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

[Annie]

Afternoon Cheer Up Pictures:  A return to my Trainz Model Railway layout based on 'Minories'.  I built this some time ago in TS2012 and I've only just now successfully transferred it over to TS2019 SP1.  This is the GER session version and I also did GWR and LBSC versions; - all three of which were uploaded to the DLS.  For my own use I did a MET version as well as an alternative GER(ish) freelance version.

Using CJF's original layout plan was not easy as the curve through the tunnel under the town is still a serious flange squealer despite having its radius adjusted.  I had to modify my generic teak litho 6 wheelers to replicate a Cleminson 6w coach or else they got seriously untidy going around that curve.  I'm presently giving these teak coaches little tidy up so hopefully the next snap I take of them will be looking a little better.

 

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

Morning Cheer Up Pictures:  Shunting the goods yard at Tenpenny Wharf with a small cantankerous Foden geared locomotive using the 'realistic' steam controls.

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

Supplementary Morning Cheer Up Picture:  I forgot to post this one.  The small MPD at Tenpenny Wharf at around 8.15 am.  I was experimenting with high resolution shadows only my graphics card started to melt so I had to stop doing it.

 

[Annie]

I've been messing around with 'Minories' in TS2019 SP1 with my faux clockwork and tinplate models.  I turned on shadows so I could get some interesting snaps under the glazed canopy roof.  Not really managing to do much today though because I kept falling asleep.

 

 

 

[Annie]

Further messings about with my virtual model railway layouts.  I'm sure I showed off some snaps of this one ages ago.  It's based on an O gauge plan in the reprinted 1925 volume of Model Railway News that was built by a Mr Evans.  The original was a clockwork layout that made use of the clockwork 'George the V' locos that were very popular back then so I though it was about time I put together a proper LNWR  session for this layout.  These snaps were taken in TS2012, but I've also loaded the layout into TS2019 SP1 to see how it will work out there.

Even with expanding the size of the original track plan by about a quarter the curves are still tight and the gradients are very much trainset steep.  I did do some testing using LNWR 5ft 6" 2-4-2 tank engines when I first built the layout and they are very much ideal for this layout.  Passenger trains are restricted to 4-5 four or six wheel coaches.

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

Blurry Early Morning Cheer Up Picture:  Not the best sort of picture though it is certainly interesting.  It seems to be a picture of 'Talyllyn' sitting in one of those pedal car adaption devices that enable a narrow gauge engine to be used on standard gauge track.

 

[eheaps]

16 hours ago, Annie said:

Blurry Early Morning Cheer Up Picture:  Not the best sort of picture though it is certainly interesting.  It seems to be a picture of 'Talyllyn' sitting in one of those pedal car adaption devices that enable a narrow gauge engine to be used on standard gauge track.

 

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.

[Annie]

1 hour ago, eheaps said:

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.

Well so much for that then.  Thanks very much for shedding some light on the mystery Ed.

[Annie]

Morning Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture:  South Devon Railway 4-4-0 "Sol" pictured brand new at the works of Avonside Engine Company of Bristol, in 1866. (Picture courtesy of the Broad Gauge Society)

 

[Schooner]

...is that...grass?!

 

Lovely to have a quick catch up with the thread. Never fails to bring a smile, thanks Annie :) 

[Jake The Rat]

On 08/06/2022 at 22:02, Schooner said:

...is that...grass?!

I doubt it. I guess, this engine smokes coal like all the others do. 😀

[Hroth]

It looks like the builders haven't placed it on the rails yet...

 

:-)

[Annie]

13 hours ago, Hroth said:

It looks like the builders haven't placed it on the rails yet...

 

:-)

If you study the photo carefully with a magnifying glass you'll see that the rails are there, it's just that they are almost completely buried in the (ash?) ballast.

[Annie]

Not Really A Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture:  One of the well known and infamous official Broad Gauge scrap siding pictures taken in 1892.  The one redeeming feature of these old photos is the  amount of detail they show and for that we must thank whoever it was at Swindon who thought that capturing these images was important,

I'm other news I am now much cheered up in that the horrible dental infection I was suffering from has been defeated.  A victory for modern antibiotic science and one that I'm very glad of.

 

[Annie]

Broad Gauge Supplementary Cheer Up Pictures:  Two reasonably large sized reproductions of the Broad Gauge wagons scrap sidings at Swindon.  The image quality is a bit patchy in places, but it's better than a poke in the eye.

 

 

[Annie]

Another Supplementary Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture:   The well known picture of the Broad Gauge carriage dump sidings at Swindon, - only a a high enough resolution to be able to properly see useful details.  All pictures posted courtesy of the Broad Gauge Society.

 

 

[Schooner]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

I'm other news I am now much cheered up in that the horrible dental infection I was suffering from has been defeated. 

 

Hurrah!

[Annie]

While looking about at goods wagons available on the DLS I found this surprising object.  It's a basic texture reskin of a GWR 04 open wagon and there's no way on earth that it could ever be a GER wagon.

