Coder Tim

Thanks, I'm glad it's looking suitably Midlandish. I've shortened the second dock siding as suggested, would it make sense for this to have a dual use as a secondary access for the cattle pens (probably sheep in Airedale) and as an end loading siding with a ramp up to it? Or would it be more likely to be end loading with no ramp so that carts etc could be backed up to it and be at the same level as the wagons? I'm happy to have parcels / milk be handled at the platforms, I just had them at the dock sidings because I didn't know where else to put them, does handling them at the platforms mean they wouldn't detach from their trains but be (un)loaded while the train waited? Thanks for all the pointers so far Tim

Been playing with putting the station on the straight and the yard on a very exaggerated curve, I think it works better. The curve through the goods section is 4 foot radius so it shouldn't look too bad. Thoughts or opinions? Do people agree it's an improvement over the previous attempt? Also managed to get hold of some copper clad strip and gauges to experiment with building some points

I think I've been making it too complicated ever since I decided to use more space, the last couple of attempts definitely got out of hand. I've decided to go back to the original idea: a smallish ex-midland through station with a fiddle yard at each end. The latest plan is basically the medium sized typical midland station that Compound2632 drew for me. This time I've tried building it in Templot to see what it looks like with custom pointwork and it definitely flows better than anything I've had before. Thoughts and opinions? One problem I can see is that to access the goods loop from the south end a train would have to run into the south fiddle yard and then reverse back onto the scene, I can't see much I can do about that in the space I have available. The other thing I'm not sure about is through portions, where would they be kept at a station like this? I'm assuming there is a junction just off-scene although I haven't decided at which end yet. If the junction is to the north then any through portions could be kept in the lay-by, does that sound reasonable or would they have to have been left next to a platform? If so I might have to add a bay for that purpose. Thanks for all the help so far Tim

Still wasn't happy with it and still think it's too big so I went back to the original idea which was supposed to be a small station near a terminus because I didn't think I had space for the terminus itself. Casting about for ideas I've come up with something that fits ok and is based loosely on St Pancras with added carriage sidings so I have the operational interest of forming up trains from ECS and a parcels depot to add some NPCS into the mix. What does everyone think? It would let me do a bit of operations (forming a train) then a bit of watching trains go by (run out and back) which is the operating pattern I'm looking for and it would let me run the ten coach expresses I want, it also fits the room much better (especially if the return loop folds down). Also, I've finally worked out how to edit the thread title.

Thanks for the info MrKirtley, I was thinking about Calverly and Rodley, not far from Armley and Kirkstall as a prototype but I'm moving further down the line for inspiration now. Helices were a thought but they would need too excessive a gradient to fit in the space I have. I took the half-station idea and drew a bunch of ideas based on it but I couldn't get anything I liked. Fundamentally I think the problem is that having the line loop back on itself feels odd. Something that I've been avoiding is a lifting section across the door because I felt that having to set up the layout every time would make me less likely to use it. I've set the constraints that it needs to be a single step to put it in place and that the door should still open so I can duck-under for the odd vital cuppa when necessary and I think I can live with it. The upside is that I've come up with a plan that flows much better, encroaches on the room less, and operates better. I've also changed my prototype inspiration to Skipton, this way I can have the full size expresses I want to run legitimately stop at the station as both the Thames-Clyde and Thames-Forth called here and they were the biggest passenger trains to run on the Airedale lines, though I'm going to upgrade their locos to A4s and Duchesses. I have had to add a gradient back in but it's only 1 in 90 so it shouldn't be a problem. As ever I'm looking for general feedback on anything I could improve or anything I've done wrong. One specific issue is trap points, I know Skipton had one on the through platform but according to the Skipton South signal box diagram there wasn't one on the bay, am I misreading the diagram or is it not necessary? Thanks everyone, diagram of the new plan: And the hidden line that goes to the south storage / return loops:

I hadn't thought of a half-station, that opens up some interesting possibilities, cheers! I'm going to have a play around and see what I can do with it...

