QRModeller Posted June 6, 2011 Share Posted June 6, 2011 Hi all. This is a plan I've been working on for a few years now and it's going to be my first big layout. The dimensions of the scenic section (what is shown in the plan) are 7000mm x 800mm with a fiddle yard around the back of the layout. The station will be long enough to hold 7+2 HST formations and 7 coach loco hauled trains. There will be a loco refuelling and stabling area for passenger locos and one and two car DMUs. The siding with run-around loop will hold short freigh trains while the loco is refuelling. Also, there will be a small oil pumping facility at the end of one of the refuelling siding headshunts so the refuelling depot doesn't run out of the stuff and will also provide some shunting. Here's the part where I need help. I would really like to include an inspection pit in the loco stabling sidings (circled in image below) but I don't know if it would be a separate siding or if it could be placed in one of the stabling roads. The area available for this part of the yard is about 1080mm long and 200mm at its widest (from the edge of the board to the track above the upper stabling road) and the length of the whole board (1300mm) is marked out by the two black lines. Help with this would be greatly appreciated. One final thing, this project will probably not materialise for another few years but watch this space for when it does. Actually, you'd have to be watching the Layout Topics sub-forum because that's where it will probably be moved to!! Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Kris Posted June 6, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 6, 2011 The layout looks more steam age than modern image. Loosing one or both the crossovers on the main platform would help. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted June 6, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 6, 2011 Inspection pits now tend to be inside the shed, often on all roads, so they can put lights, railings and hazard marking all around and prevent people falling in. I agree, best to remove one of the station crossovers as the maintenance dept. would have gone for that to reduce cost in the 80's. Another tweak would be to include trap points to protect the main lines from sidings, where I've put red dots. Where I marked A they may well have removed that point too to save money as it duplicates the other one further left operationally. You could also remove the point at B and have freight, (I assume that's what the sidings there are for), run round in the station and then shunt back into the sidings. The shunter might turn up by car or ride in on the train. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 7, 2011 Author Share Posted June 7, 2011 Hi everyone. Thanks for the feedback PaulRhB and Kris. Looks like I'll be leaving the stabling roads as shown in the trackplan without inspection pits then. I'm not really trying to make the trackwork look like it would on the real thing but if you think catch points will add to the realism, they might be something for me to think about. I re-read my first post and it didn't really make sense to me so I'll try and explain my idea a bit better. The layout is set around the area where the real Oakworth station is on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway but is not a model of that station (obviously) and the station is a short branch off the main line as shown in the (crude) diagram. Freight The sidings (circled in blue) are so a freight train with a rake VGA vans for example can leave them out of the way while it gets refuelled (refuelling point circled in yellow). Also, there is going to be a pumping/discharge station for oil/fuel at the end of one of the headshunts (circled in orange) to provide the refuelling point with fresh supplies of diesel fuel. Station HSTs and DMUs are fine because they can be driven into the platforms and straight back out again but a loco has to run around its coaches to leave at the head of the train, right? As I intend to run 5 and 7 coach loco hauled trains as well, I included the crossovers in the station. Kris and PaulRhB, after reading your posts, I now understand that only one crossover is required (circled in red). Regarding the set of points from platform 4 that lead to the refuelling point (circled in green), I included that so a DMU that requires refuelling can be timetabled into platform 4 and then move to the refuelling point and then be stabled if required. I hope I've explained my ideas a lot clearer than last time. Thanks for the help so far everyone, keep it coming. Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted June 7, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 7, 2011 Matt Your reasoning makes sense but what you have to remember is that modernisation of track layouts didn't necessarily follow making life easy for the operators! Cost of maintaining infrastructure was the main focus so any duplication that could be got round by timetabling tweaks or reversing shunts was often removed, hence my comments on simplification. A point end is considered as a costly piece of track compared to plain line. Ultimately it would increase shunting as well so would add a bit more movement and thought which I assume would be ok as you chose a terminus rather than a through station. If you were running it as a 1970's or early 80's layout then you might see a plan more like your original but the 80's saw a lot of rationalisation. To get a unit out of the depot at work requires one reverse to get it into the station going to the East or two if they shunt West and it makes quick swaps of units a pain to get around all the other services. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted June 7, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 7, 2011 Station HSTs and DMUs are fine because they can be driven into the platforms and straight back out again but a loco has to run around its coaches to leave at the head of the train, right? As I intend to run 5 and 7 coach loco hauled trains as well, I included the crossovers in the station. Kris and PaulRhB, after reading your posts, I now understand that only one crossover is required (circled in red). Regarding the set of points from platform 4 that lead to the refuelling point (circled in green), I included that so a DMU that requires refuelling can be timetabled into platform 4 and then move to the refuelling point and then be stabled if required. Matt. The crossover circled in red is the one that should be taken out of the plan - it's the wrong way round for the most likely arrival route and it does not offer the longest runround. I'd also do away with the connection you have circled in green - in a modern layout it is highly unlikely that two access routes would be provided to those sidings however 'convenient' it might happen to be (usually saving half a million quid tends to beat 'convenience' hands down & no contest). