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

[Caley Jim]

9 hours ago, Annie said:

I painted the underframe red by the way so if it doesn't look quite right it's not Ed's fault.

As far as am aware, pre-1923 most PO (and railway company) wagon solebars and headstocks were painted the same colour as the wagon body.

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

As far as am aware, pre-1923 most PO (and railway company) wagon solebars and headstocks were painted the same colour as the wagon body.

 

Generally, timber would be painted one colour and iron/steelwork another. This has a good deal to do with which paints were the best preservatives for each material. In some cases the same colour would be used for both - more often on railway company wagons than private owner wagons. But the upshot is that a wood-framed wagon would have solebars and headstocks the same colour as the body woodwork but an iron/steel framed wagon would have them painted the same as the rest of the iron/steelwork. 

[Annie]

13 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

As far as am aware, pre-1923 most PO (and railway company) wagon solebars and headstocks were painted the same colour as the wagon body.

 

Jim

Yes that's very true Jim.  It's more that I had a difficult time of it getting the colour shade of the solebars and headstocks to be a reasonable match for the wagon body.  Sometimes when 3D meshes are made by two different creators, ie. the wagon body and the underframe the colour characteristics aren't the same which can take a certain amount of trial and error to end up with something that looks reasonable in the virtual world of Trainz.

 

8 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Generally, timber would be painted one colour and iron/steelwork another. This has a good deal to do with which paints were the best preservatives for each material. In some cases the same colour would be used for both - more often on railway company wagons than private owner wagons. But the upshot is that a wood-framed wagon would have solebars and headstocks the same colour as the body woodwork but an iron/steel framed wagon would have them painted the same as the rest of the iron/steelwork. 

With using Ed Heaps's underframe ironwork kit I can have any colour I like so long as it is black; - so that can't be changed, - but I can change the colour of the wooden parts.  More than likely I'll end up doing more grey PO wagons than red ones, but with red being more difficult to get it to look right I thought it worthwhile to spend the time on it.  All very different to when I'd get my tinlets of Humbrol paint out back in the day.

 

[Annie]

Faery Tales.  The April 2022 issue of RM had an article  entitled 'Copper, Wort & Co' based on the brewing industry at Burton-on-Trent.  On seeing the article one of the members of the creator group decided that he was going to build a replica of it in Trainz.  Some of us in the group assisted with researching and making barrels (sooooo many barrels......) and a number of items of rolling stock were specially devised to carry a variety of barrel loads.  I made a Midland Railway D299 open wagon and I was working on a MR covered van until COVID hit and put the brakes on that,  BUT I will be getting back to finishing it off fairly soon.

'Copper Wort' is still undergoing beta testing, but will find its way onto the Trainz download station (DLS) before too long.

 

After August having been an entirely forgettable month I decided that I needed a cheer up present so I purchased a handful of 'Faery' class Hunslets from Paulz Trainz.  These are older models from TS2004 days so I knew I'd have to do a little work on them, but overall they are nice wee locos and very cute.  I ordered green and red 'Faery' Hunslets, but Paul threw a couple of black ones in as well.

So what to do?  Give the red one a polish up and make it presentable and pop it down on 'Copper Wort' to get its picture took.

 

 

 

 

After that I took it on a journey over to 'Dintdale' because I wanted to see how these 'Faery' Hunslets would perform using the steam controls.  It was an awfully mean thing to do to test 'Bass No.1' on the colliery branch's 1.56% gradient, but despite getting bunted about  a bit by loaded coal wagons, having almost no braking power to speak of, - and using mountainous qualities of sand the wee red terror didn't do a bad job at all.  It steamed really well and was surprisingly controllable.  I had to be really on my game while driving, but that's no less than you'd expect. 

It always cheers me up to do a challenging spot of driving using the steam controls, but despite the fun I was having the Peckett 'K' saddle tanks are still kings of the hill and aren't at any risk of being replaced any time soon. 

 

[Compound2632]

51 minutes ago, Annie said:

Faery Tales.  The April 2022 issue of RM had an article  entitled 'Copper, Wort & Co' based on the brewing industry at Burton-on-Trent. 

 

You know the builder of that fantastic layout is on here?

 

More photos:

 

 

[Annie]

43 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

You know the builder of that fantastic layout is on here?

Thanks very much for that Stephen.  It really is an amazing layout in every way.

 

Looking at those photos as well as the video clip I think the creator group builder of the digital version has got his sums wrong when he laid out the plan because there's places where the trackwork doesn't want to take a tight enough curve.  I was looking at it today while I was mucking about with the red 'Faery' Hunslet and in a couple of places the track has some bad kinks that I couldn't see a way to fix it without having to shift the buildings and platforms around.

I know very well with Trainz it's often a case of having to adapt what's available rather than what one might prefer to have, but if the plan has been printed out too small to start with it's only going to make things harder than they need to be.

