Atomic Systems

For the first time in many months (almost years) I have had a play with the Sim today. A proper play mind, having made up a consist (Bridget, tippa's & brake van) and starting at the Quarries on the Piddington Light Railway I did a major 45 min shunt, followed by a run to Penny Hassett. There I reversed the train and took it to Piddington, after shunting the tippa’s into the siding and taking water I took the loco on a head-long charge to the works at Bridgetown in search of coal (I only just made it with steam to spare).



Bridget’s need to take coal so often is not the fault of the engine; I did only design her with a very small coal space. No, the problem lays with the lack of coaling points on the Piddington.
So, I've added a coaling stage at Piddington.

Then I thought to myself, I really must catch up with a few quick jobs on the route that I remember promising myself ages ago.
After all, some parts of the route are really very picturesque.



Of course it very quickly became a slippery slope, starting with me browsing through the source files of the models that I had or was in the process of building for the line.
I have also found that after such a long period of absence from the project I now have many more new ideas for scenery.

A station at LOWER LOXLEY for starters (finally)!!!

Welcome back, Andrew, I thought you'd been rather quiet. You could look at RS for ideas, which for all it's meriad other technical faults, the scenery is very well done.

Cheers Bazza

Thanks Bazza,

Some shots of gauge testing with the widest bit of kit the P.Lt.Rly. own!!!
The dry stone walls are made to fit next to track sections and line up perfectly.
In the left back ground can be seen Loxley Mill owners houses with Lower Loxley station beyond. Need to add more distance detail behind the houses (all one shape) and add forground detail (trees etc…) to break up the sameness of the houses.

Great stuff Andrew Nice to see you back, and also very nice to see some work on Piddington.

Those guage-testing pictures remind me, though, that some of the taller NG locos and stock end up passing through the footbridge at Penny Hassest. Perhaps you might like to correct this whilst you're working on the route?

But anyway, nice shots, and I look forward to seeing further progress

Thanks Murray,

Penny Hassett needs a lot of attention, I’m thinking of losing the footbridge altogether and building a road over bridge, something not yet found on the Pidd.

In the meantime, North Holton Farm has had a makeover. This by simple expedient of merging the original station model with that of Lower Loxley, which in itself is a mutated form of both Bridgetown and Piddington.
Note also the addition of milk churns (a new and simple feature) that will be added to most of the stations. Milk was a freight of most English narrow gauge railways and I don’t think the Pidd should be any different. It makes a refreshing change from all those mysterious crates and beer barrels!!!

Excellent work! Good to see that its advancing! Just to ask are you going to include signals? just to make activity creation easier. Since i got my hands on the Pidd ive been motivated into creating true scale locos and stock, so a big thanks to you!

Wasn't Robin Hood known as Robin of Loxley? Though I doubt the trains were running in his day........Britain first train robber?

Cheers Bazza

Those guage-testing pictures remind me, though, that some of the taller NG locos and stock end up passing through the footbridge at Penny Hassest. Perhaps you might like to correct this whilst you're working on the route?

Why does this need correcting? Some NG routes are very confined in clearences and stock - the fact you can't run larger locos makes it more authentic IMO as this style of line wouldn't have exactly had a Ffestiniog sized train running on it

Dave

Hi Guys,

The place/station names on the Piddington are a mixture of places that I've liked while visiting (e.g. North Holton Farm), some (Penny Hassett & Lower Loxey) are village names from the BBC radio series "The Archers". I'm surprised that nobody has ever noticed or mentioned it to be honest.
Others are pure fiction that I have either heard or read (Riddlecombe & Pludd) and some I’ve just made up myself (Bodgit & Scarper Engineering). Piddington comes from the name of a very small village just down the road from where I used to live in West Wycombe.

The footbridge at Penny Hassett was added to the route during early construction before I started to build my own scenery. The bridge is a default shape lowered to a suitable position, it is crying out (in my opinion) to be replaced. I take a great deal of pride in the fact that most of the structures and scenery on the route is very tight to the loading gauge, especially if using No 15 & 16. For a real narrow gauge look the user should feel that the railway has only just been squeezed into the space. Unfortunately, I learn much of my MSTS skills while building the Piddington and the maxim of “If I were going to journey to there, I wouldn’t start from here” is now very true of the route. The trouble is that so much has now been done to the Piddington that I really can’t bear the thought of starting again, although I have tried on several occasions.

I have never given signals (either on the Piddington or in MSTS generally) much time, perhaps I ought to. If the Piddington was ever signalled, one thing would be for certain it would be a rather odd and interesting system!!!