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

[Annie]

I've been making more wagons for the Eastlingwold and Great Mulling.  I decided to have an experiment with making a dumb buffered wagon that has been converted to spring buffers in a fairly basic way.  Some years ago I saw a photo of a wagon that had been 'economically' converted and I decided it would be just the kind of thing the E&GR would try.

The dropside wagon is still a bit WIP at this stage, but overall I'm reasonably happy with it.

 

[Annie]

I'm continuing to work on rolling stock and engines for the Eastlingwold & Great Mulling.  The line is very much a time warp in history with its use of rolling stock and engines from the 1860s and 1870s, but I like it like that and it is my railway afterall.

A Hurst 0-4-2WT built during the 1860s.  Both the NBR and the L&YR had these.  By what means the E&GR came to own one is a mystery.  I had to do quite a bit of texture detailing with this engine and I'm very pleased with how it's turned out.

 

Still some small details to add.  At the moment with being sleepy I'm finding it a bit of a struggle to make attachment points in body meshes and adjust them correctly so I don't try to do them all at once.

 

Possibly you would have seen this delightful little engine in some of my screenshots from my modified Minehead layout on TS2019.  Since I'd done the texturing work originally to suit TS2019's lighting effects I had to do a bit of revision to its textures to make them look their best in TS2012.  It will get a E&GR number plate eventually.  It's not a problem at all to make the number plates, it's creating and adjusting the necessary attachment points in the body mesh that I'm finding a bit challenging at the moment.  I very much want to fit all the E&GR engines with number plates, - it's just going to be a bit of a slow process.

 

This little confection is used on inspection trains and to take important persons and visitors up and down the line.  It is a bit of a pet engine and the shed staff at Grimwold take great pride in keeping it in immaculate condition.

 

 

Coaches!  I think this is the fourth livery that I've applied to my 1870s 4 wheel coaches.

While the E&GR surprisingly does own some 'modern' 6 wheel coaches from the 1890s they are only used on the main line between Oakmarket and Eastlingwold and occasionally on passenger services out into the wider world.  The quarry branch has to make do with these old 4 wheelers since anything that's on the way to becoming an antique eventually finds its way to the branchline to Grimwold.

 

And speaking of antiques how about these 1850s 6 wheel vans.  I really don't know anything about them and they certainly are a bit on the unusual side.  That long lever applies the brakes to three wheels on one side of the van only.  I suppose in actual use that long lever would have been tied down with rope.  It would certainly be hazardous attempting to apply the brakes while the van was in motion.

I'm going to have them parked in a siding at the quarry as stores vans since I doubt even the E&GR would be seriously using such vans at the nominal time period I claim for my layout.  And yes I will be doing some more work on their textures since they look a bit too clean at the moment. 

 

[Victorian Lad]

A preview of what is to come next from Caledonia Works for TS19. SECR C Class

 

[Caley Jim]

5 minutes ago, Victorian Lad said:

A preview of what is to come next from Caledonia Works for TS19. SECR C Class

But it's not Caledonian!!!  

 

Jim

[Victorian Lad]

16 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

But it's not Caledonian!!!  

 

Jim

Very true, however I just released a CR 439 Class so that should be good for a month or so 

[sem34090]

Fantastic to see you back here, Kris - I was just going to cross-post from UKTS but see you've already done it for me!  

Really looking forward to this one - We could do with an SECR brake van to go with it (that's not a request by the way, just a general note.)  

[Annie]

Further work has been done on the Hurst 0-4-2WT engines.  There's now a No.34 to go with No.30 and I may sort out one more.  These are really useful engines for local passenger train services and after a fair bit of updating and one thing and another they run very nicely indeed.

 

 

Footplate crew models have always been a problem in Trainz.  Years ago a maker of very nice GWR engines made a driver and a fireman and they have been used everywhere.  Look in almost any  steam engine cab in Trainz and there they will be.  I've made use of them myself in more than a few of my own engines.

The other set of footplate crew which is seen less often are the semi-Victorian era figures by Steve Flanders.  I like these and several of my mid-19th century engines have these figures on the footplate. The only problem is the lack of variety.  There's essentially one driver and two firemen in two different poses.

I looked around to see what else there might be and came up with nothing.  Then I remembered that Steve Flanders had made a fireman for one of his plateway locomotives; - only this figure was scruffy and was wearing very basic clothing with his sleeves rolled up and his hair tied back with a piece of rag.  I normally don't try and rework model figures because they are tricky things and the textures often map on to the meshes very strangely in incomprehensible ways, but I decided to have a go.

I changed the figure's face and then I had to mess around with patching and blending his hair together;- and then after that it was figuring out how to dress him in the same clothing that Steve Flander's footplate crew figures wear.  You can see the result in the picture.  He seems to have misplaced his cap, but at least I now have another fireman figure I can use with my old engines.

