Jake The Rat

That's the first case of a computer suffering from cat hair allergy I've heard of. (Many years ago my mother went to the doctor with a persistent cough & told him: "If it's a cat hair allergy, I don't want to know. My husband & my son would rather kick me out than the cats." & she was right. )

Edward Heaps is a genius, & his de Glehn is a beauty. Too bad it's not for TS12 & hence not for me. My avatar is also one of his creations: MSWJR No.16 'Galloping Alice'. Not much going on with British railway here, as I have been exploring Canadian & US American railroads in the last few days. ('Railway is the British term, 'railroad' the American term, isn't it?) Maybe this has to do with the start of the NHL a week ago. When I watch a game like Vancouver vs Calgary, I feel somehow inclined to play with some Canadian Pacific trains in the intermissions. (Calgary is their headquarter & Vancouver their western terminus.) This loco was built in Montreal & is genuine Canadian, but it has a British context. My American excursions won't last forever, & I'm planning to go back to one of my British projects, maybe to my much altered & enlarged 'British Midlands' layout, maybe to 'Rhye on Sea', or maybe...

I can understand that, but my approach is different. When I am working on a layout, the landscape is not given by nature, but created either by myself or the author of the route I am editing. That's why I feel absolutely no inhibition to do any amount of terraforming I find useful. I don't mind if there's a hill in the way - it's only a virtual hill, & I've got tons of virtual dynamite. It's always my goal to create a session that runs on its own for at least half an hour before the trains get entangled. & I want my trains to do some serious traffic & not just run around aimlessly on autopilot. (That's what they are doing right now on my Canadian Pacific layout, but that's only an intermediate step.) I might drive a train myself, but that has to be optional. If I find that this cannot be done, I consider my project a failure. Quite often I change something in the route to suit the session, not the other way round.

This reminds me that I haven't uploaded anything yet. ... & they were right. 'Cairnrigg to Balessie' doesn't look like an enhanced test track to me, but like a bona fide layout. At least in my case that's exactly so. The creator of 'Valleyfields' & its many variations... I guess, that means something. I must admit, building a small town in the direct vicinity of Cairnrigg station would be one of the first things to do for me; something like 'Rivendell' in the corner of 'Rhye on Sea', only a bit more Scottish; & of course I would use your 'station road' buildings.... One more thing I would change is to move the turntable at Balessie to the other side of the station, so a loco coming from Cairnrigg can get there easily. Driving zig-zag is something AI drivers are not very good at. The more I like a layout, the more I want to modify it. If I have no ideas at all what to change that means I consider it useless.

'Cairnrigg to Balessie' was one of the first layouts I tried to modify back in my TS09 days. I remember to rebuild the yard at Cairnrigg with a turntable, a roundhouse & lots of sidings & setting up all available Caledonian Railway locos & stock. I like Caley blue, especially the Cardeans & the 123 single driver loco. Then I added a few baseboards & a coal mine. I also put a dinosaur into the lake in the middle of the layout as a fake monster. That was all lost after a reinstall. Later, with TS12, I installed the TS12-version & started to do basically the same once more, but didn't get very far, & I didn't add any baseboards. At that time I didn't know how to operate a turntable by driver commands, so I built a wye to turn around locos & head back to Balessie. I suppose, 'Cairnrigg-Rostyre-Balessie' by driver_col is the new much altered version of your layout? Too bad it's for TS19, if it was for TS12 I would download it immediately.

+5°C, windy, rainshowers... typical north German winter weather... Speaking of anagrams... one of my many plans is a small layout with 2 stations, each with an Inglenook yard. One would be named 'Nicklegoon' (had to add a mute 'c' here), the other 'Glenkoonie' (had to add a mute 'e'). I also found a German version: 'Kleinoog' or 'Kleinenoog' (in one case 1 'n' ist dropped, in the other 1 'e' added), meaning 'small island'. Some of the Frisian Islands end on 'oog', for instance Langeoog & Spiekeroog.

The free version of TS2009 started it for me, & I can't say anything about earlier versions. I think it was in summer 2017, when I was browsing through a collection of free computer games (mostly older versions of commercial games), not looking for anything special. Railway? Hmm... why not...

Replacing the trees & shrubs is still on my to-do-list. Things that look bad are always lower on my list than things that look wrong. The trees are ugly, but at least they are some sort of trees; the cars looked like 80ies, 90ies or even 21st century, & they were the first things that had to go.

