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

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Johnson044 said:

I've finally succumbed! I've not looked at this thread before, being a bit put off by the word "Virtual" but now I'm hooked! Absolutely brilliant! 

 

Well - that's MY lunchtimes occupied for a while!

 

Well done Annie!

Thanks Johnson.  I used to be a traditional railway modeller, but had to give all that up once my health took a downward turn.

I had my doubts about railway simulators when they were first suggested to me as a way to carry on with the hobby I love, but it only took a day or so for me to be completely sold on building up layouts and running trains in a virtual world.

Be cautious though, railway simulators can be a slippery slope and there are a lot like me who dipped their toe into the virtual waters and never returned to the traditional hobby.

[MikeOxon]

30 minutes ago, Annie said:

The main problem is that in about four years or so Win 10 is going to hit end of life and not be supported anymore. 

I've not found 'end of life support' much of a problem - I still have machines running Win 7 and Win XP, to support peripherals that won't talk to newer systems.  Curiously, the Win 7 machine still seems to receive regular updates from M'soft!

 

35 minutes ago, Annie said:

Once Win 10 hits the end huge numbers of computers are going to get dumped.

When that happened after Win 7 ended, I bought a 're-furb' Thinkpad with Win 10, as my 'everyday' laptop, for a very low price.

[Annie]

44 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

I've not found 'end of life support' much of a problem - I still have machines running Win 7 and Win XP, to support peripherals that won't talk to newer systems.  Curiously, the Win 7 machine still seems to receive regular updates from M'soft!

 

When that happened after Win 7 ended, I bought a 're-furb' Thinkpad with Win 10, as my 'everyday' laptop, for a very low price.

I still have a Win XP machine for the same reason.  If it wasn't for the fact that the 64 bit versions of Trainz needs to call into N3V's servers on a regular basis I wouldn't be all that bothered about the Win 11 thing either.  I'd keep the Xeon or get a better ex-lease replacement and use my Dell notebook to keep in touch with forums and receive email & etc.

With my desktop computer being the equivalent of other people's model railway layout sheds I'm willing to put up with the hassle and expense of computer and software upgrades

[Caley Jim]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

At least here a major computer recycler has recently installed the latest specialist machinery to grind up old computers and other scrap tech and separate out all the various metals & etc so they can be reused, - but despite that a lot will still dumped in landfills.

I saw on TV recently that The Royal Mint had invested in equipment to extract precious metals from old tech.

 

4 hours ago, Annie said:

Be cautious though, railway simulators can be a slippery slope and there are a lot like me who dipped their toe into the virtual waters and never returned to the traditional hobby.

That's the reason I'm not dipping my toes in that water - at least for the time being!

 

Jim

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I saw on TV recently that The Royal Mint had invested in equipment to extract precious metals from old tech.

Old tech has gold content, but despite Youtube videos on how to do it and various urban myths it's not that easy for anyone to extract it in their garden shed.  I forget how many tonnes the new machine that's recently been installed here in Auckland can process in a working day, but it was one heck of a lot.  What I found completely stunning was the recycling company was actually getting hold of at least that amount of old tech each day to justify the purchase of their new machine.

 

Back to the trainset.  I'm presently working on finishing off the rough edges from cutting back my Norfolk layout as well as rewriting the timetable schedules. My main focus is on the tramways and light railway sections as my intention will be for the mainline sections to largely run under AI control to provide background movement while I mainly operate the tramways and light railway sections myself.

 

A snap I took beside the Tenpenny Branch showing the newly installed backscene.  It's a nicely sketched out piece of artwork that makes a good distant background, - or at least I think so.  The backscene is hiding the empty space where a couple of miles worth of open countryside used to be.

[rocor]

15 hours ago, Annie said:

Old tech has gold content, but despite Youtube videos on how to do it and various urban myths it's not that easy for anyone to extract it in their garden shed.  I forget how many tonnes the new machine that's recently been installed here in Auckland can process in a working day, but it was one heck of a lot.  What I found completely stunning was the recycling company was actually getting hold of at least that amount of old tech each day to justify the purchase of their new machine.

 

Back to the trainset.  I'm presently working on finishing off the rough edges from cutting back my Norfolk layout as well as rewriting the timetable schedules. My main focus is on the tramways and light railway sections as my intention will be for the mainline sections to largely run under AI control to provide background movement while I mainly operate the tramways and light railway sections myself.

