Annie

5 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

perhaps Annie can give the rest of us a sneak preview of how 2024 is feeling?

 

Mike

Well here it kicked off just like it did with 2023 with thunderstorms and heavy downpours of rain.  Seems to be our standard Summer, - two or three tantilising fine days just before Christmas and then grey skies and rain all the way through to Autumn.  At least there's no tropical cyclones, - yet.

Dukedog in the snow.  First test of the passenger schedule I put together.  

To my great surprise it worked out reasonably well considering that I had to sort out some poorly placed and dodgy signals at a couple of the stations.  Heading away from Gwladys Ddu the large stations at Tristyn and Rathtyen were the first two stops, but after that I left the main line and followed the secondary route heading for the smaller towns; -  Aelwyd,  Eirlys and Saint Elian.  All these stations are separated by several real miles of rural countryside.   Some of those miles are single track as well which helps to keep me smiling.

Crossing back to the main line eventually found 'Earl Berkeley' at Branwyn station with its train sheltered under the Brunel timber over roof.  I wanted to try something new here with using a trigger point to send the 14xx and it's driving trailer automatically on its way running its own schedule.  'Earl Berkeley' arriving at the station and coming to halt sets a timer counting down for the 14xx's own schedule so that after three minutes or so it toots its whistle and heads off to Gwenabwy which lies at the end of several miles of branchline. 

Thinking about it three minutes might be a bit of a mad scramble to cross over the footbridge with an armload of luggage and clamber aboard the 14xx's driving trailer so I might make it a bit longer before the 14xx heads off.

The interior of the driving trailer.  Everyone seems to have survived the footbridge dash Ok.

Branwyn station and yards done and dusted well enough for now I think.

I was only a young teenager when i discovered that Dukedogs weren't really as old as they looked.

My early 1950s branchlines book I owned at the time had many pictures of Dukedogs and they were very much my favourite engine.

Back at Gwladys Ddu and I'll be spending some time sorting out the local passenger service schedule and no doubt completely confusing myself in the process.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the station and yards at Branwyn on Tristyn in Winter.  As it was originally Branwyn had 4 sidings, no goods shed and 3 sidings that are made use of by Maeryn Colliery.  There was also a generic single track engine shed to house a couple of shunting engines.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Branwyn is the length of its platforms, but with the  station buildings being a 1867 GER station building on one platform and a unlikely looking brick pagoda thing on the other it largely failed to carry it off.

There's still more work that needs doing, but this is where I ended up at close of play this evening.

Yes it's a B&ER platform signal box, but it's replacing a Midland signal box so it's better than a poke in the eye.

General view looking that way.  The station building and Brunel over roof are borrowed from my Cornwall projects.  The engine shed is generic no longer.

No.12 Sentinel shunter at Branwyn having escaped from Shrewsbury.

Goods shed and cattle dock. The goods shed is based on the one at Tenby.

That foreman is a bit of a slave driver.

Aberdare resting quietly after arriving all the way from Hayle.  Actually it hasn't, - it's just that I haven't lettered any of the Toad brake vans for Tristyn & District yet.

Is that the local undertaker chatting to the fireman on that 14xx?

Another general view looking that way.

Gary Price's locomotives for Trainz are made for the TS2009 version and while they are nicely made models they are simplified in some details such as having no cab interior.

I was going edit the 56xx's config files to use an interactive 45xx cab interior, but to my surprise I found a proper interactive 56xx interior.  With interactive cabs all the controls actually work and can be used to drive the engine so finding that 56xx one was really nice.

What with my GWR focus being largely on Cornwall I hadn't really noticed what 56xx models there were about for Trainz.  I knew that I'd purchased a GWR 'shirtbutton' 56xx some time ago from Gary Price, but I discovered this evening that I'd also purchased a nicely lined out early BR one as well.  I'm not sure what I'd intended for that one, but knowing me I most probably purchased it because I thought it was pretty.

3 minutes ago, Schooner said:

5 hours ago, Annie said:

An AI creation?

It most certainly is.  Night Cafe is useful for creating all manner of silly ideas.

19 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

Well, 4 hours ago I was sound asleep. No yetis in Yorkshire. No snow. Plenty of wind, however.

 

 

Sleepth sound the head that hath no yetis to haunt it.

We've got our standard NZ Summertime rainstorms here.

Where is everybody?  Have you all been chased off by giant Yorkshire space yetis?

2 hours ago, TangoOscarMike said:

This is an heirloom. I don't know which of my ancestors was the original owner, but it may well turn out to be the entirety of my inheritance. I have used it for inspiration, but I haven't actually attempted the techniques.

Now that is an old one.  I certainly like the fact that I've got a copy again even though it would be extremely unlikely that I'll be building any more engines.

Since Tristyn & District is supposed to be in Wales I decided that I could order in two more 56xx 0-6-2T locomotives.  I already had one that hadn't seen much use up until now and with there being a colliery on the layout I figured that was sufficient excuse to have a couple more 56xx's.

Here they are parked on the wye at Gwladys Ddu.  Truth be told I'd much rather have a proper turntable and coaling stage rather than a wye which isn't that much use to me.

