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

[Annie]

I've more than likely been driving you all batty name dropping stations when you don't know where they are in relation to one another.  My friend Colin from the creator group  originally put together the first of the Tristyn & District layouts almost a decade ago, - and there are now at least a dozen versions with each one more added to and built upon that the one that preceded it. 

My own much modified ' Tristyn in Winter' layout had its origins in an early 'Tristyn' layout named 'Gwladys Ddu'.  The schematic diagram I've posted is from the TS2012 version of 'Gwladys Ddu' and it is 99.99% correct for 'Tristyn in Winter' and shows, clearly I hope, where all the stations are in relation to one another.

I'm certainly glad that 'Tristyn in Winter' wasn't based on one of the later layouts as with all those extra tracks and junctions going off in all directions I would get myself lost more often than I do.

 

[Annie]

'Birchwood Grange' on a test run.  Sound and engine spec files replaced, new chimney smoke animation.  No comparison  at all with this engine as delivered 'out of the box'.

The original engine spec was essentially a generic one that was for a smaller locomotive and with that engine spec 'Birchwood Grange' was barely able to maintain 40 mph with a four coach train.  Now though maintaining a steady 75 mph on the two long 90 mph (max permitted speed) mainline sections is absolutely no problem.

 

[Annie]

I spent a high percentage of the weekend asleep, but in between times I was continuing to work on Rathtyen.  At first when i started to rebuild Rathtyen it all seemed a bit like some endless curse with the station and town being so large, though just lately it's starting to look something like what I want it to be.  Something that had been annoying me for a while now were four crooked looking sidings at the southern end of Rathtyen that apparently were supposed to be carriage sidings.  Not on my watch sunshine.

Carriage sheds of any size are somewhat lacking in Trainz.  When I first started messing around with Trainz TS2009 World Builder Edition I made use of an eight road carriage shed from the earliest days of Trainz for one of my first layout projects.  An eight road shed was a bit more than I wanted, but I thought I'd give it a try.  Apparently it had a snow roof version so that was worth a look at.

The carriage shed is based on the one that was at Duddeston before British Railways and its inheritors creatively turned the station and its yards into a weed infested demolition site.  An ex-Grand Junction Railway station by all accounts, but I suppose I won't hold that against it.  The texturing on the model  is fairly low resolution, but it still looks reasonably alright despite that.  Sorting out and realigning the trackwork was a right old battle, - not helped at all by me being just a touch sleepy.  It took about three goes at it, but I think it's looking workable now.  I bricked off two of the carriage roads as I should only need six roads at the most, but should I need the extra two it won't be too difficult to bring them into use.

 

 

After doing a general clearance of random old sheds and other unwanted odds and ends I now have room for a standard Churchward two road engine shed and a decent sized turntable at Rathtyen.  Gwladys Ddu MPD is cramped for space and is mainly home to my smaller classes of goods and general purpose engines.  Once Rathtyen shed is done and dusted my Granges and Saints can move out and go and live there.

Edited July 1 by Annie
More words needed.

[Annie]

Somehow I got past being sleepy and I managed to build up the new MPD at Rathtyen without making too many horrible mistakes.  I'd made use of Steve Flanders's coaling stage before at Longrock on my Penzance to Camborne layout, but it took some frowning at everything before I managed to figure out how to get it to fit in and look like it might function properly at Rathtyen.  The 65ft turntable is also one of Steve's models and he's cleverly figured out a way to get around the problem of turntables being locked onto the underlying landscape grid which has always made them difficult to position.  There's still some tidying up work to do and I'll need to do some shunting about to check the new signals are working properly, but I'm pleased with the result.  What was a nothing area largely filled with plonk down scenic junk is now properly useful.

 

With the new carriage shed and the new MPD Rathtyen is starting to look like it might be the most important town on the layout.  I've assigned the three Granges as well as 'Saint Dunstan' to Rathtyen and so far I've added a 57xx and a Collett Goods as well.  I'm going to assign the four 48xx's and their autocoaches to Rathtyen even though in the course of a running session they'd never be seen there.  I'm not really tempted to obtain more engines as with the five 57xx's, four Collett Goods, three 93xx Moguls, four three 56xx 0-6-2T's, a 42xx 2-8-0T, the three Granges and a Saint, - I don't see Tristyn & District exactly lacking in motive power.