 

A snap I took beside the Tenpenny Branch showing the newly installed backscene.  It's a nicely sketched out piece of artwork that makes a good distant background, - or at least I think so.  The backscene is hiding the empty space where a couple of miles worth of open countryside used to be.

 

I had not realized that back scenes were involved with railway simulators. My assumption would have been, that everything, seen, would have had to have been modelled, even if the further away from the track they were, the cruder could have been the models.  

[Annie]

1 hour ago, rocor said:

 

I had not realized that back scenes were involved with railway simulators. My assumption would have been, that everything, seen, would have had to have been modelled, even if the further away from the track they were, the cruder could have been the models.  

Yes you can use diminishing landscape techniques with the landscape becoming less detailed with distance and I've done that in the past, but this time around my aim was to reduce the amount of computer resources needed to render the layout.  

[Annie]

Various snaps taken along the Tenpenny Branch while playing trains doing important timetable schedule testing. This is the 9.30am passenger train to Lockes Soak leaving from Tenpenny Wharf station. (Snaps are in order of being taken unless I've horribly messed up)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

A video clip from part of the 9.30am timetabled passenger run on the Tenpenny Branch.  This video will steal away five and a half minutes of your life so choose wisely.

 

 

[Edwardian]

Seldom have five and a half minutes passed so pleasantly or, indeed, felt so brief.

 

And so to bed.

[Johnson044]

What a glorious start to the day! Just returned from a stroll with dog around the ripped backside of Dover and to come inside away from the pulverized vodka bottles, pvcu windows and empty shops and visit Victorian East Anglia recreated in such loving and careful detail was an absolute panacea. That video clip has given me so much pleasure. I will go back over this thread and explore properly. The line is set in Suffolk or Norfolk? It has a feel of the Aldeburgh branch about it? Really lovely.

[Johnson044]

Sorry - don't know why I said Victorian - I meant Pre-Grouping!  J.

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Johnson044 said:

Sorry - don't know why I said Victorian - I meant Pre-Grouping!  J.

Not a problem.  The coaches were built during the 1860s-1870s period and the disc signals that are still in use in places on the branch are from the 19th century; - the loco with its tramway skirts is from the Edwardian period even though it's a custom built freelance 'what-if' I put together for use on the tramway and light railway sections.  All in all a collection of items a small independent light railway might have accumulated from here and there.

 

3 hours ago, Johnson044 said:

That video clip has given me so much pleasure. I will go back over this thread and explore properly. The line is set in Suffolk or Norfolk? It has a feel of the Aldeburgh branch about it? Really lovely.

My layout is set in Norfolk, but I freely admit it's an alternative Norfolk with my railways set into an unspecified fold in the map somewhere along the Norfolk coast.  If you were to walk down any of those roads in the video clip after a bit more than a quarter of a mile or so you'd be standing on a beach looking out to sea.

Branches like Aldeburgh and Tollesbury have certainly been an influence and in places there's a dash of the Wotton Tramway as well.  As a largely housebound invalid my Norfolk layout is my own little imaginary world where I can go and lose myself and wander about any time I want.  Now that I've got things running more or less properly in Trainz TRS22 I'll be making more videos from time to time.  They're not quite a total indulgence on my part as I find they can be a useful record to have as I continue to work on the layout.

[Annie]

After having no luck at all with trying to record a video clip on the Hopewood Tramway on my Norfolk layout I managed to salvage this from the bungled mess.  This is the approach to the tramway station at Bluebell Woods.  I could have included the long roadside run from Cathill Junction in the video clip only it gets a bit tedious at 8 mph and it's not exactly all that scenic either,

The tram engine is an older model from TS2004 days by Paulz Trainz which I really like as the view from the cab (wooden shed?) is just so good.

 

 

[Schooner]

So good!

[NeilHB]

Lovely stuff Annie, lots of inspiration there for what I’d like to do eventually with my Elsbridge Tramway Company stuff in 7mm.

[MikeOxon]

I enjoyed the 'cab' ride along the tramway very much.  Never having driven a real engine, I think I would always be nervous, when approaching complex point-work, that everything is set up correctly!  One is very dependent on good team work by all the railway personnel! 