Sorry to hear that. I like most of her layouts, & the only one I can remember that I didn't like was because of detail overload; it wasn't bad, it was just too good, at least for my taste. I couldn't create anything comparable to 'Compton Magna' myself. What I can do, is improve a few details here & there & make a halfways functional session. I guess it might be set somewhere on the Channel Coast, so I chose mainly Ex-SR locos & stock. It's far from finished though; a route of 12 baseboards should be able to accomodate at least 6 trains, maybe 8 or 10. In my current version there are 3... A King Arthur... ... a Rebuilt Merchant Navy... ... & a Drummond 700. Creativity comes & goes, & in my case it goes much easier than it comes. Sometimes I spend a few hours with Trainz & Trainz-related research & then I ask myself: what did I achieve tonight? Well... at least I learned a few things & found out a few things that don't work & I will not try again; but that doesn't provide a presentable screenshot. I also have something, that quite often keeps me from staying awake: not an illness, but a cat. Cats sleep a lot, especially in winter, & the look of a sleeping cat can be very contagious. Space is one point; the other two are money & craftsmanship. I admire the "real" model railroaders, but I won't try to do what they do. My layout on shelves is more like a thought experiment than a serious plan. Though... never say never...

Of all German words to me the most German is Schadenfreude, meaning the pleasure of other people's mishaps. I haven't posted anything for a while; not because of inactivity, but because my Trainz-related efforts didn't lead to much presentable results. What did I do in the last 2 weeks? I found a beautiful layout originally by Angela Halliday (angelah), updated to TS12 by stationbeem, named 'Compton Magna' & started backdating it to the 50ies & creating a session. Then I wanted to do something Scottish & started creating a Highland Railways layout akin to this ...only to find out that there is another similar trackplan that I like better: I'll get back to this soon... Then I asked myself: if I would ever build a real model railway - where & how? I'm afraid, N is too small for me. ... so it would have to be H0/00. What do you call the room between the entrance door & the other rooms? 'Hallway' seems to be the word, but I'm not sure if this applies in my case, as 2.80 m is not a long way & 3.5 m² not much of a hall. Anyway, that's the only option I can see: in the hallway, above the doors at 2.10 m height, around the walls on 30cm shelves. I'm very much in doubt if I could build & operate it in reality (I would need something like a tennis referee chair), but I can definitely do it in Trainz. An anti-gravity chair would be helpful. & then I spent a few days in Canada ... but that's off-topic in this thread. To me, Britain is the centre of the steam railway world, but it's not the entire world. One day I might even do something German...

I must admit that I have never seen a GWR Atlantic & had to look up what it might be: a Scott Class? Over the last few days I have been strictly following Annie's commandment "Do silly things." I noticed the Axminster station building on DLS & I remembered to read about Axminster carpets in this thread, & I asked myself: why not Axminster station on an Axminster carpet? So I took this simple layout ... enlarged it & added loops for runaround-train manoeuvers. Then I had to find out where Axminster is located: Devon, south of Taunton, east of Exeter; LSWR & later SR territory. No LNWR or LMS stock this time... 3 trains are minimum for me, no matter how tiny the layout may be. An express train running counterclockwise... ... a local train running clockwise... ... & a goods train running forth & back between factory... ... & goods shed. Notice that the tunnel is totally useless; that's why it's there.

... & hopefully never come back. With Annie's strict no-politics rule I'm afraid I can never again post a screenshot of BR 34051. Or maybe locos named after (now) dead politicians are exempt from this rule?

What's the opposite of megalomania - microlomania? I'm afraid I'm suffering from it. My newest project is even smaller than the Hornby trackmat. I have told myself again & again not to start something new before the old thing is finished, but I don't listen. When I saw this trackplan http://www.scarm.info/layouts/track_plans.php?ltp=156 ... I felt the immediate urge to implement it in TS12. It's reminiscent of a Moebius strip ... hence the name. Shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 hours to build something like this: That was a week ago... First I decided that I want the (faster) passenger train to run on the outside oval & the (slower) goods train on the inside '8', therefor station (green roof) & goods shed (grey roof) had to swap places. Then I wanted a longer passenger train (a Precursor Tank with at least 4 coaches (4 or 6 wheels)), so the station had to move to the southern outside line. & then I wanted a 2nd passenger train... a larger station with 2 platforms... a siding... a loco shed with water & coal facilities... a factory... a small town (with cats on the roofs)... some more scenery... & of course everything should work automated. & now it finally does. Pictures of the goods train later; can't wait to see Annie's LNWR Coal Tank. (The LMS version is on DLS, LNWR & BR not yet.) Or maybe I'll make an LMS version...

