All we need to do is invent time travel and take along a decent digital camera. The camera is the easy part. :hehe:
Luddite Annie goes Plus.
- Thread starter KotangaGirl
- Start date
All we need to do is invent time travel and take along a decent digital camera. The camera is the easy part. :hehe:
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
True enough. I could add all kinds of details that only someone who had done the research would recognise as authentic, - so I think the way ahead will be to have the most important things represented and to use assets that are close enough or of the same kind and era as the time period I'm aiming for and leave it there.
I would like to be able to offer this layout as an upload to the DLS once it's done since it's been a long time favourite of mine. First though I need to contact Angelah and get her blessing since I won't do anything without her approval.
That balancing act is tough! I worked on two routes that were close to being as realistic as possible. At first glance I thought I found a bunch of stuff that would suit, but then as I built the route and started really detailing I found that the things I found didn't work as I expected. It got better... The DEM I used for one had major flaws. The railway ran alongside a tall hill on one side with big mills on the other. The railways is about 14 meters above the roads below and the roads, railway, mill foundations, and hill were all one single blob. With all that going on, I gave up on that route and decided to do something else even after making the area into something other than what it was supposed to be. The other problem with this route was I live here and knowing what was supposed to be there versus what it turned out to be ate at me.
The other route had its own issues. The maps from 1944, the era we were modeling, never completely matched the terrain we were using due to major urban renewal, highway, bridges, and a complete reconstruction of the area we were modeling. This route too I gave up on and let the other fellow continue on his project. I had spent too much time compromising and the compromise didn't get me any further from where I started. In the end we can only do what we can do, and in some cases it's best to let it go if we can and make things up. If we can... yeah right!
The other route had its own issues. The maps from 1944, the era we were modeling, never completely matched the terrain we were using due to major urban renewal, highway, bridges, and a complete reconstruction of the area we were modeling. This route too I gave up on and let the other fellow continue on his project. I had spent too much time compromising and the compromise didn't get me any further from where I started. In the end we can only do what we can do, and in some cases it's best to let it go if we can and make things up. If we can... yeah right!
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Well at least I don't live in Sussex near the line John so I don't have that nagging at me. The original line of railway was just over 21 miles long and the route is built on mapping software so I know that is basically right. There's all kind of things like voids under trackwork to fix as well as general tidying up and fitting things together better. And I'm still finding trees that need changing out so there's lots to do apart from the details of the railway infrastructure itself. Most of the original ground textures were well chosen so I'm leaving those alone apart from a little blending here and there and fixing bald patches.
My approach is going to be to return the station yards to how they were in 1908 and add missing things like goods loading docks and remove various post WW2 buildings. From the 25 inch to the mile OS maps I know where things should be and I've found almost enough photos to give me a guide. Some buildings have survived and most have been restored by the preservation society. The society also has drawings of many of the original buildings so I know what they looked like. I am going to have to make some guesses about some things and I will be using off the peg buildings from the DLS that are correct for the era. So it will be a close enough representation in the spirit of the prototype. Which hopefully will stop me from getting too wound up in details and ending up thinking I'm a failure and can't build routes for toffee because I can't get everything exactly correct.
My approach is going to be to return the station yards to how they were in 1908 and add missing things like goods loading docks and remove various post WW2 buildings. From the 25 inch to the mile OS maps I know where things should be and I've found almost enough photos to give me a guide. Some buildings have survived and most have been restored by the preservation society. The society also has drawings of many of the original buildings so I know what they looked like. I am going to have to make some guesses about some things and I will be using off the peg buildings from the DLS that are correct for the era. So it will be a close enough representation in the spirit of the prototype. Which hopefully will stop me from getting too wound up in details and ending up thinking I'm a failure and can't build routes for toffee because I can't get everything exactly correct.
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IanOHoseason
Member
Your expression “spirit of the prototype” is what, in my view, we should be aiming for. If this can be evoked, then success has been achieved!
Best wishes
Ian
Best wishes
Ian
Very true, too much track is "perfect" whereas in the case of narrow gauge in the US, it was very far from perfect. On the uintah for instance,they had plans to standard gauge the whole route once they had built a tunnel under Baxter pass, with this in mind they replaced the three foot ties with standard gauge ties as they wore out, so you had track that had a longer tie every 10 or so ties. Needless to say , I'm never going to get track like that made for the Uintah.
