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

[Annie]

 

I have a vague memory of a discussion about siding space and the provision of enough of it on the Auran forums recently.  One of the forum members who has been doing so very good research on the Borders Counties railways quoted figures on just how much of various railway companies total trackage was sidings to store the railway wagons they owned.  The ratio of siding mileage to running line mileage was surprisingly high and I have to admit it was a subject I hadn't thought about much.

Which leads into me playing trains doing serious testing to see how workable my own little scratch in the dirt tramway is when it comes to daily operation.  The Elgar Wood end of the tramway where the two Hudswell Clarkes are now working is mostly about logs and timber with operations centred around the large sawmill and furniture factory ( as well as making other timber products like veneer) and there is also traffic to another wood products related factory at Downes Farm that does mysterious things with wood chips and sawdust.  Operation has proved to be much more intensive than I thought it would be and a major snag I struck very early on was the lack of siding space at Elgar Wood and Downes Farm.

Trying to handle both the daily goods traffic and the sawmill's traffic from the goods yard at Elgar Wood proved to be impossible no matter how much creative shunting I attempted and in the end I had to put three longish sidings and a headshunt over on the sawmills real estate in order to separate the two kinds of traffic.  Two sidings in the Elgar Wood station goods yard had to be lengthened, - which wasn't all that easy since it's a very restricted site space wise , - and a siding was also lengthened at Downes Farm.

The sand and gravel traffic at the other end of the line was having the same problems which led to three more sidings being added to the small goods yard at Bluebell Woods.  This is another site that's restricted for space so a little creative thinking was involved to make it a workable goods yard.  Hopewood on Sea goods yard also now has another siding, - though operation there was much more workable than at the other stations.  The only station yard not needing any work was at Bluebell Sands, but then it had been set up for efficiently working around the sand and gravel loading tipple right from the start.

 

Things are a lot better now and are much more workable, but it really brought home to me just how much siding space was needed even on a small largely self contained railway that's only 15 miles long and doesn't have a huge number of goods wagons and other rolling stock occupying its tracks.

[Martin S-C]

That makes interesting reading and I am sure many other independent railway companies faced exactly the same issues. There was a general expansion of the railways in all forms up to around 1900 or so when construction largely tailed off. Come the 1920s total mileage probably began to reduce. When I was building the Highworth Branch in MSTS I read up on as much of the line's history as I could find, the very first Wild Swan title covered the line and was my main inspiration for building it. There was discussion about adding sidings at no less than three of the line's four stations at one time or another but in the end none were laid and the expansion on the branch focussed on specific industries - namely the nitrate works at the Swindon end of the line below Stratton and the Vickers factory for which a whole mini branch-off-a-branch was built from Kingsdown Road. This factory became operational in 1942 building Spitfire parts. An extra siding was laid in below Stanton station in WWI and a company of Canadian labour troops who were former lumberjacks was based nearby to fell timber for the war effort. This output went into building barracks and other military instalions and the longest trains ever to use the branch (up to 30 wagons of single and bogie bolsters) were sent along the branch to carry away the felled timber which was mostly transported in the round.

After WWI freight on the branch tailed off significantly, the general strike of 1926 practically killed off all milk and livestock movements on the branch and both Stanton and Hannington stations had their sidings lifted and were reduced to unstaffed halts.

So as a mini example of rural railways the Highworth Branch is a good example with general freight tailing off in the face of road competition but specific heavy industries increasing. By the end of WWII there was very heavy traffic from the Vickers plant and the nitrate works but very little else along the branch other than house coal. One other specific traffic was crushed roadstone which was brought along the branch as the local corporations upgraded the road surfaces in the region, so in the same way that canals had carried materials to build railways in the previous century and thus were the means of their own demise, so some rural railways helped kill themselves off in the same way.

Your railway, Annie, seems to have several major staple heavy industries along it and so would presumably weather the growing storm against road transport quite well. As an experiment you could announce the closure of one of the industries, or its owners no longer using rail transport and see how that affects the operations of the railway. In this way if you really want to wear your social impact geek hat you could work out revenues from the various industries, passenger traffic and general freight and come to a conclusion about how well financially the railway would fare given the loss of one of its major customers.

