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

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

 

Then almost by accident I found this little 0-4-0 saddle tank simply named 'Pug'.  It's not any variety of officially recognised Sudrian railway engine as it's intended to be a borrowed engine.  In fact I've dubbed it 'Pug the Borrowed Engine'. The several people responsible for its creation plainly put quite a bit of thought into it going by the way it's been set up and detailed.  Out of the box it had somewhat of a glaring shine to it so I had to tone it down a bit.  Now Pug looks nicely clean as if it's been fussed over by the cleaning staff, but not to any kind of extreme degree. 

Pug didn't have a number when it arrived so I gave it one, - so I suppose somebody will now tell me that I've got it wrong.

 

 

"Pug" looks good, but you could do with fixing the "Thomas and Friends" lamp, which sticks out like a sore thumb!

 

[Annie]

51 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I would guess it is intended to pay homage to this:

 

 

Here "Jinty" and "Pug" are seen arriving at the Ffarquhar branch junction as 'locum' engines while The Eight Famous Engines take their trip to the mainland. 

Ah that explains it then.  I can see that I'm going to have to catch up on my reading as i'd forgotten about them.  If 'Pug' is available I would imagine that someone would have made a Trainz model of 'Jinty' as well.  That should give me a useful collection of smaller engines for doing odd jobs with.

That 'Jinty' is officially displaying an early BR totem on his tank sides gives me a an excellent time marker too.

In 'Percy Takes the Plunge' Percy is seen holding court on the turntable and telling stories to four tank engines from the 'Other Railway'.  Allowing for the usual vageness over properly illustrating engines three of them look like 3F 'Jinties' and one might be an ex-LNWR engine.  

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

"Pug" looks good, but you could do with fixing the "Thomas and Friends" lamp, which sticks out like a sore thumb!

Yes I need to change that, - fortunately it's fairly easy to do.  Pug has magic scripting for interactive head code lamps which is another clue that someone took some time and trouble over his creation.

[Annie]

54 minutes ago, Annie said:

If 'Pug' is available I would imagine that someone would have made a Trainz model of 'Jinty' as well.  That should give me a useful collection of smaller engines for doing odd jobs with.

The same site where I found Pug also has Jinty along with a lot of other interesting bits and pieces.  It's called Tramway 3D which by its title alone would have easily captured my interest.

[Metropolitan H]

Look up "LMS Kitson 0-4-0ST". There were 5 built circa 1932 by "Kitson" for the LMS, with a further 5 built at Horwich by BR. The number series was 47000 onwards in BR days.

 

An interesting loco type which were used on the Cromford & High Peak line amongst others.

 

Regards

Chris H

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Metropolitan H said:

Look up "LMS Kitson 0-4-0ST". There were 5 built circa 1932 by "Kitson" for the LMS, with a further 5 built at Horwich by BR. The number series was 47000 onwards in BR days.

 

An interesting loco type which were used on the Cromford & High Peak line amongst others.

 

Regards

Chris H

Hmm....... there is a Kitson kind of look to Pug, - only the cab roof isn't quite right.  The saddle tank is the right shape though.  Thanks Chris, - I'll change Pug's number to something Kitson-like then.

Edit: a little more checking in the Sudrian archives and I discovered that Pug is indeed an LMS Kitson built in 1932.

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Annie
More words needed.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

Hmm....... there is a Kitson kind of look to Pug, - only the cab roof isn't quite right. 

 

 

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what the illustrator was going for, but the Kitson cab was of a wrap-over type

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what the illustrator was going for, but the Kitson cab was of a wrap-over type

The illustration in my Complete Collection book has Pug without a wrap-over roof so I suppose that's why the Pug model I have has been done the same way.  The Sudrian community fan pages say Pug is a Kitson which certainly aligns with what Chris has said so now Pug is No.47004 to put a final seal on the matter.

