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

[Annie]

 

 

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

Its so tidy!

 

None of the drifts of rubbish up against the platforms or between the tracks.  Or any weeds!

Staff had pride in the job and pride in their railway back then.

 

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

I think the mark crossing the top-right corner is a crease in the photo as there is  a smaller crease in the bottom right corner.  The photo was probably in an album with photo corners holding it in place and damaged by careless removal for copying.

Folded and a bit faded, but still a survivor.  I sometimes wonder what stories these old photos could tell.

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, Annie said:

Staff had pride in the job and pride in their railway back then.

 

There was less stuff thrown away - or to throw away. Plus the ballast kept the weeds down, especially if it contained ash.

[Annie]

Tut, tut, Stephen you are employing dispassionate logic again; - however I must agree that in the 1880s-1890s people didn't have the same amount of useless garbage that we have now to go wantonly throwing about the place.

 

I must report a small victory.  I have finally been able to get Sketchup 8 to produce spline objects correctly.  The problem was that the Trainz importer software instructions described the object axes using one method of nomenclature and my Sketchup 8 manual described them in another way entirely.  With my brain being the equivalent of slushy porridge at the moment it took me quite a while to figure out what was wrong. 

Edited September 6, 2021 by Annie
can't spell for toffee

[Annie]

And back to the Tenpenny branch on my Norfolk layout for a wee bit of distant signal installing.  It was the long stretch of trackwork beside the wind swept coastline between Tenpenny harbour and Mosston on Sea with its isolated crossings that I immediately had in mind the moment I saw those GER gate distants on the railsigns.uk website.  Though Nelsons Crossing (pictured) and Beakys Hill also got one each to replace the ordinary distant signal they'd previously been issued with.

 

[Hroth]

11 hours ago, Annie said:

And back to the Tenpenny branch on my Norfolk layout for a wee bit of distant signal installing.  It was the long stretch of trackwork beside the wind swept coastline between Tenpenny harbour and Mosston on Sea with its isolated crossings that I immediately had in mind the moment I saw those GER gate distants on the railsigns.uk website.  Though Nelsons Crossing (pictured) and Beakys Hill also got one each to replace the ordinary distant signal they'd previously been issued with.

 

 

One can imagine the driver and fireman indulging in a game of  "Name That Tune" as they approach the W board... 

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Hroth

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Hroth said:

One can imagine the driver and fireman indulging in a game of  "Name That Tune" as they approach the W board... 

 

Perhaps that's why the Great Western adopted SW boards instead - to remove the ambiguity?

[Annie]

It's the tramways on my Norfolk layout that tend to use the 'W' boards.  Everywhere else on the layout I use boards with 'WHISTLE' spelt out in full (except where I've forgotten and used the wrong board by mistake).

 

https://www.railsigns.uk/sect15page1/sect15page1.html

[Annie]

Due to my silly brain I was only able to stay awake for about two hours at the very most today and yesterday before I had to sleep again, - usually for around 4-5 hours, - and then it all happens again (round and round, sigh).  So I've left Minehead for now and I'm only doing small jobs like the gate distant signal and making up a selection of plank splines in GWR standard paint colours.  

 

Something I did notice though while at Tenpenny Wharf yard was that the texturing on the engines shedded at the small MPD was looking very dull.  TRS19 made major changes to environmental lighting as well as the way that textures are interpreted compared with earlier versions of Trainz.  I've had to overhaul the texturing on most of my old TS2004 engines, but it looks like some of my TS2009 and TS2010 engines are going to need a bit of a polish up as well.  In TS2012 where my Norfolk layout used to live my two (Faux) 2-4-2T GER tram engines and the Terriers had a nice touch of gloss to their paintwork, but in TRS19 it's all gone horribly matt looking.

 

In the picture No. 040 (on the right) has been given a polish up by editing its body mesh materials to be just a touch reflective.  it's only between 1% and 5% depending on where the material is so I'm certainly not going nuts and pushing the boat out with the polish job.  It's a bit tedious to do with 24 material slots (in the case of the 2-4-2T's) having to be reconfigured, but it's not especially difficult or overly taxing.  Doing the five Terriers might be a bit mind numbing though.

