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

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

.... 

 

So the sea level at Bedwood was lowered by two meters which involved having to lower the sea floor and the bed of the Bedwood River among other things.

 

...

 

A glimpse of a distant shore. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm surprised you didn't find some ancient wrecks!

 

 

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, MikeOxon said:

So you succeeded where King Canute could not!  It must be fun managing your own world. Are you planning ahead for climate change?

Being able to control the weather is one of the nice things about railway simulators.  It's mid-Winter here so it's been raining on and off pretty solidly for the past two weeks; - in my own little world though it's a nice slightly cloudy day.  Trainz TS2012 has the capacity to create some fairly impressive thunderstorms which is something that was overlooked when N3V came up with the 'latest and greatest' TS2019 version of Trainz.  They still haven't done anything about it as far as I know.

 

56 minutes ago, Hroth said:

I'm surprised you didn't find some ancient wrecks!

I didn't plan for 'Bedwood' to become a part of any of my other layouts so I didn't pay any attention to the sea water level.  My biggest worry in having to lower the level of the river bed was that if I wasn't careful how I went about it I was going to change the heights of the swing bridge and the lift bridge which are both awful things to level to the correct height.

I didn't find anything of any great interest while shifting all that virtual water about except for a navigation buoy that had gone astray. 

[Annie]

While digging around in the archives I found a TS2012 copy of my Norfolk layout from April 2019.  This is version 14, - the latest version before everything got messed up by Trainz TRS22 was version 24.   Version 14 doesn't have the Tenpenny branch, nor does it have the B&FER's large terminus station and wharf station at Foxhollow.  That fairly large section happened much later.  The line from Moxbury to Bunbury and the mysterious West is still to come in this version as well.

The Eastlingwold & Great Mulling's line to Great Mulling and  beyond is present and complete as is the E&GR's branch to Grimwold as this was the first of the major expansions I constructed.  The Hopewood Tramway and the Windweather Tramway are very much present in version 14 since they are an essential part of the layout.  The Windweather Tramway has a connection to Tenpenny Wharf, but as noted above the Tenpenny branch from the wharf station to Lockes Soak came later.

This particular install of TS2012 is loaded on a 10,000 rpm server SAS hard drive which certainly helps it along with loading times, but even so I can see that version 14 was edging towards the limit of what TS2012 could cope with.  By the time I was at version 24 I had no choice, but to go to the later 64 bit editions of Trainz which ultimately turned into a nightmare.

 

The Hopewood Tramway's station and yard at Elgar Wood.

 

There was much more of a GCR presence in version 14.  The MPD at Elgar Junction was very much in the hands of the GCR back then.

 

The Y14 is in charge of a train of bolster wagons as it's doing the morning log fetching run for the sawmill at Elgar Wood.  These Y14s ended up being progressively wrecked by Trainz TS2019, TRS19 and TRS22 which effectively did away with a very useful GER engine.  It was nice to take one out for a run again.

 

[Northroader]

A “cheer up” boat trip:

[Caley Jim]

Are we going on a fishing trip?

 

Jim

[Annie]

Feeling grumpy.  The latest issue of the LNER GER Society Journal has arrived and it's entirely full of post-grouping and BR articles.

 

11 hours ago, Northroader said:

A “cheer up” boat trip:

But on the other hand the photo you posted did make me laugh Mr Northroader.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Annie
Fixed journal title to match reality

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

Feeling grumpy.  The latest issue of the LNER GER Society Journal has arrived and it's entirely full of post-grouping and BR articles.

Now fixed.☹️

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

Now fixed.☹️

 

They have to do something to appeal to the younger generation!

[Regularity]

The GERS was founded about 50 years ago, which was in turn about 50 years after the GER disappeared. 

Just food for thought…

[Annie]

4 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

They have to do something to appeal to the younger generation!

 

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

The GERS was founded about 50 years ago, which was in turn about 50 years after the GER disappeared. 

Just food for thought…

I almost didn't renew my subscription for this year and to get the latest Journal which had barely any pre-grouping content was a major disappointment.  Yes the GER disappeared almost 100 years ago, but it's not a great look for the GER Society when their Journal has no GER content.  I belong to the Broad Gauge Society and they certainly haven't started sneaking narrow gauge content into their Journal because they can't find anything to write about.