[Annie]

 

Your railway, Annie, seems to have several major staple heavy industries along it and so would presumably weather the growing storm against road transport quite well. As an experiment you could announce the closure of one of the industries, or its owners no longer using rail transport and see how that affects the operations of the railway. In this way if you really want to wear your social impact geek hat you could work out revenues from the various industries, passenger traffic and general freight and come to a conclusion about how well financially the railway would fare given the loss of one of its major customers.

 

That's an interesting point you make Martin.  Certainly the loss of the sawmill as a customer would sound the death knell for the line past Downes Farm as passenger receipts are marginal at the best of times at Elgar Wood.  Ordinary goods traffic is light being mainly house coal and some farm produce and with a GCR secondary mainline running nearby and a GCR station with a large goods yard the potential for farm owning customers voting with their feet is very high.  There is a good road between Elgar Wood and the GCR station at Elgar Junction, - and that has always been a worry for the Hopewood Tramway board.

 

The loss of the wood products factory at Downes Farm wouldn't have so much of an impact since its traffic requirements are a lot lighter, but since it's dependent on wood chips and other materials from the sawmill, losing the sawmill as customer would have a knock on effect and could profoundly affect its ability to continue in business.  While there is a good road between Downes Farm and Hopewood on Sea, there's nothing but rutted tracks for the truly intrepid between Downes Farm and Elgar Wood due to the very broken nature of the countryside and the local town councils wanting nothing to do with the expense of improving the situation.  Unless the wood products factory could find another supplier with a rail connection the situation would not be looking very good at all.

 

The tramway section where the G15 tram engines operate has a very good Summer passenger traffic which as you'd expect falls off in the Winter months.  The coast road is a more than a bit marginal which will serve well in later times for delaying competition from bus services, - but not indefinitely.  The sand and gravel sidings at Bluebell Sands provide traffic essential to keeping the tramway section afloat financially, but unless the coast road was heavily upgraded competition from road transport is not especially likely, - or at least not in the pre-war era that my layout is based on.

I have a portal track past Hopewood on Sea that represents a possible connection elsewhere, - most probably to the parent GER, - but it doesn't figure a great deal in general traffic patterns apart from being where coal comes from.  Otherwise it's just large mysterious crates on flat wagons, the odd traction engine on a low loader and other such things that might come from the world beyond the tramway.

 

It's interesting that you mention canals because a WIP area on my layout is a silted up and weed filled canal with empty and derelict buildings lining its banks.  There's a very small town there, - Low Howe, - and a once in a while goods only service will eventually be run out that way.  More than likely an aging 4 wheel coach will be added to the train in the hope of a fare or two, but the whole atmosphere of the Low Howe branch will be one where closure is imminent.

There is a good road between Low Howe and Hopewood on Sea, so cart traffic is gradually cleaning up the small amount of freight travelling to and from Low Howe.  Eventually some bright spark entrepreneur will think of providing an horse omnibus service and that will pretty much be that for the Low Howe branch.

 

The other portal at the other end of the line goes to Mollywood where the sand and gravel trains go to.  Eventually I may add on some more layout boards and build the town of Mollywood, but not until a lot of planning is done as to what Mollywood might be like as a town, its size and population and etc.

 

Well that was a worthwhile exercise Martin because it made me think about my little tramway and what keeps it alive and running.

[Annie]

The trackwork inside the boundary wall of the sawmill.  This is the Mk III version which after a lot of playing trains serious testing has been shown to work.

 

 

A 'Manchester Ship Canal' Hudswell Clarke of 1905 at rest.  Small useful tank engines are a bit lacking in Trainz.  These Hudswell Clarke MSC engines are actually payware by Paul Hobbs and like all his work are very very good.  In use they are like small excitable terriers, - loud and blasting smoke and steam everywhere, - but despite their small size are game to try any task.  These models have very well done interactive coal and water loading as well as ashpans that need emptying.  It's not that you have to in order to keep them running, but when I'm using them I keep an eye on coal and water levels as well as the slowly filling ashpan so regular visits to the small engine shed siding at Elgar Wood for refreshment and tidying up are very much a part of how I run these small tank engines.  Double headed on a log train the sound is near deafening, but glorious as they broadcast far and wide that they are busily at work., 

 

 

I made some more wagons.  7 plank wagons on the tramway were becoming a need, - especially since I'm still figuring out how to represent a GER one.  These would be the last wagons the Hopewood Tramway would have purchased for itself.  It came to mind that the tramway board might have been a wee bit proud of these wagons so I made them a bit more 'wordy' than usual.  The 5 planks I previously made only have the 'HT' company logo, the necessary loading weights and their running number, so this time I made a special effort.