I've sent the new green 57xx off to the archive hard drive of shame.  It had all kinds of strange magic incantations in its config file that I didn't like much as well as a number of faults that tried my patience once too often.

So it's back to one of my old faithful engines that was originally made for Trainz TS2009.  Yes there are a few things about it that could have been modelled a little better, but it's reliable and it works without causing a fuss.

Can't have too many 57xx's, - especially ones with a Churchward cab.

So for 1934-1942 'shirt buttons' should be worn, - and after 1942 it's GWR initials until BR and nationalisation arrived and ruined everything.

This is going to be terribly inconvenient since I now have at least a dozen engines that will need to be 'buttoned up'.  Post 1942 is getting far too late for me (sigh).  My 45xx's with GREAT WESTERN on the tanks should be able to stay as they are, but my Saints with GREAT (crest) WESTERN on their tenders might need to be 'buttoned up'.  At least tenders are easy since I only need to do one of them.  Personally I think a 3500 gal tender looks dead daft with a teeny weeny 'shirt button' stuck in the middle of it.

Just a quick note about the previous post with all the pretty pictures.  That is my post-Grouping GWR session for 'Tristyn in Winter'.  A good few of my engines for my Penzance to Camborne project in TRS22 are taking refuge here until such time as I can get TRS22 properly working again.  Some of my goods wagons and vans from Cornwall are visiting here as well.  Please don't look  too closely at the Toad brake vans as they are marked for Cornish districts.  I have yet to re-letter a half dozen or so vans especially for Tristyn in Winter.

Once I have the post-Grouping session in a workable state I will be doing a pre-Grouping GWR session so that all my late 19th Century and pre-WW1 engines will have somewhere of their own to play as well.  And I can promise you that red painted goods wagons shall be seen and have a visible presence.

Everything on Tristyn has been too much of a muddle for far too long with GWR engines and rolling stock from every decade being all mixed up together.  It was starting to annoy me so it's well time I did something about it.

Edit: When my friend Colin built up his Tristyn & District layouts back in TS2009 days he gave all the stations and places on the layout Welsh names so I suppose it must be somewhere in Wales.  He's never actually said where in Wales it might be though, - so you might have to bear with me if I make any awful mistakes.

More general mucking about with setting things up at Gwladys Ddu in 'Tristyn in Winter'

A new 57xx model has just become available for Trainz and it really is a nice piece of work.  It even has fully modelled inside valve gear.  I won't be retiring any of my older 57xx's though as I'm short enough of useful 0-6-0 shunting and trip working engines as it is.

A couple of snaps of the rebuilt yard with the engines at home and rolling stock in the sidings.

I'm not above sneaking the occasional item of TTTE rolling stock onto the layout.

Is someone going to catch a rocket from the shed foreman,  - to go and tidy your locomotive right now.

15 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thanks Annie, that's more than enough to get started.

That's good, - I'm glad i was able to point you in a useful direction.

Apparently old passwords and usernames do persist in the Trainz archives if you've purchased a version of Trainz before and registered it.  My very first copy of Trainz was the TS2004 version and I certainly had a lot of fun with that.

Yes spammers, - scum of the earth.  We get the same with fake bits cut and posted from somewhere else with a link to a dodgy website somewhere amongst it all.  It wastes a lot of the moderators time that's for real.

I had to laugh when I saw you mention 'Flying Scotsman'.  There have been so many Trainz models made of Gresley's GNR and LNER Pacifics it's not funny.  What is really lacking is ordinary everyday shunting engines.

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Hey Annie can I ask -  how does one go about creating assets for trainz?

Wow!  If you are creating such beautiful models such as that Jowett in Blender you would be more than well on the way to being able to create assets for Trainz.  My own 3D modelling skills are limited to making simple static models in Sketchup 8 and texturing them using Paint.NET.  I wouldn't have a clue how to make anything with Blender.

I do know though that there is special importing software involved that converts a Blender model to the format that can be loaded into Trainz.  Recently however everything took a further leap with the use of PBR materials and a change from the more simple .im mesh files to trainzmesh which I know absolutely nothing about.

The webpage that most new modellers for Trainz get pointed to is this one: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trainz/Tutorial_for_Blender

There are content creation pages on the Trainz forum:  https://forums.auran.com/forums/content-creation-support.12/  However I will warn you that forum members do tend to be suspicious of new folk who don't own a copy of Trainz due to the number of spammers who try to invade the forums.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be more helpful, but to me making functioning models for Trainz using Blender is akin to the use of magic.

I was bored and at a loose end this afternoon, - and the yard and MPD at Gwladys Ddu was really annoying me.  In fact almost everything about Gwladys Ddu was annoying me......  So... I set to and made it better.

A major problem with Tristyn in Winter is that while it is set out really well for thundering about with passenger trains, there are almost no sidings and where there are goods yards there are no goods sheds.  There are some interactive industries where a product is picked up somewhere and delivered somewhere else, but outside of that not much as all.

Apart from the colliery , - which does have extensive sidings, - the only large goods yard is the one at Gwladys Ddu.  And guess wot, - no goods shed. 

