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The local passenger dilemma

47137

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Although the railway is predominantly a freight operation, I want to run a local passenger service between Fairport and Creg (map). This will be a diesel service, "runs when required", separate to the tram operations between Fairport and Shelf. I am hoping, the two passenger operations together will interfere with the freight in an engaging sort of way.

 

My trouble is this. In a way, I'd like a single-unit diesel railcar; if the layout was 00 I'd buy a bubble car and be happy. But the layout is H0, and I have got to build something. I can see two routes:

1) Build a single unit railcar for use at a high level platform

2) Build a railbus for use at a ground level platform

 

Fairport has platforms for either.

 

Option 1) might be a driving trailer from a DMU coupled to a shunter (like the operations at Mangapps) but it will need a conventional high level platform. Such a platform will prevent my MaK Di-8 (very wide) ever reaching the the quayside.

Option 2) looks like a railcar from a bygone age (the line is supposed to be set in 2012) but I have the parts to build something. The platform at Creg for this could be a patch of ground.

 

Fundamentally, this is the one decision which is stopping me from starting any more scenery on my main baseboard. I want to define the nature of Creg, and at the moment it can be anything from a tourist halt to a fuel dump. I suppose, one solution is to try to build two different trains and then choose. I've been thinking this through for too long and maybe I need to ask myself different questions?

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1 hour ago, Stubby47 said:

Could you employ a tram-type of train for the passengers, so either very low platforms, or none at all.

Or have a slightly off-set siding for the high platform ( where the line diverges less than the width of the track), to keep the clearance required for the Mak?

I think I have solved this.

 

There are two passenger services. A tram, using low-level platforms, and a shuttle service using traditional Railway stock between two halts. The tram runs from Fairport to the fiddle yard so only one platform needed (built). The shuttle service runs between two halt platforms, one built and the lack of the other causing this blog post.

 

I think the simplest approach is to build the two halt platforms the necessary 1 mm or so further from the centre line of the track. The one and only service passenger coach (or DMU) for the shuttle can have extended foot boards below the doors, like the British stock on the Nene Valley railway. I can absorb a great deal of the extra gap through the allowed tolerance of the gap (my early notes here). 

 

On Sundays, when the tram gets a day off and the local preservation society runs the passenger service, passengers will be instructed to 'mind the gap' when they alight from their preserved Bulleid coaches. I want to keep these models unaltered.

 

Both of these halt platforms are on the far side of the train when viewed from the front, and the marginally over-scale gap just isn't going to jar when I look at it.

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