Martin S-C

Thanks all. I bought the TANE platinum pack today for under £22.00.

Thanks Annie, that's such a helpful reply. Will all the older models from TS2009, TS2012 etc work in TANE?

Not under Rule #1 you don't! That's the beauty of the rule.

Annie... and anyone else who may know such things - how much GCR stock is available? I have always hankered to do something inspired by Peter Denny's work in a simulator. And I'm a bit confused by the various Trainz versions. I see 2004 / 2009 / 2012 getting mentioned. Is there an "ideal" version that balances good functionality with the widest possible choice of freeware pre-grouping stock?

One never needs an excuse to apply Rule #1... if you do, you're not applying it correctly!

Do I-Spy Cap'n Birdseye driving No. 044?

Who's Vera?

They are not separate fittings, just mouldings. A skilled paint job can work wonders.

Regrettably for our railways Marples was a ghastly enormous spiv.

Thanks, that's the kind of thing I assumed was needed for a basic connection but how do you guys play with non-standard and modified stock and routes?

How does MP work with Trainz? I can assume you don't all use the same stock?

This was exactly my plan as it happens, great thinks mind alike and all that. I have had strings of RTR wagons take a tumble onto a carpet with no damage at all. RTR coaches might be the same as there's not that much on them to break unless they dive coupling first - there's so little mass. Kit built items tend to be more fraglile but even then its usually only a case of replacing broken buffers,etc. Its really only locos that suffer from a drop of 3 feet or more and in that case a safety net could save you the difference between a working model and a total wreck. Replacing damaged details like buffers, couplings, brake gear, whistles, etc is a pain but a lot less painful than having a £300 paperweight. As for out-of-period trains I liked David Jenkinson's (very honest) excuse. A stickler for complete period accuracy to within a time period of about 48 months, he still liked "fantasy" models and quite brazenly kept a few stored in his fiddle yard to run when he was just relaxing or wanted a change. In my case though I'd like the out-of-place engines like the Atlantic to do a useful job in the timetable so perhaps a bit less honesty will have to creep in and we can have either excursions, specials or locomotive trials from another region, perhaps even a locomotive being tested in preparation for purchase. It may just end up as a case of apply Rule #1 and keep smiling though, at least at home. If it ever got as far as people paying to see the layout at a show then I'd make every effort to trim the stock down to plausible levels and types.

Points not in tunnels. Check. I know its probably Rule #2 but its always good to be reminded. Its also easier to decide on scale speeds with a circuit. Once its laid and I know how many inches it is I can time locos around it and get the speeds right. Not so easy on an end to end setup due to the stop-start bit. An Atlantic is too big, much too big. I think a 4-4-0 is pushing it. However, its absolute prettiness (of both colour and shape) convinced me it had to be bought. Me and beautiful model Vic-wardian engines are like Smeagol and magic rings. I have a Stirling Single for the same reason. Maybe these will run on other people's layouts. Or maybe when the hour is late, mist flows in the vale and no-one's around the Special Toys will Come out to Play. Conversely I have very little interest in post-grouping designs and BR standards are hideous things. Their only redeeming features are external combustion and flanged wheels.

Vindicated. That's the word. It's been a long... life. "well, there's nothing else on" is a phrase that is both frightening and depressing. I shudder whenever I hear it. I do not watch the TV at all, for me a TV is a screen to show DVDs on.

I feel vilified at last! At least I now know at least James and I live in the real world!

Me neither! I think that's a good thing.

Far too many! No doubt some will stay in boxes and get sold on to other modellers in the years to come! Early on in this thread I was asked if there was a continuous run, and of course there isn't but I have recently been thinking that one would be useful for testing and running in and have come up with this - in red: Both the places the hidden loop leaves and joins the main line are at +2" above datum and the entire loop is under scenic boards that are quite a bit higher so it would be possible from a carpentry POV to have this installed. I wasn't happy about the points just inside the tunnel mouths and might in each case, move them a foot or so outside into the open and make them as scenic signalled junctions. It would then be possible to just have a train circle if I wanted to relax with a cuppa or to have (for example) a coal train come up the grade from the MVR exchange sidings, enter Puddlebrook on the southern platform face (platform 4), pass through the station, take the continuous loop line a little further east to arrive around past the colliery on its circuit, arriving into Puddlebrook's northern platform face (platform 1) and then be reversed into the colliery. A similar fiction can be employed in the reverse direction so a train can pass through Puddlebrook via 2 different platforms en-route to the exchange sidings, or using the good old 1920s-1930s railway modellers trick, just circuit more than once en-route from Nether Madder - Puddlebrook (x times) - Green Soudley to make a longer run.

My ears are burning. I should just shut up and play trains.

Thanks for the extra input on blinds. I was so focussed on the security/privacy issue that I quite ignored the idea of light protection for models. I have to confess I have a habit of Jackdaw (Edit: or is it Magpie?) modelling and tend to suffer low willpower so my collection of locos is way too large and eclectic for any proper historical reasoning for a small line to have such a gathering of motive power. I am a lover of the small and quirky though. I have a Metro already and more than one Terrier and Adams radial. E-bay furnished many unbuilt kits including a Furness 2-2-2WT, a couple of 2-4-0 and 4-4-0 tender engines, a 2-2-2 Problem Class as well as an 850 class saddletank and other fun small idiosyncratic locos. I am somewhat more free with my freelancing than many others. I was going to set the limit at a couple of 4-4-0 passenger engines until Bachmann released this which is too gorgeous not to own and of course once you have it you need to run it somewhere... BCB is a great thread packed full of useful and inspirational things and in fact celotex sheets and offcuts is the plan. Since I was last a 4mm indoor modeller back in the 80s, technology has moved on and while I am at home with a latticework of cornflake packet strips and Modroc the advent of these dense light insulation foams on the market makes the construction of rolling scenery a no-brainer. One of the visions I have is that almost no part of the layout away from a major station will be level because, well, when you look around you, no natural landscape is. Apart from where the land surface will have been levelled by railway engineers I don't want the layout to look like its a flat board that has some rises on. I want it to flow in all kinds of directions with shapes dictated by wind and water rather than a fictional level subframe under evenything. Pendon is one of the few places this works in model form. I can stand for hours just looking at the shape of the land in the Vale Scene even before I begin to drool at any of the man-made structures.

Looks great. I have a kit of one of the Met 4-4-0 tanks in 4mm scale on my to-build list. Really unusual looking machines due to the small wheelbase of the front bogie. A question - in Trainz, would it be possible to make up meshes for the missing details in the pointwork - frogs, checkrails and such? Their lack is noticeable in some pics. One of those little things that bugs me!

Chuffs to wheel revolutions look just about spot on to me.

I use the last 4 digits but ignore any duplicates, and any 0s, so the BR steam engine (fictional) 73801 would be 7381 and a diesel (fictional) 47233 would be 4723. Using the last digits instead of the first ones avoids duplicates by means of class numbers between steam/diesel and different TOPS/pre-TOPS. I find this system produces the fewest number of clashes.

The load swapping system of Trainz is really well thought out. Back in MSTS 1 days we always had to have 2 complete wagons, one with a load that was part of the 3D model and one empty. You were then limited in your activities because you couldn't drop off a loaded wagon at a station then come back on the return journey and collect the empty - the return trip had to be a second activity entirely with the wagon models swapped over.

Hm. I may have stumbled upon another use for the Bachmann brewery complex. Thanks to DonB and others about the multi-quote instructions. I honestly would never have worked that out on my own, it is not at all logical and some people don't know how to help, so really shouldn't try.