On other NG routes, track was often just laid on the ground and ashes and rocks were dumped as fill and it was very rarely in great condition, especially ballast. . The biggest issue for me is the "clean edge" look , which I hate, to counter it I bury track and try to cover up the straight edge with terrain, on the Uintah I use a ground fill and drop the track into that, but its terribly time consuming and sometimes it seems to revert , I am convinced I have gone over some sections time and again and fixed the fill only to come back later on and find i have to drop it down again , possibly my imagination , but its happened too many times for me to think it isn't taking place occasionally. There was a track I used once which had a great soft edge that blended in nicely with terrain , but its now obsolete and was never updated
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
I should write that out and stick it to the top of my monitor Ian to remind me not to get bogged down over minor details that nobody would notice.
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Rumour3 made several Uk tracks with differently textured ballast to suit regional variations and all of them have a feathered edge to the ballast shoulder. This was back in Trainz build 2.0 days and nobody has done anything like it since. Not knowing anything about 3D modelling I have no idea if this is something that's difficult to achieve or not, but it looks so much better than unbelievably ruler straight clean cut edges that seems to be the present school of thought.
I can understand how this would be particularly frustrating with narrow gauge track where ballasting and sleepers/ties would be anything but precise and ruler straight. I have found sometimes that track will shift as if there's some kind of internal tensions in the track splines that will cause it to creep from its set alignment.
probably needs an alpha channel gradation, but i wish a few people would make their track like that, as it is the present items on offer are let down by the edges, it seems silly to make the actual track and ties look super real and then add ballast that looks like it been cut by a razor.
We all should do that.
Getting bogged down in the details. You have the right idea with those stations and goods yards. I too find it easier to work on areas I know little about in real life. I think that was part of the problem I ran into with these two routes I worked on.
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Thanks John. I've clicked my brain over to working in the spirit of things and work on the layout is going a lot better now. It's difficult to get anything done when I'm beating myself up all the time over small details.
To help out those who aren't familiar with the K&ESR and where all the stations are this is a basic map of the line.
Three little engines at Rolvenden. 'Heperus' (green saddle tank), 'Northiam' (blue 2-4-0T) and a LSWR Class '0330'. All are engines that worked on the K&ESR. It don't think 'Hesperus' is available anymore since I originally got it from one of the third party websites that vanished during the Thomas the Tank Engine copyright wars. 'Northiam' is by knucklesnvector and is on the DLS, but not looking like this since I've completely reworked the textures and the emissive, ambient and diffuse settings on the body mesh to stop the model looking like something over shined and chromed up for a hotrod show. The '0330' class is available on the DLS, but without any footplate crew.
I was talking with a couple of forum members over on NGRM On-line who'd had personal experience of the K&ESR and one of them was telling me that at closure some of the goods yards were still laid with the original lightweight flat-bottomed rail from the earliest days of the line so that started me thinking about doing the goods yards between Robertsbridge and Tenterden with flat-bottomed rail. The line from Tenterden to Headcorn was done in a heavier weight of rail apparently.
And yes I know it's that slippery slope of obscure details again, but track tends to be quite noticeable and lightweight trackwork like rambling crooked bits of wire is very much a part of the spirit of steam era light railways.
Driver problems! For some reason a TS2019 driver wants to park himself under the feet of the properly authorised driver of the Class '0330'. I suppose it makes a change from them doing a hideous chest burst act, but either way it's very annoying. I don't like drivers that look like scruffy modern day council binmen anyway so perhaps it's time to do something about it. The usurping TS2019 driver wants the driver's attachment point so if I make a new attachment point for my driver and adjust the one the TS2019 driver wants to be claiming to be 100 feet under the track level that should take care of the problem.
The engine shed in the background is a new addition. It's not correct, but it has the right kind of look about it so it will do me. I think it's German. By the length of its file name and its unpronounceable qualities I'd say it was German.
To help out those who aren't familiar with the K&ESR and where all the stations are this is a basic map of the line.
Three little engines at Rolvenden. 'Heperus' (green saddle tank), 'Northiam' (blue 2-4-0T) and a LSWR Class '0330'. All are engines that worked on the K&ESR. It don't think 'Hesperus' is available anymore since I originally got it from one of the third party websites that vanished during the Thomas the Tank Engine copyright wars. 'Northiam' is by knucklesnvector and is on the DLS, but not looking like this since I've completely reworked the textures and the emissive, ambient and diffuse settings on the body mesh to stop the model looking like something over shined and chromed up for a hotrod show. The '0330' class is available on the DLS, but without any footplate crew.
I was talking with a couple of forum members over on NGRM On-line who'd had personal experience of the K&ESR and one of them was telling me that at closure some of the goods yards were still laid with the original lightweight flat-bottomed rail from the earliest days of the line so that started me thinking about doing the goods yards between Robertsbridge and Tenterden with flat-bottomed rail. The line from Tenterden to Headcorn was done in a heavier weight of rail apparently.
