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

[Annie]

6 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Thanks, Annie!

 

As @Hroth says, the contrast with the Buffalo is marked. I am planning a stud of 4 GWR locos, following Dean's thinking of 2-4-0 or 0-4-2 types for passenger traffic, and 0-6-0s for goods, in both tender and tank form. So that would be an 850 and either a Dean or Armstrong goods, and a 517 and a 2-4-0 tender (TBC - the Finney 'Stella' class, or 3232? Or the Sanspareil 'River' class with lovely curved frames? Decisions, decisions...). A Buffalo would be nice, but I think the smaller 850 will be more practical for any layout I am likely to find space for in the near future.

 

Nick.

The 'Buffalos' did good work on the Minehead branch's steep hills, but for smaller lightly laid lines and for working in and around wharves and industry an '850' is definitely the loco you want.  My other late 19th century GWR engines follow your line of thinking as I have a '517', an Armstrong Goods and an assortment of 'Barnums'.

 

32 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Has the lady spreadeagled on the floor tripped over her broom, or is she having a tantrum because she wasn't allowed to join the group discussion?

The little lady with the broom is made in an about to sweep pose and that fallen over state.  She's the only one of these anime Japanese railway figures that's made like that so I don't know if that's something to do with a mysterious anime reference that I know nothing about.

There's quite a number of these anime ladies in a variety of poses.  Originally made for Trainz TS2009 by keimei they are a lot of fun.

[Annie]

Disc and crossbar signals no longer work in TRS22 which is a right pain.  The problem is that once again a TRS22 'update' has broken the magic script that made them work.  I don't know how to fix them, my keen little team of PWD workers don't know how to fix them.  It is beyond annoying.

(Fun fact.  The bay platform at Minehead kept it's disc and crossbar signal for a good while after the other signals at the station had been replaced with split post semaphore signals.)

 

[Annie]

Afternoon Cheer Up Railway Poster:  Yes, - another one from Metro-Land.

 

[Annie]

Visiting Minehead again was a good cheer up on a day when I wasn't feeling all that well.  I put a lot of work into this part of the layout to get it to how you see it now and some time I should have a dig about in my archives and show you what the original Trainz TS2004 version looked like. 

I've decided that I'm going to carry on with my project to un-prototypically have the branch laid with dual gauge track.  The signal problems are annoying and the general impossibility of having both halves of the dual gauge track properly function together in an integrated fashion has been frustrating; - however I think I can get around all that by my habit of only using the steam controls to drive engines on the branch which in effect makes me be the tablet needed to occupy a section.  Meaning that if I'm not on the footplate an engine isn't going anywhere.

 

 

 

 

A visitor!  The excuse that 'Jubilee' came here for locomotive trials is actually quite true.  When I was setting up the engine spec for 'Prince Sebastian' for Steve Flanders I was using 'Jubilee' as a reference engine since my Beyer-Peacock singles are fairly well fettled.

 

I couldn't resist taking another snap of 'Buffalo' No. 1173

 

[Annie]

Malcolm Jenkin, a member of the TCWW creator group I belong to and one of life's truly good and kind people died this morning.  His family are going to make sure that his incredible model making legacy for Trainz will be protected and will remain available which is definitely good, but that is a poor substitute for him still being alive and with us.

[Hroth]

17 hours ago, Annie said:

Disc and crossbar signals no longer work in TRS22 which is a right pain.  The problem is that once again a TRS22 'update' has broken the magic script that made them work.  I don't know how to fix them, my keen little team of PWD workers don't know how to fix them.  It is beyond annoying.

(Fun fact.  The bay platform at Minehead kept it's disc and crossbar signal for a good while after the other signals at the station had been replaced with split post semaphore signals.)

 

 

Your little Japanese crew seem to be having problems with the signal too!  The baulk road also seems to worry them....

 

Unless this is egg sucking territory, rather than trying to fix the banjaxed script for the signal, it might be an amusing/frown inducing experiment to create a new signal and try to automate it from first principles.  If you've tried that already, I beg your pardon!

 

13 hours ago, Annie said:

Afternoon Cheer Up Railway Poster:  Yes, - another one from Metro-Land.

 

 

Hmmmmm....  Interesting!

I never realised that the M roads were there in the 1930s...  🤪🤪🤪

[Annie]

49 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Your little Japanese crew seem to be having problems with the signal too!  The baulk road also seems to worry them....

They couldn't solve the signal problem, but as you can see from the later snaps I took at Minehead they did a nice job of tidying up the track ballast.

 

51 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Unless this is egg sucking territory, rather than trying to fix the banjaxed script for the signal, it might be an amusing/frown inducing experiment to create a new signal and try to automate it from first principles.  If you've tried that already, I beg your pardon!

The problem will be an obsolete line of code that the earlier version of TRS22 scanned over and ignored, but which the 'updated' version now takes fright at.  The annoying thing is though when I check the signals for errors and faults TRS22 says there isn't any.  My skills with Trainz scripts are not very strong so examining the code isn't going to tell me anything.

What I could do though is clone one of the disc and crossbar signals and upload it to the DLS and see if it gets rejected.  If it does get officially rejected a report outlining what's wrong with it will be included which would at least give me a starting point.

[eheaps]

3 hours ago, Annie said:

They couldn't solve the signal problem, but as you can see from the later snaps I took at Minehead they did a nice job of tidying up the track ballast.

 

The problem will be an obsolete line of code that the earlier version of TRS22 scanned over and ignored, but which the 'updated' version now takes fright at.  The annoying thing is though when I check the signals for errors and faults TRS22 says there isn't any.  My skills with Trainz scripts are not very strong so examining the code isn't going to tell me anything.

