New Layout Project. Possibly 'O' gauge.

KotangaGirl

Pre-Grouping Railways Nut
Let me say first of all I have no idea where this project is going or what it's final form will be.
It started by downloading one of Ray's old TS2004 layouts, - RM 1156 Uk. I thought I'd try changing a couple of things and then at some point an idea started to form in my head and I just sort of followed it along to see where it would go. I found some of shoves old buildings and I liked the look of them for a potential 'O' gauge layout. Shoves's licence is very user friendly so I modified one of the buildings, - a row of shops, - and converted into terrace houses and after that it all started to come together.
I wanted to stay with a particular colour and texture palette so I stayed with using shoves's buildings because as soon as I tried using anything else (with a couple of exceptions) it just looked wrong.

So this is where I'm up to:

pXj9JPA.jpg


djsOHhL.jpg


WwSMBMB.jpg


nXRSNsM.jpg


So it's not really what Ray built anymore, but I did keep the station name, 'Lynborough'.
 
Is this the wind up O gauge you were talking about a bit back Kotanga?

I'm going to lay wooden sleepered track with a conductor rail to represent the type of O gauge track that was in use during the 1930s and 1940s and this will be a proper model railway layout rather than a just a test track. I don't think any locomotive creator for Trainz would let me convert one of their models to faux clockwork and upload it to the DLS so it will have to remain a personal experiment for the foreseeable future.
 
That is a real compliment, Annie, and it looks far, far better than the original! But it dates from March 2010 at a time when I was playing around to see what could be done on just one board, without any thought at the time of simulating model railway layouts. I actually made more than one - another was based in France, a third was narrow gauge. The original plan was by Cyril Freezer (who else?) and was in the November 1956 Railway Modeller - hence the imaginative name! - and was a design for a portable layout on six baseboards - I think two three-footers on each side linked by two to form a U-shape.

I actually made it as a "real" model railway with two stations, Lynborough (as you say, Annie) and Birfield - Lynborough being from (King's) Lynn and Peterborough, Birfield being from Birmingam and Sheffield - places with which I and my late wife were associated.

There - some history from ten years ago!

Ray
 
Thanks for the background to your layout Ray. Birfield will become a branchline station on my revision of your layout and the mainline will strike off to parts as yet unknown. I've got the layout now installed in a four board room with the other baseboards provisionally planned out, but I may have gone a bit too far and the walls might get pulled inwards to make the room a more sensible size. Anyway I shall see how it goes.
If I do keep the big room at least the engines will get a good run between stations.

Presently looking for 'O' gauge room assets on the DLS. There is some available, but not a great deal of it.
 
The original was actually planned for extension and I believe there was the beginnings of a tunnel leading to the edge of the board -but it got overtaken by TS12. I hope you managed to get rid of all the tree clumps - there proved to be a nuisance when I tried to transfer it to 12.

0 gauge assets - are you thinking of overscale artefacts to set the scene? It would probably be easy enough to convert the table, chair etc. that I made. If I can tear myself away from finishing Keldon 1:76 scale - you probably remember suggesting the name on a dedicated wagon some time ago!

Ray
 
Oh yes I remember Keldon Ray, - I still have those wagons in use on my layouts.

It would be very good of you if you could convert those assets to 'O' gauge. I'm very likely to be building 'O' gauge layouts for a while yet.

I didn't have any problems with your old layout in TS2012, - though it's a bit different now to how it was. Funny you should mention an extension because that's exactly what I've done. Four boards was a mistake and now it's on two boards which is just a nice size for an 'O gauge layout.

I had trouble with not being able to sleep ( one of those odd things that happens with narcolepsy sometimes) so I settled in and got the room fitted out all ready the make a start on building up the layout.
So this is what i have.......

GNlHnBm.jpg


skf8jHq.jpg


If this was a real world layout that magnificent bridge would lift out to access the door, - but at least in the digital world I don't have to worry about attempting to devise a way for that to happen.

