New Layout Project. Possibly 'O' gauge.

I tested out Ray's new '0' gauge chair and table in Lynborough's fiddle yard room and immediately my perception of the room did a sudden shift. What had been a not very large room became huge and the fiddle yard board looked much too wide. So continuing with the experiment I narrowed the room by moving the walls until it looked more plausible and I cut back the fiddle yard baseboard width as well.
I was impressed by how a simple change in floor level and the scale of the furniture had made such a difference, but the downside was that door now looked completely out of scale, - which it was of course since it's an 00 scale door.

I could try the same experiment out on the main layout (I'm working with a clone copy of 'Lynborough'), but I would have to turn all the cupboards around to show a blank back and the door would be out of scale. The teapot and the tea mugs would be huge as well, - which some might say is a good thing, - but it does tend to break the illusion.
Overall though I have to say that the '0' gauge experiment is worth expanding on, but of course this means a lot more work for Ray and I certainly don't want to take advantage of his goodwill.

This is 'Rugton' now with '0' gauge furniture. The table and chairs no longer tower over the railway.

The shelves don't look too bad, but then shelves can vary in size. Garden mugs and coffee pot have been done but I had some problems resizing. Not everything goes right first tiem! Nothing can be done about the door as only the original creator of an asset can alter the size, but it should be possible eventually to create a new on in 0 and N scales.

Ray

Yes the shelves are fine Ray and certainly don't look out of place. The door is a simple mesh being in effect a flat upright slab and any 3D effects are all done with texturing. No pressure Ray, - I can only manage to stay awake at the moment for barely 4 hours before I have to sleep again so I'm not doing very much.
The Garden mug and coffee pot are welcome additions since they are things that help to make a model railway layout come alive.

A door is on its way to the DLS. It's not marvellous and I hope to find a better texture, bit it may fill a gap - in more ways than one.

Ray

Thank you very much Ray. The lack of a door was the thing that was holding me back from completing 'Lynborough'.

I should have sid that the door is two-sided so that it cn be rotated with the handle on the right or left, or maybe placed in the wall so that it can be seen correctly in two adjoining rooms - but I haven't tried that. I expect that 00 and N versions will follow - sometime.

Ray

The door being two sided sounds very useful Ray.

If there was a problem with scale i'm not sure this would help, but what about adding some invisible track on the shelving and adding some consists of coaches or wagons? Might pull in or out the perspective of the room maybe.

And one question, what is a facing and trailing crossing and what are their differences? Everyday's a learning day

That was the intended purpose of the shelves when I made them and the reason why I made the top of my tables in whatever scale coincide with the baseboard surface level so that models could be placed there - useful for storing any you want to use but are not sure where..

A facing crossing or turnout is one where approaching trains do so facing the diverging tracks. A trailing crossing or turnout is where the train approaches from the other direction, that is from one of the diverging tracks. Facing turnouts are avoided wherever possible on main lines for safety reasons, although their use is not unknown.

There are many railway terms which can be confusing. A crossover is where two turnouts of opposite hand are used so that a train can cross from one track to another, for example on double track. A double crossover is exactly that and trains can change tracks in either direct. A crossing is where two tracks cross at an angle but do not connect with each other. And then there are slips, double slips, etc.

There was a right angle crossing outside Murrow where we used to visit relatives when I was a boy - at least eighty years ago. Waiting there for a train home, I was afraid that two would arrive at the same time and there would be a horrific collision. Of course, due to signalling this couid never happen.

Maybe we need a glossary of railway terms for reference.

Ray

The door being two sided sounds very useful Ray.

Click to expand...

I found a much better texture this morning and DDD MR-0 Door v2 has just been approved - less than a minute after submitting it! Things are really moving these days.

Ray

And it's already available on the DLS - DDD MR-0 Door v2.

Ray

Ye sorry Ray I thought it was in relation to the level crossing, bit of a doh moment from me :hehe:

HotshotJimmy said:

And one question, what is a facing and trailing crossing and what are their differences? Everyday's a learning day

Click to expand...

Some of the pre-grouping railways would go to great lengths to avoid facing crossovers and points. The Midland Railway in particular was absolutely fastidious about not using facing points.
In Trainz they do have a benefit though since they stop AI drivers from ducking off where they aren't supposed to go.

'Lynborough' is now properly and finally '0' gauged. Your new doors are just the job Ray.

The layout now looks huge which of course it would be if it was a real world '0' gauge layout. I had to take out all the cupboards, but it didn't take long to replace them with itareus's fascia spline.

It would have needed a club to bilud this in the real world - even the baseboards would have been a mammoth task, and costly. This is an amazing transformation from what began as a relative beginner's very simple layout, although extension was always seen as possible. I'm wondering how much of the original has been left - not much, I guess. I might be tempted to have a go with one of the other verions of a one-board layout I made - the French one would be a good candidate, but most of the assets used came from oon-DLS sources as I had a bit of a thing for collecting them probably due to my many years earning my keep by using the language, and there are some excellent ones available.

