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

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

Sadly I 'd agree with you there, it was just the "idea" of a terminus-like overall roof that caught my imagination.  A wooden shed would be much more sensible...

 

 

Its a good name, with hints of "Much Binding in the Marsh"!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh

 

 

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Jake The Rat said:

Update: The 'BI2 General' track seems to have the same problem, at least when loading. Next try...

Some of the tracks need to be left awhile to finish loading rather than there being an instant load, but I can't remember which ones they are now.

 

1 hour ago, Jake The Rat said:

Was it a French car?

It was an early Datsun actually.  Some of those could go rusty in a light Summer shower so being parked in a greenhouse was a sentence of death for the poor thing.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

 

Much Mulling is a destination represented by a portal track on my 3ft gauge Sumwheir District Railway layout.  My plan was to eventually take the line through to Much Mulling and then finally the somewhat damp and dreary terminus at Mulling in the Marsh, but I got horribly bogged down with building the cathedral town of Bishops Tenpenny and the project stalled.  I will go back to it soon, - hopefully with fresh eyes and a more clear mind, - and finish it as it is an enjoyable little railway.

 

And yes by all means borrow the name for your test track since it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Much Mulling could also be served by a standard gauge railway since it is supposed to be one of the larger towns on my much hacked about map of alternative Norfolk.

 

Thanks, Annie.

 

It happened like this; I thought that I should grace each of the OO and OO9 circuits on the test track with passing stations.

 

Me being me, I thought that the larger, standard gauge, station was to be Much Aching, while the narrow gauge would be Little Aching.

 

I then reflected that the test track was supposed to be generic, and not exclusively suggestive of the West Norfolk Railway, and that the running in boards might reflect what actually happened in my office: Much Mulling and Littledone.

 

I thought that I had come up with the former name, but seeing your latest pictures it struck me that Much Mulling was more likely an unconscious borrowing.  Glad that it does not offend.

[RedGemAlchemist]

6 hours ago, Annie said:

It was an early Datsun actually.

Thought it would have been a Lancia.

 

Been trying to work out if, in the Achingverse's internal logic, any of your railways still exist as of 2019, Annie. If so, what would the posters look like? Been mulling over adding some to the KLR building to add some flair.

[Annie]

4 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

I then reflected that the test track was supposed to be generic, and not exclusively suggestive of the West Norfolk Railway, and that the running in boards might reflect what actually happened in my office: Much Mulling and Littledone.

I do like those names in the context of your office test track layout James.  I'm sure that in truth a good amount gets done in your office and much necessary thinking is involved, but the names are absolutely perfect.

 

46 minutes ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

Been trying to work out if, in the Achingverse's internal logic, any of your railways still exist as of 2019, Annie. If so, what would the posters look like? Been mulling over adding some to the KLR building to add some flair.

More than likely Red the Sumwheir District Railway would have finally petered out after the Second World War after having been run into the ground by the MOD.  As for the Amalgamated (Imaginary) Lines they were finally absorbed by the GER a few years before the grouping and such parts of them that survived the LNER's tender mercies would have been shut down by Dr Beeching.  Such was the fate of many local country railways.

 

At one time I did make some posters for the SDR, but I can't find them now.  I think they might be on a backup hard drive somewhere.

[Annie]

The big advantage of having an oval garden railway line is being able to fettle my 3ft gauge engines to run properly on the Trainz steam controls.  No doubt those who run live steam engines in the garden also find a large oval track to be useful in exactly the same way.

It had been a while since I'd done any proper driving so at first I put the bad running down to my skills being a little rusty, but eventually I came to the conclusion that the engine spec files were not the best.  So I hunted about and found an old TS2010 engine spec file for a small 0-4-0 standard gauge engine with a boiler and grate about the right size and gave that a try. 