And yes I know it's that slippery slope of obscure details again, but track tends to be quite noticeable and lightweight trackwork like rambling crooked bits of wire is very much a part of the spirit of steam era light railways.
Driver problems! For some reason a TS2019 driver wants to park himself under the feet of the properly authorised driver of the Class '0330'. I suppose it makes a change from them doing a hideous chest burst act, but either way it's very annoying. I don't like drivers that look like scruffy modern day council binmen anyway so perhaps it's time to do something about it. The usurping TS2019 driver wants the driver's attachment point so if I make a new attachment point for my driver and adjust the one the TS2019 driver wants to be claiming to be 100 feet under the track level that should take care of the problem.
The engine shed in the background is a new addition. It's not correct, but it has the right kind of look about it so it will do me. I think it's German. By the length of its file name and its unpronounceable qualities I'd say it was German.
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Well my idea worked and now no more scruffy council binmen are trying to hitch a ride on the footplate of the LSWR '0330' class saddle tank.
By a stroke of luck I found a PDF copy of a small book published in 1948 on the history of the K&ESR and it has a lot of details and history that I've seen nowhere else. Finding this book does not mean I'm going to go all nuts over madly detailing everything to the max. I will be using it as a guide to make sure I get the most important bits right.
The dire message box about the fabric of the universe being ripped asunder if I try to join two incompatible splines keeps coming back even if I tick the 'go away' box. It's a confounded nuisance since accidently brushing any spline circle while trying to place a spline will trigger the message box and whatever I was doing gets deleted so I have to start again. It means that I have to use a more awkward way of working to what I normally do which is a pain. I don't know who thought that one up because it was one really silly idea.
By a stroke of luck I found a PDF copy of a small book published in 1948 on the history of the K&ESR and it has a lot of details and history that I've seen nowhere else. Finding this book does not mean I'm going to go all nuts over madly detailing everything to the max. I will be using it as a guide to make sure I get the most important bits right.
The dire message box about the fabric of the universe being ripped asunder if I try to join two incompatible splines keeps coming back even if I tick the 'go away' box. It's a confounded nuisance since accidently brushing any spline circle while trying to place a spline will trigger the message box and whatever I was doing gets deleted so I have to start again. It means that I have to use a more awkward way of working to what I normally do which is a pain. I don't know who thought that one up because it was one really silly idea.
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Layers..... put the ones that you are having problems on in a different layer and lock the route, you can merge it back after you have the spines positioned and unlocked the route.
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Thank you for the advice Malc, but I'm not all that clear about putting things in different layers. It just sounds needlessly complicated and the kind of thing I'd mess up doing properly in my usual default sleepy state. I don't understand why something that wasn't a problem in the original release version of TS2019 has now become a problem in SP1 and requires a huge warning pop up message box which only purpose seems to be to interrupt what I'm doing in Surveyor and cause annoyance.
That route is interesting. In 1985 I took my second trip across the pond. On that trip my Nan was with me. My brother and I included her on various trips back then and 1985 was her trip over on a vacation of her choice. We stayed in London of course and did our travels about by train and the tube. It was a lot safer for us. 
One day she said I would love to see the Channel, and we took a trip to Hastings. My perceptive eyes noticed what appeared to be a grade leading off near Hastings and wondered where it went. I hadn't thought about it until now, and now I know. Thank you!
Layers...
Layers can be both a blessing and a curse at the same time. Horacifeathers will surely tell you about curse of these things. While they serve their purpose quite well, the implementation is poor, what else is new. The issue is there is no indication of which layer has been selected and when assets are placed on the route that's where they go!
With that said, I believe in KISS. Yes keep things as simple as possible so not to confuse myself anymore than I can, which is an easy thing to do these days. Instead of using multiple layers for various things, I tend to keep my choices down to one or two in addition to the route and session layers. Associated and related to the route layer, I will create a layer called !!! HOLD !!!. I will then lock it by clicking on the padlock. This means that any assets added to that layer can't be moved. Simple.
When it comes time to put splines over splines, or crates on a loading dock, for example, I will move the base asset, meaning the loading dock for example, to the !!! HOLD !!! layer. This means anything above it can be moved around at will without interfering with anything else that's in the !!! HOLD !!! layer. When I'm done, I will get the properties on the assets in the !!! HOLD !!! layer and move them back to the route.
One day she said I would love to see the Channel, and we took a trip to Hastings. My perceptive eyes noticed what appeared to be a grade leading off near Hastings and wondered where it went. I hadn't thought about it until now, and now I know. Thank you!Layers...
