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

[sem34090]

That moment when you finish making a GWR route into an ex-LSWR one for your new toy to run on and realise it's gone four in the morning...

I bought some new toys over the weekend - First train simulator purchases since June!

I like this a lot. Fairly-recently-released LSWR 0415 Class pack from Digital Traction. All liveries are included, as are multiple chimney, boiler, frame and builder's plate variations.

Then I also bought another pre-grouping toy. The announcement of an NER O Class for train simulator sparked an interest in getting a bit more native NER motive power for the Weardale & Teesdale route, set firmly in NER territory during the late 1950s yet the pack only comes with horrible dismals/diseasals/green-boxes-on-wheels-that-hum rather than gorgeous native NER steam locos, or indeed any steam locos. The pack would have been so much better if, instead of a class 25 (horrible ratty thing), class 08, class 37 and class 101 an NER O, T2, C1 and E1 had been included!

I now have a T2, the O is coming and hopefully some day we'll see a C1 and E1. Maybe even a C and an E!

I got some other new toys as well, but they're of little interest here. Here's one of them:

Thanks to the Steam November Sale, for the grand total of £1.19 I got the above A1, a King, a Hall and a V2, plus some horrible class-47-shaped-thing-that-makes-humming-noises. Not bad, as TS prices go, I think.

[Annie]

Brilliant screenshots Sem, - thanks for sharing.  Yes seems that just about every day I get something in my email inbox from Dovetail Games going on about some sale or another they are having.  I'm not even sure that some things they claim to be trains actually are trains as they look more like toothpaste tubes lying on their sides.  Their prices are certainly cheap though.  It hasn't got to the 'free weekend in Paris and we pay you to buy our digital models' stage yet, but it must be getting close.

[Annie]

I haven't been entirely comfortable with running a C53 (J70) GER tram engine on the Hopewood Tramway since it would been unlikely that the GER would have had one spare even to loan for a short time.  BUT the G15's were a different story.  Considered to be not up to the job anymore on the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway they spent a lot of time in store or doing nothing.  I'm sure the GER would have been only too pleased to palm a G15 off on the Hopewood Tramway.

 

I found this older G15 model on the DLS, it seems to have been recently upgraded to TS2012, but none too well as the steam sounds file doesn't work properly.  Apart from that it seems to be mostly Ok.  I wasn't all that happy about using Wisbech & Upwell coaches on the Hopewood Tramway either, so I decided to follow in the footsteps of other minor railways and light railways and try out a full sized end balcony bogie  coach.  The coach is Australian and was operated by the Victorian Railways, The first ones were imported from the US, but later ones were built in Australia.   I know there was one minor railway that used balcony end coaches that came from a failed export order for South America and of course there was the Garstang & Knott End Railway.

 

 

One advantage of using this coach is that it can cope with the passenger numbers for an entire timetabled passenger service without leaving anybody standing on the platform because there are no empty seats.

 

 

Bluebell Sands

 

 

 

 

Hopewood on Sea.

 

 

Heading off along the branch line.

 

 

Downes Farm station.

 

 

The next station was still under construction so no snaps were taken, - so the final picture is arrival at Elgar Junction (GCR).

The Hopewood Tramway makes a junction connection with the single line Elgar (GCR) branch which is why the G15 Tram engine is being stared at by very large and serious looking GCR engines who are no doubt thinking, 'What's that scruffy little thing doing on our railway.'

 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Annie

[Edwardian]

I haven't been entirely comfortable with running a C53 (J70) GER tram engine on the Hopewood Tramway since it would been unlikely that the GER would have had one spare even to loan for a short time.  BUT the G15's were a different story.  Considered to be not up to the job anymore on the Wisbech & Upwell Tramway they spent a lot of time in store or doing nothing.  I'm sure the GER would have been only too pleased to palm a G15 off on the Hopewood Tramway.