 

If the GER Society intend to publish LNER and BR content in their Journal on a regular basis then they should change the society's name to something like The Former GER Lines Society and be done with it.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Annie
More words needed.

[Regularity]

I think the remit of the BGS pretty much automatically excludes the “narrow gauge” material, so that’s not a fair comparison.

A fairer one might be with say, the NBRSG or CRASSOC, which do include a lot of pregrouping content, but also grouping, BR and up to date content on former NBR/CR lines, respectively.

 

Ultimately, though, any of these magazines are only as good as the material that gets sent to them, or sometimes that is carefully extruded from contributors by a “persuasive” editor….

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

If the GER Society intend to publish LNER and BR content in their Journal on a regular basis then they should change the society's name to something like The Former GER Lines Society and be done with it.

 

The remit of the majority of line societies is along the lines of fostering and supporting interest and research into "the X Railway, its constituents, and successors". It's a key part of making sure the society has a broad enough appeal to continue to thrive. Many of these societies have members who are current or former railway employers; recording their knowledge of how things were done on the ex-XR lines in the 1970s - half a century ago - is just as important for future generations as knowing how things were done in the 1920s or 1870s. Some societies, such as the Cumbrian Railways Association and Welsh Railways Research Circle, are explicitly based on a region rather than a period. 

 

So bear with the GERS; remember it's trying to cater to all tastes, not just yours. 

[Adam88]

Regarding Modern Image and the like, the old Light Railway Transport League used to feature a great deal of harrumphing if anyone should dare to mention trolleybuses - transport of the Devil to some.

[Annie]

4 hours ago, Regularity said:

I think the remit of the BGS pretty much automatically excludes the “narrow gauge” material, so that’s not a fair comparison.

A fairer one might be with say, the NBRSG or CRASSOC, which do include a lot of pregrouping content, but also grouping, BR and up to date content on former NBR/CR lines, respectively.

 

Ultimately, though, any of these magazines are only as good as the material that gets sent to them, or sometimes that is carefully extruded from contributors by a “persuasive” editor….

 

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The remit of the majority of line societies is along the lines of fostering and supporting interest and research into "the X Railway, its constituents, and successors". It's a key part of making sure the society has a broad enough appeal to continue to thrive. Many of these societies have members who are current or former railway employers; recording their knowledge of how things were done on the ex-XR lines in the 1970s - half a century ago - is just as important for future generations as knowing how things were done in the 1920s or 1870s. Some societies, such as the Cumbrian Railways Association and Welsh Railways Research Circle, are explicitly based on a region rather than a period. 

 

So bear with the GERS; remember it's trying to cater to all tastes, not just yours. 

Thank you gentlemen. (sigh)  Yes I find that I must agree with you.  I've had some not so good days which meant that when the GER Journal came in the post this morning it didn't take much of a spark to set me off (light blue touch paper, - stand well back & etc ). 

The steam railways came to an end in 1967 which is more than half a century ago so it really is essential to record whatever it is possible to record before it's lost forever.   If the Inquisition did call by to test the steadfast qualities of my faith they would find that I have digital model ex-GER engines in both LNER and early BR liveries on my hard drives so perhaps in some ways I'm just as bad as anybody else in straying from the true faith.

 

I've been spending some time tidying up the older version 14 copy of my alternative Norfolk layout and it's coming along very nicely.  Today's session went very well and that certainly helped to cheer me up more than a bit.

[Regularity]

A friend stopped “taking” MRJ (by not renewing his subscription) when they produced an “all diesel” issue. It had been some time in the offing, but he commented to me that WSP had finally produced an issue with zero content of interest in it for him.

It’s a bit different with “line societies” as you also get access to other things, though.

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

light blue touch paper

GER touch paper would be dark blue… :)

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Regularity said:

A friend stopped “taking” MRJ (by not renewing his subscription) when they produced an “all diesel” issue. It had been some time in the offing, but he commented to me that WSP had finally produced an issue with zero content of interest in it for him.

It’s a bit different with “line societies” as you also get access to other things, though.

True.  Once I calmed down a bit I found myself reading an interesting article about the 1948 BR experimental liveries that were in use on the Great Eastern section.  The early BR era does interest me and I have built up Trainz layouts based around this time period, - though not (yet) for the GE section.