All your other layouts are there, except the 1925 one. Nevermind, the DL will be complete by Friday. No, rats don't travel 1st class, they prefer vehicles like this one: Exactly. I must admit it's not to scale, but a bit larger. It's based on 'Hornby Track 2007 Edition' by mjrn, & I don't think there is a single pixel left of the original. My idea is to run 2 passenger trains with tender locos on the outer ovals (1 in each direction), 1 or 2 with tank locos between the stations & a freight train between the goods sheds, one of which I still have to build. While all this is hopefully running automatically, I can solve a shunting puzzle at the Inglenook sidings; & then it will be interesting to see who screws up 1st: me or my AI drivers. The name of the stations is 'Hornby' (not very imaginative, I know) for the terminus & 'Claughton' for the through station, so the LMS 5900 gets her own station. Actually Claughton is a few kilometers southwest of Hornby:

Wow. Downloading... (This will take some time though, since strangely this route doesn't appear in the TANE content manager, only in the TS12 one. So I have a limit of 100 MB per day, & I can only download while TS12 is not running, which means, only when I'm either asleep or away.) With the coupling problems solved, I will soon get back to my version of the 1925 layout ('Euston-Crewe-Liverpool'); & there is also a chance, that the death of 'Rhye on Sea' was caused by the same issue, & in that case I will definitely resurrect it. The later the version, the sooner it crashed, & now I think that's because of the increasing number of locos on the layout, most or all of them with ACS coupling. I will have to test that... At the moment I'm working on something new. The question occured to me: what can I do with a Hornby trackmat? Can I have 2 platforms at both stations? With through tracks at the through station? Inglenook sidings at the terminus? Portals for both directions? & can I build a model railway room, or at least the beginning of it? Yes I can...

This was extremely helpful. The solution to my problem couldn't be simpler, but without your hint I don't think I would have found it; at least not so soon. I simply deleted 'ACSlib <kuid2:60850:89100:11>' & replaced it with an older version ( ... :9> ). (It's apparently the ACS script, that's concerned with coupling, not AJS, that seems to be something else.) That turned out to do the trick - no more delays at coupling & uncoupling, even with the Claughtons. Solving problems by destroying something new & replacing it with something old - that's what I learned at the Waldorf & Statler Remote Academy Of Structural Conservatism.

Especially Prussia is extremely toxic, as history of the 18th & 19th century teaches. Problems with my Euston-to-Liverpool layout. My AI drivers finally do what I want them to, but they take an intolerable amount of time. The scheme is basically as follows: On platforms 1 I operate with 3 Claughtons ('Sir Gilbert Claughton', 'Duke of Connaught' & 'Sir Charles Crust' - I will call the drivers Gilbert, Duke & Charlie). - Gilbert hauls the train to Euston platform 1. - Duke is waiting at the loco shed & proceeds to the front of the platform as soon as the train stops. - Passengers get out & in. - Gilbert uncouples & proceeds a few meters to the end of the track. - Duke couples to the train (which has, of course, break brake cars at both ends), hauls it out of the station & is on his way to Crewe & then to Liverpool. - Gilbert drives to the turntable, turns around (I found out how to do this, it involves a special rule) & hides in the loco shed. - Meanwhile, on platform 3 Annie's beautiful new version of knucklesnvector's Precursor Tank hauls a train into the station, executes a runaround via platform 4 & leaves towards Crewe. This is all tested & works in principle, & if Gilbert & Duke can do this at Euston, so can Duke & Charlie at Liverpool & then Charlie & Gilbert at Euston & so on & so forth, thereby running a continuos service between the termini; & if 3 Claughtons can do this on platforms 1, so can 3 'Alfred the Great' class locos on platforms 2. BUT all coupling & uncoupling manoeuvers cause the game to freeze for a minute or longer, with the Claughtons as well as with the precursor Tank. Time stops, a small circle appears, & if I click again, the screen turns light grey. After about a minute the game continues, but sometimes it remains frozen for good. This happens only on the 'Euston to Liverpool' layout, not on 'Exley Castle' & not on a new very small layout I built over the last 3 nights. (I'll write about that later.) Right now I'm clueless.