 

 

No. 044 leaving Jared station with the branch passenger train.  If I want something else mind numbingly boring to do there's no end of field drainage ditches that still need to be laid in place.

 

 

 

[Annie]

Both of the (Faux) GER 2-4-2T tram engines have been sorted out now.  I could have muted down the degree of polish just a touch, but I decided that I wasn't going to.  I even put a bit of a polish on their tram bells simply because I could.   I wanted these two engines to look like a fairly well pampered pair, - not that the other engines on the tramway are neglected or anything.

Another job I'd been meaning to do was changing their white code lamps for proper red GER ones so that got done as well.  They're both magically scripted for standard BR lamp codes which is pretty much the default for the Trainz simulator and I definitely lack the skill to edit the magic incantations for GER codes so this will have to do.  I've fitted up some of my older engines assigned to the Windweather Tramway that don't have magic lamp scripting to have a fixed GER lamp code which for single line working was a one code does all code which is wonderfully convenient.

 

[stephensons_wolf]

On 07/05/2018 at 12:21, Annie said:

Time for some proper trains.  There's a TS2004 layout named Turks Castle 1892 set in the West Country and its a Broad Gauge layout.  It will need some repair work to things that don't work in TS2009, but the landscape modelling is really nicely done which more than makes up for it.

 

I started off with 'Bulkeley', but it had issues which I'll need to talk to Paul from Paulz Trainz about, so I changed over to the revolutionary sounding 'Red Star'.

 

 

 

 

'Red Star' was certainly a very game wee saddle tank and I think the train was perhaps a bit too heavy for it, but oh the sounds it was making were glorious.  It's just the usual sound file that many Trainz engines use, but under the control of an engine spec file that had been closely tailored to match a smaller mid-19th century single driver locomotive the resulting sounds were a delight.

 

A few snaps of the stunning landscape on this layout.

 

 

 

 

By this time the train was getting up into more hilly country and 'Red Star' wasn't all that happy about the gradients, but I must admit it was doing a reasonably fine job and wasn't slipping and losing traction.  Embarrassingly though I ran 'Red Star' out of coal and the station I had to finally stop at didn't have an interactive coaling stage so that was that.

All good fun though. This is a very interesting layout with 23 route miles over very nicely modelled countryside and it's a route that's definitely not a set the regulator and forget type of thing at all.  You have to properly drive your locomotive and I like that.  In future though I'll have to use the tender engines for taking a train from one end of the layout to the other and the smaller saddle tanks like 'Red Star' will have to be kept for shunting and trip working and perhaps banking trains on the hills.

 

I had started to build my own Broad Gauge layout, but I think I won't continue with it and I'll use Turks Castle instead.  As I said the landscape is stunning, but as is usual with me I think the small towns and villages along the line could do with some work and further detailing.  I have quite a lot of Broad Gauge digital models so it will be nice to have somewhere for them to play.  Most are early period and mid period models, but I do have some late period Broad Gauge models as well.  Generally I run the late and mid period ones together and don't get too precious over withdrawal dates.  I have a couple of Pearson B&E single driver tank engines as an example and I always run those with the later period stuff simply because I like them and it's my trainset anyway.

 

do ye happen to still have the route? the DLS isn't working as of late and i can't find via content manager

 

regards: Leo baxster

[Annie]

Sorry, I no longer have a copy of the original route Leo.  If the DLS wasn't working before it may have been due to server maintenance as it seems to be working now.  There's two versions of Turks Castle, a BR era one and the 1892 version.  I've only ever downloaded the 1892 one.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

 

Going back to my Norfolk layout and shunting about on the tramways is always a big cheer up for me.  No.3 has just had its paintwork fixed with 1% reflection on the smokebox, copper pipes, footplate & etc, 2% for the tanksides, cabsides, dome and boiler and 25% on the brasswork; - so not quite as shiny as the two tram engines on the Tenpenny branch.  The lamp code No.3 is carrying with a red and a white lamp is the GER single line lamp code.  I did think about modding the lamps to make them light up, but my brain said, 'Stop it, - go away.'  Sooooo we might come back to that later since it is a bit tricky to do.

