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

[Annie]

7 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Definitely better contrast and colour saturation.  Perhaps the big boxes were over-thinking things?

I'm using an older GTX 660 graphics card in 'Lesser Thoughts' whereas before I was using a GTX 960 in 'Deeper Thought'.  I am running the graphics at a higher setting now though since 'Deeper Thought' had been struggling if I used too high a setting in TS2012.

 

On the other hand though in the later versions of the Trainz simulator the images on screen were fine since 'Deeper Thought' could fully use all its resources to render everything.  Definitely a case of horses for courses when it comes to Trainz.

 

In other news I ran my Norfolk trainset for eight hours continuously with only one snag with the automatic scheduling where an AI driver (Artificial Incompetence) over ran a signal and managed to block the B&FER single line between Bluebell Magna and Brenton Wood.  So I'm feeling very pleased with that result since the automatic scheduling needs to be working properly in order for me to drive the trip workings and other local goods jobs on the layout.

[Annie]

Night train.  A snap I took during last night's mega test session on the layout.

The question of carriage lighting was still nagging at me as to why the GER 6 wheel coaches are brilliantly lit and why the E&GR 6 wheel coaches have more soft lighting.  Then the penny dropped.  The windows on the E&GR coaches have a yellow tint which isn't all that noticeable during daylight, but comes into its own at night when the carriage lighting is on.  The interior of the E&GR coaches is just as well lit as the GER coaches, but it's the tint on the window glass that's making the difference.  I shall have to have a little experiment now with tinting windows on the GER coaches to see if I can make them look better.

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Annie
Crimes against good spelling.

[MikeOxon]

8 hours ago, Annie said:

In other news I ran my Norfolk trainset for eight hours continuously ................

 

so now, you can run a train service without even needing to turn the monitor on

[Hroth]

22 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

 

so now, you can run a train service without even needing to turn the monitor on

 

Its what Northern Rail do all the time.... 

 

[Annie]

50 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

 

so now, you can run a train service without even needing to turn the monitor on

I travelled all over the place Mike on all kinds of trains yesterday so I had to have the monitor switched on to do that.  I dozed off for a bit sometimes, but everything was still running fine when I woke up.  The layout is so big now that I surprise myself all the time with views over the landscape that I'd entirely forgotten about.  And as with any layout real or digital I think it will be months if not years before I consider it anywhere near finished.  It's my own little world which might not mean much to most folk, but being largely housebound if not bedbound by my illness my 40 odd miles of 'what-if' imaginary Norfolk is my escape from being confined inside four walls.

 

I don't just watch the trains go by, - which is a lot of fun in itself, - but I also have trip workings and local goods workings to see to and those I drive myself working in between the scheduled trains.  I like shunting and I like doing trip workings, but I found it was a bit odd to be driving local goods trains across a deserted railway landscape so that was when I started to investigate using the automatic AI system in Trainz to set up a regular passenger service and then a little later some regular longer distance goods turns.  I have now got one of the through goods workings to run into the goods yard at Barrow Hills and wait so that wagons destined for the local area can be shunted off the rear of the train before it continues on its way again.  I was rather pleased with myself when I got that set up.

 

Some Trainz folk get into train scheduling on an almost esoteric level where quite complex operations are carried out completely automatically, but when some of these folk tried to explain it to me on the Trainz forum my brain blue screened and fell over.  

[Annie]

I'm having problems with engines with apologetic whistles.  It's the GCR engines, they produce the tiniest 'twep' at whistle boards as if it say 'I'm sorry I had to blow my whistle, I hope it didn't offend'.  Not the (faux)  MS&LR 11A 4-4-0 though, - it has the most beautiful mournful whistle that sets all the sheep in the surrounding fields weeping every time they hear it.

I fitted the 'Sharpies' with an NER whistle file not long after I got them and that sounds fine.  The GER Y14's have a nice cheerful whistle and the new GER S56's have a good businesslike sounding whistle.  Most of my 19th century engines including the Beyer Peacocks have a good sounding whistle that's nice and loud and the single driver tank engines that work on the Windweather loop have a positive shrieker of a whistle that plainly says, 'Get out of our way right NOOOOOWWW!'

 

So I'm not really sure what to do about the GCR engines.  I'm going to have to go through all the whistle files for Trainz and see if I can find something that's better.  I doubt that my chances of finding genuine GCR whistle sound file would be very good though.

[Annie]

More snaps.

 

Great Marsh is a fairly important station on the Windweather loop line, but for some reason when I set it all up I only really did the bare essentials and it didn't even have running in boards until I put them in place last night.  The town itself was a collection of plonk down buildings with no roads of footpaths or anything else and it stayed like that for a long time.  I'm very likely to come back to the town and do some more work on it and possibly change some things, but at least it's starting to look like a town.

 

The platforms are ones from a series that were made for  the Settle & Carlisle  route for Trainz and i really like this pair.  I'm going to have to do something about the white platform edging thingies though.

 

Some snaps taken while wandering around the town.