[Annie]

No.614 in a series, - gotta collect them all!  This 'Faery' Hunslet arrived yesterday with 'No.614' on its saddle tank so when I was giving its paintwork a bit of a polish up I decided to keep the number and all I did was to put it into a nicer lettering font.  Perhaps it's a clue to it having a mysterious past.  The red terror has gone back to my digital trainset box and it will now be No.614's job to keep the colliery exchange sidings at Dint nice and tidy.  The exchange sidings are on level ground so it shouldn't have any trouble.

I've installed new smoke and steam animation files which is an on-going task with all my older engines.  Ex-N.E.R class 'E' No.811 alongside No.614 is still awaiting its turn in the works.  It was among the very first engines I obtained for Trainz TS2009 as I had an LNER layout back then.

 

 

A nice detail I thought is that all the 'Faery' Hunslets have a bucket and a set of fire irons on the brackets at the back of the cab.  I lightened the shadow a little in the snap I took so you can see them a little better.  I know I'm being a bit of a 'Faery' Hunslet fan girl at the moment, but with these being my post-COVID cheer up present and with them being such lovely engines to drive using the Trainz 'advanced' steam controls I'm more than just a wee bit pleased with them

 

 

Do you see the goods guard in the brake van coupled behind No.811?  Well he's got some kind of clever script attached to him so that he will move from one end of the van to the other depending on the camera viewpoint and if he doesn't like the way you're looking at him he'll hide inside his van.  The first time I saw it happening I couldn't quite believe was I was seeing.

 

[Annie]

I've now got four Bickershaw PO wagons done with different numbers and they've been sent off to be uploaded to the Download Station (DLS).  It's good to be doing textures for goods wagons again, but with still being a bit brain fogged I make silly mistakes and things I used to be able to do easily are taking me noticeably longer.

Today I found three blank grey PO wagons I'd done before I caught the plague and it really annoyed me that I completely forgotten about them.  Hopefully getting back to digital model making will give my brain sufficient exercise to start working properly again. 

 

 

A pair of D299 5 plank wagons.  I did the D299 textures a while ago, but there were some details I wasn't happy with so they've had a little tidy up.  I'm not sure if I'll do another one in a less weathered state of condition than these two, but I'll see how I feel about it tomorrow.

 

[Annie]

Midland D299 5 planks now in three different states of weathering.

 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Midland D299 5 planks now in three different states of weathering.

 

 

You knew the risk you were taking. Please forgive the following snagging list. I realise there are some limitations from the base models used, such as those axleboxes (!), long brake lever, and over-long buffer guides. The end pillars should not taper at the top but be of uniform section. I also suspect that the model is too long. But some points of decoration could, I think, be addressed. Everything at solebar level and above should be grey, including the buffer guides, end pillars, and solebar ironwork, including that part of the brake vee-hanger that overlaps the solebar. The exception is the brake lever and guide, which should be black. But I think the one thing that would improve the appearance at a stroke would be better positioning of the M R initials, centred in the space between corner plate and washer plate. 

 

Reference:

 

 

[DY 2494, embedded link to Derby Registers.]

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

You knew the risk you were taking.

Indeed I did Stephen.  Unfortunately as you say there are more than a few things that I'm stuck with.  As far as I know the underframe ironwork kitset was originally devised for pre-grouping Scottish prototypes, but with it being all that there is it's a case of using it or nuffing.  The texture mapping on the ironwork parts is very basic so it can only be one colour, - so black is pretty much it.

The wagon body is 15ft long which was dictated by the wooden underframe mesh that was available.  I had a genuine D299 drawing, but the person from the creator group who was the 3D modeller making the wagon bodies amazingly can't read technical drawings so I had to explain everything to him.  It was a real fight to get him do the plank width to the correct measurement which he eventually did, but he went his own way with the end pillars.  All the other wagon bodies for the project ended up with half inch thick planks, - 'because he's always done it that way'.  I don't know if he has a thing against technically minded women or not, but whenever I have to work with him I just about end up tearing my hair out.

I'm seriously thinking about making my own wagon bodies from now on.  Sketchup 8 which I already know how to use will be fine for that.  Blender is utterly diabolical to learn and way beyond my capabilities.

 

As to the MR initials that's all down to me.  For various strange reasons to do with textures needing to conform to particular size ratios the texture for the sides is over length and is in effect compressed to fit the body mesh.  I forgot to allow for this due to my brain still being foggy so the initials ended up in the wrong position.  At least it is an easy fix though.

 

Your comments and advice are always welcome by the way.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[eheaps]

The buffers and axle boxes were based on Highland Railway examples, as that was what I was modelling at the time, but with a few modifications to make them useful as a generic resource. I'm pretty sure it would be possible to reskin different parts of the ironwork into different colours, although I admit it would be challenge without my original files. I can have a look later on and provide a template if you would like. The only potential downside of this is that you lose the benefit of the ironwork being part of mesh library (for those unfamiliar a mesh library in Trainz allows the same 3D components to be used on multiple models in a way that is more computationally efficient than including identical components in each individual model). A possibility is that a new mesh library (or an extension of the current one) could created for use across all wagons with grey ironwork above a certain level (and potentially similar for other colours too).