Layers can be both a blessing and a curse at the same time. Horacifeathers will surely tell you about curse of these things. While they serve their purpose quite well, the implementation is poor, what else is new. The issue is there is no indication of which layer has been selected and when assets are placed on the route that's where they go!
With that said, I believe in KISS. Yes keep things as simple as possible so not to confuse myself anymore than I can, which is an easy thing to do these days. Instead of using multiple layers for various things, I tend to keep my choices down to one or two in addition to the route and session layers. Associated and related to the route layer, I will create a layer called !!! HOLD !!!. I will then lock it by clicking on the padlock. This means that any assets added to that layer can't be moved. Simple.
When it comes time to put splines over splines, or crates on a loading dock, for example, I will move the base asset, meaning the loading dock for example, to the !!! HOLD !!! layer. This means anything above it can be moved around at will without interfering with anything else that's in the !!! HOLD !!! layer. When I'm done, I will get the properties on the assets in the !!! HOLD !!! layer and move them back to the route.
KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Thanks for the explanation about layers John. So far I've been really liking and enjoying working in Surveyor in TS2019 all except for that stupid message box. At present I'm having to lay down a spline on the ground well away from anything else with the '+' tool and then position it by dragging it with the arrow tool. In TS2012 I was running barbed wire fence splines through the middle of hedge splines as a regular thing all the time and the world didn't explode. So why all of a sudden has it become a forbidden thing with a big scary pop up message box?
Apart from all that this small light railway in Sussex/Kent has really captured my attention and made me put all my other projects on hold. Like other similar lines it was the rise of motor transport after WW1 that caused its decline and then being nationalised after WW2 and becoming part of British Railways killed it off completely. For that reason I've made a custom traffic/region for the route with no buses and lorries/trucks and I've set the time period back before 1924. Some Trainz folk like modelling dereliction, decay and abandonment, well I don't. The modern world is a grim enough place without dragging it into the small worlds I create in Trainz.
I'm never likely to visit Britain even if I had the money due this illness I have and in what will remain of our world post-Covid-19 international travel is going to be severely restricted so that definitely puts me going to visit Britain right out of the picture. You were fortunate that you were able to go and see the Uk back in the 1980's John. I always wanted to see the Science Museum and other sites devoted to industrial archeology, but at least now with the internet it's possible to do a virtual visit which is certainly much better than nothing.
Apart from all that this small light railway in Sussex/Kent has really captured my attention and made me put all my other projects on hold. Like other similar lines it was the rise of motor transport after WW1 that caused its decline and then being nationalised after WW2 and becoming part of British Railways killed it off completely. For that reason I've made a custom traffic/region for the route with no buses and lorries/trucks and I've set the time period back before 1924. Some Trainz folk like modelling dereliction, decay and abandonment, well I don't. The modern world is a grim enough place without dragging it into the small worlds I create in Trainz.
I'm never likely to visit Britain even if I had the money due this illness I have and in what will remain of our world post-Covid-19 international travel is going to be severely restricted so that definitely puts me going to visit Britain right out of the picture. You were fortunate that you were able to go and see the Uk back in the 1980's John. I always wanted to see the Science Museum and other sites devoted to industrial archeology, but at least now with the internet it's possible to do a virtual visit which is certainly much better than nothing.
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I don't know why that blasted pop-up box and warning occurs now. I mentioned it at one point to the dev team and was told they would look into it, I guess they looked into it but did nothing about it. You're welcome on the layers. It's not necessary to use them, but I find them useful for things like I mentioned, but I don't use them extensively because of their quirky and awkward nature.
Travel sure is going to be different; the whole world will be different! My illness too keeps me from making long distances. The other issue is disabled-person pensioner's income here is pretty limited. I no longer have that extra tax refund or other income coming in like I did when I was working so expensive, meaning fun vacations are over.
I too like modeling better times and seek out justification for modeling a restored line rather than a bedraggled mess of rust and overgrown sidings, although, I will put in a few of those such as I did on my own big route where I model a line that has been restored to working order again after nearly going out of business, but there is still a lot of the rusty track and abandoned lines still left.
The demise of that line is similar to what happened where I live. We still have the through mainline, but the local branches off of the line have been curtailed much due to the same reasons. The local railroad also completely over extended its self during its heydays and ended up cutting a lot during the Great Depression. It didn't help that a hurricane and flood also did a number on the lines and the nearly bankrupt railway ripped up the under utilized branches and sold off the metal for scrap. The ROW is still in use as a power company access road and other areas now have a bike trail on them. In my Trainz world, I put the tracks back in and gave the line a new lease on life. That's what I really like about this program.
