Annie

I had a read through of your series on modelling No. 184 yesterday Mike. Working in brass is like tales from another country compared with 3D modelling and printing. That said though I certainly enjoyed reading those older articles as they reminded my of my own metalwork days with building both P4 and 'O' gauge locos. Since no one else has said it yet, - 'Early GWR 'Absorbed' Engines' is another excellent and well researched article from your digital typewriter and will be an excellent reference that I'm very likely to return to.

I can port a layout built in TANE into TRS22, but unfortunately going the other way isn't possible. TRS22 uses an updated landscape mesh format that isn't compatible with earlier versions of Trainz. It's a right pain to tell the complete truth as while I have earlier versions of some of my layouts in TANE I'm having to do what amounts to abandoning all the further work I've done on them in TRS22. I will be archiving my TRS22 install away and not just deleting it, but it's likely it will be a good while before it sees the light of day again.

After a lot more messing around I've come to the conclusion that TRS22 is too flaky to run properly in Linux. So I gave TANE a try and it just works like it should exactly like it says on the tin. Once i started taking a closer look at what I've got installed in TANE it was a pleasant surprise to see just how much was there in the way of layouts that I'd carefully stashed away, - both my own layouts and those by other creators that I might have modded a little.

Those rebuilt OW&W engines are very appealing Mike. It's a pity that most of them didn't make it into the 1900s.

There seems to be various problems with some commands not working properly. Some scripting that was slightly flaky in Windows 10 now seems to be very flaky running under Wine in Linux. Hopefully there will be ways to work around most of them. Clicking on the pictures when you can see the + sign will make them much bigger.

Thanks Mike, - it was a bit of a mission, but I got there in the end. I wrote you a much longer reply, but the forum software glitched and ate it and now I'm too fed up and tired to write it out all over again.

It's been a while. Afternoon Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture courtesy of the Broad Gauge Society: No. 2019 looks very similar to the "Hawthorn" class of 1865, and appears every inch a Great Western locomotive. In fact, she is neither. No. 2019 was one of 10 locos built at Bristol by the Bristol & Exeter just 5 years later during 1870/72. After 1876, she became GWR property, and although she was almost the last of her class to be built, she didn't last until the end unlike some of her sister engines. She was withdrawn in 1889. Bristol & Exeter engines are the best.

Thanks Don, - I know you didn't mean that you liked me having a bike accident. But sidecar outfits though, best upper body workout ever. No need for a gym subscription if you own an outfit.

And finally after quite a bit of work and worry here's a sparrowcam screenshot of Windweather in Linux. I'm really quite impressed because it's all turned out much better than I hoped it would. After discussing things with my very tech minded daughter I decided to buy a HP SFF (Small Form Factor) Z240 ex-lease computer that's already set up for Windows 11. I don't want it for running Trainz on, - this will be for running the digital Trainz wrangling software that I use for making things to use and run in Trainz. Most of this software is purely for running under Windows and doesn't have either a Linux version or Linux equivalent. There might have been a very slim chance that I could get them to run in Linux using the Wine emulator, though something tells me it would end up being a source of annoyance and frustration instead.

It's been a right tedious old business transferring files over to the HP Xeon. It's the usual kind of thing that has to be done anyway with a new computer, but made just that little bit more difficult with the Xeon running Linux instead of Windows. Fortunately none of the CoolerMaster's hard drives suffered damage so that means that I can pop them into my very useful external hard drive mounting cradle and copy across the files I need to the Xeon. Perhaps the most important thing is that the Trainz simulator is going to work in Linux. It looks like the older 32 bit versions of Trainz like TS2012 won't, but that's not much of a problem since it was very rare for me to use it these days.

The two Hornby Railroad locos I ordered from Ironhorse Hobbies have arrived. I'm trying to remember when it was that I last purchased a model loco brand new in its box, - it would have to be one heck of a long time ago. They are very cute though, - and so small, - but I mustn't hold that against them. I must comment though that the brand new RTR loco smell is very nice and quite appealing. It would have been a bit cheaper if I'd purchased two 'not a Percy' R30200 OO RailRoad BR 0-4-0T's instead of just one and a Smokey Joe, but the only other Smokey Joe I've ever owned was very second hand and had its chimney busted off. Ultimately they both will be giving up their mechs for 'O' gauge purposes and the bodyshells used for kitbashing fodder, but In the meantime I can be a big kid and look at them with a silly grin on my face.