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Further work has been done on the Hurst 0-4-2WT engines.  There's now a No.34 to go with No.30 and I may sort out one more.  These are really useful engines for local passenger train services and after a fair bit of updating and one thing and another they run very nicely indeed.

 

 

Footplate crew models have always been a problem in Trainz.  Years ago a maker of very nice GWR engines made a driver and a fireman and they have been used everywhere.  Look in almost any  steam engine cab in Trainz and there they will be.  I've made use of them myself in more than a few of my own engines.

The other set of footplate crew which is seen less often are the semi-Victorian era figures by Steve Flanders.  I like these and several of my mid-19th century engines have these figures on the footplate. The only problem is the lack of variety.  There's essentially one driver and two firemen in two different poses.

I looked around to see what else there might be and came up with nothing.  Then I remembered that Steve Flanders had made a fireman for one of his plateway locomotives; - only this figure was scruffy and was wearing very basic clothing with his sleeves rolled up and his hair tied back with a piece of rag.  I normally don't try and rework model figures because they are tricky things and the textures often map on to the meshes very strangely in incomprehensible ways, but I decided to have a go.

I changed the figure's face and then I had to mess around with patching and blending his hair together;- and then after that it was figuring out how to dress him in the same clothing that Steve Flander's footplate crew figures wear.  You can see the result in the picture.  He seems to have misplaced his cap, but at least I now have another fireman figure I can use with my old engines.

 

 

I am impressed by the packaging of the coal into bite size pieces  

 

Lovely little engine.

 

 

[Annie]

I have two other mid-19th century tank engines with their coal loaded on board in sacks.  I'm not sure how common this practice was and so far I haven't seen any period photos showing coal loaded in this way.  I know Paul of Paulz Trainz did quite a bit of research when he undertook the original commision to make the 19th century engines that he sells so I would imagine that this is correct.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

6 hours ago, Annie said:

I have two other mid-19th century tank engines with their coal loaded on board in sacks.  I'm not sure how common this practice was and so far I haven't seen any period photos showing coal loaded in this way.  I know Paul of Paulz Trainz did quite a bit of research when he undertook the original commision to make the 19th century engines that he sells so I would imagine that this is correct.

 

Well given the nature of the footplate and the lack of a defined coal bunker on that loco then loading in sacks would seem to be a way of stopping it spreading out and getting under the crew's feet.  

Edited May 23, 2019 by Malcolm 0-6-0

[Annie]

Yes the locomotive is very much designed to carry coal loaded in sacks and I think that's perfectly fine.  I'm just wondering how common this was and what other engines of the time would have been set up this way.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

Yes the locomotive is very much designed to carry coal loaded in sacks and I think that's perfectly fine.  I'm just wondering how common this was and what other engines of the time would have been set up this way.

 

 

I was wondering that myself. 

[Annie]

New 4th class open coaches.  Paul had these in his back catalogue and not on his website so I had to ask him if he would sell me some.  I already had some of the unroofed open ones with no seats, but they would be definitely out of use even on the E&GR.

 

Testing the new coaches on the line up to the quarry.

 

 

[Annie]

I've been mentioned in dispatches again in the Trainz newsletter with this screenshot.

 

[Annie]

Pictures from testing newly built locomotives as well as new and modified coaches.

 

'Watcha looking at.'

 

Looking back along the train.

 

I seem to have been put in charge of the braking on this trip.

 

Heading towards Passant station.

 

 

On the way to Morrow by Wen.

 

Milestone station.  Milestone Manor is just visible through the trees.  The Milestone family are major landowners in the district and were largely responsible for the E&GR coming into being.  Unlike most of the rest of the railway Milestone station and its goods yard are immaculate with not a weed in sight.

 

Sheep!  Sheep are everywhere in the district since sheep farming is a major agricultural industry in the region the E&GR serves.

 

Leaving Mulling in the Marsh.

 

Monkton Bywater station.

 

And to finish off my collection of snaps this is the junction the branchline makes with the E&GR mainline to Eastlingwold.  The driver of the train from Eastlingwold is no doubt grumbling because he had to wait for the train off the branchline to pass.

The open coaches seemed to be a hit with the travelling public, but possibly because they were a bit of a novelty and it was a lovely fine day.  They are actually going to be used on the quarry line and won't be used for the normal passenger service between Grimwold and Oakmarket.

Something I noticed though is that I forgot to change the engine script for the brake second coaches over to the usual 4 wheel brake van script I use for brake coaches and the difference was really noticeable.  None of my mid-19th century engines are what you'd call over braked so working brake vans and brake coaches are essential.