 

I found this older G15 model on the DLS, it seems to have been recently upgraded to TS2012, but none too well as the steam sounds file doesn't work properly.  Apart from that it seems to be mostly Ok.  I wasn't all that happy about using Wisbech & Upwell coaches on the Hopewood Tramway either, so I decided to follow in the footsteps of other minor railways and light railways and try out a full sized end balcony bogie  coach.  The coach is Australian and was operated by the Victorian Railways, The first ones were imported from the US, but later ones were built in Australia.   I know there was one minor railway that used balcony end coaches that came from a failed export order for South America and of course there was the Garstang & Knott End Railway.

 

 

One advantage of using this coach is that it can cope with the passenger numbers for an entire timetabled passenger service without leaving anybody standing on the platform because there are no empty seats.

 

 

Bluebell Sands

 

 

Hopewood on Sea.

 

 

Heading off along the branch line.

 

 

Downes Farm station.

 

 

The next station was still under construction so no snaps were taken, - so the final picture is arrival at Elgar Junction (GCR).

The Hopewood Tramway makes a junction connection with the single line Elgar (GCR) branch which is why the G15 Tram engine is being stared at by very large and serious looking GCR engines who are no doubt thinking, 'What's that scruffy little thing doing on our railway.'

 

 

Good to see a G15 in GE livery, and it does well with the Garstang coach.

 

Are you able to tackle the green buffer beam?  It does look most odd!

[Annie]

I haven't had a close look at the G15 just yet James, but there are a number of things I do want sort out on it and the green buffer beam is one of them.  As downloaded the G15 model does run well, but at about 8-10 mph something goes wrong with the steam sound files and it sounds like it's violently falling to pieces.  Depending on how the texture files are laid out I'm hoping to fit a GER numberplate as well as generally give everything a tidy up.

The coach is really beautifully put together and its textures are real works of art.  The Australian chap who made it is well known for quality work so I'm more than happy to be using it on the Hopewood Tramway.  I'll see if I can do a neat job of lettering the coach for the Hopewood Tramway.  Fortunately the Hopewood Tramway's coach livery is plain red so I don't have to do any re-coloring.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Annie

[Annie]

The Pendon set-up is the second plan but with the top left 90deg corner past Flitch's Farm deleted. This alters the relationship between the various buildings between the girder river bridge behind the loco shed and Bert's garage. I have visited it several times and this is the only difference I can detect other than some cosmetic repairs to scenery. The Gammon End branch terminus is several inches lower than Gammon Magna. I'd estimate about 5 or 6 inches. I believe the branch falls a little past the Brickfield and the mainline cilmbs between Cuckoo Island and the Madderhorn.

 

At the end of the Gammon End station plan the small goods dock is now an island platform with the right hand track (on the plan) extended. See the attached photos.

 

Might you be able to take textures from some photo close-ups of the model?

 

I am only 90 mins drive from Pendon and would be happy to take any more pics or notes you may find helpful. I have quite a few pics via t'internet and my own photos already.

 

Brickfield with main line climbing at left through Madderhorn tunnel and branch descending on right.

Brickworks.jpg

 

Three views of the new straight section from the girder bridge to Much Madder station

Dsc00271.jpg

 

Dsc00272.jpg

 

Dsc00273.jpg

 

Extended siding beyond the loco release at Gammon End.

Dsc00293.jpg

 

...looking at the track break immediately left of the red box car, this is probably a piece of dead cosmetic track added recently by Pendon staff.

Thank you very much for the pictures and additional information Martin.  After thinking about it I've decided not to make any kind of immediate start on a digital Madder Valley Railway model as I have three digital layouts already that I'm trying to get to some kind of completed stage and I'd really like to get them done first.  Having been much influenced by John Ahern's work back in my teenaged years when I first started railway modelling I would certainly like to give building a model of the Madder Valley Railway a go, but just not yet.

 

The colour photos of the MVR are certainly good enough that I'll be able to match colours without too much difficulty so I don't see too many problems in that regard.