 

 

 

Edited July 3 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

I originally purchased Large Prairie No. 4110 (built 1936) from Gary Price of GP Locomotives all of two years ago and then never used it.  I don't know why that was, but it sat about completely unused first at Long Rock, then at Gwladys Ddu without turning a wheel, - more a decoration than a locomotive.  Gary Price mainly makes LMS engines to the old Trainz TS2009 standards, but he also made a small number of GWR engines as well.  Nicely built with no fancy animated bits or clever scripting to get broken in later versions of Trainz they just get on doing what it says on the tin and are very reliable runners.  All of which makes it very strange that No. 4114 ended up being neglected and unused.

 

I was surprised to discover that  Large Prairies were power class Blue 'D' engines as for some reason I though they were red spot engines, but apparently they just squeaked inside the blue spot maximum.  As they were originally made for  fast suburban work that's the job No. 4114 has been given, - only I messed up its first outing by making a silly error with its schedule which would have had it trying to attempt the impossible at Lynelle.  Plainly I need to make sure I'm properly awake before attempting to write passenger service schedules.  🥱

 

 

 

 

[Annie]

More running about with No. 4114.  The smoke and steam files seem wonderfully complicated so I'm going to leave those alone since they are working reasonably well.  I think I'll update the engine spec though since it's a TS2009 spec file and I have a later one that's suitable.

 

At Lynelle.  Lynelle is a pleasant town and very nicely laid out.  It needs some work here and there, but not that much.

 

 

At Secombe.  I had to do a lot of work here to tidy up the town and it now qualifies as another pleasant town, - though it's smaller than Lynelle.

 

 

Edited July 3 by Annie
Um.........

[Annie]

Broad Gauge Cheer Up Picture:  Saltash during the years of enlightenment.

 

[Annie]

I'm happy to report that the carriage sheds and MPD at Rathtyen are now 99% done.  It's been a big job, but I'm really pleased that I went ahead with it.  I've always been fond of this layout, but it was plainly made for blatting trains about on as with almost no sidings space or goods shed at any of the stations there wasn't much else that could be done with it.  Most of the big stations had industrial buildings of one sort or another plonked about, but none were rail served.  I like running classic steam era express engines about as much as anyone, but for someone like me that enjoys trip working and shunting and driving work-a-day goods engines about on the steam controls Tristyn in Winter didn't have a lot going for it at first apart from the snow covered landscape.  But not to worry because I'm working on fixing all that.

 

I've had some luck with finding snow covered roof versions of some of the buildings on the layout so they will get changed over fairly soon.  I'm considering doing snow roofs on the remainder of the buildings, - which will be a project in itself, - but a worthwhile one I think.  I've made a start on sorting out the industries at Rathtyen and getting rid of the buildings I don't like and so far that's going well.

 

If you check back to last Wednesday's pictures I posted of the MPD as a work in progress you'll be able to see how much I've managed to get done since then

 

 

 

It's mid-Winter here and it's all river mist mornings, overcast skies and black frosts with the sun being reluctant to wake up and get out of bed.  

[magmouse]

Looking great, Annie - your work gradually fettling this layout both makes it more railway like and somehow more atmospheric at the same time. I am really enjoying following your progress with it.

 

Nick.

[Annie]

Thanks very much Nick.  Rathtyen is the largest of the towns on the layout and it needed a considerable amount of work doing to it.  The station and the yards such as they were weren't much better.  For while there I was wondering what I'd started and if I'd ever be able to finish it.  I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do the station yet, but I suppose I'll figure it out eventually.

I suppose with my layouts I look at them as if they would be a place I'd like to visit and that seems to influence the way I plan it all out and build things up.

[Caley Jim]

1 hour ago, Annie said:

It's mid-Winter here and it's all river mist mornings, overcast skies and black frosts with the sun being reluctant to wake up and get out of bed.  

It's supposed to be mid-Summer here, but it's been cold, wet and miserable for the last week or so!  Snow on the Grampians today!

 

Jim

[Annie]

A very WIP screenshot of Rathtyen station and the part of the town that I'm presently working on.  The original station at Rathtyen was downright peculiar since it was essentially two island platforms with no footbridges and no station buildings except for two long canopies over the platforms.  After frowning at it for a while I decided that the northbound through line at platform 4 was of little use as it was so I converted it into two long bay platforms with a suitably grand old station building in the middle giving easy access to the street.  I'm still going to have to provide footbridge access to the island platform which won't be a problem, but at least the station makes a lot more sense to me now.

Just as point of information the station at Secombe also followed the same format as Rathtyen, - except it didn't have two goods bypass lines running between platforms 2 and 3 and it was a lot smaller station.  The footbridge to the street was still a right nuisance to set up though.