 

 

 

[Martin S-C]

I really like those Hopewood Tramway 7 plankers. And the sawmill - quite a complex. It would make a neat mini-layout in 4mm. Looks to be enough to fit on a 6ft x 2ft board if you squish the width a bit.

[Annie]

Thanks Martin.  I'm pleased with how the 7 plankers turned out.  With H.T.Co. rolling stock I wanted something that was different in appearance to that owned by the GER as well as the GCR and other railway companies' wagons and vans that visit the tramway and I think I've manage to do that while keeping the livery design relatively simple.

 

The sawmill works very nicely as a mini layout.  While finalising the trackwork for the sawmill I spent a few sessions just doing nothing else but shunting wagons around the sawmill and it's a lot of fun.  Shunting puzzles are something I enjoy and the sawmill's sidings are very good for setting up some of those. 

[Annie]

I have mentioned this mid-19th century 0-6-0 saddle tank engine before.  It was rejected for use at the sand and gravel sidings for being too big and heavy, but I started to wonder about using it as the sawmill shunter.  This old model from Paulz Trainz does have a serious fault though; - there are no outside cranks attached to the driving wheel axles and the coupling rods move gracefully in empty air as if attached to nothing at all.  The catalogue page on Paul's website shows these engines without their outside cranks, - which I'd failed to notice until now, - so I can only guess that this model for some reason never had them and it wasn't as if I'd been sent the wrong wheelset for them.  The fact that the axleboxes were done in very shiny brass and stuck out like a sore thumb certainly didn't help at all either.  I ended up taking the colour levels of the axleboxes down into denial of all light black hole territory, but because they were made with a specular shine attached to their mesh I only managed to dull them off a bit.  

I made up my mind that I could accept the lack of outside cranks because otherwise it's not a bad old model for its age.  Paul had a major hard drive melt down a while ago and the older mid-19th century engines I've purchased from him over time have come from backup media so some of them or parts of them are beta models rather than being the final version.  Anyway life is too short and all that and I don't want to bother Paul about what is a very old model from the TS2004 era that he doesn't really sell anymore.

 

I did the same things to this old engine as I did to the 2-4-0 No.3 and it looks nicely presentable in slightly weathered black with red and white lining.  This time around I fitted it with more modern self contained buffers instead of the early stacked leather disc type it was originally fitted with.  Its number is carried in brass letters on its chimney and at the moment it's '03' just to be confusing.  I experimented with improving the driveability of this old monster and it now has an engine spec file written by Paul Hobbs for a L&Y saddle tank and the sound files from a LNWR coal tank.  And the result of these mods is an engine that is highly controllable at low speed.  A one third movement of the speed control/regulator results in a speed of 5mph so it's perfect for shunting in the sawmill's slightly complicated sidings.  With this engine the sound files produce a lovely soft exhaust beat which makes a nice contrast to the Hudswell Clarke's staccato barking.  Surprisingly this old 0-6-0 is coal and water loading enabled, but I haven't really run it long enough yet to know how hungry it is.  

Moving bolster wagons loaded with logs is heavy work especially through the tight curves of the sawmill yard so something like this big old monster is very much needed.  The Hudswell Clarkes can do it, but when they do folk in surrounding towns some miles away certainly know about it.  And boy oh boy, - do they ever gobble coal!

 

 

Footplate view. (Mk II version of the sawmill yard)

 

 

And in the other direction.  Driving from the footplate in reverse is very easy.  Sighting past that huge saddle tank is not so good while running in the other direction, but I imagine that was a problem on the prototype locomotive as well.

