Jolly Good Fun ... Narrow Gauge rails in North Wales

[smarty2]

Only image I could find at the mo? http://www.nwrail.org.uk/bc-whr-non-stop-2.jpg

[xguerra]

Or this one:



There isn't really a generic FR buffer anymore. We've used everything from old sleepers to slabs of concrete and bits of track.

[maxtedrw]

ha ha - right one of those is on its way

[thephantomphish]

Hi All,

The buffer stops question had me racking my brains to remember what a 'typical' FfR model is, and as pointed out - there isn't one! Just like with so much else along the line, there is a lot of variety. And also practically zero online images to help! I found one shot of Harbour which suggests a stop not dissimilar to the Phorum Peninsula one, but with red and white painted stripes on the horizontal beam. An unpainted one can be spotted behind the bunker of the Alco in a shot near the bottom of this page: http://www.martynbane.co.uk/2003Trips/A ... ug1503.htm .

Also a long way down this page is a relatively clear shot of a sleeper-built bufferstop at the end of the headshunt at Dduallt http://www.nwrail.org.uk/nw1405b.htm .

And there's this one from near Minffordd yard : http://lh5.ggpht.com/_Zl55qELU78E/TcBRd ... 044343.jpg .

I even resorted to trawling through a few Youtube videos last night with no more success, although I did catch a glimpse of the very nice sleeper-and-ballast square ones at Tan-y-Bwlch. For anyone who knows them they're not 'typical' but are very charming and for many years some sported small models of stonehenge on top, made out of bits of slate waste (maybe they still do?). Still, no photos to do justice to my vague description though.

Back to my fields, not much more to do now before the 'other end' of Port is properly presentable. I should probably also build the '64 Company Welsh Highland line too, as it was there in the 1990's...

ThePhantomPhish

[maxtedrw]

FR buffer and below is a Talyllyn / Generic NG buffer

[naddle]

Looking good there Richard

[atlasduff47]

Top job Richard!

[maxtedrw]

Wizz over to the Narrow Gauge Section to see what is comin in the next release of my narrow gauge tracks .....

[thephantomphish]

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for being so quiet on here recently - I blame the real world for the distraction!
Firstly, I must say that the new narrow gauge tracks are looking fantastic and better than what I've been driving around on for the last year or so - if I was wearing a hat I would have to take it off for Mr Maxted and his skills!
As the core route is now done, I've been spending time creating and testing scenarios, following the old advice 'if you can't get it to work, then no-one else will be able to either'. The results have been mixed... Testing has revealed a few minor corrections (mostly floating vegetation, and useful destinations that were missing) and has proved the topic title appropriate - it has been Jolly Good Fun for the most part! It is really a route that you have to know, as some of the curves rapidly kill your speed, and some of the gradients are very tough to manage. It would appear that the Corris loco will get to the top with 5 coaches, but you really have to be on the ball and patient when your speed drops, although my awful steam loco driving skills probably conspire to hinder me a bit that respect!

A quick scenario creation question for the experts on here - I built an enjoyable little shunting scenario which I cannot complete because the final 'add to front' instruction does not get recognised when carried out. The siding is not to blame, it is plenty long enough and all the previous add/drop off instructions there work fine. I even changed it, instead deciding to drop off the last wagons in a different siding and even that last instruction just will not tick. I've tried changing the wagons used, their numbers, checked the numbers are right in the task list and in the right order, everything I can think of. Has anyone else had this sort of problem? It's only a 15 minute scenario but has taken hours of my time, testing, editing, testing, etc, and I wonder if I may have overlooked something (although I've tried so hard to check and double-check everything up to now!).

Next investigations towards some sort of release are underway, but please don't get too excited yet as it will still take a while! I may put up a few more screenshots soon though, to keep interest alive!

Thanks again for your time and interest,

ThePhantomPhish

PS I still haven't got private messaging on this forum, so please use my email address from somewhere in the thread above if you want to contact me privately!

[haddock1000]

You should have PMs now!

thanks,

haddock1000

[thephantomphish]

Indeed I have, thankyou very much for that Sir!

And as promised earlier, another few random screenshots from recent test driving (a.k.a. playing about):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =548476560

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =548477021

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =548477364

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =548477801

I have recently been sticking to using default Phorum Peninsula stock when creating scenarios... and I still need to figure out how on earth we can work around the fact that many people won't be able to get these required assets to get the route to run. When I started out I didn't anticipate there being sufficient interest for that to become the problem that it may now turn out to be!!

Thanks again,

ThePhantomPhish

[gptech]

using default Phorum Peninsula stock when creating scenarios... and I still need to figure out how on earth we can work around the fact that many people won't be able to get these required assets to get the route to run

Being pedantic, the route will run without PP stock, it's the scenario that'd fail to load. Many of the PP assets were donated by UKTS members, some of them originally available (in different liveries) in the UKTS file library so it may work out that the number of unique stock items is quite small.

[maxtedrw]

Happy to do the quick drives if you haven't already done them.

[thephantomphish]

Hi everybody!

It has been a long time since there was tangible progress to write about, but work has continued on little tweaks and refinements. A friend of mine had a chance to drive this route the other day and gave good honest feedback whilst genuinely really enjoying it, so all I need to do is figure out how best to get the route tested by experts and launched!

I've added the Riviera 50's route to it in order to get the working whistle boards, although these are non-essential - just a nice touch, especially as there are so many of them, even though the SW style isn't quite right. Other work has concentrated on the nine scenarios I have got distracted into creating, all of which are enjoyable and have varying degrees of challenge, covering the majority of the lines included. I've really enjoyed testing these and hope that others will too once a general release can be organised.

Meanwhile I now have to hope that my playing about with the packager has worked so that the route can be tested by trusted experts, and see where we go from there... I still can't commit to a release date, but whenever it will be is getting closer!
It might be that I put it on the Steam Workshop 'as is' despite the Phorum P tracks & stock issue and the large amount of payware required, and that the geniuses of this site produce an enhancement pack; or it might be that it somehow gets produced as some sort of self-contained package. Time will tell... but it is getting closer to being available.
Watch this space for more news as and when!

Thanks again for the continued interest,

ThePhantomPhish

[thephantomphish]

Hi everyone,

I thought it was about time for a brief update... the route has been packaged up for initial testing and has had some very good feedback so far.

The first observation: testing showed that without Phorum Peninsula (but all the other routes) there are no ground textures, tracks or rolling stock, which looks really odd, but installing Phorum then brought it all to life. I still think these are the only bits of PP required, but they are quite significant; I'm still not sure how to get around this issue - even after months of thinking about it. Apparently changing the ground texture set is possible but tricky, and there would still be a lack of rolling stock (specifically carriages) even with alternative track.

The second observation is that there are indeed a lot of other routes called for, as discussed earlier in this thread. Some cases exist of the same assets being used from different routes, but as every route has at least one item that the others don't, it might not be possible to slim the list down. I'd have kept it simpler from day one if I'd known how this was going to develop, but when I started I never thought anyone else would ever see it!

The third observation is that it works (as in operates) correctly as far has been tested - this is quite a relief as it is a fundamental element to the route! In some ways this is the most important aspect and I'm delighted that it seems to work as intended.

I'm really glad to have had positive reactions so far, and am currently working on a few bits of scenery, mostly tidying things up back at the very beginning where my work now looks relatively poor. After a bit more test feedback I'll see what to do about releasing this project for public consumption!


All the best,

ThePhantomPhish