What I could do though is clone one of the disc and crossbar signals and upload it to the DLS and see if it gets rejected.  If it does get officially rejected a report outlining what's wrong with it will be included which would at least give me a starting point.

If you make a minor edit to the script file that doesn't actually do anything (e.g. add whitespace) it should force trainz to recompile it which will give you the same report you get when uploading to the DLS.

[eheaps]

I also found that the newer broad gauge signals from Steve work fine. These are ones with names beginning "GWR 30ft" or "GWR 45ft".

[Annie]

1 hour ago, eheaps said:

I also found that the newer broad gauge signals from Steve work fine. These are ones with names beginning "GWR 30ft" or "GWR 45ft".

I must be having a bad day with sleepiness or something Ed because I can't find these new signals anywhere.  I've checked Steve's own webpages as well as the DLS without any luck.

[eheaps]

17 minutes ago, Annie said:

I must be having a bad day with sleepiness or something Ed because I can't find these new signals anywhere.  I've checked Steve's own webpages as well as the DLS without any luck.

 

I couldn't find where I got them from either, so it's not just you...

[Annie]

Signals have been found and Ed has kindly passed them onto me.  Made for Trainz TS2009 they are exquisite pieces of digital model making.  Pictures soon.

[Edwardian]

Such exquisite views, with the long shadows of an English summer's evening, Ah, bliss. 

 

Really great world-building, apart from anything else. 

 

 

And they remind me of the best Railway Series illustrations, which for me formed the indelible notion that steam-age railways were Romantic and Glorious.

 

 

[Annie]

9 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Such exquisite views, with the long shadows of an English summer's evening, Ah, bliss. 

 

Really great world-building, apart from anything else. 

 

 

And they remind me of the best Railway Series illustrations, which for me formed the indelible notion that steam-age railways were Romantic and Glorious.

 

 

Thank you very much James.  My snaps of Minehead being compared to the best of the Railway Series illustrations is high praise indeed as I spent many happy hours with my children reading the Railway Series stories to them.
I started working on Minehead before I started on my Norfolk layout so it has existed in my affections for well over five years now.  It might not be a perfect representation of the 1890s West Somerset Branch, but I've done my best to have the basic track layouts and roads in the right places according to the available OS map.  I feel somewhat ashamed to have abandoned it for so long after becoming despondent over the technical problems with the signalling and dual trackwork, but I seem to have turn a corner now and my interest in the true GWR has returned.

 

I'm very suspicious concerning those daisies.  They look too cheerful like they are hiding something.

[Annie]

This is the new bay platform signal at Minehead and what an exquisite piece of digital modelling it is.  My little helpers did a great job of installing it, but they didn't want to wait for their photo to be taken and ran off to get their tea.

The signals are in both 30ft and 45ft heights and there are junction signals as well.  They've also been made in Railway Policeman manual form as well as with bell cranks and signal wires for connection to a signal box or lever frame.  The only modification I've made is to reduce the size of the lamp corona since TRS19 and TRS22 tend to transform older signals over to possessing miniature suns gone into supernova inside their lamp housings.

 

 

For those who were worried about the little cleaner girl who had fallen over she's quite alright and didn't hurt herself.  Presently she's waiting for everyone to get out of the way so she can carry on with cleaning No.1216.

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

I'm very suspicious concerning those daisies.  They look too cheerful like they are hiding something.

 

Thats because they look more like dandilions to me...

 

Useless weeds in general*, best to grub them up before they seed and you find the whole place covered in them!

 

* Apparently the roots can be dug up and brewed into a medicinal drink to encourage the waterworks, or something.

[Edwardian]

2 hours ago, Annie said:

 

I'm very suspicious concerning those daisies.  They look too cheerful like they are hiding something.

 

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

[Hroth]

2 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

 

Reminiscent of a Midwich Cuckoo...

 

Sidles quietly out

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Hroth
Change of emphasis

[Annie]

Lineside snaps from Minehead.  So far I've resisted the temptation to change all the split post semaphore signals over to disc and crossbar signals.

 

 

 

Heading towards Blue Anchor.

[Annie]

I more than likely posted a copy of this thousands of pages back in this thread, but here it is again.  This is the 1886 OS map I used when I was building up my representation of Minehead.  I got things mostly right with the main difference being that I used a two road Broad Gauge era timber built engine shed model instead of a single road shed.  I did this because I didn't have Broad Gauge single road shed model or a suitable engine shed mesh I could reskin, - and besides with me having a tendency to have more engines on a layout than was needed or necessary I thought it might be a good idea.

 

 

 

[Annie]

Because I said I would, - here's the original TS2004 version of  Minehead supposedly circa 1892 that I built my own representation on.    Bearing in mind that any kind of railway infrastructure models for the GWR were thin on the ground back then it wasn't too bad an attempt.  The original was called 'Turks Castle' and I certainly ran trains all over it back when I got my very first copy of the Trainz simulator, but it wasn't too long before I started the gradual process of rebuilding the layout.

 

 

And just to compare my TRS22 version.

 

[Annie]

I'm still sorely tempted by these signals so I think I'll go ahead and make use of them instead of the split post semaphore signals.  My railway and all that.

 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

Afternoon Broad Gauge Cheer Up picture:  'Sultan'.

 

[Annie]

Much better I think.

 

[CKPR]

On 25/04/2023 at 15:32, Edwardian said:

Such exquisite views, with the long shadows of an English summer's evening, Ah, bliss. 

 

Really great world-building, apart from anything else. 

 

 

And they remind me of the best Railway Series illustrations, which for me formed the indelible notion that steam-age railways were Romantic and Glorious.

 

 

I agree - you're becoming the Brian Cooke of digital model railways.