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Annie

[Edwardian]

The trackwork inside the boundary wall of the sawmill.  This is the Mk III version which after a lot of playing trains serious testing has been shown to work.

 

 

A 'Manchester Ship Canal' Hudswell Clarke of 1905 at rest.  Small useful tank engines are a bit lacking in Trainz.  These Hudswell Clarke MSC engines are actually payware by Paul Hobbs and like all his work are very very good.  In use they are like small excitable terriers, - loud and blasting smoke and steam everywhere, - but despite their small size are game to try any task.  These models have very well done interactive coal and water loading as well as ashpans that need emptying.  It's not that you have to in order to keep them running, but when I'm using them I keep an eye on coal and water levels as well as the slowly filling ashpan so regular visits to the small engine shed siding at Elgar Wood for refreshment and tidying up are very much a part of how I run these small tank engines.  Double headed on a log train the sound is near deafening, but glorious as they broadcast far and wide that they are busily at work., 

 

 

I made some more wagons.  7 plank wagons on the tramway were becoming a need, - especially since I'm still figuring out how to represent a GER one.  These would be the last wagons the Hopewood Tramway would have purchased for itself.  It came to mind that the tramway board might have been a wee bit proud of these wagons so I made them a bit more 'wordy' than usual.  The 5 planks I previously made only have the 'HT' company logo, the necessary loading weights and their running number, so this time I made a special effort.

 

 

 

 

Loving the lettering on these ...

[Annie]

Thanks James.  I'm pleased with how they turned out.  According to my tramway's history there were ten of those ordered altogether and I've made four of them working on the principle that the others are off being used elsewhere, but I will admit that I'm tempted to put together a couple more.

 

In other news the quest for a GER 7 plank wagon continues.  The problem is that the ever innovative GER only built 7 plank wagons on steel underframes and decent 7 plank wagon meshes for Trainz on a steel underframe are seriously difficult to come by.  The pictured wagon is a case in point.  The underframe is very nice and has many plug in mesh options to change its brake gear and buffers.  All made by a very clever chap and I have no real problems with it.  BUT the wagon body mesh attached to it is all wrong.  The chap who made it belongs to the creator group I'm a member of and he won't talk to me anymore because I pointed out the errors (quite diplomatically I thought) in some of the wagons he'd made.  The mesh is paper thin for a start so any wagons made using it don't look like they're made of planks at all and the other thing is it's too tall.  It's supposed to be a 7 plank mesh, but it's more like being an 8 plank mesh as you can see from my trial beta version model standing next to a Hopewood 7 planker.

 

 

The textures I made are fine and apart from some tiny adjustments that need doing I'm happy with them.  I can easily use them on a better wagon mesh if I can find one; - it's just finding one that's the problem.  The 7 plank mesh I used for the Hopewood 7 planker and some of the PO wagons I made isn't suitable unfortunately because the wooden underframe is an integral part of the body mesh.  So I'll just scrap this attempt and move on.

 

[Martin S-C]

I would very much like, if its okay by you Annie, to "reserve" 7-plank wagon No.36 and build an 00 gauge model of it for my line. If that is all okay with you, which is a reason No.36 isn't at its home location!

[Annie]

Yes fine by me Martin.  I would be very pleased to think that No.36 was feeling adventurous and wanted to see the wider world beyond the Hopewood Tramway.

[Edwardian]

Yes fine by me Martin.  I would be very pleased to think that No.36 was feeling adventurous and wanted to see the wider world beyond the Hopewood Tramway.

 

What a good idea!

 

Might one stray as far as Norfolk, too?!?

 

We do, after all, already have Paltry Circus represented in the wagon fleet.

[Martin S-C]

Yes fine by me Martin.  I would be very pleased to think that No.36 was feeling adventurous and wanted to see the wider world beyond the Hopewood Tramway.

Well, only so long as it doesn't turn out to be a troublesome truck.

[Annie]

Well since I already have Castle Aching posters on some of my stations James I really don't see why not.

 

No troublesome trucks on my little tramway Martin, - they all know to behave themselves or else the Hudswell Clarkes will bark at them.

