
fumble brain

[Edwardian]

What larks! I think a magic coal loader is far more fun than simply imagining that coal has been loaded as physical modellers must!  

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

...simply imagining that coal has been loaded as physical modellers must!  

"...must"...?

 

 

 

!

[Hroth]

Triang managed it for rtr years ago...

 

Operating Ore Wagon set R.135

[Edwardian]

Gentlemen, that's not coaling an engine.

 

That might be possible from a large coaling stage if one could automate tipping tubs, and, perhaps, easier where there is a giant cenotaph type tower, but for the pre-Grouping backwater where a made with a shovel or basket of coal is the norm ....

[Hroth]

I must admit, I didn't read it properly.  A model bloke with a shovel would take yonks to coal an engine...