 

[sir douglas]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Kitson_0-4-0ST

[Annie]

2 hours ago, sir douglas said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LMS_Kitson_0-4-0ST

Thanks, - another piece to fit into the puzzle.  It all helps to build up the picture.

 

Jinty under test. I noted in 'The Eight Famous Engines' that there was a 16 ton steel BR open wagon in one of the illustrations so on the strength of that I gave Jinty some to bunt around.  I've also got some ex-WD steel open wagons as well that I use on one of my early BR layouts so guess I could add one or two of those to the mix.

Surprisingly both Jinty and Pug have been properly setup and aren't secretly hiding  huge Pacific engine specs inside their boilers.  The only spot of fettling I had to do with Jinty was making some texture adjustments, changing the lamps and updating the old 3F engine spec it had to the latest version.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by Annie
added a picture

[Annie]

Happy in their work.

 

[Hroth]

Probably warmer on the footplate than in the guards van!

 

[Caley Jim]

In Scotland a pug is a tank engine of any description ( even the CR 4-6-2Ts and G&SWR baltics), so in my book Thomas, Percy and Jinty are pugs too!

 

Jim

[Annie]

Edward leaving the cleverly disguised western loop on my Mumble junction layout.  I've been experimenting with Edward running a timed schedule with a local passenger service.  It seems to be working Ok so I'll have a got at extending it to some other engines.

 

 

Buses.  I've found a driveable Bertie the bus model and also a driveable Algy the blue bus.

 

 

I was a little concerned that with Algy being wider that he might not fit round some of the more narrow lanes, but a test run showed that he was fine.  He's got a noisy sound file that sounds like it's meant for a diesel shunter so I'll have to do something about that.

 

 

The invisible magic interactive bus stops I'm using are actually tram stops, but they seem to work Ok with buses.  For the first time I used invisible trigger modules to make the eastbound bus wait until the westbound one had passed a particular point on the road before its schedule timer started counting down.  I felt quite proud of myself when it worked properly right from the start.  Certainly beats them both running about madly and banging into each other.

 

My next task is to sort out a set of loop sidings for the branchline.  Doing these is going to be a bit more tricky than the eastern and western ones I did for the mainline through the station.

[Hroth]

There's too many bus passengers, you need to be encouraging them to take a train instead!

 

Perhaps a sign at the station, reading "Bus Replacement Services"...

 

[Annie]

31 minutes ago, Hroth said:

There's too many bus passengers, you need to be encouraging them to take a train instead!

 

Perhaps a sign at the station, reading "Bus Replacement Services"...

 

I agree, I've since reconfigured the tram bus stops to reduce their numbers to a more lonely state.

 

A 'Bus Replacement Service', - now there's a new trend for our blighted modern times.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Annie
More words needed.

[Edwardian]

But these are good 'buses, they find passengers for the railway and take them to the station

[Annie]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

But these are good 'buses, they find passengers for the railway and take them to the station

Yes that's true, - that's a very good point.  The other bus stop down in the town is right beside the station and that pathway you can see across the road leads down to the branchline platform.  The small while building is meant to be a ticket office for the branch so I must find a sign to go above the door.

I might reduce the passenger numbers to around five or so though as these are fairly small buses and I don't want there to be passengers bursting out the windows.

 

Edit:  I have found a Bulgy the double decker anti railway bus, but he's made for Trainz TS2019 and TRS22 and not for TANE unfortunately.

 

Edited June 30, 2023 by Annie
More words needed.

[Annie]

After doing some hunting about amongst what was available in Trainz I was able to find some suitable traffic signs for Mumble Junction.  I've planted them in what I hope are suitable places and should be some extra little touches to help make the layout come alive.  With Mumble only being one standard baseboard in size (apart from the storage loops) it makes it easy to potter about and make the place look better.