 

In the end I decided to put my GER 7 plank artwork on a wagon mesh with a wooden underframe.  After spending a lot of time looking for a properly made 7 plank wagon mesh attached to a steel underframe I decided that life is too short to worry about it any longer.  These 7 plank wagons would have been fairly new at the time period of my layout so I only made three of them.  I have a lot of the older 5 plank GER wagons I made a short while ago on the tramway which is what anyone would expect for circa 1913; - and especially on a minor twig off the GER network.

 

[Annie]

This is H.T.Co.  No.4, - the 'Summer' engine.  Normally it's to be found at the far end of the Hopewood Tramway 'off stage' beyond the portal track where the Hopewood Tramway makes a junction with the GER  at Little Sumwheir on the Knoll, No.4 arrives every Summer to take charge of the heavy seasonal passenger trains running between between Bluebell Woods and Little Sumwheir.  I know exactly what No.4 is since I reskinned the original digital model, but do you?  No prizes for the correct answer save for a chance to impress your friends with your arcane and mysterious pre-grouping era  knowledge.

 

 

The tramway coach is put away and the rake of five 'Summer' coaches have been taken out of the carriage shed.  Dirt and dust and cobwebs swept away these coaches are ready to start earning their keep.

 

 

The arguement continues between the Board of Trade and the tramway company as to whether or not the coast road is a public road or just a cart track.  However this might be the last Summer that No.4 can steam on through the loophole and run the Summer trains all the way through to the station at Bluebell Woods.  Even using the station in the town at Bluebell Woods is raising the ire of the BoT since it's right on the town's mainstreet.  Next year the tram engines will have to take over the Summer trains between Bluebell Woods and Hopewood on Sea and already the GER is proposing a swap of No.4 for another G15 tram engine.

 

 

No.4 at Hopewood on Sea.

 

 

 

No.4 at Bluebell Sands.

 

 

Directly in front of No.4 is the mysterious invisible portal that will take it to Little Sumwheir.  The farm and buildings you can see in the background are part of a WIP area of the layout I've been working on for a couple of weeks now and I'll show you some pictures later on.

In case anybody is wondering the coaches are Barry Railway 4 wheelers wearing H.T.Co. crests.  I didn't want to go the usual route of reskinning  MR or GWR 4 wheel coaches as I wanted something a little different for the line.  Old models now, but they still look the part.

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by Annie

[sem34090]

Regarding wandering wagons, that's another I need to add to the list!

 

So far I have need for a wagon from each of the following:

 

West Norfolk Railway

Kelsby Light Railway

Blackstone & Marshland Railway

Nether Madder & Great Shafting Railway

Great Southern Railway

Hopewood Tramway

Metropolitan Pyramid Company

Issac Turner Coal Merchant

AK&ALR

 

And that's before I get to the prototypical ones!!!

[Martin S-C]

You're going to need a bigger layout!

I hate to tell you this but the Nether Madder network is actually made up of no less than three constituent railways plus the combined NM&GSR conglomerate and as I'm modelling it about two years after merging, all four liveries are being modelled... and the GSR actually has two liveries anyway since it was undergoing a livery style change from small (aka 1890s GWR) to large (aka 1905ish GWR) lettering when the merger occurred. So if you want an open and a van for each, that's 10 wagons already

 

Can you tell I'm a fictional livery fetishist?

 

PS. Those coaches really look the part. I've got about 8 Ratio GW 4-wheelers to build in various guides and want to finish them in teak or basic brown so this styling gets my vote.

 

PPS - Annie is it an IoW Beyer Peacock?

Edited December 13, 2018 by Martin S-C

[Annie]

 

 

PPS - Annie is it an IoW Beyer Peacock?

No Martin, it's a North Staffordshire Railway Class 'B'  built by the company at their own Stoke Works circa 1881.  None made it past 1928 after the grouping due to the newly formed LMS considering all NSR engine classes to be non-standard and instituting a policy of early withdrawal and scrapping.  I always thought that to be dreadful since the engines the NSR build for itself were good designs that worked well.  (Rotten egg thrown at an effigy of Josiah Stamp)

I always liked the Class 'B' engines with their elegant late Victorian appearance and since I owned a digital model of one that I purchased from Paulz Trainz ages ago I thought I'd reskin it into becoming the Hopewood Tramway's 'Summer engine'.  I think it looks very nice in GER blue, - though at this stage of its history it is still the property of the Hopewood Tramway.  When the GER became a major shareholder the tramway board took the initiative and had the two Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0's (Nos. 1&2) and No.4 painted in GER blue.  Whether or not the GER was flattered by such a gesture has not been recorded.