[Annie]

The now somewhat improved GER G15 tram engine.  I can't fit a numberplate to the bodysides unfortunately as with the way the textures work one side would be fine and the other one would be a mirror image.  It now also has a much better steam sound file which makes it a very nice wee engine to drive.

 

[Annie]

One thing that I noticed which was a bit odd was that the GER C53 tram engine I was running before had a G15 number.  I'm very much thinking about sorting out a second G15 tram engine for use on the Hopewood Tramway.  They seem to have been loaned out to various light railways in pairs and I certainly would have plenty of work for them.  The two wee Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0's and the big Kerr Stuart shouldn't really be running on any of the roadside sections of the tramway.  The dirt road along the coast doesn't really count, but the properly formed lengths of roadway between Bluebell Woods and Mollywood, - and Hopewood on Sea and Downes Farm most certainly do.

 

 

The last station on the line is now largely complete.  I deliberately made Elgar Wood station look as if the Hopewood Tramway was running low on funds when it was built, so I put together a station building assembled from three wooden sheds to create a contrast with the smart brick buildings at the other stations

 

 

 

The Y14's footplate crew must be wondering what they did to deserve this.  It's not that bad really since they've just finished working a goods train through to the wood products factory at Downes Farm and will be heading off soon once they've watered and fed their engine and themselves.

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Annie

[Annie]

Engines like the Y14 can go as far as Downes Farm station and then they have to hand over to a properly skirted tramway engine.  With the junction to the GCR finally being connected up GER trains are now able to travel to the Hopewood Tramway by invoking running powers over the half mile or so of GCR metals separating the GER line from the Hopewood Tramway.  All adds to the operational interest of course.

 

 

 

GER bolster wagons.  These are permanently coupled in pairs.  For such simple wagons these were a right @!$%& to do.  The base models I used were very old from the early days of TS2004 and had all kinds of esoteric scripting, - some of which was obsolete in later versions or Trainz, - as well as a texture library scripted in which I didn't want & etc & etc.  But I got there in the end (Alleluia! Alleluia!.......) and I now have two very useful pairs of bolster wagons.  I won't be offering these as freeware on DLS since so much bodging around had to be done to get them to the state that you see in the picture.  Certainly good enough for my own use, but other Trainz folk might not be so happy with them.

 

[Edwardian]

G15 looks much better.  

 

You have to love a Y14 in blue.  Of course, she can be used on passenger workings, too.

[Annie]

Yes the G15 is coming along nicely James.  It didn't have an interior view point for driving from inside the 'shed' so I've been working on that.  At the moment it is possible to be inside the interior while driving, only staring at the back of the boiler isn't very useful for seeing where I'm going.  Adjustments needed.

Once I have No.131 sorted I'll put together a second G15 as I definitely have work for two.

 

Now that the whole length of the line has been completed a nice handy engine like a Y14 is very useful.  Light enough to operate over the tramway's trackwork and unlike the original Hopewood Tramway engines well able to take trains to and fro between the tramway and the outside world.  And yes it will be bringing the odd passenger train onto the Hopewood Tramway metals, though passengers will have to alight at Downes Farm station and wait for a G15 hauled passenger train to arrive if they want to go further.

 

Still life on the Hopewood Tramway.  The connecting line to the GCR at Bluebell Woods is hardly ever used and nobody can really remember when the hinges on the gate broke and it ended up being stuck in the hedge.

 

 

Bluebell Woods (GCR) now has proper GCR station buildings instead of the generic LNER buildings that were there before.  The chap who made the LNER buildings is a member of the creator group I belong to.  He made them back in the TS2006 simulator era and certainly put a lot of thought and work into them, but they ended up being used everywhere on every UK based layout and even got slightly converted into being GWR station buildings by other modellers, - so when I found these GCR station buildings the demolition men were called in.  They are actually semi-generic GCR-MET joint line buildings and they were made by a modern image UK modeller, but fortunately he was wise enough to make them available with no era specific signage on them.  They are very nicely made and well detailed and certainly make for a pleasant change.