As a matter of interest, what height backscenes do you use - they are certainly very effective.

Ray

Ray

When I completed '0' gauging 'Lynborough' I have to admit I did have a 'Wow' moment Ray. What had been previously a possible large 00 layout in a biggish shed or outbuilding had suddenly changed into this monster. And yes it would have to be a layout built by a club with a very good level of funds to draw on. It does remind me, - in spirit at least, - of some of the large '0' gauge layouts that were built back in the days when '0' gauge was considered to be the smallest practical scale and that certainly makes me feel happy since that was what I was vaguely aiming for when I started modifying your old layout.
Not all of your old layout has disappeared though. Lynborough is the most heavily changed area, but about 80% of your landscape sculpting is unchanged and Birfield still retains a high percentage its original track layout.

The backscenes are by Dave Snow, Model Trainz Backdrop 12 DES <kuid:101046:102535> and Model Trainz Backdrop 8 DES <kuid:101046:102527> . They are huge backscenes which allowed me to use different parts of them in each location without it looking like I was using the same two backscenes. They certainly dramatically changed the appearance of 'Lynborough' and now the the layout is fully realised even more so.

I think it would be good to see your French Metro layout updated. Non-DLS assets are always a problem though especially if the sites they were on have disappeared. I downloaded a large French metre gauge layout into TS2019 and by the time I'd spent two days hunting for dependent assets all over the internet in a fog of frustration I ended up hating the thing. A good deal of the problem with such layouts is their builder not giving any indication where assets might be found if they aren't on the DLS or even mentioning in the description that they used non-DLS assets.

Despite all that though from what I've seen of your French layout in the screenshots you posted I think it would be a good thing to see it given a refresh and update.

Hello Annie, from around 1870 the Board of Trade and its Railway Inspectorate were quite happy to pass facing points for use on the railways in the UK. The catch was that they had to be fully interlocked and signalled. At junctions this was ""the cost of doing business" on the railway and there were thousands of such installations across the country, including the Midland Railway. What the companies chose to do on the grounds of economy was limit the instances where facing points were used at locations other than at running lines for junctions. A particular horror was the notion of an express passenger train being switched to a spur of a length insufficient to bring the train to a halt in time, so the Midland in particular would go out of its way to avoid facing points to loops or sidings except where absolutely and unavoidably necessary.

However, placing a slow goods train "inside" to permit a higher status train to pass was a slow time-consuming business. The goods train had to draw ahead of the trailing connection, stop, and then set back while being hand signalled by the guard. Woe-betide the train crew and signalmen who tried to back down in to a trailing spur of a length inadequate to accomodate the train and engine! It did happen. The outcome was either the engine and several wagons still blocking the main line when the siding was full, or a set of buffer stops shoved off the end of the spur and several wagons pitched down an embankment, shoved up a cutting or pushed out on the lineside.

On lines which were busy with both passenger trains and slow goods trains the process would be intolerable and where ths occurred the company paid for the interlocking apparatus required to have facing points leading in to loop lines, slow lines and independent lines. I recently was looking at the track plan for Monk Fryston on the NER and there was a facing connection in to a long headshunt from the Up Normanton line on the old Y&NMR route. It appears that there were enough trains running on the four track section to justify the cost of the facing point and associated interlocking to get a slow goods requiring to shunt at the north end of Monk Fryston off the Up Normanton with some alacrity.

The Midland probably persisted with the arrangement of trailing spurs (on the S&C in particular) because the line was quiet enough to accomodate the process of putting slower trains "inside" without too much stress. All the same, the train crew had to be fastidious on avoiding hauling a train which was bound to be placed inside being too long to do so.

It's mainly due to the stupidity of the Trainz AI that I have been particularly fastidious about not using any facing crossovers Frank. Though because I tend to model pre-WW1 and pre-1900 country lines and branchlines avoiding facing pointwork as much as possible is appropriate.
I agree that shunting forward and then setting back into a siding to allow another train to pass is time consuming and annoying, but when I came to model a section of the old M&GNJR every station had sidings arranged for this purpose so I very quickly got into the way of it. Much like the S&C traffic was light enough to justify the time spent in executing such maneuvers.

There are pre-grouping era accident reports on-line where accidents were caused by a train running into another that was setting back into a siding as well as others where facing points were split causing a derailment. They make interesting reading and have certainly given me insights into how things should have been done during my chosen modelling period.

I'm counting down to uploading 'Lynborough' I just have a couple of dependencies to get through approval and then it will be uploaded too. I'll put together a simple session to place rolling stock and engines and these will all be from the pre-WW1 era since that's the time period for 'Lynborough'.

The description states that the layout is for TS2012 3.7 only since loading it into a later version will make some of the scenery go strange (how do I know this?). Also some things might not work since I haven't tested them in later versions. I might get around to making either a TMR2017 or TS2019 version if there's a demand for it. That means you have to ask me about it by posting here. A hopeful silence won't achieve anything since I have other projects I'd like to be doing.