 

 

 

Great Marsh is where the single driver tank engines Nos. 5, 7 & 8 live as the all passenger trains on the Windweather loop line start from Great Marsh and terminate there.  The single driver tank engines have always excelled at chasing the horizon across the fens on the loop line so once trains on the B&FER and E&GR became too heavy for them to handle they were all permanently transferred to the shed and small MPD at Great Marsh.

No.5 was a Moxbury engine and when the local passenger service from the Windweather loop line to Moxbury was initiated No.5 found itself back on familiar territory again with running trains through to Moxbury.

 

Here we find No.5  approaching Brenton Wood with four GER 6 wheel coaches on the passenger service to Moxbury.  I'm still in process with setting up the return passenger service back to Great Marsh which is slightly inconvenient for passengers wanting to go back home again, but I've learned not to set up too many new train services at once or else everything gets in a tangle.

 

 

 

 

GER No,87 at Foxwood.  The S56's are working out well on the passenger services between Moxbury and Foxhollow, but there was a small crisis when I wasn't sure whether they could pass under a particularly low bridge on the older section of the original B&FER line.  Historically the B&FER had a lower loading gauge than the other lines as evidenced by the B&FER 'Sharpies' with their low cab roofs and shorter chimneys than most of the other engines on the affiliated (imaginary) lines.  Most of the E&GR engines with their tall chimneys are not able to run over this section, - the Windweather and Hopewood Tramway engines can, but they have enough to do on their own lines.  Fortunately the S56's can just fit under the bridge so crisis averted.

 

 

Running beside the edge of the world which is not very well disguised by a long row of scruffy poplar trees.  I do have along term plan to add in further layout boards so that this part of the old B&FER line isn't so perilously close to the drop into the Terrible Nothing and also so I can further develop this part of the B&FER line, - perhaps even as far as the terminus at Foxhollow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MikeOxon]

Your townsfolk are a very tidy lot!  Not a weed in sight, no horse droppings, and absolutely no litter.  It's helping me to understand at least some of the difficulties inherent in creating 'digital' scenery, which is possibly harder than modelling with 'Woodland Scenics' and the like!  I am learning a lot from your description of taking components from other layouts and re-housing them in your own.  If I ever follow your route in building a digital layout, all these tips will prove extremely useful.

[Annie]

I can add a few weeds and other such scenic touches as I continue to work on the town Mike.  I haven't added any of the townsfolk yet and while I have plenty of horse drawn vehicles I don't think anybody has made horse droppings yet as a scenic item.

Building up a layout in Trainz often involves re-purposing models made for something else when the correct item isn't available.  The tricky bit is keeping in mind what is available and seeing how it might be used in ways that perhaps weren't intended by their maker. 

[Annie]

I always wanted to model the Southwold Railway, but never managed to get around to it.  Didn't somebody make a digital version in MSTS? - or am I getting confused with something else.

 

Edit: Found it  Southwold Railway.  Only problem is uktrainsim.com isn't accepting my login for some daft reason.

 

 

A lot of the same footage is used in this one.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Annie
More information

[Edwardian]

Great Marsh; love what you've done with the place!

 

Some lovely buildings.

[Annie]

Thanks James.  I think Great Marsh is starting to get somewhere now and I don't know why I left it in a mess for so long.  Great Marsh is supposed to be where much of the agricultural produce from the surrounding area finds its way out into the greater world via the Windweather Tramway.  I have the goods shed and the cattle dock more or less sorted out, but there's a bit more to do yet.

 

I am making slow progress on the countryside around the town of Great Marsh, but if I do too much of this kind of thing I might make my computer tip over in a dead faint.  There's about a scale three quarters of a square mile or so of fen land on my Norfolk layout, - which I know isn't much compared with the real Norfolk fen lands, - but if I did it all like this the memory resource hit would be huge.

 

[Northroader]

Thanks for the Southwold Railway clips, most enjoyable. They’re trying to get the line going again, but it seems they’re having a very uphill struggle. They’re trying to copy how the Lynton Railway is doing it, but there’s a lot of nimbyism, and popular support is much lower, so I fancy it will open about the time I finish the Washbourne line.

there is a blog going on it:

https://www.southwoldrailway.co.uk/srt-blog/

[Annie]

Hanging is a good cure for rampant nimbyism.

 

Thanks for the link to the Southwold Railway blog.  I had been following progress when things first started off with the Southwold project, but with one thing and another I lost touch with it.  If I was fabulously wealthy this would certainly be the preservation project I would support.

[Glenn652]

23 hours ago, Annie said:

I'm having problems with engines with apologetic whistles.  It's the GCR engines, they produce the tiniest 'twep' at whistle boards as if it say 'I'm sorry I had to blow my whistle, I hope it didn't offend'.  Not the (faux)  MS&LR 11A 4-4-0 though, - it has the most beautiful mournful whistle that sets all the sheep in the surrounding fields weeping every time they hear it.

