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

[Annie]

33 minutes ago, CKPR said:

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

Gosh!  Um..... thank you very much.

 

I've discovered where my little helpers went, - Stogumber.

The dual gauge track with the lighter coloured timbers and heavier rail section is an older one piece beta never released version that I asked Steve Flanders if I could use for this project.  The other track with the darker timbers you can see is the latest version that has to be assembled from all kinds of interesting bits.  The thought of using the latest version to lay 30 miles of track across mountainous Somerset was too horrible to contemplate so that's why I asked for the use of the old beta version.  The old version is a bit inflexible and needs a lot of nailing down to the landscape to make it stay in place, but it's still a lot easier to work with than the new version even if the new version looks nicer.

 

At Stogumber the split post semaphore signals are attached to the Broad Gauge side of things and the standard gauge half is controlled by invisible signals.  I tried this as an experiment and it looks like being the simplest way of doing things.  At Crowcombe Heathfield I used 'magic' signal link controllers with ground signals taking the place of the invisible signals, but it all started to get a bit too messy. 

 

Working from the 1880s OS maps none of the goods yards on the Minehead branch are what you'd call complicated and it's just as well really as doing this dual gauge lark at somewhere like Reading would be a nightmare.

 

 

A couple of snaps taken with sparrowcam at Stogumber coz Stogumber has a nice view and it's one of my favourite places on the branchline.

 

 

[figworthy]

I saw these on an exhibit at the Bristol Show today (The Parlour Railway), and thought of you.  There were several more, but the pictures came out all blurred.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adrian

[Annie]

2 hours ago, figworthy said:

I saw these on an exhibit at the Bristol Show today (The Parlour Railway), and thought of you.  There were several more, but the pictures came out all blurred.

Thanks very much, - there's certainly some lovely models there.

[Annie]

Early Morning Broad Gauge Cheer Up Pictures:  'Etna' built in 1864, by Rothwell & Co of Bolton for the C&CR;  And a later photo  of 'Etna' circa 1890 in ex-B&ER rebuilt condition with a Dean chimney.

 

 

[figworthy]

19 hours ago, Annie said:

Thanks very much, - there's certainly some lovely models there.

 

Some interesting prototypes, and very nicely made.  It wasn't a layout in the sense that most of us would think of it, more ~8ft long with three straight running tracks (the back one was mixed gauge), and they periodically ran backwards and forwards.

 

Adrian

[Annie]

Not much done today as I spent all of the afternoon asleep.  I dusted off 'Penzance to Camborne' (TRS22) and gave Steve Flanders's GWR steam railmotor a run. 

 

 

Taking this built for TANE section of the Cornish mainline properly back into the early 1930s from its modern made-using-Goggle-Earth origins has been a big job only I somehow went and lost heart because there was just so much wrong with it.

I used to tell myself, 'Do one station at a time, - get that right, - and then relay the track correctly to the next one', - so I should try to get back to doing that.

 

Longrock MPD.

 

After building up Longrock MPD that had somehow been left out by the original layout builder I left doing Marazion and relayed all the track to St. Erth instead.  At St. Erth I deleted all the modern error stuff that wasn't on the OS map which was a lot of fun.  St. Erth still needs some work doing, but it's more a tidy up than anything else.  Hayle is a complete disaster and is going need a huge amount of work, - so I moved on to Gwinear Road which was a disaster as well, but for some reason I decided to fix it up. 

It's not exactly perfect, but compared with wot was there before it's 500% better.  I should use Gwinear Road as a Cheer Me Up reminder of what is possible whenever I get down in the dumps over trying to fix up this layout.

 

 

After Gwinear Road I did Camborne which had a lot of trackwork faults and had a goods yard that was impossible to do any shunting in.  I used the 1908 trackplan from the OS map and such photos as I could find.  There's still a lot more I could do here with the buildings in the town and the foundry near the station needs properly doing, but overall it's not too bad.  I fixed Roskear Junction so it's useable when it wasn't before.  The track between Gwinear Road and Camborne is still a mess even if it is possible to run trains over it.