Travel sure is going to be different; the whole world will be different! My illness too keeps me from making long distances. The other issue is disabled-person pensioner's income here is pretty limited. I no longer have that extra tax refund or other income coming in like I did when I was working so expensive, meaning fun vacations are over.
I too like modeling better times and seek out justification for modeling a restored line rather than a bedraggled mess of rust and overgrown sidings, although, I will put in a few of those such as I did on my own big route where I model a line that has been restored to working order again after nearly going out of business, but there is still a lot of the rusty track and abandoned lines still left.
The demise of that line is similar to what happened where I live. We still have the through mainline, but the local branches off of the line have been curtailed much due to the same reasons. The local railroad also completely over extended its self during its heydays and ended up cutting a lot during the Great Depression. It didn't help that a hurricane and flood also did a number on the lines and the nearly bankrupt railway ripped up the under utilized branches and sold off the metal for scrap. The ROW is still in use as a power company access road and other areas now have a bike trail on them. In my Trainz world, I put the tracks back in and gave the line a new lease on life. That's what I really like about this program.
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KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
I'm finding that I'm getting used to working around that pop up dire warning message box so it's not much of an issue now. I found by accident that it doesn't even pop up sometimes when I accidentally commit the awful crime of trying to join incompatible splines together, so it's only a part time pop up dire warning message box which shows how useless it is.
I decided to stay away from using layers. The only thing I know about layers is from when I used to keep chickens and I don't think that's very applicable. Seriously though I don't handle complicated things very well and layers look they are going to be complicated so I'll leave them to the experts.
Northiam now has a representation of the cattle yard at the back of the goods yard. It's based off the 1908 OS map, but it's not an exact copy since no photos exist and I also reduced its size so it would fit without hacking everything about. I had a look at a 1961 OS map which was published a year before the line closed and hardly anything had changed at Northiam.
My present plan is to complete all the rebuilding and repair work between Robertsbridge and Tenterden (see map above) before I move onto doing anything with the line from Tenterden to Headcorn. The K&ESR was worked as two sections with Tenterden being the boundary point so that looks like a sensible place to work to before proceeding or else I'll only get myself in a mess.
I have run some trains through to Headcorn and that section has some wicked nasty gradients that really made my little engines work hard. The Robertsbridge section has them too, but nothing like so severe. The K&ESR was always considered to be a difficult line to work due to the steepness of the gradients.
As to the Headcorn section itself it's going to need a bit of work doing since it has nasty deep merge holes everywhere and it also uses a different selection of TS2004 billboard trees to the areas I've done so far so much more tree replacements will be needed to be done. Otherwise it's all hedges and fences and generally doing adjustments and repairs.
And here's me thinking that this was going to be a quick job.
I decided to stay away from using layers. The only thing I know about layers is from when I used to keep chickens and I don't think that's very applicable. Seriously though I don't handle complicated things very well and layers look they are going to be complicated so I'll leave them to the experts.
Northiam now has a representation of the cattle yard at the back of the goods yard. It's based off the 1908 OS map, but it's not an exact copy since no photos exist and I also reduced its size so it would fit without hacking everything about. I had a look at a 1961 OS map which was published a year before the line closed and hardly anything had changed at Northiam.
My present plan is to complete all the rebuilding and repair work between Robertsbridge and Tenterden (see map above) before I move onto doing anything with the line from Tenterden to Headcorn. The K&ESR was worked as two sections with Tenterden being the boundary point so that looks like a sensible place to work to before proceeding or else I'll only get myself in a mess.
I have run some trains through to Headcorn and that section has some wicked nasty gradients that really made my little engines work hard. The Robertsbridge section has them too, but nothing like so severe. The K&ESR was always considered to be a difficult line to work due to the steepness of the gradients.
As to the Headcorn section itself it's going to need a bit of work doing since it has nasty deep merge holes everywhere and it also uses a different selection of TS2004 billboard trees to the areas I've done so far so much more tree replacements will be needed to be done. Otherwise it's all hedges and fences and generally doing adjustments and repairs.
And here's me thinking that this was going to be a quick job.
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KotangaGirl
Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
'Hecate' built 1904 and used on the K&ESR until 1917 until it went the East Kent Light Railway; - so it does fit my time period. Only able to be used on the Tenterden to Headcorn section because of its axle loading, - but that's no bad thing with the wicked gradients on that section.
Considered to be a bit of a white elephant, but I think I could find a use for it.
There's also a reskinned mucky BR version of 'Hecate' <kuid:86406:100007> by leonuk-china on the DLS as well.
Yes please I would be interested in being able to convert the Southern Railway version to its K&ESR form so I will PM you shortly.