GeC1Ocb.jpg
 
I am reminded of a painter that used to have a show on our National Public Television. He had a bit of a German accent, and as he showed you how to paint a scene he would suggest that you could do this, or you could add that, and then he would always say, "you can do anything you want, YOU are the creaTOR", with the emphasis on the last syllable of creaTOR. Always stayed with me.... Great job Ann!
 
Thank you very much Forester. I like your story about the painter. I was worried at first because where the station is in the town of Lynborough would make it annoyingly out of reach if this was a real world layout and I was almost on the brink of removing part of the town I'd built, but then exactly like the German painter in your story I decided I could do what I like because it was my layout and if people don't agree with what I've done they don't have to download it.

From here it will be basically completing the other side of the oval on the bare baseboards. Lynborough will get some industries and a goods yard, Birfield will be built up as a smaller country station and town with a goods shed and sidings along with its own bit of industry. As to the scenic work it will be very much open countryside with gently rolling hills on the wall side of the baseboards and open fields with a farmstead or two. I am tempted to lay conductor rail throughout to make this a three rail 'O' gauge layout, - which would be me 'doing anything I want', - since that's exactly the kind of layout I would want to build if I was able to.
I'm using pencil's excellent 60lb track without ballast <kuid2:124060:38091:1> since when combined with Ray's conductor rail looks a fairly close match for the kind of track that was used on 'O' gauge layouts in the Uk during the 1930s and 1940s.

As compared with building 40 miles of Norfolk which took me well over a year and was a lot of work the TMR format of building model railways in Trainz is a lot less time consuming which means there's less chance of losing heart and giving up.
 
I decided I could do what I like because it was my layout and if people don't agree with what I've done they don't have to download it.

Well said! I shall follow developments with great interested. I might even be tempted ...

Ray
 
The hill is called 'Goodwin's Knoll' and is going to be the only geological upthrusting of any size on the layout. The tunnel was easy to place and I even discovered how to lay conductor rail through it, but I spent far too much time trying to find a way to hide the stupid digholes I had to use to put the tunnel in place. In the end Andi Smith's elegant retaining walls proved to be the best solution, but it still was annoying having to deal with hiding those blasted holes.

There is a story from the early days of railways in Britain where an engineer carefully surveyed a new route across several miles of hilly countryside finding a way to layout the new line that would be easy going and not need any tunnels. Proud of himself he took his survey plans to the company directors who immediately cried, 'There's no tunnels, - we must have a tunnel'. So they got in one of the Stephensons who knew all about tunnels to survey a new route and the directors got their tunnel. No doubt it cost more than the nice easy route without a tunnel, but the directors didn't care about that, - they wanted a tunnel.

ExgOnjT.jpg
 
Last edited:
Track testing on 'Lynborough'. The main running lines are in place now.

Zrs1tAy.jpg


And the first thing I noticed in this screenshot was the sky........

O8vmzs5.jpg


........ so I fitted a ceiling to the room. Some TMR format builders say not to fit one, but I think the room looks dead daft without a ceiling.

9mzD76e.jpg


And to finish off - a look along Station Road.

le8LGvB.jpg
 
Last edited:
From little acorns ... It's amazing what you have done with my very simple one baseboard effort. What's your secret? And how do you get such excellent screen shots?

Enviously, Ray
 
Thank you very much Ray. I guess being a creative person who has a lot of time on their hands allows me to be a bit obsessive over getting the details on a layout how I want them to be. These screenshots are in TS2012 so it's a bit simpler to setup lighting and image quality, but in TS2019 I make sure there is absolutely no fog with the adjustment slider set to zero or else the room looks like it's full of pipe smoke. My present graphics card is only a GTX 660, but it seems to do Ok.
 
Thanks, Annie - I must persevere. I've noticed that T:ANE seems to be in perpetual fog - didn't realise it could be adjusted - it was so easy in earlier versions.

Ray
 
Lynborough station, yards and town are now complete except for finishing laying the conductor rail. I think I need a little lie down now.

xHLnyyO.jpg


VEnZpPg.jpg
 
Back
Top