I fitted the 'Sharpies' with an NER whistle file not long after I got them and that sounds fine.  The GER Y14's have a nice cheerful whistle and the new GER S56's have a good businesslike sounding whistle.  Most of my 19th century engines including the Beyer Peacocks have a good sounding whistle that's nice and loud and the single driver tank engines that work on the Windweather loop have a positive shrieker of a whistle that plainly says, 'Get out of our way right NOOOOOWWW!'

 

So I'm not really sure what to do about the GCR engines.  I'm going to have to go through all the whistle files for Trainz and see if I can find something that's better.  I doubt that my chances of finding genuine GCR whistle sound file would be very good though.

Sorry for the inactivity, In terms of GC whistles, Butler Henderson has a whistle that is very very similar to some of the Isle of Man locos and L&YR locos in preservation due to the close proximity of Gorton and Beyers works. 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Glenn652 said:

Sorry for the inactivity, In terms of GC whistles, Butler Henderson has a whistle that is very very similar to some of the Isle of Man locos and L&YR locos in preservation due to the close proximity of Gorton and Beyers works. 

Thanks very much for that Glenn.  I do have an L&YR 0-6-0 which was modelled on the one that was preserved so I think I'll have an experiment and see if its whistle is an improvement.

[Annie]

A little further work on Great Marsh.

 

 

My Norfolk trainset was running flawlessly well so I settled into a good session of trip workings along the Windweather Tramway and the Hopewood Tramway.  The goods yards along the tramways are a bit shunting puzzle like and it had been so long since I done any proper trip workings on the tramways that I was able to collect a lot of material for a possible little booklet entitled 'Shunting Mistakes I Have Made'.

 

Terrier 'Hopewood' at Barrow Hills.  Barrow Hills has quite a tricky little good yard to shunt since it's very much hemmed in by the surrounding landscape and doesn't have a lot of siding space.  And for a little station in the middle of nowhere it's quite busy since local passenger trains from both the Windweather Loop and the E&GR stop and run around their trains there before heading off somewhere else.  Just to make it a bit more tricky goods trains from the E&GR make regular stops in the long goods yard loop to have wagons shunted on and off before proceeding onwards.  I had a lot of fun and entertainment here figuring out how to drop off two loaded coal wagons and pick up three empty ones without getting in the way of the scheduled trains.

 

 

For some reason the other snaps I took didn't turn out very well, but here's 'Hopewood' on the way to Great Marsh.  The passing loop is new and is essential if I want to continue with my trip shunting habit.  The goods yard at Great Marsh is still being adjusted and fettled and once the PWD crew sign off on it there will be a lot of new stock workings and agricultural produce traffic for me to play with.

 

[MikeOxon]

Good to see Great Marsh coming to life.  That lady on the left looks as though she would have strong words for anyone who dared to drop any litter!  Did she hear the Tardis arriving across the road?

 

I like the shot of 'Hopewood' steaming away into the distance - an effect you can't achieve on any reasonably-sized 'real' model railway.

[Annie]

I'm sure that lady heard the sound of the Tardis arriving and came out of her door to see if those kids along the road were up to their tricks again.   The Tardis has been at Hayward on the B&FER line for the past few months so I thought it was about time to move it somewhere else.

 

The one thing the Windweather loop line is good for is distance with the fen land being completely flat for almost a scale mile or more.  The sight of small engines crossing such a huge open space is something I never get tired of.  There's still a lot to do on this section.  I've found that modelling an 'empty' landscape is more work and more challenging to do than modelling a conventional landscape with buildings and trees and hills & etc.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[robmcg]

That picture in answer to James a few messages back is beautiful.  Who cares about a few gigabytes where art is involved, eh? 

[Annie]

If TS2012 was a 64 bit railway simulator I wouldn't mind so much Rob, but with it only being able to access 4Gb of system memory I have to be careful with how much detail I have concentrated in one place.  I would like nothing better than to cover all of the fen lands on my layout with that amount of varied vegetation, but I don't think the simulator would cope and it would end up crashing.

[Hroth]

25 minutes ago, Annie said:

I'm sure that lady heard the sound of the Tardis arriving and came out of her door to see if those kids along the road were up to their tricks again.   The Tardis has been at Hayward on the B&FER line for the past few months so I thought it was about time to move it somewhere else.

 

What strikes me is that the locals seem to be keeping a healthy distance from the Tardis.  Perhaps they've had unpleasant experiences with Tardises (Tardii?) previously?  Anyhow, I applaud their caution!

[Annie]

Well at least it's safely out of reach behind those railings so no-one will end up being whisked away to mysterious other-whens by accident.

[Hroth]

Just now, Annie said:

Well at least it's safely out of reach behind those railings so no-one will end up being whisked away to mysterious other-whens by accident.

 

Its the other-whats that follow it about that are more troubling!

 

 

[Glenn652]

Good news everyone! after a week or so with assistance with a few friends, I bring you the first Broad Gauge item for Railworks!

 

 

Hope you all enjoy.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Glenn652