I'll show you the dreadful memories from my childhood that come back every time someone mentions the name 'Ariel'. Before you have seen this, you cannot fully understand how right Annie is with her statement. This creature of hell ('Klementine') wasn't a one-off joke, she kept on haunting German television for 2 decades. Watch with caution, this is not for the faint of heart. & if you don't understand a single word (because it's in German language), don't worry, you are missing nothing.

I know, but SCNR...

I'm not sure this is a steam engine. 'Ariel' is the name of a laundry detergent, so I suspect it's an early laundromat.

Is there any chance you might do the same with the Precursor tender engine? My 'Euston-Crewe-Liverpool' project is making slower progress than expected. I have 2 problems. The first is my work style, which is more like a way of toying around with things. I build something, then I don't like it, tear it down & build something else; or I build something here & something there, & then I find out that I can't make it fit together... you get the picture. My 2nd problem: I read too much & watch too many videos. After reading this https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/model-railways/liverpool-lime-street-in-em-gauge/ & watching this ...I decided to totally rebuild the station named 'Liverpool'. It will still have only 4 tracks (instead of 11), but there will be no trackwork behind the station, & the approach tracks will lead through a tunnel with several interruptions, with streets & houses above. This is fun to build, but not easy, at least not for me... Theoretically I have worked out a system of 1 platform, 2 trains & 4 locos (the 4 available Claughtons) to run continually between 'Euston' & 'Liverpool'; & then I could do the same on platform 2 with 4 'Alfred the Great' class &/or Precursor tender locos. Now all I have to do is make the AI drivers buy into my plan, which will certainly be the harder part. Question to Annie: what did you use as station building at Euston? It looks similar to 'Station Saint Cloud', but not quite the same.

On the other end of Loch tay there is a town named Killin, which for some time had a railway connected to the Caledonian. I have been thinking about a layout around the lake named 'Killin & Dull Railway', Caley or LMS - a railway so dull it's killing you. But with the beautiful landscape it wouldn't be so dull after all. I always wanted to do something Scottish... maybe someday... Slowly my 'Euston to Liverpool' project is making progress. The tracks & stations are now approximately where I want them to be, but there is no scenery, no textures, no nothing. I will keep the names of the termini, but I'm thinking about renaming the through station from 'Crewe' to 'Birmingham'. I don't like, that the city of the Beatles is included & the city of Black Sabbath isn't.

Awesome. Looking at this beautiful layout & in comparison at what I have achieved so far, makes me want to run away & hide under the sofa. But no, I will carry on. First I had to learn how to use Basemapz. It's a very self-explanatory & user-friendly software, so that didn't take long. Next I had to find out how to handle the many layers created by Basemapz. I had never used layers before. So even if the project turns out to be a total failure, at least I have learned a few useful things. I'm not trying to imitate your work, that would be megalomania. My approach is megalomaniac in another way: bigger (2 baseboards), better (err...no, definitely not better, only different), faster (Claughtons, & maybe pacifics & Royal Scots in a later LMS version), more (8 or 10 coaches long express trains, 4 platforms instead of 3 at Euston & Liverpool, & a large roundhouse at Euston). The next thing I will have to find out is if I can make an automated loco change at the termini work. If not, the whole project is pointless. Long chains of orders involving trigger operations will be necessary. Theoretically, it must be possible, practically I have never done it. We'll see...

It looks like Queen Street, 2010 version, kuid2:69518:28201:7. While I was looking for this item, I found a layout named 'Glasgow to Anniesland' & another one 'Anniesland Line' on DLS. Downloading... will check them out later...

I have laid a 72 x 36 grid over the map, to see how the layout might fit into 1 baseboard (or rather, half a baseboard). The resulting platform lengths were 150 meters for Euston, 120 for Liverpool & 110 for Crewe; not enough for a decent main line express train. So if I were to make the layout, I would use 2 baseboards. This would also allow for a little more open track between the stations & mitigate the gradients problem. In Trainz this would still be a small layout, in 0 scale it would be 30m x 15m though...