I made the decision to lay return loops and not continue with the mainline beyond Camborne since that part of the original layout needed some major work.  I'd rather spend the time on sorting out the branchlines to Helston and St. Ives instead.

 

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

I've most probably had a moan about this before, but one of the things that made sorting out my 'Penzance to Camborne' layout more difficult is that the NLS has Broad Gauge era OS maps (from the Age of Enlightenment) covering Penzance all the way to St. Erth, and 1908 OS maps covering Camborne down to Marazion with Hayle only covered by a Broad Gauge era OS map and a 1936 OS map.  Penzance to Marazion doesn't have any 1908 maps, but only 1936 OS maps which are no use to anybody.  These are all 25 inch to the mile maps by the way with the 19th century 8 shilling coloured OS maps being the absolute best of the bunch.

The modern error era station building model used at Penzance pretty much forced my hand to using the 1936 OS maps to set up Penzance, Ponsandane sidings and Longrock MPD for the 1930s when I would have prefered to have it set up for 1908.  I don't fancy my chances with making a model of the earlier station building so I'll just have to put up with it (grumble).

 

 

The 1937 OS map does show details of the goods shed and the harbor at Penzance which were left off the Goggle Earth based original so that's better than a poke in the eye.

 

The 1908 OS maps show the mainline being single track between Marazion and Gwinear Road which would have made sorting out the bridges and roads where they cross the railway a darn sight easier since some bridges were level crossings in 1908.  Some of the bridges were a lot smaller and narrower as well.  I did have a lot of fun completely destroying a modern motorway so I suppose it wasn't all bad.

 

Hayle remains a problem and I'm tempted to use the Broad Gauge OS map over trying to fit what the 1936 map shows into the space available, - especially when it comes to modelling the harbour and the harbour branch.  I have got some old photos of the station and the general area so I should be able to come up with something.

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by Annie
Um.........

[figworthy]

On 29/04/2023 at 20:12, figworthy said:

 

Some interesting prototypes, and very nicely made.  It wasn't a layout in the sense that most of us would think of it, more ~8ft long with three straight running tracks (the back one was mixed gauge), and they periodically ran backwards and forwards.

 

Adrian

 

Short burst of video on this thread :

 

 

 

 

3:06 in.

 

Adrian

[MikeOxon]

It's amazing to see what you are doing with the Penzance to Cambourne line.  I have the TaNE version and realise it is a complete mish-mash, purporting to be 1930s.  I haven't a clue how to modify it but, perhaps one day, when I can no longer drive a 3D printer,  I might start looking at 'virtual modelling'.  In the meantime, I shall enjoy watching your progress.

Mike

[Annie]

31 minutes ago, MikeOxon said:

It's amazing to see what you are doing with the Penzance to Cambourne line.  I have the TaNE version and realise it is a complete mish-mash, purporting to be 1930s.  I haven't a clue how to modify it but, perhaps one day, when I can no longer drive a 3D printer,  I might start looking at 'virtual modelling'.  In the meantime, I shall enjoy watching your progress.

Mike

Thanks very much Mike.  The original version which goes back to Trainz TS2012 was built by an Australian layout builder using Google Earth, photos on the Cornwall Railway Society website and a whole lot of guesswork.  It is so far away from being the Cornish Mainline in the 1930s it's quite tragic really.

I pretty much ruined a mouse removing all the buildings, roads and other scenic objects that never should have been there in the first place.  The landscape itself is more or less right, though in some places depths and heights are completely wrong and have needed adjustment.  I suppose as it stands it's about halfway done and I really would like to get it into a state that I can feel happy about.

As I potter about with seeing what needs to be done and drawing up a list I'll take some more screenshots as I go and post them here.

