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

[Annie]

43 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Its all that climbing its got to do.  Tell it that there's a Scottish Express gaining on it and it needs to get out of the way PDQ.....

 

I don't think anyone would have let a 1F 0-6-0T take a train up to Blea Moor on its own, but with few genuine Midland Railway routes available to let it have a play on I didn't have much choice.

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, Annie said:

I don't think anyone would have let a 1F 0-6-0T take a train up to Blea Moor on its own, but with few genuine Midland Railway routes available to let it have a play on I didn't have much choice.

 

Well, the tank engines sent to shunt Durranhill and Dentonholm yards didn't fly there - nor did they go via Shap!

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Well, the tank engines sent to shunt Durranhill and Dentonholm yards didn't fly there - nor did they go via Shap!

Well after driving No.1829 up to Blea Moor sidings using the steam controls I'm getting the impression that they are seriously intrepid little engines and I shouldn't have been so quick to judge them.  I'd like to give the Midland Baldwin a run as well to see how it manages the S&C.

 

 

A long drink for an intrepid engine.  The water crane is interactive and swings across to fill the 1F's tanks, but some stupid pop up message popped up right in the way of taking a snap and by the time I got rid of it the animation had finished.

 

[Compound2632]

28 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 61655.]

 

Nature imitating Art. I don't see how you can possibly not have had this photo lurking in your subconscious memory. The location is about 250 miles further south though - near Lea Bridge on the Great Eastern Cambridge main line.

[Annie]

54 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Nature imitating Art. I don't see how you can possibly not have had this photo lurking in your subconscious memory. The location is about 250 miles further south though - near Lea Bridge on the Great Eastern Cambridge main line.

Gosh that is sooooo strange it's almost creepy.  I've got 13 D299 5 plank wagons in my train and it looks like your old photo has close to the same number.

 

Messing around with things Midland Railway again is taking me back to when I had an early grouping LMS layout in my 20s.  My friends had GWR BLT layouts and I wanted to be different and not follow the common herd.

[Annie]

My friend Colin from the creator group builds Trainz layouts and some time ago he'd mentioned to me that he'd done Leeds to Sheffield in LMS days for TANE.  Well this afternoon I finally got around to having a look at it.  He'd put it together back in 2016 with the help of an ex-BR signalman and I haven't a clue how I managed to miss finding it before this.

 

A couple of snaps of his representation of the station at Leeds.  I'm always stunned out of my mind whenever I see layout building on this scale in Trainz.

 

 

[Edwardian]

Wow!

[Connor]

Having not posted here in a couple of weeks I think it's only right to do so in style :D

Here is a screenshot of my GWR Star Class model, powering an express, or something, on a Welsh route I found on the Trainz download station (I am more professional than this I promise).

[Tom Burnham]

19 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 61655.]

 

Nature imitating Art. I don't see how you can possibly not have had this photo lurking in your subconscious memory. The location is about 250 miles further south though - near Lea Bridge on the Great Eastern Cambridge main line.

That's an uncanny resemblance!  I wonder what the train is in the photo?  You'd expect it to be a transfer goods from Cricklewood via the Tottenham & Hampstead line to one of the yards on the Lea Valley line, or perhaps through to the Docks, but it seems very uniform to be a general mixed goods.  Possibly an export consignment to be loaded on one ship?

[MikeOxon]

20 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

[Embedded link to catalogue thumbnail of MRSC 61655.]

 

Nature imitating Art. I don't see how you can possibly not have had this photo lurking in your subconscious memory. The location is about 250 miles further south though - near Lea Bridge on the Great Eastern Cambridge main line.

Another reminder of how 'bare' early railways looked, compared with the overgrown line-sides that we are familiar with today - sapling trees and open country all around.

[Annie]

An early morning snap I took at Moxbury's small MPD.  Intermediate T26's and 2-4-2T C32's have taken over from the 'Sharpies' that used to be a commonplace sight here.  The former E&GR's Beyer-Peacock 'Jubilee' is still finding work over the lightly laid branches west of Moxbury.

But look at that, - a new visitor to the shed!

 

 

I'm sure that cat told the shed foreman about the Midland 1F turning up unexpected like.  Can't sneak anything past the running shed cats.   I'm planning on using the 1F for transfer goods traffic from the M&GNJR and I'm quickly scribbling in a bit of history after the fact that the old BH&FER had given the M&GNJR running powers into Moxbury even if the new GER owners don't know what to think about it yet.

 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Edwardian]

Wow Annie, wonderful atmosphere in the top pucture, definitely January's picture for the Virtual Pre-Grouping 2023 calendar. 

[Compound2632]

On 29/01/2023 at 15:20, Tom Burnham said:

That's an uncanny resemblance!  I wonder what the train is in the photo?  You'd expect it to be a transfer goods from Cricklewood via the Tottenham & Hampstead line to one of the yards on the Lea Valley line, or perhaps through to the Docks, but it seems very uniform to be a general mixed goods.  Possibly an export consignment to be loaded on one ship?

 

Yes, this was the standard route to Midland goods depots serving the city (Royal Mint Street) and the docks (Poplar etc.):

 

 

[Crop from Midland Railway Study Centre item 20628.]