 

The passengers on the platform looked a bit 'modern' but it was great to see the carriage and horses as we approached.  I have tried 'cab shots' with a miniature camera on my own model railway and find it remarkably effective, except for the sound-track of grinding gears!

[RedGemAlchemist]

On 12/05/2022 at 18:59, Annie said:

Various snaps taken along the Tenpenny Branch while playing trains doing important timetable schedule testing. This is the 9.30am passenger train to Lockes Soak leaving from Tenpenny Wharf station. (Snaps are in order of being taken unless I've horribly messed up)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do adore your little 2-4-2Ts, Annie. I just wish I could work out a way to replicate one physically.

[Annie]

5 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

I enjoyed the 'cab' ride along the tramway very much.  Never having driven a real engine, I think I would always be nervous, when approaching complex point-work, that everything is set up correctly!  One is very dependent on good team work by all the railway personnel! 

 

The passengers on the platform looked a bit 'modern' but it was great to see the carriage and horses as we approached.  I have tried 'cab shots' with a miniature camera on my own model railway and find it remarkably effective, except for the sound-track of grinding gears!

Thanks Mike.  There's some new inset track models been released and I have wondered about redoing the trackwork at Bluebell Woods.  The signal cabin is right beside that complex patch of inset track and pointwork so the signalman shouldn't have an excuse for messing up.  There are keyboard keystrokes I can make to switch points from the footplate, though at Bluebell Woods the default point settings are for a clear run through to the station so I didn't have to worry about points being set incorrectly.

 

The situation with passenger platform models is not all that good in Trainz.  The passenger people I have on my layouts were recently obsoleted by a 21st century set of figures that would be fine for New York, but no good for anywhere else.  I've done a hack job to get the older passenger set back again, and while they aren't ideal at least they don't offend the eye too much.

I know that a 1920s passenger set is being worked on by some of the members of the creator group I belong to, but I don't know how far along they've got with that.

 

4 hours ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

I do adore your little 2-4-2Ts, Annie. I just wish I could work out a way to replicate one physically.

Cutting down a J72 bodyshell might work.  I'm fairly sure that the base loco's creator copied the basic outline of a J72 when he made the body mesh.  All the tramway additions to the model, skirts, bell & etc are my own.

 

 

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, RedGemAlchemist said:

I do adore your little 2-4-2Ts, Annie. I just wish I could work out a way to replicate one physically.

 

Or ..... I'm wondering whether I can live with an evenly divided 12' w/b representing an unevenly divided 13'4" w/b, because CDC Design do a great looking pre-finished E22 body to fit the old Dapol/Hornby Terrier chassis of which I have a couple spare.

[MikeOxon]

58 minutes ago, Annie said:

There are keyboard keystrokes I can make to switch points from the footplate

Be very interesting to know what would happen if drivers could do that in the real world!

[figworthy]

1 minute ago, MikeOxon said:

Be very interesting to know what would happen if drivers could do that in the real world!

 

I'm told that such is under development for industrial railways.

 

Adrian

[MikeOxon]

41 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Or ..... I'm wondering whether I can live with an evenly divided 12' w/b representing an unevenly divided 13'4" w/b, because CDC Design do a great looking pre-finished E22 body to fit the old Dapol/Hornby Terrier chassis of which I have a couple spare.

If you add skirts, who will notice?

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

If you add skirts, who will notice?

 

Indeed, but a couple of G15s and  C53 ought to suffice for my tramway.  At least one coffee pot ran at some point with skirts, I seem to recall (unless I've just made that up!)

[Annie]

28 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Indeed, but a couple of G15s and  C53 ought to suffice for my tramway.  At least one coffee pot ran at some point with skirts, I seem to recall (unless I've just made that up!)

I'm reasonably there was a coffee pot with tramway skirts.  I don't think I've got a picture of it, but I'm sure I've seen one.

 

Edit:  From the Heritage Railway magazine website.

 

'No. 209 (as 7209) was withdrawn by the LNER in 1926 and No. 231 as 7231 in 1931, having been fitted for a short period before the Grouping with a warning bell, cowcatchers and tram-pattern side skirts for working on quayside lines at Hythe near Colchester, equipment that was soon removed as there was no legal requirement for it.'

Edited May 14, 2022 by Annie
More words needed.