Edited July 28, 2022 by Annie
fumble brain

[PaulG]

I was GERS Journal Editor for 20 years, and you can only publish what members submit. You can try to "encourage" articles, but......

 

When I was Editor there were members who could write about there time working for the GER; how many people are a live today who can write about their railway experiences pre 1948?

 

Paul

[Annie]

42 minutes ago, PaulG said:

I was GERS Journal Editor for 20 years, and you can only publish what members submit. You can try to "encourage" articles, but......

 

When I was Editor there were members who could write about there time working for the GER; how many people are a live today who can write about their railway experiences pre 1948?

 

Paul

I was not well and having a bad day so I forgot to engage my brain before posting about the latest copy of the GER Journal.   I offer my apology to any fellow GER society members I might have offended.   I suppose there aren't that many members who want to delve through the society's GER archive material in order to find material to write an article when their interest might lie outside of the pre-grouping era.

I am in general pleased to be a member of the GER society despite the yearly subscription putting a sizeable dent in my budgeting due to the exchange rate with the NZ Dollar.

 

[Hroth]

12 hours ago, Regularity said:

GER touch paper would be dark blue… :)

 

Since both Badger and Normal stopped producing domestic fireworks, blue touch paper of whatever shade has become extinct. Chinese fireworks seem to be fitted with a stiff string fuse. Probably everyone who remembers BTP has retired, per the instruction...

[Edwardian]

20 hours ago, Annie said:

 

I almost didn't renew my subscription for this year and to get the latest Journal which had barely any pre-grouping content was a major disappointment.  Yes the GER disappeared almost 100 years ago, but it's not a great look for the GER Society when their Journal has no GER content.  I belong to the Broad Gauge Society and they certainly haven't started sneaking narrow gauge content into their Journal because they can't find anything to write about.

 

If the GER Society intend to publish LNER and BR content in their Journal on a regular basis then they should change the society's name to something like The Former GER Lines Society and be done with it.

 

I agree.

 

I let my Great Western Study Group membership lapse decades ago because there was too much Western Region. To be fair, I think they amalgamated with some WR group, so at least were up front about it. Still, not what interested me. Your comment also reminds me of of those disappointments I experienced in Early Youth when the covers of Railway Modellers would promise "Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway" layouts which were nothing of the kind, no symphonies in blue, just ugly black locos with the odd air-smoothed pacific.

 

I'm not especially interested in the eastern portion of the LNER, it offers no more or less fascination than any other part of the LNER in the era of the LNER, and I have no interest whatsoever in the Eastern Region, or whatever it may be have been called, in the days of British Railways or since.

 

I accept many people are interested in these things, many more no doubt than in the GER, and it is a sad fact of life that it is too much to expect that a line society ostensibly dedicated to the GER would focus the bulk of its coverage on the GER, not its increasingly tired remnants under later conglomerations. 

 

I suspect, however, that this issue merely reveals the difference between me and most other railway enthusiasts. In the main, enthusiasts seem to be like football supporters; their team is everything to them. A company or region is the main focus. The period less so, or, rather, most are stuck in the mono-period of modelling, 1950s-60s, but it is the region that links these with those who model Grouping or Modern Image,

 

My interest is focussed not on geography or company, but on period. There are no doubt others here who are of a similar bent, but that just reinforces the idea that the Pre-Grouping section of RMWeb is not typical of the hobby or railway enthusiasts as a whole. 

 

With generation-based nostalgia being the mainspring of much railway enthusiasm, I suspect that line societies will continue to offer those interested in the actual railway companies they purport to represent diminishing returns.

 

Hopefully I will provoke mention of line societies and their publications that better represent the pre-Grouping companies they claim to, and one glorious publication that immediately springs to mind is the Brighton e-publication.

 

However, these societies are bound by what most people want to read and, crucially, what people are willing and able to research and write. We have no right to expect they will better reflect our interest, though I agree we are entitled to comment ruefully when the content does stray from the ostensible subject. I do wonder how many people would support a pre-Grouping periodical? Would enough people want to read about pre-1923 railways, as opposed to railways originating in a particular region.

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

I agree.