I've had time to play about with the layout and I'm a lot happier with it now. I managed to fit the trailing connection to the bay and the lay-by siding. I've also managed to add the return loops I want but at the cost of some compromise: the southern return loop will have to be a lift out section for the cupboard door and the norther return loop is quite short and forced a larger s-bend in the station than I wanted, my plan is to cover that with the station building and the ramps down to the platforms to give the impression that the line continues straight without looping back on itself. In the diagram everything inside the area to the right of the road overbridge including the northern return loop and the end of the carriage siding will be hidden by removable scenery. There will almost certainly be some storage loops on the hidden line to the southern return loop. I'm still not fully happy with the storage situation, will probably have to adjust that and see what can be done. Thoughts and/or suggestions? Tim

No worries, I appreciate the help. Thanks for looking that up, I'm happy to leave it for NPCS but it's nice to have the option of a departure bay if I need it. I took the trailing connection with the three way out because I couldn't get it to fit with the geometry available but I think I might be able to by changing some other curves slightly so will give it another go. The lay-by I just plain forgot, should be fairly easy to add. Keighley on the Airedale line had (and still has) the station building on the over bridge which is what inspired me, both because the prototype is still there for reference and because fond memories of the KWVR as a kid are one of the reasons I'm interested in this hobby. Will post an updated plan when I have one, but have a busy few days so it might not be until the weekend. Thanks for all the help, Tim

It's a good suggestion but I can't use up that much of the room. It did give me an idea though: if I shrink the station and put it on the inside (where the blue lines are on your suggestion) I can put storage on the outside. I've had a go at this and it seems to work better than the other ideas but I'm still not completely happy with it. I moved the carriage sidings to the fiddle yard portion of the main lines because they basically are a scenic fiddle yard, albeit one limited to ECS. I could link the carriage sidings to one set of storage sidings with the line shown in green which would give me more room to store "away" trains but would muddy the carriage siding operations a little. I'm also thinking about moving the carriage sidings back to where they were and having the far side of the running lines be hidden, I think that would be better aesthetically but would reduce the length of visible running line. Will have to have a play about with it but this is what it looks like so far:

I could accept the bay being a loading dock instead, there is plenty of operational interest for passenger services without it. That being said, if I did want it as a bay how would it be arranged? Coming directly off the running line would be my best guess but it is just a guess. Regarding the gradients, they are for accessing the fiddle yards, the idea being to have a hidden level that turns the layout into a dogbone with storage loops. I can see three ways of arranging the non-scenic sections and have done rough outlines for each. The first is what I originally had in mind, drop to a hidden level with the drawbacks being steepish gradients and difficulty of access. The second is to steal a little extra space and have the two running lines meet turning the whole thing into a tail chaser, the drawbacks there being no return loops which is a feature I want, and a lack of storage space as it has to fit next to the scenic section rather than under it. The final is a mix of the two with the running lines crossing over to extend the gradients, this eases the gradients to about 1:100 but at the cost of having to avoid collisions on the crossover, it also doesn't fix the problem of accessing storage that is under the main layout. Diagrams below: Tim

Good point about the bay, cheers, That one's easy enough to sort. I'm also thinking about extending the headshunt/trap at the bottom of the goods loop to make it possible to shunt the sidings without fouling the running lines. Interesting that freights are the most likely to be problematic on the gradients, I wonder if I could use that to my advantage by keeping a loco in a spur somewhere for banking. It would add operating interest to through freights which I was worried about, not sure if it would work though. Thanks for the reply, Tim

Hi, No worries about hi-jacking the thread, it's produced some really useful information. I tend to agree with Compound2632 that the trailing point - slip diamond yard entry next to the platforms is a key Midland feature, and with ejstubbs that trailing access from both ends is another. I've also thinned the trackwork out, removed the facing point, and put the goods shed on a loop. Thoughts and impressions? I feel like I could extend then goods yard loop towards the bottom of the image but at the expense of making everything look a lot more cramped. I'm also unsure about the gradients down to the fiddle yard, I can get them down to about 1:60 and I'm not sure what kind of train could manage these, I'd ideally like to see Duchesses, A4s and Deltics pulling 14 coaches over the main lines from time to time. Thanks again for all the help so far, Tim

