BRÜCKENHEIM (page three onwards)

[TheGhostofNigelGresley]

Happens to us all Howard.

 

Know what I'd do with that room you have available ? I'd have a 13' 11" scenic test track along the far wall, maybe 2 to 2.5 ft wide and then turn the rest of the room into a temple of all things railway and engineering, workbenches, machinery, display shelving, period railway posters, maps etc, etc and then continue to do as you do and help out on more ambitious projects elsewhere where there is designated space for them.

 

Large O gauge projects don't mix with normal life and houses I believe, they belong in sheds, barns and lofts.

 

I'm jealous of your room now, I want it......

[HSB]

At the moment I have two smaller layouts in the room:- Kirkley Mills Mk2 in H0 and Stewart Island in Sn3.5. One factor in favour of only building a small 0 gauge layout is the fact that I have a finger in several scales and gauges. I would like to replace SIR with another narrow gauge layout in 5.5n3 and I have had thoughts on building another H0 layout. I am also quite tempted back to N gauge with the advent of FiNetracks! Decisions! Decisions!

[TheGhostofNigelGresley]

Personally, I'm starting to form the opinion that 'O' and 'N' go together quite well - they fulfill different needs in a railway modeller......

[HSB]

Yes, 0 has the presence while N has the scenic possibilities with realistic sweeping curves. Unfortunately, many of the N gauge layouts I see at exhibitions are glorified train-sets with very sharp curves. 

[HSB]

I haven't yet abandoned the idea of an 0 gauge layout around the room although I have regrettably come to the conclusion that combining a continuous run with a BLT is not really practical as it would make the baseboard far too wide in places. I still like the plan in post #19 and have redrawn it with Templot:-

 

 

One thing I would like to get away from is the duck-under by the door so I have tried reversing the plan so the doorway is clear:-

 

 

Being slightly simpler this is probably more achievable.

 

[HSB]

I have refined the last plan a bit and added a siding in the opposite direction to make shunting more interesting and to make use of the space in the top lefthand corner. While this complicates the trackwork slightly I feel it does all flow rather nicely.

 

[HSB]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on RMWeb.........! Although it is several weeks since posting the last plan I have still been playing around with alternative ideas. While I quite like the last plan and the idea of not having to have a duck-under it doesn't quite give me what I want so I have gone back to variations on the first plan in post #30.

Last week I acquired three second-hand Marcway curved points and have tried to work these into the plan. Anyway, here are my latest thoughts:-

Edited October 8, 2013 by HSB

[HSB]

Hi,

I'm afraid I've been fiddling again! I rejected a previous plan with a continuous run as it would have meant a very long stretch to reach the end of the platform, however, a few days ago I began wondering if I could tweak my last plan by curving the platform round a bit more and incorporate a continuous run after all. I have also tried to give a better impression of how I visualise the scenery with the station perched on a hillside.

 

[HSB]

I've done some further tweaking to the last plan. I have got rid of the coal siding at the front to reduce the depth of the baseboard and added a new industrial siding coming off the headshunt. I have now got the continuous run connection disappearing between some warehouse rather than into a tunnel and this will normally just be used as just another siding. The continuous run facility will just be used for testing and running in (or just for playing trains occasionally!). The bay road was longer than I need so I have shortened it slightly which has allowed me to slew the platform back slightly  as I hate having tracks and buildings dead parallel with the backscene. As on Ramchester the station building will be in part relief.

 

[81A Oldoak]

I've done some further tweaking to the last plan. I have got rid of the coal siding at the front to reduce the depth of the baseboard and added a new industrial siding coming off the headshunt. I have now got the continuous run connection disappearing between some warehouse rather than into a tunnel and this will normally just be used as just another siding. The continuous run facility will just be used for testing and running in (or just for playing trains occasionally!). The bay road was longer than I need so I have shortened it slightly which has allowed me to slew the platform back slightly  as I hate having tracks and buildings dead parallel with the backscene. As on Ramchester the station building will be in part relief.

 

Urban BLT with continuous run 2.jpeg

 

 

"...or just for playing trains occasionally!"  Good adverb is occasionally, which often means all of the time. There is no need to be shy and defensive Howard, Rule 1 applies. 

[HSB]

I wasn't really being defensive, Chris. My main interest is in building layouts rather than operating them so if and when I build this it will indeed only get run "occasionally"! Usually when I invite friends round.

[HSB]

I have decided to abandon the continuous run because however I play around with it I end up with a stretch over the layout of at least 4' to reach the buffer stops on the main platform road which is just not practical for either operating or working on the scenery so I have made another tweak which will allow fairly easy access to all the station trackwork.

I can always take locos up to run on the Exeter 0 Gauge Group test track to run them in which I'm planning to do next week with my new Class 20 and now I have a loco I hope to start work on this layout sometime in the new year.

Edited December 23, 2013 by HSB

[HSB]

I have now printed off the templates for the station throat from my Templot plan. I had problems with the clearances for the point by the signal box in the last drawing. I originally put in a curved point with a 9' or 10' radius outside curve and tried to get the inside curve to blend into the platform road. I realise now I was going about this the wrong way round and have put in a curve parallel to the adjacent track and then taken the point for the bay road off the outside of this curve. Simples!

 

 

I have a number of things to sort out such as my leaking roof before I start actually building the layout but it is a small start! While I am still aiming to build these five turnouts to 0-MF standards I have a aquired some second-hand Marcway and PECO points which I intend to use elsewhere on the layout.