 

I let my Great Western Study Group membership lapse decades ago because there was too much Western Region. To be fair, I think they amalgamated with some WR group, so at least were up front about it. Still, not what interested me. Your comment also reminds me of of those disappointments I experienced in Early Youth when the covers of Railway Modellers would promise "Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway" layouts which were nothing of the kind, no symphonies in blue, just ugly black locos with the odd air-smoothed pacific.

At least I know that the Broad Gauge Society won't go wandering off into clutching at the glittering baubles of the 20th century.  I'm finding the same thing as you outlined with the S&DJR layouts in RM with layout builders on the Trainz forums who claim to be building a GWR layout, but are in fact building modern error layouts featuring green toothpaste tube trains belonging to some pack of corporate nobodies who have stolen the name.

For me the GER will always be about locomotives painted ultramarine blue.  I don't particularly like the LNER and while I have a small interest in the very early BR years what Motorway Marples and his cronies did to the railways in Norfolk and East Anglia is unforgivable. 

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

With generation-based nostalgia being the mainspring of much railway enthusiasm, I suspect that line societies will continue to offer those interested in the actual railway companies they purport to represent diminishing returns.

I'm reminded of the story about a teenage girl in a second hand record shop who blurted out in astonishment to her friends, 'Oh look, Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings!'  Perhaps I'm a cheerful optimist, but I will stay with being a member of the GER society for the present time as there are still some small crumbs of the pre-grouping railway to be found in their publications.  That the 'Great Eastern Journal' is not named the 'Great Eastern Railway Journal' was a portend for the future that I failed to notice when I joined up, but there you go I suppose.

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

My interest is focused not on geography or company, but on period. There are no doubt others here who are of a similar bent, but that just reinforces the idea that the Pre-Grouping section of RMWeb is not typical of the hobby or railway enthusiasts as a whole. 

Yes exactly this and the reason why I prefer to inhabit the Pre-Grouping section of RMWeb.  Though I have noticed lately that there seems to be a lot less of us here than there used to be.

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Hopefully I will provoke mention of line societies and their publications that better represent the pre-Grouping companies they claim to, and one glorious publication that immediately springs to mind is the Brighton e-publication.

Yes very much a shining example.  If there are other line societies of a similar quality I would like to hear about them as well.

 

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

However, these societies are bound by what most people want to read and, crucially, what people are willing and able to research and write. We have no right to expect they will better reflect our interest, though I agree we are entitled to comment ruefully when the content does stray from the ostensible subject. I do wonder how many people would support a pre-Grouping periodical? Would enough people want to read about pre-1923 railways, as opposed to railways originating in a particular region.

I can manage to cope with many things in a pre-grouping line society's journal, but photographs of diesels aren't one of them.  The same goes for enthusiastic scribble about the privatised railways of the modern error era.  No, just plain no.

My reluctant feeling is that a pre-Grouping periodical might have a small shining moment in the sun before introducing its financial supporters to the bankruptcy courts.  One difficulty I could immediately see  is that with 100+ pre-grouping railway companies having been in existence before 1923 there would be endless complaints that there are never any articles about [write name of favourite railway company here] being published in the said periodical.

[Caley Jim]

39 minutes ago, Annie said:

.......  If there are other line societies of a similar quality I would like to hear about them as well.

Can I put in a plug for the Caledonian Railway Association?  The most recent edition of it's Journal, 'The True Line', runs to no less than 50 A4 pages, most in colour.  While there is a regular feature 'Network News', updating on current developments on what is left of the CR system, the bulk of articles are of a historical nature.  Three of these deal with the same small station in Strathmore, Eassie, each covering different aspects of the area from early days through to final closure in the '60's.   A full list of the contents are on the CRA home page, linked to above.

 

Jim

[Regularity]

Already done, Jim, if not so effusively:

 

[Annie]

I've had enough of grumbling about things I can't fix so I went back to working on version 14 of my alternative Norfolk layout.  I spent the afternoon working on the Hopewood Tramway section between Bluebell Woods and the portal to Mollywood.  There were more than a few trackwork problems on this section that were fixed in the later versions so what I've done is make this section more or less that same as version 24, but without the additions for Cathill Junction and without the addition of the extra countryside farmland layout boards .  My aim with working on version 14 is to bring it up to the same standard as Version 24, but without making it any larger than it is now.