No.3 is allowed to work over those parts of the Windweather and Hopewood Tramways that don't involve any roadside running.  It is also permitted to work on the mainline, but I don't do that very often since I have to change the lamp code in No.3's config file before doing it and there's more than enough for No.3 to do on the tramways without wandering off anywhere else.  Shunting and trip working are No.3's main tasks as well as goods transfers to and from Tenpenny Wharf since No.3 has a light enough axle loading to cross the long timber viaduct over the salt marsh.

 

A quick top up of the tanks at Windweather station.

 

Waiting for the signal at Winkle Bay.

 

A van to drop off at the lighthouse.

 

That done it's back to the tramway and some wagon loads of timber to pick up from the wharf.

[Jake The Rat]

On 08/09/2021 at 04:41, stephensons_wolf said:

do ye happen to still have the route? the DLS isn't working as of late and i can't find via content manager

 

regards: Leo baxster

 

21 hours ago, Annie said:

Sorry, I no longer have a copy of the original route Leo.  If the DLS wasn't working before it may have been due to server maintenance as it seems to be working now.  There's two versions of Turks Castle, a BR era one and the 1892 version.  I've only ever downloaded the 1892 one.

 

I have both of them & could help out.

[Annie]

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that while playing trains on the Windweather Tramway I find odd jobs that I was meaning to do, but never got around to doing.  I use track with 60lb to the yard flat bottom rail on the tramways and neither of the two options for ballast matched the gravel ground texture that I tend to use.  It's track based on a late 19th century American prototype and it's also TRS19 procedural track; - 'procedural' meaning that it has devilishly clever magic scripting that automatically creates frogs and checkrails when laying out pointwork.  Well most of the time it does provided everything is perfectly levelled out with no twists and you aren't wanting to make any kinds of tricky and unusual pointwork like three way points or points with a flange squealing tight radius.  So making relaying the track on the Hopewood and Windweather Tramways my first ever use of procedural track was somewhat of an arduous test for it.  Mostly though it worked out really well with surprisingly few fix ups being needed.

Being a TRS19 type of track though it had some strange stuff with its texture files that I hadn't ever done anything with before, but I figured it out and I made up two alternative track types for use on the tramways. One uses a gravelly sand type of ballast and the other uses textures and normal maps based on the gravel ground texture I use for goods yards & etc on the tramways (pictured below).  In the snap I took earlier of No.3 waiting for signals at Winkle Bay you can see the previous flat bottomed track's ballast textures which always looked a bit too perfect and unconvincing to my eyes.

 

 

[Annie]

Today's cheer up picture; - my new Japanese cast iron teapot.  This was my special cheer up present to myself after being trashed out by getting double jabbed with the Pfizer vaccine.  This morning I finally felt like I was something like my old self again and didn't feel like I just wanted to hide away under my duvet forever and sleep.

Tea is important, - there's nothing like a really good tea for lifting me up and making me happy.

 

[Hroth]

What a smart teapot, I'm jealous!!! 

 

And when not making tea, you could use it as a coarse file for interior curves... 

 

 

Did you know, you can get a matching "hotplate", though the thought of stewed tea is a bit offputting. You could use it for preparing the tea component for cold tea cake! 

Edited September 11, 2021 by Hroth

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

Did you know, you can get a matching "hotplate", though the thought of stewed tea is a bit offputting. You could use it for preparing the tea component for cold tea cake! 

Ooooooooooooo a further teapot accessory.  Thank you very much for telling me about it Hroth.  I've checked with my teapot supplier's website and they do have the matching tetsubin teapot warmer for my teapot so I'll order one of those next week.  I did buy the matching trivet for my teapot at the same time as i purchased my teapot; - in fact it was the 'Day of the Trivets' since I purchased one for my very nice white china teapot at the same time. (yes I know, - where's the groan button?)