 

 

As you can see the very odd collection of large multi-story mostly European buildings along what is now Station Road have all gone.  Shops and terrace houses are now very much the order of the day.  Some of the snow roofed houses I found were useful, but most were not very good at all with poor low resolution texture work.  My plan for the present time is to layout the streets and paths for the town and add buildings in what I hope is some kind of plausible fashion.  A town planner I most certainly am not.

Once that is done I'll have a look at the buildings I've used and see what I can do to Winterise them.  I'll need to do something with the roads as well.

[Annie]

With reference to Mike Fleming's excellent examination of 'Thunderer' based on such material and drawings that have survived  https://www.rmweb.co.uk/blogs/entry/26418-‘thunderer’-–-part-three/?tab=comments#comment-79300

 

I decided to dig around in my screenshot archive and find the Trainz model of 'Thunderer' that Steve Flanders created a decade ago.

 

It's almost certain that Steve followed this well known museum model when creating his own version of 'Thunderer'.

 

I know the tender isn't the correct one, but with only three tender models to choose from and all of them not the right one I had to make the best of it.

 

 

The snaps were all taken on my now abandoned Cornwall Railway layout project.  The train coupled behind 'Thunderer' is of course far more than it could have coped with, but the DCC controls in Trainz can play cheats about things like that.  When I changed over to the steam control set 'Thunderer' could barely move itself away from the platform at Truro never mind having anything coupled on behind.

 

 

And just to see if you are paying attention......

 

[Annie]

So you all liked my cheeky Broad Gauge 94xx.  I commissioned that ages ago as a simple modification of a standard gauge model.  Looks completely plausible doesn't it.

 

Lacking for any real alternatives I made use of the timber and brick island platform buildings and their matching canopy over roof that I've used elsewhere on 'Tristyn in Winter'

These models are part of a series of standardised station models made by 'Kemplen' from the old Uk Branch Lines group almost a decade ago for Trainz TS2004.  They were available in both LNER and GWR colours and they've managed to pass the test of time and still look reasonably alright for such simple models.

As you can see they have a trick up their sleeve with night lighting.

 

 

Some of the older shop buildings I'm using also make use of this night lighting trick which looks very effective when done well.  I have no idea how it works, - most probably uses magical incantations that my poor brain can't understand.

Before moving onto further work on sorting out the town at Rathyen I've decided to get the station itself properly complete and sorted out so at least then it looks like the railway is open for business even if the town is still a huge construction site.  I've been installing interactive passenger platforms  at those platforms that are served by autocoach trains as a prelude to setting them up on all the station platforms on the layout.  I'm still making up my mind about this as there's been a few bugs to solve where some of these magic interactive platforms work fine at one station, but won't at another.

[Annie]

At end of play this evening.

 

[Tom Burnham]

Some of those passengers look as if they'd appreciate a nice warm overcoat.

[MikeOxon]

On 06/07/2024 at 16:10, Annie said:

I decided to dig around in my screenshot archive and find the Trainz model of 'Thunderer' that Steve Flanders created a decade ago.

and the Trainz one works!  There must be some powerful banking engine at the back of that train though😄 

It shows what progress was made after those early days of the late 1830s

 

 

[Annie]

5 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

Some of those passengers look as if they'd appreciate a nice warm overcoat.

True enough.  The problem in Trainz is that making realistic figures without the individual resource loading being excessive for each figure is no simple thing.  The figures you can see were specially commissioned for Trainz almost 10 years ago now and no-one since in the Trainz community has been able to create anything that has the same level of realism, - never mind them wearing nice warm coats.

Not so long ago N3V purchased a random collection of digital figures off the peg from somewhere that were supposed to be an updated replacement to render the older figures obsolete, but a more unlikely lot of railway passengers you never saw.  Maybe they would have been fine for some modern day dive of a club in New York, but not anywhere else.  In the face of loud complaints from Trainz users N3V had to reinstate the older figures in a form that the new figures couldn't overwrite and there things have stayed for the past two years. 

 

2 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

and the Trainz one works!  There must be some powerful banking engine at the back of that train though😄 

It shows what progress was made after those early days of the late 1830s

Well it does, but only when running under the DCC controls.  The moment I tried using the 'realistic' steam control set 'Thunderer' could barely shift itself when running light.

 

And this was no better.  'Hurricane' could only just move itself using DCC and just sat going nowhere in a cloud of steam if I attempted to use the steam control set.

 

 

[Annie]

Rathtyen is getting to the stage where I can take some snaps of the newly built parts without a general mess being in the background.  I did manage to make it a little more difficult for myself by deciding to change the road surface models for something else I liked better, but as it happened I didn't have to shift all that much around to get it looking good again.