Thanks for the comments, they definitely help. I have Jenkinson's "Modelling Historic Railways" and it's a goldmine of information, I'll check out the one you suggested, although I'm not actually modelling the S&C but the Airedale lines that led to it. Yeah, Shipley goods, which I (loosely) based the yard on, had the shed on a loop but I couldn't fit it in, will try and work it in some how because now that you've mentioned it most of the examples I can think of from this size station are on loops. I think the picture of Bakewell that ejstubbs posted earlier had the arrangement you described for cattle, helpful to have it described in words and to know that it was used closer to my chosen prototype. I'm sure the facing point fairy keeps putting the things in my plans when I'm not looking, can't think how they keep appearing otherwise, certainly couldn't be user error on my part... Thanks for pointing it out, I think I've got rid of the last of them on my latest draft. More generally I'm not happy with this version, it doesn't flow well and it's too crowded. I'm working up a twin track version instead of the quad track and it's looking a lot better, will post when it's done. Thanks, Tim

Gone in a bit of a different direction the past couple of days. The original idea was for this to be the first station from a big terminus that would be modelled later, I wanted the terminus because I want to run large expresses and couldn't figure out how to make them interesting to operate in any other context but I don't really have the space for said terminus. Thinking about how the carriage sidings would work made me realise that expresses would be interesting enough at the through station so I decided to have a go at re-designing the through station as the main feature of the layout. The result looks much bigger but actually is quite similar, the only real functional changes are: Platforms extended from 5 carriages to 7 Goods yard extended from 3 sidings to 6 Carriage sidings increased from 2 to 3 and a carriage loop added Double track made into quad track, this causes most of the enlarged look and there are three reasons for it: 1) I think the operating patterns will need it, 2) I like the idea of parallel running trains, 3) the prototype I'm basing things on was four track I've also narrowed down the prototype I want to base it on. It is loosely a combination of Shipley where the quad track line splits into two double track main lines, and Calverly and Rodley which had smaller goods facilities and carriage sidings from Leeds City. I'm assuming that Leeds City was even more confined than it really was and so there weren't any carriage sidings and ECS for anything that wasn't turned around immediately was run out to this station's sidings. In the track plan below South Fiddle Yard represents Leeds City and the line South to London, North Fiddle Yard represents the lines North to Bradford, and Scotland via the Aire Valley and S&C. Operating procedures as I see it would be: London to Scotland Express Run train from South Fiddle Yard through to North Fiddle Yard. Not very interesting but mostly a testbed for automated control. Leeds to Scotland Express Loco comes to carriage sidings from South Fiddle Yard. Marshall train. Propel to South Fiddle Yard representing Leeds City. Run through to North Fiddle Yard, possibly stopping to drop off a through coach or two Leeds to Bradford Semi-fast As express but stop at station, collect Bradford through coaches if any Leeds to Bradford Local As Semi-fast but make use of bay with option to let semi-fast overtake Leeds to Aire Valley Semi-fast / Local As Bradford equivalent but reverse out of station onto Airedale lines Scotland to Leeds Express Run from North Fiddle Yard to South Fiddle Yard, propel ECS into carriage siding, return loco to yard light engine or wait for more locos to form a convoy Anywhere to Leeds Semi-fast As express but stop at station Anywhere to Leeds Local Run from North Fiddle Yard to station, stop, possibly use bay to let faster train through, head to South Fiddle Yard Excursion As semi-fast Local freight Run from Fiddle Yard into goods loop, run round, drop wagons and assemble onwards wagons, run round again, return to main line and run to other Fiddle Yard Block freight Run from one Fiddle Yard to the other. Same lack of interest as London-Scotland Express, another probable use of automated background trains As ever looking for potential problems or improvements and things I might have missed, my current plan would be to build the Airedale half and get that running then build the Bradford half. I realise this looks really ambitious but the Airedale half is only one slip, one diamond, and eight points. I've included a track plan of just that half as well as the full diagram:

I think you could remove the crossover at the throat end of platforms 1&2 by making the diamond there a single slip.