 

 

As you would have noticed the passengers on the interactive station platforms remain a problem.  There are very few interactive passenger sets for Trainz.  The one you see in my snaps is the standard Auran one for Trainz.  There are two Victorian era sets, one is plain awful and the other is not very good.  There is an 1880s American western set which does contain some good figures, but a good half of the figures aren't suitable for the Uk.  And the last choice is a French provincial set which is good for the 1920-1930 period, but because it contains Catholic priest figures I'd have to alter history  so that the Reformation never happened.

Possibly, just possibly if someone was to carefully choose figures from all the sets it might be possible to end up with a vaguely late 19th century-early 20th century set, but I have a feeling that the necessary magic scripting incantations involved might be horrible.

 

 

[Caley Jim]

13 hours ago, Annie said:

New 4th class open coaches.  Paul had these in his back catalogue and not on his website so I had to ask him if he would sell me some.  I already had some of the unroofed open ones with no seats, but they would be definitely out of use even on the E&GR.

I've checked the couple of books I have which give some details of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway, but neither of them indicate when the 4th class coaches were done away with.  They were still extant in September 1847 as one of the books quotes a newspaper article complaining about them, basically saying that the directors had more care for the moral welfare of their passengers, by not running trains on a Sunday, than they had for their physical welfare.

 

The coaches were nicknamed 'Stanhopes', which was not only a corruption of 'Stan'-up' but also the name given to a type of light, two-wheeled, horse drawn carriage of the time.

 

Jim

[Annie]

Thanks for that Jim.  I had thought about converting the open ones without seats for parcels traffic or hay or something similarly useful.  I wasn't really sure when they might have gone out of use, but despite the E&GR being somewhat of an anachronism on my layout and the time scale of my layout being extremely rubbery I would think that the Stanhopes would be no longer in passenger service on the E&GR.

The ones with roofs and benches seemed to me to be a conversion to bring the 4th class coaches somewhere towards being a more humane form of transport.  Paul does have some of these coaches with benches, but without roofs, - though I don't think I'll be purchasing any since four open coaches is more than enough for the quarry line; - and especially since I have some enclosed Edinburgh & Glasgow 3rd class coaches as well that I intend to use on the line.

 

Edit:  I should have mentioned Jim that E&GR on my layout stands for Eastlingwold & Great Mulling Railway and not the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway even if a lot of my 1850s rolling stock is of Edinburgh & Glasgow origin.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Annie
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[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

The ones with roofs and benches seemed to me to be a conversion to bring the 4th class coaches somewhere towards being a more humane form of transport.  Paul does have some of these coaches with benches, but without roofs, - though I don't think I'll be purchasing any since four open coaches is more than enough for the quarry line; - and especially since I have some enclosed Edinburgh & Glasgow 3rd class coaches as well that I intend to use on the line.

I suspect that that is what happened to the original E & G 4th class coaches.

 

For those not in the know, the original coaches on the Edinburgh & Glasgow were:

1st class - Upholstered seats, glass in the windows.

2nd class - bare wooden seats, no glass.

3rd class - wooden seats, no roof.

4th class - no seats.

 

It seems that even the quite well-to-do, including magistrates, preferred to travel in the lower classes of carriage in order to avail themselves of the cheaper prices!!   I would venture to suggest that these would be mostly Edinburgh bankers and lawyers!

 

Jim (running for cover!)

 

[Argos]

I have recently invested in a tome on Irish Broad gauge carriages in which are photos of first class carriages that were glazed one one side only!, the other side being open!

Presumable this would have been 1/2 class on the E&G.

 

Ideal for the Irish climate I would say!

[Caley Jim]

1 minute ago, Argos said:

I have recently invested in a tome on Irish Broad gauge carriages in which are photos of first class carriages that were glazed one one side only!, the other side being open!

Presumable this would have been 1/2 class on the E&G.

 

Ideal for the Irish climate I would say!

They would be OK if it was a north-south line and they were kept with the glazed side to the west!!    

 

Jim

[Annie]

After a bit of a search I found the 3rd class coaches.  I hadn't used them for a while and they weren't archived with all the rest of my mid-19th century models.

 

 

While I was at it I gathered together all the other 1850s coaches I have as well and got them into running order.  I think some of the coaches Paul has labeled as NBR are certainly 1850s coaches, but not NBR ones and are from other contemporary railways.  I'll be using these older 1850s coaches on the branchline for local passenger services and they won't be straying further afield.

Altogether I have a luggage brake, a brake second, a second class coach, two types of 1st/2nd composite coach and two types of first class coach.  All types have either three or four variations with different degrees of weathering/dirt ranging from clean to dead mucky.