My poor old CoolerMaster Windows computer died suddenly and unexpectedly last night so I'm setting up my HP Xeon Linux computer to be my daily use computer. I can't afford a replacement Windows computer at the moment and it would have to be a Windows 11 compatible machine due to Windows 10 being obsoleted in 2025 and no longer supported. The only thing that was really holding me back from running Linux was the fact that it was difficult to get Trainz to run under Linux. However there have been some recent breakthroughs with software that would allow Windows programs to run in Linux and with my clever daughter's help I've been able to get TRS22 working in Linux. There's still more to do as well as all the usual tedious business of setting up files and the software to run them as you'd have to do anyway with transferring everything over to a new computer. I'm going to have to get used to using different graphics software as well to do texture work, - which is a pain, - but I guess I'll figure it out soon enough. The TRS22 Potteries Loop Line route for Trainz running in Debian Linux.

(blush) Hey thanks, - I don't really remember that much about it. I saw what was about to happen so I just let go of the handlebars and stepped back off the bike. It was only when I hit the road that the thought struck me that I might have done something a bit more intrepid than I might be comfortable with.

Yes indeed! According to my layout's history/backstory four Terriers were purchased second hand from the LBSC by the Affiliated (Imaginary) Railway Companies. They were generally tidied up, painted in the A.(I).R.C's black livery, converted to the vacuum brake and arrived just in time for the GER to take a controlling interest in the Affiliated Companies. Since they'd been purchased for working over the companies' more lightly laid sections and branchlines that was where they went and generally got on with it without too much fuss and mostly without being officially noticed. When the M&BHER's 'Jack of all Trades' 0-6-2T 'Sharpies' were withdrawn after the arrival of GER 'Intermediates' and C32 2-4-2T's at Moxbury shed it was found that there was an urgent need for shunting engines so the Terriers were sent for and pressed into service. They are awfully good fun to run about and shunt with.

Trip working is always a good way for me to cheer myself up. Steve Flanders had some new things he asked me to test and after that I set some of the local passenger engines off running on their schedules and then spent an hour or two with Terrier 'Hopewood' shunting wagons about and taking them places. I didn't take all that many snaps because I got busy with shunting or else train spotting at Bluebell Magna and Moxbury. My old GTX 960 graphics card sometimes drifts its setting about a bit and this time around it produced a dreary morning instead of a Summers day. Bluebell Magna goods yard. The 9.30am local from Moxbury comes dashing past. The mysterious 'works' at Bluebell Magna. Leaving Beaky's Hill Halt behind. Fetching the coal delivery for Moxbury gasworks.

I'm struggling with being sleepy, but I'm managing to push on with clearing off the long layout table in my bedroom that used to have my Lego railway layout on it. After my Lego layout was dismantled it became a general dumping ground and working my way down through it all is like some kind of model making related archeological dig with both misplaced useful items and complete and utter junk being all mixed up together. Having a fatigue illness doesn't help either because often things will get put down somewhere and there they will stay with other things getting dumped on top of them and so on and so on. My plan is to setup a simple 3 rail O-27 layout on this layout board, - which is in actual fact a 6ft 6in X 3ft interior door. Having somewhere that I can run some of my older coarse scale wagons on and generally bunt them about with my green 0-4-2 tank engine will hopefully help to encourage me to push on with my other 'O' gauge projects.

Wantage Tramway group on Farcebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/rtwantagetramway/?multi_permalinks=7179175858794098&notif_id=1701001794493376&notif_t=group_activity&ref=notif I have little time for most of the social media garbage on Faceplant, but I've found some of the special interest railway groups to be worthwhile.