 

 

[Edwardian]

Nice selection of signals!

 

Some of the blue Y14s were dual braked, so could worked through vac-braked coaches onto the line.

 

Very useful considering the GER is air-braked and the neighboring WNR is vacuum-braked!

[Annie]

Yes I've been wanting to bring that nice Y14 model out and introduce it to the layout James.  Now it has a proper job to do it can get some purposeful running which will be very good indeed.  The range of GER engines for Trainz isn't all that good really and out of them all the Y14 is the most useful.

 

Yes I like signals and my weakness for them is very much on view in that picture.  The disc signals are 'stolen' from the Ffestiniog Railway and are very much to my mind the kind of thing that a small roadside tramway might have used.  The other signals are nice old wooden post GWR ones which are pretending to be something else (Saxby & Farmer?).  The situation with pre-grouping signals is slowly improving with models for the NER, LBSC, LSWR as well as slotted post McKenzie & Holland types now being available.

[Annie]

Possibly having too much fun with my silly little tramway.  I own four LMS Garratts and have built up a layout where I can run 60+ wagon coal trains, but I find that it's light railways and small engines doing small things that I like the most.

 

[Edwardian]

Possibly having too much fun with my silly little tramway.  I own four LMS Garratts and have built up a layout where I can run 60+ wagon coal trains, but I find that it's light railways and small engines doing small things that I like the most.

 

 

Lovely scene.  To my mind with an Irish feel.

[Annie]

Thanks James.  I think I must've had images of the smaller Irish railways in the back of my mind when I was putting Elgar Wood together.  Being out at the far end of the tramway like it is it somehow seems to acquired its own unique character as compared to the other stations.

 

This is Elgar Wood at the end of today's modelling session.  It is now essentially complete, but not finished if you take my meaning as there are odd footpaths to lay and flower beds for cottage gardens to put in as well as lots of other small details to add here and there.

The grim looking factory is Grott & Drear, - makers of wooden things from dead trees.  Any railway needs traffic to stay alive and with two rail served wood products factories alongside the line as well as the shingle and gravel supply company at Bluebell Sands I think the Hopewood Tramway should be fine.  I deliberately stayed away from coal as a traffic except for local domestic use as I already have other layouts where coal is shifted about on a huge scale and I wanted a change from all that.

 

 

[Annie]

Ah, - the arcane mysteries of GER tram engines.  I discovered why I had a G15 and a C53 tram engine both numbered '131' .  G15 131 was scrapped in 1907 and its number was passed to its C53 replacement.  Though since G15 131 wouldn't have been very old at that date I'm wondering how much of it's fabric ended up being reused on the C53 that replaced it.  I bet more than a few modellers who can't identify GER tram engines from quite a way way off have been caught out by that one.

So I couldn't have a G15 numbered '131' on my layout due to it no longer existing during the slightly rubberised time frame I've settled on.  Back to the numbers game and No.125 looked like a safe bet since it wasn't withdrawn until 1943; - so the former No.131 is now No.125.  I still needed another G15 and after a little more study I noted that No.128 was withdrawn in 1913.  A dastardly history twisting plot started to form in my mind.  What if on being withdrawn No.128 went to the Hopewood Tramway instead of the great engine shed in the sky.  For a few moments I had an image of Hopewood Tramway staff storming Stafford Works with the cry, 'Stand away from that small and innocent engine you foul miscreants!'  But more than likely somebody from the tramway's board of directors just went along to Stafford Works and purchased it.  Still it was a fun thought; - it's just a pity I can't draw for toffee or else I could set down the image I've got in my head for your edification and amusement.

 

 

It took about three tries to end up with 'Hopewood Tramway' lettering I liked.  The texture piece is compressed into place on the mesh, so that made it more difficult as well since I had to space and stretch the lettering out on the texture based on a not very certain guess as to how it might look when loaded into the simulator.  I've lightly weathered the lettering as well since the yellow was just a bit too vivid and didn't look right despite supposedly being the correct GER shade of colour.