[corneliuslundie]

Is't the line set in Norfolk? In that case the Catholic clergy are probably on their way to Walsingham, and Anglo-catholic "shrine".

Nice early carriages, and certainly pre-grouping - and pre-most-other-things too.

And you really do have a likeable line there. 

Jonathan

[Annie]

Thanks Jonathon.  It's very nice line to run trains on as well as having its own quirks just to make things interesting.  I thought it very likely that all the E&GR's older and cast off rolling stock would be sent off to the quarry branchline so it gives me an excuse to dig out all my 1850s and 1860s coaches.

 

I have been thinking about changing the interactive platforms over to the French provincial passenger set since the model figures are nicely done and they don't look like modern day passengers.  They are still not correct for my time period, but not as obviously so as the passenger set I'm using at the moment.  The one big problem though is that it's not just the platforms that I'd have to convert over, but every single passenger coach that runs on the layout.

Walsingham is a good excuse to have Catholic priests about the place though.

 

I did have a look at the better of the two Victorian passenger sets, but I decided not to use them.  Some of the figures look very strange indeed with odd proportions and unnatural poses so they are definitely out. 

[Annie]

In between things I've been doing some work on one of the very first Trainz layouts I modded using the surveyor tools in TS2009.  I've brought it across to the TS2012 simulator and generally fixing it up a litle.

This is the layout I called the HUGE Uk layout and it was big.  Too big in fact, -it took 2 hours to drive a train around it, - and it had some strange invisible scripting knots hidden in some places that would cause an instant crash to the desktop  if you went near them.  I only really used a third of the layout anyway and that was very much my favourite corner where I played trains most of the time.

 

So after thinking about it I lifted out my favourite corner, - which is where I'd done almost all of my modding work, - and took it over to TS2012.  Predictably it's a minor independent railway that makes a junction with a very secondary secondary mainline.  Over time it's been many things; a post grouping layout, a pre-grouping layout with affiliations to the NER and just lately it's been the GWR and the LSWR that have been the mainline companies in the picture.

Lifting out just the part I wanted has meant that I've had to do some rearrangements of the cut off ends, but I think the final result is workable.  Mostly it's been return loops hidden by instant forests which should work fine.  A train goes somewhere and waits on the loop until it's time to come back again, -easy peasy.

 

A spot of testing.

This is the layout where  my 0-8-4T Engerth locomotives used to play, - shifting heavy trains of coal away from the wharf and taking them up a fairly stiff gradient to the 'Vulcan Iron Works' which is the name I gave the collection of industrial grot, shabby buildings and smoking chimneys that inhabits a maze of trackwork in one corner of the layout.

 

But the Engerth locomotive is running in the other direction today because I wanted to do some trackwork testing.

 

Coastal line: tick.  Am I predictable or what.

 

Trainspotter lady with bored daughter.  I was very pleased to see her again.

 

And I was very pleased see this too.  Putting together this bridge and getting the lift section to work was a major effort back when I was first working on this layout.  I didn't really have much of a clue  back then so it was lots of trial attempts and lots of errors. 

When I came to install the layout into TS2012 the simulator had a hissy fit and wouldn't render the bridge so it was visible in the game world.  I traced the problem to a small missing line of instructions in the magical script incantations and once I managed figure out what was needed and add the line of instructions all was well and the bridge was back.  For some reason TS2009 wasn't bothered about it, but TS2012 is well known for throwing a sulk over scripting that isn't perfect.

 

'Is this all you've got?' The Engerth climbs the gradient up to Debton which is the 'big' GWR station on the layout.  The dumb buffered coal wagons have 'Internal Use Only' painted on their sides so I'm being naughty taking them out on the mainline

The line in the foreground belongs to my small imaginary railway company and the Engerth is running 'wrong road' up the hill which is commonplace for this  particular trip.  The signalling is set up for it and once through Debton station the train will be back on the right road again.  The lines in and out of Debton are worked more like a single line with a relief road alongside rather than as a double track line.

I've done this working up the hill with two J72s with 400 tons of coal dead weight on the drawbar.  The sound! the fury! the smoke!

 

And final destination.  The gasworks and coal products factory; - and general polluter of the neighbourhood.  I have no idea if this is what such a place  really looks like , but it's a fairly imposing edifice.

 

 

[Annie]

Sudbury on the LSWR line.  I thought I'd made the name up, but someone told me that there really is a town named Sudbury.  The LSWR line does have a connection with the GWR line, but it mostly goes off to places on its own.  The LSWR line had a lot more track mileage before I cut the layout down to size, but I think it will be fine with what's left.

Edit:  I did consider putting in a GWR station as well and stealing what's left of the farmer's field, but Sudbury isn't that big and two stations might be pushing the boat out a bit.

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by Annie
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