[Annie]

Armstrong Goods from Ponsandane to Gwinear Road sidings.  (On this run I noticed that some of the trackwork has shifted which is annoying).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CKPR]

On 29/04/2023 at 20:12, figworthy said:

... three straight running tracks (the back one was mixed gauge), and they periodically ran backwards and forwards.

 

 

Sounds quite prototypical to me !

[Annie]

On 30/04/2023 at 07:12, figworthy said:

Some interesting prototypes, and very nicely made.  It wasn't a layout in the sense that most of us would think of it, more ~8ft long with three straight running tracks (the back one was mixed gauge), and they periodically ran backwards and forwards.

 

Adrian

I see that it was described as a 'Parlour Layout' and with that posh bit of joinery as a backboard I suppose its purpose is to act as a place to display models, a test track and a photo plank while looking decorative enough not to raise ire amongst other household inhabitants.

[magmouse]

25 minutes ago, Annie said:

Parlour Layout

I think we need to revive this term - in an age of smaller houses filled with more stuff (at least in the UK), the concept is a useful one, especially the part about domestic acceptability.

 

Nick.

[Caley Jim]

Do modern houses have parlours? 

 

Jim 

[magmouse]

35 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Do modern houses have parlours?

I propose that the terminology we use to describe a layout should be appropriate to the period in which it is set. A pre-grouping layout in a room used as a living space would be a parlour layout. A blue-era BR diesel layout might be a lounge layout. I think Annie is a leading expert in converting virtual lounge layouts into parlour layouts.

 

Nick.

[Caley Jim]

So, my pregrouping layout is housed in a garage. Does that make it a stable layout? 

 

Jim 

[magmouse]

8 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Does that make it a stable layout? 

 

I guess so! Unless there was a different word for where carriages, rather than horses, were kept - a coach house layout?

 

Nick.

[Compound2632]

11 minutes ago, magmouse said:

a coach house

 

Exactly so - the true precursor of the garage. Plenty of large Victorian / Edwardian houses have them, usually as more-or-less freestanding buildings and these days if not derelict, serving as garages (or model railway rooms). But that is to suppose that the Laird of Kirkallanmuir lives in such state...

 

Anyway, I thought the usual place to set up the model railway in an Edwardian home was on the billiard table? (Hasn't @Annie done a virtual layout like that? I'm sure I remember acres of green baize.)

Edited May 1, 2023 by Compound2632

[Annie]

29 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Anyway, I thought the usual place to set up the model railway in an Edwardian home was on the billiard table? (Hasn't @Annie done a virtual layout like that? I'm sure I remember acres of green baize.)

I've done them on the carpet, but not on a billiard table as yet.

 

[Schooner]

Best behaviour [on] [off]

[Caley Jim]

8 hours ago, magmouse said:

 

I guess so! Unless there was a different word for where carriages, rather than horses, were kept - a coach house layout?

Sounds much more up-market than a stable! My gran used to call a garage a 'car shed'! 

 

Jim 

[Annie]

An early beta version of a Wolverhampton GWR 633 'Metro' tank loaned to me by Steve Flanders to play trains wiv for serious testing purposes.  Various things still need to be done and adjusted before this version of the Class 633 will be considered to be done and dusted and my job is to check out the engine spec and how well it performs & etc along with generally poking about to see how its all fitted together.  So far it's been all over the pointwork at 'Minories' without any problems and I'll do some testing on 'GWR Tristyn in Winter' as well.  Pointing it up the hills on the Minehead branch might be a bit cruel, but we'll see.

As always comments from the learned and wise members of the pre-grouping forum are very welcome.

 

 

 

 

(Image borrowed from Basilica Fields with thanks.)

Edited May 3, 2023 by Annie
added a picture

[Schooner]

4 hours ago, Annie said:

As always comments from the learned and wise members of the pre-grouping forum are very welcome.

 

Wibble!

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Schooner
Link wrangling

[Annie]

Playing trains Important and serious testing at Minories.