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

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Magical stuff, Annie.  I particularly love the shots with the high level line in the background, and the one looking down into the terminus behind the embankment.

Thanks James.  Due to its origins the layout has some fairly fearsome gradients, but they do create very nice visual sight lines for taking snaps.  It's a great layout for simply playing trains on with all kinds of interesting operational possibilities.  I had a lot of fun building up this layout and solving how to fit all the levels in.

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Stunning.  is there a cheeky through line disappearing through the wall into another room?

Yes there is James.  I know the original layout was a closed 'system' layout, but I wanted to be able to open up further possibilities for trains to come from somewhere and to go somewhere.  If I want to I can be completely purist and ignore the connection to the outside world, but it's there should I want to expand the traffic on the line a bit more.

 

The tunnel.  There's a certain amount of smoke and mirrors involved in putting the tunnel through the wall without having to have a wall mesh with a hole in it.

 

I extended the trackwork from platform 3 to make the tunnel connection.  The backstory is that the line goes to 'Eggcorn', but it really goes to the fiddle yard.

 

The fiddle yard.  Possibly a bit magnificent for the size of the layout, but that transfer table is the only decent one in Trainz that works properly and isn't a nightmare to set up.

 

In my earlier post I forgot to include a view of the other end of the layout looking towards Dogberry.

[Annie]

Sleepy today and I kept dropping into dreamland, but in between falling asleep I managed to update and improve the texturing on another older Trainz model.  It's a Southern Railway E1R and it normally lives on my (almost like) Wadebridge layout.  I did do a little work on it and then got distracted with something else so I decided it was time I completed it properly.  It's a lively engine and a lot of fun to drive so I'm glad I got it properly finished.  Perhaps it might encourage me to do some more work on (almost like) Wadebridge since it's a pleasant enough layout despite those various places where the prototype deviates from the digital model.

 

 

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Sleepy today and I kept dropping into dreamland

Isn’t that where we are in this thread?

 

[Annie]

18 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Isn’t that where we are in this thread?

 

In such matters I am an unreliable witness.

[Annie]

I've now got a post 1941 condition E1R all complete and ready to go to be uploaded to the DLS.  In many ways it was a much more difficult proposition to re-texture and generally tidy up than the Maunsell green one.  For some unknown reason the original builder had given this E1R tank engine an all over appearance of having been black chrome plated and then highly polished.  It was a tough struggle to get it looking something like a working steam engine and I certainly learned a lot more about texturing digital models along the way..

 

 

[Jake The Rat]

On 01/11/2020 at 23:37, Annie said:

More of the 1925 layout.

 

 

 

 

Wow.   Downloading...   (This will take some time though, since strangely this route doesn't appear in the TANE content manager, only in the TS12 one. So I have a limit of 100 MB per day, & I can only download while TS12 is not running, which means, only when I'm either asleep or away.)

 

With the coupling problems solved, I will soon get back to my version of the 1925 layout ('Euston-Crewe-Liverpool'); & there is also a chance, that the death of 'Rhye on Sea' was caused by the same issue, & in that case I will definitely resurrect it. The later the version, the sooner it crashed, & now I think that's because of the increasing number of locos on the layout, most or all of them with ACS coupling. I will have to test that...

 

At the moment I'm working on something new. The question occured to me: what can I do with a Hornby trackmat?

 

Can I have 2 platforms at both stations? With through tracks at the through station? Inglenook sidings at the terminus? Portals for both directions? & can I build a model railway room, or at least the beginning of it? Yes I can...

 

[Annie]

51 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

Wow.   Downloading...   (This will take some time though, since strangely this route doesn't appear in the TANE content manager, only in the TS12 one. So I have a limit of 100 MB per day, & I can only download while TS12 is not running, which means, only when I'm either asleep or away.)

That's strange.  I've not had any issues around downloading anything from any version, but then I own so many registered copies of Trainz I suppose somehow or another I avoid all the DLS restrictions.  Do you have a first class ticket (FTC)?  If you don't have one you'll be limited to a slow download speed from N3V's servers.

Once you do get my layout downloaded I'm sure you'll have fun with it.

 

57 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

With the coupling problems solved, I will soon get back to my version of the 1925 layout ('Euston-Crewe-Liverpool'); & there is also a chance, that the death of 'Rhye on Sea' was caused by the same issue, & in that case I will definitely resurrect it. The later the version, the sooner it crashed, & now I think that's because of the increasing number of locos on the layout, most or all of them with ACS coupling. I will have to test that...