Definitely better, but TS2012 demands more information in an engine spec file than TS2010 for the steam controls to work properly so I carefully and with a certain amount of hesitation added the missing specification data.  Even though I've edited engine spec files before it's still like a dark art to me where only a chosen few are admitted to the mysteries.  But despite my apprehension I noticed the marked improvement right away.  Both the tram engine and the well tank were steaming better and the injectors were working properly at last, - which is important thing for any any steam engine.  They are much more controllable too and their brakes are working much more realistically and not rolling passengers from one end of the carriages to the other every time they stop.  A little more fine tuning to be done yet, but I am absolutely delighted with progress so far.

 

 

Burning old oily socks for fuel......

 

 

No longer burning old oily socks for fuel.  Some fine tuning still needs to be done, but that should happen soon enough.  If these were real garden railway engines I would imagine the neighbours would be soon complaining over the wall at the huge plume of smoke these Manning Wardle engines generate.

 

[Annie]

The garden line has been expanded with a new terminus which has made it more interesting to run trains on since trains can be now run from one terminus to the other via the oval section.

 

 

 

[Florence Locomotive Works]

This is completely random, but I wonder if someone makes a Kitson-Meyer that could run on one of your layouts? I think they made a few in 3 ft gauge, but the one below I believe is for Argentinian barrow gauge. 

Not the prettiest locos ever, but certainly the most impressive thing the Airedale Foundry produced. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Florence Locomotive Works

[Annie]

I have some Kitson-Meyers.  These are smaller Chilean ones for 3ft 6in gauge.  They are older models now, but very well set up with realistic engine specs.  I had a 3ft 6in gauge layout I built back when I started out with the TS2009 version of the Trainz simulator and I ran these Kitson-Meyers along with Manning Wardle and Beyer-Peacock tank engines on the line.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And more recently in TS2019

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Annie
added picture

[Annie]

Latest experimental project.  Point levers on a control panel that operate points remotely.  Everything is made to work via a Junction Controller that has a menu interface like a puzzle out of Tomb Raider.  If you solve the puzzle correctly the points work faultlessly and if you don't you end up frowning and swearing a lot.

I am starting to get the hang of it now having done Lynborough's panel and it's Birfield's panel that I'm presently working on.  Some basic interlocking is possible with such formations as crossovers and double junctions and that's certainly useful.

The levers on the panel were specially made for me by a kind gentleman on the Trainz forum and we're up to version 3 at the moment with a couple more refinements he wants to make still to go.  He's going to make dummy levers as well in the standard Uk lever code colours for those who don't want to play with brain teaser puzzle boxes.

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Jake The Rat]

Wait... wasn't 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters? (Inflation, maybe...? )

[Regularity]

No. It’s 25.4mm.

We use SI, not cgs.

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Jake The Rat said:

Wait... wasn't 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters? (Inflation, maybe...? )

It's a silly ruler that hasn't been made properly and it's not correct.  It's good for spacing things out though since the actual measurement doesn't matter so long as it's the same between each item I'm positioning.

[Jake The Rat]

52 minutes ago, Annie said:

It's a silly ruler that hasn't been made properly and it's not correct.  It's good for spacing things out though since the actual measurement doesn't matter so long as it's the same between each item I'm positioning.

This answers my question.

 

2 hours ago, Regularity said:

No. It’s 25.4mm.

We use SI, not cgs.

This doesn't. A centimeter won't get any longer if you call it 10 millimeters.

[Hroth]

9 hours ago, Regularity said:

No. It’s 25.4mm.

We use SI, not cgs.

 

But if its on a ruler with inches, its not SI!

 

Anyhow, in the common world, that is outside the laboratory and precision engineering workshop, people use centimetres (meter/metre? my brain isn't with it this morning) so they don't have to deal with 1875mm when 1 metre, 87.5 centimetres works just as well.  I think it has been proven that the longer a string of numbers gets, the less easily remembered it is...

 

(I'll just put that in to show I'm not getting at anybody)

 

Now wheres that second mug of coffee...