 

Looks like they are having some trouble down at the garage.

 

 

A few minutes to chat to the footplate crew before they set off.  The pannier tank is a rebuilt '850' class and it's been newly assigned to Rathtyen MPD.

 

 

The new factory buildings and their sidings are coming along nicely.  The wagon turntables are static models so they can't be made use of, but they certainly look the part.

 

 

I've noticed some mysterious persons lurking about, - i wonder what they are up to.

 

[magmouse]

Lovely to see these street scenes, Annie - they add another dimension to the layout and help bring it all to life.

 

Nick.

[Annie]

23 minutes ago, magmouse said:

Lovely to see these street scenes, Annie - they add another dimension to the layout and help bring it all to life.

 

Nick.

Thanks very much Nick.  Rathtyen has been a demolition site for so long that I'd started to wonder if tearing it all down and attempting to rebuild it had been the right choice after all.  It's definitely encouraging for me to finally get it to this stage where it's beginning to look like a proper town and community.

[Jake The Rat]

Annie inspired me to download the latest Trainz12 version of 'Trystin & District' & start modifying it. I already knew 'Valleyfields' & 'Milbourne James', which are basically versions of the same route, but  I shied away from the Welsh version because of the (at least to me) unpronouncable station names. 🤐  😳  Now that I learned a few things about Welsh pronunciation, I'm not so scared of this layout any more. 🤓  Gwladys Ddu, for instance, sounds something like 'Gooladis Thoo', if I got it right.

 

The route is a gem, but Rathtyen is a mystery: it lacks a station building, & the platforms are unaccessible for pedestrians. 😱  So I started work there. 1st question: on which side of the tracks to put the station building? I had no idea, so I did it according to the platform numbers. AFAIK it should be near platform 1, so my station building is on the other side than Annie's.

It's still pretty much a WIP, & I hope tomorrow night Rathtyen will be halfways done, so I can post some screenshots.

I left the trackwork largely unchanged. The scenery is a bit sloppy here & there, but I don't feel any need to modify the tracks, except for a few details.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 9 by Jake The Rat

[Annie]

4 minutes ago, Jake The Rat said:

Annie inspired me to download the latest Trainz12 version of 'Trystin & District' & start modifying it.

It certainly is a a good layout, - a real gem as you say, - and one that's worth putting some work into Jake.  My major complaints with Tristyn & District have been no goods sheds or decent goods yards at the stations, - as well as far too many industries that aren't rail served, - which with my love of shunting and trip working was a serious lack for me.  In general though the trackwork is fine.  Some stations needed crossovers so that it was possible for engines to run round their trains.

 

Most stations needed a little tidying up to look better, but it was Rathtyen as the largest town on the layout that I found to be completely puzzling with its inaccessible platforms and a station that just plain looked unfinished.  I chose the platform 4 side of the station for my station building as that was where I intended to build up the greater part of the houses and shops as well as lay down a decent representation of streets for the town.  The other side of the tracks is where I wanted to put most of the industries and factories.

 

Much of the scenery on the layout is sloppy with scattered plonk down buildings and Rathtyen in particular had so many buildings that never would have seen in Wales such as Polish soviet era tower blocks.  In general though if viewed from footplate level it did sort of work, but I suppose I'm just fussy and want to make it all look tidy.

 

The Welsh place names had me puzzled a little too at first, but having never considered trying out a South Wales 1930s GWR layout before I decided to see what i could do with it.

[Edwardian]

13 hours ago, Annie said:

Rathtyen is getting to the stage where I can take some snaps of the newly built parts without a general mess being in the background.  I did manage to make it a little more difficult for myself by deciding to change the road surface models for something else I liked better, but as it happened I didn't have to shift all that much around to get it looking good again.

 

Looks like they are having some trouble down at the garage.

 

 

A few minutes to chat to the footplate crew before they set off.  The pannier tank is a rebuilt '850' class and it's been newly assigned to Rathtyen MPD.

 

 

The new factory buildings and their sidings are coming along nicely.  The wagon turntables are static models so they can't be made use of, but they certainly look the part.

 

 

I've noticed some mysterious persons lurking about, - i wonder what they are up to.

 

 

 

That is all very good stuff, I love the 'bus and the over-heating radiator, while the 4th Doctor a considerable bonus!

[Annie]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

That is all very good stuff, I love the 'bus and the over-heating radiator, while the 4th Doctor a considerable bonus!

Thanks very much James, - I've just remembered that I've got a blue Police telephone box stashed away so I must find a place to put it somewhere on Rathtyen.