 

I don't think there's any reason to be surprised at the uniformity of the train. At this date, well before wagon pooling, one would expect to see only Midland wagons in a Midland goods train - foreigners being a rarity - and the ordinary 8-ton opens formed the majority of the ordinary wagon stock.

 

There was a poster on the Wright Writes thread a while back who said that pre-grouping didn't appeal to him as he didn't like the monotonous uniformity in the wagons, unlike the infinite variety to be seen in the grouping period and later. He thereby demonstrated that he had at least grasped the principles and implications of the Common User Agreements, unlike too many modellers who populate their 1930s GWR BLTs with nothing but GW wagons.

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Wow Annie, wonderful atmosphere in the top pucture, definitely January's picture for the Virtual Pre-Grouping 2023 calendar. 

Thank you very much James.  I fluffed around a bit getting the shot set up properly rather than just taking a wild snap at it and I'm glad I did.

[Annie]

16 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Yes, this was the standard route to Midland goods depots serving the city (Royal Mint Street) and the docks (Poplar etc.):

What an amazing map, - thanks for posting it Stephen.

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Annie said:

What an amazing map, 

 

I think the word you are looking for is "tentacular".

[Schooner]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

he didn't like the monotonous uniformity in the wagons...

Nobody's forcing him to model the Midland...

 

Source

 

Source

 

:)

 

Annie, inspirational as ever. Thanks for the time and effort to take and share the pics, much appreciated :)

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

Annie, inspirational as ever. Thanks for the time and effort to take and share the pics, much appreciated :)

😄😀😄😁  I'm glad you enjoyed them.

[Annie]

Cameron Scott has been digging about in his locomotive archives and he decided to release two of his Furness Railway engines from a now redundant project as freeware.  Both the J1 Class and the L2 Class are exquisite pieces of 3D modelling that I would have been happy to pay money for, but I'm not going to argue with him about it.  The 'Sharpie' J1 is particularly welcome because I'm fond of the locomotives that Sharp Stewart & Co built.

 

I already had a 0-4-0 Class A5 tender engine made by Cameron Scott and an older K1 4-4-0 by Rob Dee, - and to my great surprise a K2 4-4-0 that I haven't got a clue where that came from; - so possibly my old P4 ambitions of modelling the Furness Railway could eventually be realised.

 

Some time ago back in 2019 (BP) a certain Mr G. Parker created a Lake District layout based on the old C.K.P.R. and while I did have a look at it back in those halcyon and carefree times I managed to misplace it while sorting my Trainz files.  However I have found it again and while it might be a source of irritation to some members of the parish I thought I'd run my new engines about on it.

It seems to be LMS era and while it's a layout with good bones it could do with a wee tidy up.

 

The Class L2 0-6-2T at a borrowed Penrith station.  The FR 50ft bogie coaches are reskins by Rob Dee.

 

 

Class J1 No.47, - isn't she lovely.  The 4 wheel FR coaches are older models by Cameron Scott.

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Edwardian]

Oooh, I like that

[Annie]

A certain Midland Railway 1F seen at work on 'Copper Wort', the brewery layout belonging to Nicholas Ozorak from the Creator Group.  It always gives me a real thrill to see one of my models at work on a layout that's not my own.

 

[Schooner]

That's brilliant all round, well done all!

 

It's such a recognisable scene, it caused a proper double-take to see it replicate in Trainz. Nearly dropped my tea!

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Schooner said:

That's brilliant all round, well done all!

 

It's such a recognisable scene, it caused a proper double-take to see it replicate in Trainz. Nearly dropped my tea!

Nicholas did an amazing job of replicating the Copper Wort layout featured in RM.  He seems to have a particular knack for layout building.

 

His Wisbech & Upwell layout for TS2019/TRS19 is going to be released fairly soon.

[Annie]

Well that was exciting.  A magnitude 5 earthquake at 2.00am.  Almost split my cup of tea it did.

A brief quake about 5 km to the south of us at 6 km depth according to the GeoNet people.  There's been a few small tremors about over the past couple of months which isn't all that unusual for this part of NZ.  No damage to my house that I can see by the way and nothing fell over.

 

It's been an 'interesting' time over December and the New Year with tropical storms birthed in the Coral Sea sweeping down the east coast of the North Island and causing havoc.  We've just had 5 days of heavy rain and thunderstorms and Auckland City got 38% of its yearly rainfall all in one day causing massive flooding and general destruction with 4 people dead.  All along the Coromandel coast there's been massive slips with huge damage to roads and anything else that got in the way.

The Met service people are predicting more bad storm weather in  about 5 days or so which means that things might get 'interesting' again.  Isn't climate change wonderful.

 

New Zealand is not an idea destination for a holiday in the sun at the moment because we ain't got any.

So far we've been lucky here as while the weather has been wild we've been out of the main teeth of it.  I've got annoying drippy leak in the roof, but if that's all I've got to complain about I'm not doing too bad.

[magmouse]

The Aukland floods have been in the news here in the UK. Glad you are OK, apart from the odd leak.

 

Nick.