 

I've been finding that everytime I download anything that uses the ACS coupling library I end up with that buggy ACSlib file as well.  The only answer seems to be to check for it after downloading anything and immediately delete it if it has sneaked through.

 

1 hour ago, Jake The Rat said:

At the moment I'm working on something new. The question occured to me: what can I do with a Hornby trackmat?

Cool, - I like it.  In many ways that trackmat is the younger cousin of the 1925 trackplan with attempting to put as much fun as possible into a limited space.

What you've put together looks good and should have plenty of potential for interesting operation.

[Annie]

The availability of clockwork George V's seem to have had the effect of spawning LNWR based clockwork layouts back in the early days of the hobby.  The 1925 March issue of MRN also has a clockwork LNWR layout with the same station names as the one in the May issue, but with the addition of Rugby.  It looks to be a bigger layout too, but unfortunately no overall dimensions are given.  The article does mention though that the platforms at a certain station are six feet long which if the trackplan is to scale would give an approximate size of 16.5 ft X 12 ft according to my ancient imperial wooden ruler.  That seems to be a bit odd because Mr Evans's layout featured on the May issue is supposed to be 25 ft X 11ft.  Something tells me that trackplan drawing person at MRN wasn't too concerned over accuracy when it came creating trackplans to go into the magazine.

 

Here's a picture courtesy of my aged clockwork Nokia cellphone.  

 

 

[Jake The Rat]

15 hours ago, Annie said:

That's strange.  I've not had any issues around downloading anything from any version, but then I own so many registered copies of Trainz I suppose somehow or another I avoid all the DLS restrictions. 

 

All your other layouts are there, except the 1925 one. Nevermind, the DL will be complete by Friday.

 

Quote

Do you have a first class ticket (FTC)?  If you don't have one you'll be limited to a slow download speed from N3V's servers.

 

No, rats don't travel 1st class, they prefer vehicles like this one:

 

Quote

I've been finding that everytime I download anything that uses the ACS coupling library I end up with that buggy ACSlib file as well.  The only answer seems to be to check for it after downloading anything and immediately delete it if it has sneaked through.

 

Exactly.
 

Quote

 

Cool, - I like it.  In many ways that trackmat is the younger cousin of the 1925 trackplan with attempting to put as much fun as possible into a limited space.

What you've put together looks good and should have plenty of potential for interesting operation.

 

 

I must admit it's not to scale, but a bit larger. It's based on 'Hornby Track 2007 Edition' by mjrn, & I don't think there is a single pixel left of the original.

My idea is to run 2 passenger trains with tender locos on the outer ovals (1 in each direction), 1 or 2 with tank locos between the stations & a freight train between the goods sheds, one of which I still have to build. While all this is hopefully running automatically, I can solve a shunting puzzle at the Inglenook sidings; & then it will be interesting to see who screws up 1st: me or my AI drivers.

The name of the stations is 'Hornby' (not very imaginative, I know) for the terminus & 'Claughton' for the through station, so the LMS 5900 gets her own station.

Actually Claughton is a few kilometers southwest of Hornby:

 

 

 

[Annie]

Faux tinplate open wagons based on Hornby 0 gauge open wagons.  I had a horrible time of it yesterday with falling asleep and managed to trash this open wagon twice before I finally got it done.

 

[Annie]

Next 'tinplate' wagon on the build list.  Now that I've got the basic format of the open wagon finalised it's a relatively simple process to apply new reskin textures to the wagon body.  This texture took a bit more work though as while the photo i used as the basis of the texture was nice and clear, the wagon in the photo had a lot of scratches and scuff marks.

 

[Annie]

Last one for today.  This open wagon is from an older Hornby series than the other two and it's also an uncommon one since most of Hornby's production was focused on the LMS and the LNER.  I actually own one of these and it was pure luck that I found one here in New Zealand.  I was also lucky that the vendor didn't know it was an uncommon Hornby wagon and he was selling it for way less than it was worth.

I'll be doing the other wagons from this earlier series, BUT not today since I'm all tuckered out.

 

[Annie]

Just checking to see who recognises the obvious mistake.  And I don't mean the lamp code or the blood & custard coaches.

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by Annie
more to say

[Edwardian]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Just checking to see who recognises the obvious mistake.  And I don't mean the lamp code or the blood & custard coaches.

 

 

Presumably it is that the Baltic tanks had been rebuilt as 4-6-0s by Maunsell in Southern days ...

[Annie]

21 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Presumably it is that the Baltic tanks had been rebuilt as 4-6-0s by Maunsell in Southern days ...