 

 

So I had a mess around with it and fixed some texture faults as well as lettering it properly to remove the Arial fonts disease with which it was afflicted.  It was originally a complicated piece of work by Rail-Sims back in TS2004 days and had opening side doors as well as all kinds of magic scripted loading effects.  None of that works anymore due to later 'upgrades' to Trainz scripting breaking it so I'll most probably just remove it all. 

The number I used on the wagon is a placeholder until I can go and frown at various 4 plank photos and find a number I like.

EDIT: It turns out that this wagon originally had animated brake gear and the second position of the brake lever decided to make itself visible when I upgraded the config file details.  Once I found which part of the animated mesh I had to switch off it was a simple job to make it an ordinary non animated 04 open wagon again.

 

 

 

And now fixed.  I can certainly make use of a few GWR 04 open wagons so I'll have a go at doing some variations.

 

Edited June 18, 2022 by Annie
Wagon repairs needed

[Annie]

The DCII brakes are a bit of a nuisance, but I might be able to transplant something else onto be main body mesh if I hold my mouth right.

[rocor]

On 08/06/2022 at 17:44, Annie said:

Morning Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture:  South Devon Railway 4-4-0 "Sol" pictured brand new at the works of Avonside Engine Company of Bristol, in 1866. (Picture courtesy of the Broad Gauge Society)

 

 

I enjoyed the picture, though what came immediately into my mind was the driver saying "Fireman! Open up the box and put another lump of coal on the fire".

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

The DCII brakes are a bit of a nuisance, but I might be able to transplant something else onto be main body mesh if I hold my mouth right.

Is that to take the pressure off your poor tooth?

(runs off smartly...)

 

The pictures of the Swindon scrap sidings are wonderful, no doubt record shots taken by the official GWR photographer on a large format glass plate camera.  I must admit that they look to me like a mad collectors train set.

 

It aso makes me think that they must have made a depressing sight for the blokes who originally built them, especially to those from the locomotive shops, though they would be busy enough building replacements.

 

[Compound2632]

19 minutes ago, Hroth said:

It aso makes me think that they must have made a depressing sight for the blokes who originally built them, especially to those from the locomotive shops, though they would be busy enough building replacements.

 

To say nothing of the Carriage & Wagon people - all those narrow carriage bodies to transplant and wagons to convert. Full employment! Overtime! Cash!

[rocor]

42 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Is that to take the pressure off your poor tooth?

(runs off smartly...)

 

The pictures of the Swindon scrap sidings are wonderful, no doubt record shots taken by the official GWR photographer on a large format glass plate camera.  I must admit that they look to me like a mad collectors train set.

 

It aso makes me think that they must have made a depressing sight for the blokes who originally built them, especially to those from the locomotive shops, though they would be busy enough building replacements.

 

 

Locomotives would have been being scraped all the time when they reached the end of their useful lives. It is the ones that were of recent manufacture that appear as such a waste of time, effort and resources.

 

This would have also been true at the end of the British Railways steam era. Locomotives that could have had at least another quarter-centuries worth of useful life in front of them, headed for the scrapyard. 

[Compound2632]

9 minutes ago, rocor said:

Locomotives would have been being scraped all the time when they reached the end of their useful lives. It is the ones that were of recent manufacture that appear as such a waste of time, effort and resources.

 

Your second sentence certainly applies to some of the broad gauge engines. Three of the Rover class 4-2-2s were only two or three years old, IIRC? 

 

But of course there were also the convertibles, both locomotives and carriages.

[Hroth]

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

To say nothing of the Carriage & Wagon people - all those narrow carriage bodies to transplant and wagons to convert. Full employment! Overtime! Cash!

I quite agree, its just the thought of all that wasted effort.

 

1 minute ago, rocor said:

 

Locomotives would have been being scraped all the time when they reached the end of their useful lives. It is the ones that were of recent manufacture that appear as such a waste of time, effort and resources.

 

This would have also been true at the end of the British Railways steam era. Locomotives that could have had at least another quarter-centuries worth of useful life in front of them, headed for the scrapyard. 

 

A locomotives useful life can be measured in decades, especially if they are well looked after.  I don't know when the GWR decided to narrow their gauge, let alone when they started building Convertibles for the transition period.  Some of the locos nearest the camera look like Iron Duke/Rover class express locos, some of which were built in 1880 and 1888, 12 or 4  years before ending on the scrap siding.  They were hardly superannuated old iron. If the Broad Gauge had persisted, they would still have been working until Churchward produced his new standard BG 4-6-0s (and what a fantasy that would be!).

 

At the end of BR steam, most of the condemned locos didn't lurk around in scrap lines near where they were built, they were promptly dispatched to commercial scrap yards for cutting up. A good thing, if not for Barry, there wouldn't be heritage railways!

 

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Your second sentence certainly applies to some of the broad gauge engines. Three of the Rover class 4-2-2s were only two or three years old, IIRC? 

 

But of course there were also the convertibles, both locomotives and carriages.

 

Yep!

 

Iron Duke/Rover Class