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 FreightThe sidings (circled in blue) are so a freight train with a rake VGA vans for example can leave them out of the way while it gets refuelled (refuelling point circled in yellow). That would be an unlikely operation, especially looking at the map you're using, with freights being diverted and then stopped so the loco can refuel. Nothing to stop locos coming for servicing if there were industries or yards nearby though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katier Posted June 7, 2011 Share Posted June 7, 2011 That would be an unlikely operation, especially looking at the map you're using, with freights being diverted and then stopped so the loco can refuel. Nothing to stop locos coming for servicing if there were industries or yards nearby though. Maybe make the goods sidings a steel yard there's one just south of Wolverhampton Station which would be a perfect place to base it off. Would give another operation with an 08 assembling loaded trains and moving empties around, then the goods loco coming from the fuelling depot to take them away. There appears to be enough room to make the runaround a pair of sidings ( maybe even 3 ) and include a headshunt back parallel to the mainline. Train would then come in, probably on the siding nearest the mainline. 08 would free up the loco which would head off for refuelling, then the 08 would assemble an outbound train. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 8, 2011 Author Share Posted June 8, 2011 Hi everyone. I've updated the trackplan a bit. I've shown where the baseboard edges and joins are because I would like to have the main boards 110mm wide but I may just make the layout the entire width shown so I will have more room for scenery. As you can see, I've removed one of the crossovers in the station and also removed the connection from the station to the refuelling point which enabled me to redesign the loco stabling roads. I've left the siding with run-around loop inplace for now because I worked out how to draw shapes on AnyRail (this is my first time using it) to represent what I intend to have next to the siding. In my original plan, I didn't want the warehouses to have anything to do with the railway but if what I was going to use them for is unprototypical, that may change. Katier, I like your suggestion about making this part of the layout into an industry but would a steelworks be in the part of a city where I'm setting the layout (somewhere inbetween the center and the outskirts of the city if I haven't mentioned it previously)? Thanks everyone so far for your input, it really is helping me. Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PaulRhB Posted June 8, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 8, 2011 The big cities have sprawled so much now that it's not unusual to find pockets of heavy industry within the city, they don't tend to have lots of modern flats around them but tend to be older areas which grew around them. It could be a cement plant or scrapyard too actually serving the immediate area. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 9, 2011 Author Share Posted June 9, 2011 Oh yeah, that's right. That's supposed to be one of the uni courses I'm studying!! Obviously the main focus for me is on Australian cities but the principle is the same for the rest of the world. Alright, enough about that, back to the trackplan. I like the thought about having a cement works. Would I be able to include the Bachman Scenecraft cement thingies because an ad for them in one of the model railway magazines showed them in a nice little diorama and I would like to do something similar? Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 but would a steelworks be in the part of a city where I'm setting the layout No - worng area of the country as everything would have to be brought in and ore would be some distance away AFAIK. But it could receive steel no problem. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katier Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 No - worng area of the country as everything would have to be brought in and ore would be some distance away AFAIK. But it could receive steel no problem. Indeed, not 100% sure what the works in Wolverhampton produce but it strikes me as a rail served steel works that could appear anywhere. Working with steel products (RSJ's, Wire etc. ) rather than the production of raw steel. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 9, 2011 Share Posted June 9, 2011 Working with steel products (RSJ's, Wire etc. ) rather than the production of raw steel. That's quite different; a mill could, in theory, be anywhere. But normally there'll be a reason for its existance, either the site used to produce iron and steel from ore or it's supporting industry locally. A number of mills which receive blooms and slabs now used to make their own steel. Skinningrove is a good example of this. I can't see a huge works being in the Keighley area to be honest Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennyboy Posted June 10, 2011 Share Posted June 10, 2011 The track layout is very similar to that of Bradford Exchange after it was rebuilt in the late 70s. If you can get a hold of the trackplan it will give you an an idea of how a station of this size would look in the post steam period. I do agree with the other comments about how it is unlikely that there would be a double crossover between the platforms though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Flying Pig Posted June 10, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 10, 2011 Strangely enough, Bradford Interchange (as it became) occurred to me too. Not strange really, as there aren't all that many medium sized termini these days and it's just round the corner from Oakworth. It's also at the convergence of two routes, with reversing through trains I believe. There's no third side to the triangle in this case, however, as the avoiding line closed long ago. The plan below is copied largely from the bird's eye view on Bing maps (here) so it's not to scale and there may be one or two errors, but I think the I've got connections right. They're actually quite different from QRModeller's station, but it looks like a very flexible layout and it's interesting to see that two run rounds were provided. BTW, the odd angle of the concourse is due to the adjacent road. Another road crosses the throat in classic model fashion, with a pier between the top two and bottom tracks, and a third cuts across the platforms. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rivercider Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 The big cities have sprawled so much now that it's not unusual to find pockets of heavy industry within the city, they don't tend to have lots of modern flats around them but tend to be older areas which grew around them. It could be a cement plant or scrapyard too actually serving the immediate area. There are (or were in the 1980/90s) rail served scrapyards in Bradford and Shipley, also rail served steel stock holding sidings at Leeds Whitehall Road and Stourton, so you have a precedent locally. cheers Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Flying Pig Posted June 12, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 12, 2011 Bradford in 00 fitted to QRModeller's 7000x800mm space (1100mm for the end curves), using PECO large radius points and a minimum radius of 27" on the main lines. The main lines are meant to suggest both legs of the triangular junction, so the lower curve will need hiding to maintain the illusion (removable townscape perhaps?). I've also swung the main axis a bit (actually 1.5 degrees!) to avoid an excessively rectangular appearance. There's room for a small freight terminal, using the loop at the top of the plan to run round (so traps would be needed at both ends of the loop). Loco sidings are going to be rather cramped, though you could gain a little more space by leaving out the additional connection to the lower bay platform, at the cost of some operational flexibility and character! BradfordInterchange00.xtc Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 Hi everyone, I'm back! Firstly, just thought I would clear something up. ... but would a steelworks be in the part of a city where I'm setting the layout ... I asked that not with the intention of modelling a steelworks at that time, but just as a question in general although it has been nice to hear what you all have to say. Alright, back to the layout plan. Simon, thankyou for your trackplan, I'm sure it would make an excellent model. However, I'd really like ideas for the track layout of the industry on my plan at the moment (if that makes sense!! I promise I'll try and design my own but it will probably be 100 times less practicle than ones other people could come up with!!). This is because I already know how I'm going to scenic the station board. I will just ask though, can I 'borrow' your idea of skewing the station a little bit so it isn't parallel to the board? Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Flying Pig Posted June 13, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 13, 2011 Absolutely not - that would be copying Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 20, 2011 Author Share Posted June 20, 2011 Hi everyone, just another update. I have decided to make the the baseboards the full 1100mm wide so I have enough room for the planned (in my head!!) scenic section behind the station. This has also allowed me to skew the entire station so it is no longer parallel to the the edge of the baseboard. I've also decided to make the area where the siding with run-around loop was a cement works, mostly because I want to use the Bachmann SceneCraft cement depot/works detailing items!! I have only shown the two buildings that would be serviced by the sidings because I don't have a clue as to what the other buildings would be or how they would be set out. Lastly, I'd like to include the AnyRail file for anyone who thinks thay can do a better job than me for the cement works (that would be most people everyone!!) or if anyone wants to use or modify the plan for their own layout but it seems I can't upload this kind of file. Is there any way I can share this file? As always, thanks everyone for the help and please keep the feedback coming. Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katier Posted June 20, 2011 Share Posted June 20, 2011 I can't help but think your goods loop is too short. I would run it paralell to the main line with as short a loco release as you can manage. Currently I'm estimating 800mm max for the run around loop which is approx 2.5 bogie vehicles (so maybe 6 or 7 4 wheelers). You have the room to make it probably double that. Personally I'd also reverse the cement works and use the run around as the headshunt but not sure which is more prototypical, doing that should allow you 3 sidings.. load, unload and a storage line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
QRModeller Posted June 21, 2011 Author Share Posted June 21, 2011 Hi, me again. Firstly, I forgot to mention in my previous post that I have also decided to split the station board in half as it would be just too big and heavy as one board. I know the platforms are going to have to cross the join but don't worry, I have a cunning plan!! Ok, back to the trackplan. Thanks for the advice Katier, I've now updated the plan to Mk. IV!! The length of the tracks in the headshunt/run-around loop are now just on the plus side of 1000mm and the loco release is 400mm - would that be long enough for a Class 60 (the longest loco I'll be using)? I'll probably end up running four-wheeled stock or really short wheel-base bogie wagons (if there is such a thing) as in my opinion, they make the train look longer than it really is. Just looking at the plan now I'm wondering, could the siding for aggregates kick back from the storage siding? The way the sidings are currently set out, it looks a little crowded and there is quite a bit of space between the headshunt and the back of the baseboards. Matt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 I like the switch to a cemet terminal, but given the urban location I would make it a receiving point as cement works can be quite big. I used to pass one everyday when I went to work - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1392858 Just look how the pub is dwarfed by the works! Have a look at this thread about Northenden Cement Terminal - you can still have two or three roads and shunting potential but it would be more in keeping I think. Easington lane features a rather nice cement terminal - http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/layout_easington.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katier Posted June 21, 2011 Share Posted June 21, 2011 Class 60 is 70ft long, so 280mm (approx), thus you can extend your runaround by 100mm and still have enough room. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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