Yes you are quite correct James.  For some reason or another this Baltic tank was finished in lined BR black way back in the earliest days of Trainz.  I have to admit though it does look rather smart in that livery.

It's a very simple model and it does have more than a few faults, but I think it will do very nicely as a faux '0' gauge engine.

 

My present silly project.  Making the Baltic tank look like an '0' gauge live steamer.

[Annie]

That rake of 'Blood and Custard' coaches is a 400 ton train so as a test train it's fairly cruel.  The maker of the coaches got his sums wrong when he wrote up the config file and each coach weighs roughly three times more than it should.  Not quite so good for running a timetabled passenger service, but very useful for testing engines.

I've got the engine spec and the sound file working nicely together now so the Baltic really does sound like it's working hard.  The first engine spec I chose was just too good and the Baltic was whizzing about like it only had a couple of coaches running behind it so that one got quickly changed.  I lightened down the colour of the smoke as well since thick clouds of black smoke aren't quite so good for indoor running.  Should I build a virtual outdoor line this engine might just find itself on the roster.   And I also found a proper Maunsell whistle sound file for this engine; - the one it had originally was a crime.

 

No the steam pressure gauge doesn't really work, - i'm not that clever.  I edited the needle position on the gauge texture so at least there is the illusion of steam being produced in the boiler.

[rocor]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I lightened down the colour of the smoke as well since thick clouds of black smoke aren't quite so good for indoor running. 

 

No the steam pressure gauge doesn't really work, - i'm not that clever.  I edited the needle position on the gauge texture so at least there is the illusion of steam being produced in the boiler.

 

Presumably it would be methylated spirits fired?.

[Annie]

4 hours ago, rocor said:

Presumably it would be methylated spirits fired?.

Yes I would think so rocor.  I know some very clever folk have managed to make solid fuel fired engines in 'O' gauge, but I don't think they were all that common.

[Annie]

I spent most of the afternoon setting up the illusion of a 'chicken feed' meths burner to make it plain that this Baltic tank engine is supposed to be a live steam 'O' gauge engine.  I have the remains of a live steam tank engine in my collection that was setup just the same as this with the bunker and cab roof able to be slid off as one piece so the meths tank and it's other workings could be attended to.  It was given to me by a collector who regarded it as no more than junk, but it really is an amazing old thing since most of it looks to have been carved out of sheet steel with tin snips and very firmly soldered together.  The boiler, which as far as I can tell was a simple pot boiler, fitted inside the outer cosmetic boiler and power was provided by a single cylinder steam engine in the cab driving through gears.  Like many old relics anything useable was pillaged ages ago so what is left is the bodyshell, the frames and the four driving wheels which are turned from brass with the spokes all cut out by hand.  The driving wheels are a bit crude which is most probably why nobody bothered to remove them. It's painted in lined LNER green and the charred paint on the false boiler and the amount of soot coating the bodyshell's interior show that it must've been a runner at some time of its life.  It seems to have been built closer to Gauge 1 in size than O gauge, though the driving wheels are spaced for 32mm gauge.  It looks like it was a 4-4-2T, but with it's bogies missing that's only a guess.

At odd times I thought about rebuilding it, but it's such an amazing old artifact I decided to leave it as it is.  It's builder perhaps had more enthusiasm than skill when it came to metalwork, but he certainly put a lot of effort  into painting it and lining it out.  He even purchased a really nice set of LNER transfers for it as well.  When next I dig it out of it's storage box I'll take a few snaps of it.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by Annie
muddle words

[Annie]

Coal Tank testing.  This really is an intrepid little engine and it's a lot of fun to drive.  Please note the authentic LMS open wagons in use as a test train.  One good thing about my tinplate open wagon project is that I was finally able to find a use for a 5 plank body mesh I was given that was far too thin in its body sides.  

 

 

 

[Caley Jim]

I'd watch that cat if I were you.    We had one which jumped up on my layout and chewed a signal!  Fortunately the layout was just bare track at the time so no other damage was done.

 

Jim

[Annie]

Fortunately Jim it seems to be more interested in trying to knock tea cups over; - which of course is a serious crime in itself.  

 

My last cat was a much loved old moggy, but he had a bad habit of getting in amongst the Lego city I was building at the time and causing havoc.

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

Latest spot of silliness.

 

[Compound2632]

I find that photo of North Star (?) a bit disturbing - it seems to be hanging in mid air rather than on the wall. It must be something to do with the perspective but I haven't quite worked out what.

 

Nice cat.