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

More traction engine experiments.  This traction engine came from the Tramway 3D website and with its solid rubber tyres it would be a better choice for running on the roads around Mumble.  I wasn't very impressed with either the engine spec or the sound file so I used my own ones that I developed for my Foden geared locomotives.

There's a steepish gradient on the road as it climbs up towards the township and I had to make several attempts at it before I got that 30 odd seconds of useful video.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Annie
More words needed.

[Tom Burnham]

Excellent traction engine sounds!  The bus stops look like the late lamented London Transport Country Area, by the way.

[Hroth]

Some more road-oriented stuff:

 

Post 1935 there should be Belisha Beacons at each end of the pedestrian crossing, pre 1948 the crossing would be marked with "large studs" in the road. Zebra crossings are post 1948.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisha_beacon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing

 

There might also have to be a stop line where the minor road joins the major road that the traffic sign warns about, I don't have my old Highway Code booklets to check when they might have been introduced*.

 

* 1930's, apparently.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by Hroth
more info

[Annie]

6 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Excellent traction engine sounds!  The bus stops look like the late lamented London Transport Country Area, by the way.

Thanks Tom,  I blended sounds from various traction engine recordings as well as the occasional locomotive one to end up with that sound file.  I still don't really know what I'm doing with this kind of thing, but using Audacity to make the modifications certainly made it a lot easier.

I wasn't sure about using those bus stop signs, but with them being country service ones I thought they might be appropriate even if they are London Transport ones. 

 

6 hours ago, Hroth said:

Some more road-oriented stuff:

 

Post 1935 there should be Belisha Beacons at each end of the pedestrian crossing, pre 1948 the crossing would be marked with "large studs" in the road. Zebra crossings are post 1948.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belisha_beacon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_crossing

 

There might also have to be a stop line where the minor road joins the major road that the traffic sign warns about, I don't have my old Highway Code booklets to check when they might have been introduced*.

 

* 1930's, apparently.

Thank you that is really helpful.  After much thinking about what time period I wanted to represent I decided to go with the time period of the Railway Series books themselves as being the early to middle 1950s.  The road signs came from various modellers, but finding the set intended for the 1950s Settle & Carlisle Trainz project certainly helped things along.

Placing things on the road is a little awkward as it's correctly modelled with a camber, - which is why the zebra crossing is hovering at the outer edges.  I'm fairly certain that somebody has made stop lines for the roads as I saw some on another layout a while ago.  I thought I might need some Belisha Beacons so I'll have a hunt about for those too.

 

Working on a country town with station type layout again is a lot of fun.  I was off to a good start with using the original 'Knapford' station layout as a basis as it's maker had a good eye for detail, though I think I can find some more things I can do to make it a bit better.

[Annie]

I discovered a rather excellent TRS19 layout depicting the station and yards at Ffarquhar with part of the Anopha quarry line modelled as well.

The Sudrian modelling folk have developed a particular style to their layouts which extends to the tree and shrub models they use which are considered to be largely obsolete these days in Trainz.  Unless you are in the know they are also not easy to find since they were originally made by a chap in Czechoslovakia.   I would more than likely be considered a heretic since I changed out all the trees on Mumble Junction for more realistic types.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

10 hours ago, Annie said:

I discovered a rather excellent TRS19 layout depicting the station and yards at Ffarquhar with part of the Anopha quarry line modelled as well.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this TRS19 Ffarquhar layout just yet.  Being almost surprisingly free of un-railway like clutter, - apart from locomotive wheels not on axle discarded about the place as if they could be removed like a car tyre that's gone flat, - the layout is nicely detailed and has had a lot of thought gone into its creation.  I think I would want to change the trees and other vegetation though as I've done on Mumble Junction.

 

This snap was taken on a version of Tidmouth in TANE, but most Sudrian layouts have them scattered everywhere as if taking off a locomotive driving wheel was like changing a wheel on your Mum's old Morris Minor.

 

Anyway enough distractions as I've still got things I want to finish doing on Mumble Junction.