eheaps

Given the recent Met pics it seems appropriate to mention that today is the 160th anniversary of the original Metropolitan Railway opening. Of course back then they used GWR broad gauge locos and stock which I'm sure will elicit approval around here...

The Met Pullman interior was based off those photo's Annie posted. It's somewhat simplified as it's difficult to justify the full complexity of a Pullman interior. The seats were based on some previous seats I'd done for the interior of the Duke of Sutherland's saloon. Probably not 100% correct but they look close enough when viewed from the outside...

I thought I copied that Caledonian van number from photograph, but it's entirely possible I made a mistake. For ex-LSWR locos you should also be able to find my models of a C8, 700 class, N15 and Drummond's Bug in TS12/TANE plus A12, D15, M7 and S15 for TS19+. There's also a rebuilt 700 class from RobD (reskinned from a Paul Hobbs model)

This reminds me that I should probably have done GER specific lamp codes on my D27 rather than generic RCH ones. Did you get the list of lamp codes from the GER society file emporium (I see there are various documents available at a very reasonable price), or is there other information available out there?

I went through a very similar thought process whilst building the model...

Something I should have done ages ago seeing as I'd already done the other three related designs. I'm sure Annie will enjoy this one.

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

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).

N3V have advised against using double track splines in the past, it's relatively well known that they can cause problems when used in newer routes. Unfortunately there's no easy way to replace them other than individually deleting each section and replacing it one a time. I remember doing this on one of my old routes that originated in TS2009 and recall it being so tedious that I ended up deleting a massive chunk of the route and starting again to fix a load of other things at the same time...

I'm pretty sure this was mocked up to illustrate a talk given at the Talyllyn last year on some of the Rev. Awdry's early notes about aspects of his Railway Series that never made it into the books. I believe you can watch the talk on YouTube if you're interested in that sort of thing. I think the adaptor wagon is actually one of the Guinness ones with Talyllyn/Skarloey added on digitally.

Definitely me!

Pretty sure that's my forehead just visible looking out of the first droplight! A very enjoyable event.

Great picture from Didcot on FB today, just the sort of thing that Annie will enjoy. GWR Polar Star is seen leaving Euston when on exchange with the LNWR. Whilst the GWR loco is the Star (geddit?) of the show, I was interested to see the track in the station is completely paved with cobbles. Comments on the original post suggest this was to enable horse shunting. I think this would be a great feature to replicate on a model (real or virtual)...

HMRS have this, I think it's the same class of loco. You can now buy a hi-res digital copy of an HMRS drawing for £10 - ideal for 3D modelling. https://hmrs.org.uk/hmrs-19112--0-6-0-class-m--with-5ft-2--ins-diameter-coupled-wheels.html

A great piece of railway film I've just discovered, featuring the crew of a French compound. A guaranteed cheer-up clip!

More Midland in the future is certainly a possibility. Unfortunately there are many locos I'd like to model and only so much time to make them in...

Continuing the NER theme, here's something I've been working on.

Frank (Border Reiver on the Trainz forum) has some pretty good NER letter/number images that he produced after I questioned some of the lettering I was using in my NER singles. It includes tender lettering with red shading and bufferbeam numbers with blue shading. I can also share the photoshop file for my NER numberplate if you'd like.

Even when they weren't related or working with each other you'll probably find a lot of railway engineers belonged to the same branch of the Institute for Mechanical Engineers and/or the same lodge of the Free Masons.

A short video about an interesting loco I hadn't heard of before. It seemed to me it might be of interest to Annie and others on this thread. I would also recommend the other videos on Anthony's channel to anyone with an interest in older steam locos.

If you change the attachment point names to a.drain0 and a.drain1 you can turn the drain cock steam on and off by pressing alt+D when driving in cab mode (most of my locos include this feature).

The NBR single has been lurking on my "I'd quite like to do that eventually" list for quite a while. Perhaps one day I will actually get around to modelling it...

Oil tender for P43

A new Trainz loco that wouldn't have been possible without Annie and her RMWeb contacts helping to find some decent drawings.

I think the splasher tops varied from loco to loco and possibly between repaints. I've got photos with both, I thought lined out looked nice so I went with that option. This is one of the issues with digital modelling: you often want to represent multiple locos with a single model and as such you can't include all the little differences between individual locos. The buffer guides are a good spot. I'll sort that one out now.