 

The Barry Railway coaches are still wearing their original colour since the Hopewood Tramway's coach livery is plain red and all i did was replace the Barry Railway crest with the H.T.Co. one.  I did a NSR 4 wheel brake 3rd in the same colour scheme and it represents a much older coach from the tramway's early years.  Usually it gets attached to the back of goods trains to Low Howe to provide a very nominal passenger service to that town.

A teak finish on your 4 wheelers should look good Martin.  I thought about doing that with the Barry Railway coaches, but chickened out since with all their texture pieces it wouldn't have been easy.

 

The H.T.Co. crest.  This was fun to do and I wisely kept the design on the simple side of things.  Freelance railways can be represented with all the same due care and attention as any historic pre-grouping company and while the Hopewood Tramway started out as a vague sort of 'what if' idea in the back of my mind it's now become the main event with my railway modelling.

[Annie]

I have no idea how a Great North of Scotland van found its way to East Anglia and the Hopewood Tramway.  It's the latest pre-grouping van from Dreamwalker Wagon Works (me) and while it was a lot of work to do to get it how I wanted I'm very pleased with how it has turned out.

 

 

And while I was unsupervised in charge of graphics software I did this......

 

 

 

 

This digital WNR wagon can be loaded with a variety of loads and it has a tarpaulin as well.  In this wagon's case it's a 'borrowed' GER one, but the next couple of wagons will have proper WNR tarpaulins.

[Martin S-C]

Very nice. I assume the van is a completely flat side and the effect of 3D bracing is all achieved with clever shading.

Can you have vehicle loads that are heaped? I always found the flat loads of coal and other aggregates to look a bit odd.

[Annie]

Yes the van is all done with smoke and mirrors shading effects Martin, but it does have a normal map or bump map layer under the body texture as well to help things along.

 

Almost universally the load meshes for Trainz are flat, but the one in the pictures seems to have a couple of small dips in it.  I think the only wagons I've come across that have heaped loads are some of the later ones by Paul Hobbs who is a bit of a guru and miracle worker when it comes to making interactive rolling stock work in a more believable way.  Not knowing anything about the how and why of wagon load meshes I can't really say why they are made the way they are, but I always thought they looked a bit odd as well.

[sem34090]

I think I missed posting about the release of the NER O Class by Caledonia Works on here, so here are some shots of it and a link to purchase:

http://digitaltraction.co.uk/mainsite/products/cw-ner-g5-tank-loco/

Kris Wilson's trademark livery inclusion - Photographic Grey:

Inauthentic livery, but included because it's nice:

There are later LNER and also BR liveries, but they're of less interest here.

The next product from Mr Wilson's stable will be the LNWR Coal Tank:

Perfectly suited to the recently-released K&WVR route.

Also, Digital Traction currently have a Christmas Sale with 30% off of all products, excluding the most recent release (The NER O/G5).

Edited December 16, 2018 by sem34090

[Martin S-C]

Kris produces some gorgeous work. Are these for TS 2019? I'm sorely tempted to ask Santa for a copy.

[Annie]

Those are for Dovetail Game's Train Simulator Martin.  I would seriously like to see models of the NER  O Class and the Coal Tank of that quality offered for Trainz, but I don't think it's going to be very likely since content creators for Trainz tend to overlook tank engines and what is available tends to be quite old models from the  TS2004, TS2006 and TS2009 eras.

[sem34090]

As Annie says, these are all for TS2019. If you like the G5, Martin, then I also recommend purchasing the Weardale & Teesdale Network route (County Durham in the early 1960s), the NER T2 (Q6) and the NER/GNR coach pack.

 

One warning about TS2019 though - It's not cheap when you start buying content and it is quite an unstable programme too, though it's slightly better than it was.