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

But if its on a ruler with inches, its not SI!

Since the international definition of an inch is 25.4mm, then any measurements in inches are derived from SI. Sure, it’s strange when you do the conversion from imperial back to metric, but nevertheless anything measured in imperial units is just a way of expressing SI: possibly a more “human” way of doing it.

Just like it is perfectly legal to sell things by the pound (weight), just as long as the price is derived from something based on kg.

 

(And under SI, it’s 1.875m, which is actually easier to remember than 1,875mm. Just throwing that in there.)

 

Anyway, this is all about the nonsense behind “metric mix”, with imperial measurements being scaled down to small metric units, which whilst understandable from the point of view of arithmetic, is frankly bizarre. If you use the alternative of a ratio, which is the correct mathematical way to do it, then UK “4mm scale” is 1:76.2, and 7mm scale is 1:43.5428571429... Which rounds up to 1:44, not the oft quoted 1:43. (1:43.5 is ok.)

 

Start with a sensible ratio, and stick with the same units. That gives you the international G1 (1:32), US 0 gauge (1:48), S (1:64) and the original TT (1:120). (UK TT is close to 1:100, but is actually 101.6.)

None of which are particularly popular in the UK. I am sure that says a lot...

 

And no, not getting at anyone, just pointing out the lunacy of model railways being gauge- rather than scale- derived.

[Compound2632]

44 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Since the international definition of an inch is 25.4mm, then any measurements in inches are derived from SI.

 

Just to throw in a free bit of ex-metrologist's pedantry, reference to the SI Brochure and other style guides will reveal that one should leave a space between the numerical value and the unit: 25.4 mm.

[Regularity]

Is a metrologist someone who studies the Parisian underground railway network?

[Compound2632]

32 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Is a metrologist someone who studies the Parisian underground railway network?

 

Yes, trying to find "ligne 9 direction Pont de Sèvres" in order to get to the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures.

[rocor]

7 hours ago, Regularity said:

Since the international definition of an inch is 25.4mm, then any measurements in inches are derived from SI. Sure, it’s strange when you do the conversion from imperial back to metric, but nevertheless anything measured in imperial units is just a way of expressing SI: possibly a more “human” way of doing it.

Just like it is perfectly legal to sell things by the pound (weight), just as long as the price is derived from something based on kg.

 

(And under SI, it’s 1.875m, which is actually easier to remember than 1,875mm. Just throwing that in there.)

 

Anyway, this is all about the nonsense behind “metric mix”, with imperial measurements being scaled down to small metric units, which whilst understandable from the point of view of arithmetic, is frankly bizarre. If you use the alternative of a ratio, which is the correct mathematical way to do it, then UK “4mm scale” is 1:76.2, and 7mm scale is 1:43.5428571429... Which rounds up to 1:44, not the oft quoted 1:43. (1:43.5 is ok.)

 

Start with a sensible ratio, and stick with the same units. That gives you the international G1 (1:32), US 0 gauge (1:48), S (1:64) and the original TT (1:120). (UK TT is close to 1:100, but is actually 101.6.)

None of which are particularly popular in the UK. I am sure that says a lot...

 

And no, not getting at anyone, just pointing out the lunacy of model railways being gauge- rather than scale- derived.

 

I blame the Germans ( and Henry Greenly).

[Edwardian]

23 hours ago, Regularity said:

Is a metrologist someone who studies the Parisian underground railway network?

 

What's a metronome, then?

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

What's a metronome, then?

 

An employee of the RATP.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

An employee of the RATP.

Well, a not very tall one.

[Jake The Rat]

On 23/07/2020 at 19:41, rocor said:

 

I blame the Germans ( and Henry Greenly).

I blame the English. The whole madness started with the Stephensons.

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 23/07/2020 at 18:41, rocor said:

 

I blame the Germans ( and Henry Greenly).

 

4 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

I blame the English. The whole madness started with the Stephensons.