[Compound2632]

Given that it's actually the right length to within an inch, I think what makes it look over-long is that the door has come out to narrow - possibly as a result of the length compression you describe?

[Annie]

14 minutes ago, eheaps said:

A possibility is that a new mesh library (or an extension of the current one) could created for use across all wagons with grey ironwork above a certain level (and potentially similar for other colours too).

That would be very useful Ed and would avoid the loss of a mesh library.  Grey and red are the two main colours that come to mind as being the most common apart from black.

 

19 minutes ago, eheaps said:

I can have a look later on and provide a template if you would like. The only potential downside of this is that you lose the benefit of the ironwork being part of mesh library

I'm sure I could work with a template and get a good result, - however the loss of the mesh library would be a downside to that despite the improved appearance of my models.  It's certainly something to think about, - only I'm reluctant to put you to too much trouble.

 

With buffers I found that I could sometimes make use of Jack Barber's buffers with your underframe kit, but overall your elegant Highland buffers don't offend too much and I've been happy to make use of them.

 

 

[Annie]

33 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Given that it's actually the right length to within an inch, I think what makes it look over-long is that the door has come out to narrow - possibly as a result of the length compression you describe?

I'm going to need to take a closer look at the models in the virtual world of the simulator and take some measurements and compare them against the drawing.  Making adjustments to the texture is easy enough to do once I know what I'm aiming for.

[Annie]

Annie's WIP D299 with shadows turned off so you can see it properly. 

Edit: The first thing that's immediately noticeable is that the texture has been pulled off centre so I'm going to have to shift the true centre of the texture back the other way to compensate.  Without measuring anything I would say that the side door is fairly close to being the right width, but I won't know for certain until the texture has been centred correctly.

Another Edit: And no door banger, - so that has to be removed

 

 

Stephen's D299 picture.

 

Edited September 12, 2022 by Annie
More words needed.

[Annie]

And now hopefully a lot better than it was.  Along the way I found some small errors with parts of the texture being slightly mismatched so I fixed those too.  I had to do the normal map a couple of times before I was happy with it, but overall I'm pleased with the final result.

Now there's just the other two to do.

 

[eheaps]

Grey ironwork texture and added short handle for Stephen...

 

[Annie]

1 minute ago, eheaps said:

Grey ironwork texture and added short handle for Stephen...

Thank you very much for doing this Ed, - it's going to make such a difference and an improvement to the MR open wagons I want to make.  I had planned on doing the later D302 5 plank wagons next.

 

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, eheaps said:

Grey ironwork texture and added short handle for Stephen...

 

That's the ticket! Am I going to mention that D299s had bottom doors and hence no brake cross-shaft? They were built with brakes on one side only; some gained a second, independent, set of brakes in late Midland days. 

 

The same underframe was used for D305 low side wagons from 1897, those built 1905-9 did have Morton brakes with cross-shaft.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Compound2632

[Annie]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Am I going to mention that D299s had bottom doors and hence no brake cross-shaft?

The ironwork kit has the necessary bits to do both a no brake cross-shaft option and single sided brakes and I can add bottom doors to the wagon floor.  If I've gone this far I might as well do my best to do everything properly.  There's a serious lack of MR goods wagons in Trainz so let's see what I can do about it.

 

I've got various MR wagon drawings, but I'd have to check exactly what I have.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Compound2632]

Just now, Annie said:

I've got various MR wagon drawings, but I'd have to check exactly what I have.

 

If you are stuck, just ask.

[Annie]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

If you are stuck, just ask.

Thanks very much Stephen, - I'll do that.

 

 

[Annie]

Checking through my files I have the following MR drawings:

 

D305 6 ton 3 plank. (1877)

 

D305 8 ton 3 plank. (1897)

 

D351 8 ton 5 plank with end door. (1890)

 

D376 covered goods van (vented) (1893)

 

D299 8 ton 5 plank (1882)

 

D363 covered goods van (1894)

 

Ed has very kindly sent me the files for his new grey ironwork so I'll be having a little play with those this afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Annie
Fixing up my mess

[Annie]

Where things are at with the D299 Project.  The grey ironwork kit modification is really good and is absolutely spot on.  I couldn't find the modified grey 'V' hanger for the brake lever though so I'll have to ask Ed about it.  Double sided brakes without a cross shaft and bottom doors are new additions, - though I will be doing a single sided brake version as well.

Doing this post-COVID though I felt like I was having to drag my brain around in a handcart and kickstart it anytime I wanted it to do anything.  Everything took me so much longer and figuring out what needed to be done when I've already made so many goods wagons before this one was just so darn frustrating.