Really good tea doesn't taste stewed if it's kept warm; - well it might if you kept if warm for an entire day or more, - but I'm not very likely to do that.  There's a very good family owned tea emporium in Auckland that sells utterly exquisite teas, but unfortunately Auckland is still under level 4 lockdown (level 2.5 here in the rural countryside), - so I can't place an order with them at the moment.  However I do have adequate supplies so I shan't start to worry just yet.

 

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

And when not making tea, you could use it as a coarse file for interior curves... 

I wasn't sure what the casting quality was going to be like when I placed my order, but it proved to be very good with its bobbly cast iron surface proving to be quite delightfully tactile.  I suppose in an emergency it could be used as a coarse file, but it does seem like a waste of what is a truly lovely teapot.

[Hroth]

if you wanted a really eye-popping teapot  how about...

 

 

A Measham or Barge teapot.  Popular on canal boats of the Victorian era...

 

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

if you wanted a really eye-popping teapot  how about...

Oh my.........  It would be very easy for me to become a collector of delightfully unusual teapots, but with my small 1930's cottage already being a bit on the cluttered side I would very much risk it becoming even more cluttered than it is now.

 

That certainly is an eye-popping teapot though.

[Jake The Rat]

6 hours ago, Hroth said:

And when not making tea, you could use it as a coarse file for interior curves... 

 

 

I had to look up 'coarse file', but then I had a good laugh. (To me, usually a 'file' is either a lump of data on a computer or a row of 8 squares on a chessboard, & I had totally forgotten that it can also be a tool called Feile in German. )

Edited September 11, 2021 by Jake The Rat

[Compound2632]

59 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

 

I had to look up 'coarse file', but then I had a good laugh. (To me, usually a 'file' is either a lump of data on a computer or a row of 8 squares on a chessboard, & I had totally forgotten that it can also be a tool called Feile in German. )

 

File in the tool sense is derived from a Germanic root, whereas in the line or document sense it's derived from the Latin for a piece of string. It can also mean a cunning or devious person; I'm not sure which root that comes from. That sense is a bit old fashioned though, the slang usage seems to have morphed into something altogether more vulgar.

[Northroader]

You collect teapots??

 

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

A Measham or Barge teapot.  Popular on canal boats of the Victorian era...

 

There's one of those in the family - emblazoned "Love at Home". I've only seen it once. I think it's lacking the mini teapot on the lid which I gather makes it rather less collectable. A couple of generations or more back, it was a cause of some embarrassment as implying that there were bargees in the family pedigree (this was on my paternal grandmother's side). I was told of an exchange between my grandmother and my great-uncle Sid, her brother:

 

Sid: "Doris, have you still got that teapot?"

Doris (hopefully): "Why, would you like it?"

Sid (backtracking): "No! But don't get rid of it."

 

I'm not sure where it is now.

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

File in the tool sense is derived from a Germanic root, whereas in the line or document sense it's derived from the Latin for a piece of string. It can also mean a cunning or devious person; I'm not sure which root that comes from. That sense is a bit old fashioned though, the slang usage seems to have morphed into something altogether more vulgar.

 

Where we segue into file descriptions, including the slightly inebriated illigitimate one...

(Its the only one I remember now "No sniggering at the back of the class, Smith Minor!!!")

[rocor]

23 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

File in the tool sense is derived from a Germanic root, whereas in the line or document sense it's derived from the Latin for a piece of string. It can also mean a cunning or devious person; I'm not sure which root that comes from. That sense is a bit old fashioned though, the slang usage seems to have morphed into something altogether more vulgar.

 

This forum gives one the opportunity to learn at least one new thing every day.

 

Though, in the case of the vulgar usage of the Word file, I cannot free myself of the suspicion that someone has been spoofing online slang dictionaries.