And then there's the MPD at Gwladys Ddu as well which is the main MPD for Tristyn & District which had a generic engine shed which I didn't like much.

There's still a bit more to do, but I'm really pleased with what I've done so far.  Possibly I might have overdone the 'Dark Satanic Mill', - though with there having been a scattered mix of not very convincing modern factories on the same site before I started I think it's a major improvement.

I replaced the terrace houses behind the goods shed and generally improved the various walls and fences and got rid of the ones I didn't like.  I planted some more trees here and there as well.

The layout's original builder has a liking for having clutter and rusty old rubbish strewn about all over and I don't, - so all that was got rid of as well.

This is the GWR 'Aberdare' model I have.   This is the unlined version and it's paired with a Robinson ROD tender, - which is one of the tender variations that were available for this engine.  It has magic number scripting so it can be assigned any number taken from the 1940 group of surviving engines before BR got at them.

These were made for Trainz TS2012 and were only available for a short time until their maker decided to withdraw them from sale.  For some reason or another I've not really made much use of them since I purchased them.  It could be because the majority of my GWR engines were obtained for my 'Penzance to Camborne' project and that's not exactly 'Aberdare' territory.

'Tristyn in Winter' has a nicely modelled colliery tucked away in one corner of the layout so perhaps my 'Aberdares' will finally get a chance to show what they can do.

OOPS!!  A Collett 2251 is far too late for my intended time period, - so back in the digital trainset box it goes.

Please come back Dean Goods, - all is forgiven.  

Merry Christmas Schooner, - and wishing you the very best for the coming New Year.

I'm not sure what I'm letting myself in for.  I've set up a session for circa late 1930s/pre-WW2 GWR.  I actually own quite a few GWR engines that fit into that category, - a shirt button 57xx and 45xx, late GWR lettered 57xx's and a Collett 2251.  I've got more 45xx's with GREAT WESTERN on the tanks which I suppose can sneak in.  All are Penzance engines, - but if you don't tell anybody I won't.

I've got three GWR Aberdares as well from different eras with a collection of different tenders, - so at least one of them should fit the bill.

Most of these model engines had their birthday back in TS2009 and my 45xx's go back to TS2006, - though I've given them a good fettling and tidy up.  I regard them all as good practical no fuss models that look like what they are supposed to and they work well.

Unfortunately most of the GWR goods/mineral wagons from the same era are fairly dire.  They were banged out cheap and cheerful by their makers in a Bachmann/Hornby, -'If you don't look too closely, - it will do,' - kind of fashion.  And they were more or less Ok in the older versions of the simulator, but in the new 64 bit simulators from TANE onwards all their faults are glaringly obvious.

Paul Hobbs made some excellent PO wagons that still look reasonable.  And work from the Trainz Classic 3 team was very good as well.  Ed Heaps made his Scottish wagons and developed a highly adaptable wagon underframe kit.  But hardly anybody had bothered to make anything better for the GWR until Steve Flanders set up his own wagon works and started making GWR wagons.

The two GWR 3 planks are very old good quality models from the TC3 team.  I was very lucky to find these.

The 2 plank wagon and the Loriat 'B' are Steve Flanders work.

Steve's 7 plank wagons.

Some of Steve's PO wagons.  Most of these are Wiltshire area wagons.  With a mixture of Welsh anthracite wagons, Burton on the Water traders and the Wiltshire wagons to dig through and sort you'll have to forgive me for making any mistakes.

I could show you a lot more, but I don't want your eyes to start glazing over.

The poor old TS2004 fireman got a crick in his back and had to go home.  Fortunately there was a keen young lass at Lynelle station who was all set and ready to take over.

 'La France' has got a different tender to the one it originally came with because it wasn't put together all that well and I didn't like it much.

Think I might have done a similar snap to this before.  'La France' and 'Oxford Cathedral' meet at Tristyn station.

A job I will be doing very soon is sorting out all the GWR engines on 'Tristyn in Winter' and setting up the post grouping engines and rolling stock with their own session because it's all a bit of a muddle at the moment.

A very merry Christmas to you and yours James and many blessings for the New Year.

More 'La France' driving fun.  'La France' now has working tender brakes which seem to have made a slight difference to how quickly she wishes to come to a halt.  Brake specs on the steam controls driving menu are for a Westinghouse brake system because N3V have never figured out how to represent the vacuum brake.

It was recommended to me by a talented engine spec creating gentleman that I try out his engine spec for a SAR Pacific locomotive on 'La France'.  Like most of the engine specs made by this gentleman it requires an expert hand to get it to work well, - and really that's exactly what I'd expect a De Glehn compound to be like to drive.

Not long after I took this snap 'La France' was running fast with her safety valves screaming in a most un-GWR like fashion and I was desperately sighting signals and doing my best to remember the layout of the road ahead. 

Between the footplate moving about under my virtual feet and the bark of the exhaust up the chimney it was beginning to feel a very real experience indeed.

'Lâche, lâche, laisse-moi courir !'

At Lynelle station again with a much less sulky 'La France'.