 

[David Siddall]

Below is the plan I have just come up with. Overall dimensions are 10' x 2' 3" tapering to 1' 3". Folded up it would be 5' x 3' 6" which is the maximum size I can get in my car with the back seats folded down.

Compact and with coal drops... the perfect layout concept in my humble opinion ;-)

 

Fewer and simpler turnouts to build too if you're still of a mind – they really are pretty straight-forward if you go the C&L route (...he says with all the experience of having built two and some 60' track panels!)

 

David

[HSB]

Hi David,

I have decided to stick with the larger layout as I have the space and I want to be able run some passenger services as well as shunt wagons. I did consider coal drops for the current scheme until I remembered that BR digram 1/108 and 1/109 mineral wagons don't have bottom doors. I assume coal drops had largely fallen out of use by the early Fifties. No doubt other members of this forum will have more knowledge on the subject.

[David Siddall]

I'm certainly no expert Howard (indeed I'm a bit of a beginner when it comes to coal drops) but my research suggests that the Croft branch drops were still in use right up to the line's closure in the early 1964 and that Piercy Models produce kits for four North Eastern hopper wagons (two wooden bodied, two steel). Parkside also do the steel-bodied hopper. Here's a link to another photo of a wooden bodied coal hopper at Croft, it's being propelled on to the coal-drop spur by J94 68060 (a Darlington-based loco which wasn't withdrawn until May 1965 according to: www.railuk.info/steam).

 

www.disused-stations.org.uk also features a photo of both wooden and steel-bodied coal hoppers together on the Croft branch captioned as being taken in 1960.

 

I have a feeling I've also read somewhere in the course of my research that the coal drops at Bridgnorth on the Severn Valley were still in use up to closure however I can't offer you any evidence so maybe you could still justify drops on your larger layout after all?

 

D

Edited January 11, 2014 by David Siddall

[HSB]

Thanks for the pics, David. Coal drops are certainly an attractive feature but I already have a couple of 1/108s which I wouldn't be able to use  I am actually thinking in terms of having the wagons unloaded straight into lorries or onto the ground as they were at many smaller yards

.

I am currently trying to decide on a name for the layout.

[3 link]

Hi Howard,

 

Just a quick question, what will be your minimum radius on the curved running rails.

 

ATB,

 

Martyn.

[HSB]

Minimum radius is five foot. Sharper than I would like but all there is room for.

[HSB]

As you can see I have finally settled on a name for my proposed layout after much agonising. I wanted something which suggested West Yorkshire but I couldn't think of anything I liked as much as the name I used for my H0 layout 'Kirkley Mills' (not to be confused with a 00 layout much featured on RMWeb with a fairly similar name and also set in West Yorkshire -  a case of great minds thinking alike   ). As my HO layout is still in existence I have decided my 0 gauge layout will be its near neighbour 'West Kirkley'. The time period was originally going to be circa 1960 (the same as Ramchester) but as I now have an English Electric Type 1 (i.e. a Class 20) with yellow panels on the ends I have moved that forward slightly to the mid-Sixties.

I have also been tweaking the plan very slightly although it still looks very like the last one I posted. I had two minor problems with the last plan which I have now got round. I wanted to be able to use ready-made Vs for the hand-built points one of which would have been 1:10 but have found that C&L only go up to a 1:9! Also I am about to aquire two second-hand PECO points which I intent to use for the crossover in front of the station building but one would have overlapped the start of the curve. After much cussing I have managed to alter the points at the station throat so none is now more than 1:9 and the length of track where the crossover is going is now straight. Of course this does mean I have to print out the Templot templates again and stick them together! All part of the fun of railway modelling.

Edited January 23, 2014 by HSB

[switcher 1]

PECO points & "much cussing" go together quite often I'm afraid, they are just too big! (especially as housing gets ever smaller.)

[HSB]

PECO points equate to around a 1:6 turnout and I wouldn't really want to use anything much sharper than that even for a loco release crossover. My problem arose because I originally intended to try building the crossover myself so the fact that it overlapped the end of the transition curve on the runround loop would have been irrelevant.

The limited range available from PECO certainly does rather limit what you can build with them. Of course there are alternatives available with Marcway offering a much bigger range if you are prepared to accept the lack of chairs while Aquitrain and Borgrail both now offer points made from C&L parts at what appear to be fairly reasonable prices.

[HSB]

I've done some further refining of the plan but nothing drastic. I have adjusted the points at the station throat and tightened the curve into the private siding near the tunnel mouth to 1400mm ( aprox. 4' 7") although the minimum curve on the main line remains at 5'. Also the front siding in the goods yard curves back to end parallel with the back siding which has allowed me to lengthen it slightly.

 

 

I have also received some 0-MF gauges I ordered from Debs so I'll have to try my hand at building a point in the near future.

Edited February 1, 2014 by HSB

[3 link]

Hi Howard,

 

I think that's an interesting plan and it holds plenty of varied shunting puzzles, it also does not look overcrowded in the space you have available.

 

I build to 31.5mm have some of Debs 0-MF gauges and very good they are too, is Debs making some more gauges?  As there were a few chaps on here who did want some a while back.

 

Good luck with the point building, I thoroughly enjoy building trackwork just as much as building locos and stock.

 

ATB,

 

Martyn.

[CME and Bottlewasher]

Hi Howard,

 

Havnt had much time to browse - yet from what I can see, I like your thinking and the progress thereof.

 

Kindest,

 

CME