 

 

Now this is really odd.  When No.125 was No.131 the footplate crew were nowhere to be found despite being properly scripted to be in place crewing the engine.  As soon as it became No.125 they turned up for work.  The footplate crew for No.128 turned up for work as well.  Digital footplate crews not wanting to work on engines that should not be existing anymore is definitely a new one on me!

[Martin S-C]

Regarding disappearing engine parts I recall this problem with MSTS. Usually its all down to some small heirarchy in the model parts list or folder tree. Sometimes the software just doesn't like something. By retexturing some part and altering a file size you probably fixed whatever it was. Sometimes it was just a case of rebuilding a 3D model and retexturing it in the exact same way that fixed it. We had so much fun in the early days of MSTS dealing with weird gremlins like that.

As to your small terminus layout I am a bit concerned that the route a loco needs to take to be released from the front of the train takes it through the goods shed. The porters won't be very happy when their freshly stacked bales of textiles or creamwares get covered in smuts.

[Annie]

That's a good point about the loop through the goods shed Martin and I'm going to have to do something about that.  I think I made the same mistake at Bluebell Sands, but it isn't really such a problem there since it's a through station and engines don't need to run around their trains since no passenger service terminates there.

After all my years of railway modelling you'd think I'd know better wouldn't you.

[Martin S-C]

If you displace the goods shed towards the camera almost to the heel of the timber siding point, then lay in a crossover from where the train on the left is to where the goods shed is now, that would do it I think. It may look a bit odd but then again somne light railway/tramway track layouts were curious. Take Wantage for example.

 

I'd hate to think I'll cause you to have to widen the station site and shift all that scenery.

 

EDIT: Like so:

 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Annie]

Martin, I ended up moving the goods shed approximately to where the wheel tracks end and running a new siding in off the loop.  That way I still had a long loop which will be necessary for handling goods traffic from the timber products factory and the goods shed is no longer a target for trains being run through it.  It also meant that I could use an already empty area in the station yard without having to shorten the backyards behind those houses.  Looking at it carefully on the ground before moving anything I could see that there would be plenty of room for carts to be maneuvered about and if anything access to the goods shed was much improved.

 

Thank you very much for pointing out my mistake.  Sometimes with working on a layout of this size (15 scale miles from end to end) what may have been something done as a temporary measure can end up being left like that and then after a while the fact that it's wrong gets overlooked because I'm busy with something else.

[Martin S-C]

I think this way you now have two passing loops end to end, a little odd but it also means your goods shed is standing on a loop still so engines can propel wagons into it from either end.

[Annie]

This is how I have it put together at the moment Martin.  I guess what I should do over the next day or so is intensively work trains in and out of the yards while giving myself all kinds of shunting puzzles so I can see if it's going to work or not.

 

[Martin S-C]

That works too. A little unorthodox but tramways were unorthodox.

[Annie]

With Elgar Wood station and yard I set myself the problem of the tramway having to fit in with what was already there.  The farm, houses and the small village as well as the roads were there first so the only place the tramway could go was in the fork of the two roads.  After a little shunt about I can definitely tell you the goods yard does work out Ok.  I agree it's unorthodox and certainly not what any mainline company would have a bar of, but for the traffic on the line and where it has to go it does do the job.

 

 

Grott & Drear, makers of things from dead trees.

 

 

What you were saying earlier Martin about supposedly identical config scripts not playing nice was certainly true with these bolster wagons.  They run in pairs and I'd put together two different pairs with all the same parts, textures and etc, but despite identical config scripting for loading and unloading products one pair would load packets of lumber (packets? - I think that's what they're called) and the other pair wouldn't.  In the end I got the rogue pair to work, but with a slightly different loading script.  Trainz certainly keeps my brain agile (in a sleepy kind of way) if nothing else.