It was a good many years ago now, but I've just remembered a friend taking me to see a Gauge 1 model railway. It was a partly in the shed and the rest doing a circuit of the garden type of line and the retired owner was an ex-Swindon Works employee. A lovely gentleman, - he gave us the tour, but the thing that I remember most of all was that all his engines and rolling stock were made from cardboard. They were really stunning pieces of work and there was nothing about them to give any indication as to the material they were made from. Why cardboard? you might ask. Well what he told me was that he worked in cardboard so he could keep his wife company in the house during the evenings instead of disappearing into the shed and thereby causing any strife between them. He had a neat and tidy small workbench in the living room and that was where all the magic happened. He had tried out 'O' Gauge for a short while, - and he showed me some of his 'O' Gauge models which were nice pieces of work as well, - but decided in the end that Gauge 1 was the scale for him. For some reason I never was one to carry a camera about with me so I can't show you any photos unfortunately.

May I tell motorcycling story? The worst motorcycling accident I ever had was when a learner driver pulled out of a stop sign right in front of me on a country road and wrecked the Suzuki GT380 I owned at the time. With nowhere to go I had two choices, taking flight over the roof of the car when the bike T boned the side of it, or stepping off the back of the bike and trusting to the leather jacket and layers of clothing I was wearing to protect me. I stepped off, came down bit of a bump well tucked in and all seemed good with me sliding well clear. My bike hit with a bang and bounced away into ditch where it screamed its poor heart out until someone thought to shut it off sometime later but the engine was wrecked by then. That wasn't my biggest problem as the learner driver had frozen up screaming their head off worse than my bike, didn't brake, kept jabbing the accelerator and frog hopped the car across the road and cracked me straight in both my knees with the car's bumper. I still have an impressive scar across my left knee 40 years later, - though it has faded a bit. After all the medical drama, - my Mum demanded that I come back home, - no doubt so she could keep a close eye on her wayward daughter. For a full day at least I got the 'told you so' treatment and even the old hoary story of the chap down the end of the road who crashed his bike into a lampost and ended up with having a steel plate put in his head was trotted out. The thing was I was going to need transport once I was on my feet again and I couldn't afford a car. Any breath of getting another bike and Mum would have gone into full lecture mode all over again. Then I saw a Jawa sidecar outfit advertised in the local paper at a price i could afford. I pointed it out to Mum. 'Oh that will be nice and safe for you', she says brightly while I'm doing my best to keep a straight face and not give the game away. After the Jawa eventually expired after I could find no more spares for it. I got a Honda CB350 twin next and put a chair on that. It also got the GT380's rear wheel with its bigger brake and stronger cush drive as well. Fitted into the Honda's rear forks like it had been made for it. That outfit could just about go anywhere and I loved it. Then (sigh) too much life happened and I had to sell it and bikes faded out of my life. I really miss riding a well set up outfit (sigh).

Fascinating. Not surprisingly the larger types are post-1920s vehicles. I do like this one though despite it being a post-grouping railcar. It looks very useful. https://www.drewry.net/TreeMill/multimedia/Drewry1929Graces_Loco_Drew.jpg

This Westinghouse petrol electric railcar was operated in New Zealand circa 1914. I don't know how successful this one was, but the NZGR persisted with IC railcar experiments with varying degrees of success right up to WW2 and beyond. Like the NER one it seems to have a fair bit of cooling gubbins attached to its roof. Apparently the NZGR one was similar to the one the GCR purchased from Westinghouse.

And further to this picture I found this one to go with it. It would be 10 years ago that I purchased this 009 tram engine bodyshell from Shapeways. It's plain what prototype it's based on. I never did anything with it though, - firstly because I found 009 to be just too darn maddeningly small and secondly because I didn't like the printed bodyshell's rough surface.

More than likely this railcar would have proved to be underpowered, but I must confess that I like it, - I like it a lot. Cooling looks like it might have been a problem though since what looks like a radiator on the leading edge of the roof seems like it's a bit too small. https://railwaymatters.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/petrol-electric-railcars/

😃😀😄 Very important and secret research. 😉

Latest silly idea and cheer up picture combined.