Good points that I hadn't noticed, thanks! I've added a little headshunt to the bay, it will protect the main line and also make it easier to shuffle stuff around in the bay / dock sidings without fouling the running lines. The next point was trickier, you're absolutely correct that a clockwise train would have to run all the way into the fiddle yard to access the goods yard, by the same logic so would a clockwise train wanting to terminate at the bay which would be unfortunate. Between that and the need to run-around to terminate at the bay I think crossovers at each end of the platforms are a given so I've added them. I'm not so keen on scrapping the goods loop though for a couple of reasons. The first being that a separate goods loop beyond the station is, for me, very evocative of the time/place I'm aiming for. The second reason is that shunting the goods yard in that situation would require an extra reversing move on the running lines, which I envisage being quite busy, in order to access the goods headshunt. What I have done is reduce the length of the goods loop (which was bigger than would be useful anyway) and add a little extra run before the fiddle yard so that a train wouldn't have to go off-scene to access the goods loop from the down line. I've also got crossover just after the station which would allow access to the loop at the cost of reversing onto the up running line if that was thought a useful thing to do in some situations. Finally I've used the extra crossover at the bottom to branch off a pair of carriage sidings. DavidCBroad's comment got me thinking that there is hypothetically (and hopefully one day really) a decent sized terminus at the end of the high level line and having carriage sidings for it out here would both provide visible stabling for stock not currently in use and create a source of a different type of train to the usual ones on this sort of layout which would add to the operational variety. I'm thinking something like the way Calverly and Rodley had carriage sidings for Leeds City. Thoughts or suggestions? Tim

Excellent feedback so far, thanks all! I agree about the goods yard being ugly and difficult so I've moved it completely to the other side of the layout. The bay has been left where it was as that line is most likely to have a junction, but I've connected it to the running line, never meant to have it coming off the loop but didn't realise I'd done it. I really like the idea of expresses dropping off coaches as that would give a lot more variety to express workings which I was a bit worried about. I've moved cattle to the opposite side of the parallel / end loading dock, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't have anything specific in mind with the cattle but that is a fantastic image, thanks for sharing Yep, swapped the low and high level fiddle yards, that should make a huge difference, makes the whole thing flow better as well. I'm not keen on having the platforms on the curve either but it's the best I can do with a bad situation, given the space I have that curve has to exist and I can't find a better way to hide it. The geometry doesn't work for having the yard in front of it, I can have the loop go round it instead of the platforms but that looks very "train-set-ish", I could cover the whole thing with a tunnel but then I'm losing a big chunk of my already limited space. I have tweaked it though, I've now got the platforms extending onto the straight far enough to see the loco and first 1.5 carriages (or the last 2.5 carriages in the other direction) and then view blocks to stop the rest of the train being seen in a single continuous line, hopefully that will do the trick. I'm also going to have the whole thing quite high up so viewers will be looking across rather than down on the trains which should help a bit too. I'm not sure if I need crossovers before and after the station now that the loop is a little way down the line? I've shown potential locations in green. Any more suggestions very welcome! Thanks everyone!

Hi folks, I've pretty much abandoned the shed layout but I've learned two big things from it: 1) I want a layout that can run trains, sheds don't enthuse me enough, 2) I don't have the patience for handbuilt track in n. Due to these takeaways I've designed a small station in n using peco code 55 parts that I will expand into a bigger system if this portion of the layout goes well. I'd really appreciate a bit of feedback on the plan, if it would work and if it feels enough like an ex-midland station somewhere on the Aire-valley line? In particular, I'm not sure about the bay platform, there aren't really any branches planned that it would serve, on the other hand having it would let me add that later, my current leaning is to remove it. Plan below: Thanks in advance, Tim