Harlequin

I agree with Keith that the curved points look like Setrack parts. Redraw using Streamline Code 75 parts to find out if the plan still works. You may need to do something clever to achieve the tight curves in Code 75 flexitrack. I'm sure it can be done but it won't be as straightforward as laying to the typically larger radii used with flexitrack. P.S. I think having one siding without road vehicle access is fine because you need somewhere to store your empties and generally shuffle wagons around during loading and unloading. Edit: I don't think there's room between the tracks for an island platform. The minimum width for an island platform should be 48mm but you can fiddle that a bit. With the tight curves you may need to leave ~25mm between the platform edge and track centre to allow for the overhangs of long vehicles - you need to test that. That adds up to ~100mm between track centres either side of the island platform for most of its length.

The roof trusses are really constraining. Are the inner ones upright? What is the distance between the inner posts? (Looks like about 5 feet?) Do you want your railway to be scenic? Are you using Setrack parts for a particular reason?

I stumbled across a hint about the two whistle tones in this photo of the cab of Odney Manor: In the top right you can see the two labels, “Whistle” and “Brake Whistle”...

That weasel word, "Nominal", is their "get out of jail free" card...

This is 7828 Odney Manor at one of the recent WSR open days: Sorry, not the best photo and take it with a pinch of salt because, (a.) it's one of the 1950s BR-built versions and (b.) it's in preservation livery. I've only just noticed the helpfully labelled Whistle chains - "Whistle" and "Brake Whistle"... Interesting...

The staggered point blades don't reduce the radius of the smaller right hand route by very much. I measure ~915mm for the left hand route, as expected, and ~800mm for the right. Peco do make mistakes with their stated radii. They sometimes claim the Large turnouts are 60in radius - and that's just silly.

Hi Pete, The branch line is very close to the main line in lots of places - so will it "read" as a branch line or just as another part of the main line infrastructure? It will share tunnel portals with the main line, for instance. Operationally speaking, why is the engine shed at the end of the branch line? A tiny branch line wouldn't need a big engine shed. The through station might need one (if it were bigger) but the shed doesn't have a direct connection to the through station, even though it's adjacent to it. I assume the Goods shed (GS?) is just a placeholder for something more developed but remember that the goods shed needs a yard and both of them need road access. You need to be able to back a lorry up to the shed doors. Be careful not to put so many buildings in front of your railway that you can't see it. How is the raised station building connected to the rest of the world? How do people get in and out? Both your high level termini are very close to the back. Remember to leave room for some scenery behind them otherwise they will never look realistic. (Unless you cover them with train sheds!) Minimum: a few mils for a brick retaining wall but that would be extremely boring (and odd for a high level station). Maybe a platform, a low relief station building? Maybe something more fancy?

This is vaguely similar to the station I drew earlier, but rotated by 180° (or flipped). My one island platform was 70mm wide. The other platform was not an island so that it could accommodate a traditional station building with level road access. Tighter radii heading towards the lifting section on the left. Larger curvaceous radii heading into the scenic end on the right.

Yes.

Since the branch platform loop connects to the main line at the other end of the platform you could avoid the second connection at this end as well..???

Yes. The Great Western Way (2nd edition) says that in this period cabs were "Mid Chrome Green" (Loco Green) inside, including the inside of the roof. The footplate was black except timber areas, which were left natural. Much earlier (pre-1906) it refers to a report of the cab interior being painted "Vermilion" (China Red) up to the top of the splashers, with black and orange lining at the junction with the green above! Much more fancy!

Fitting.

I think they do indeed need to break out of the existing geometry to make any improvements now. That's exactly what I suggested here: The idea includes adaptors to connect the new geometry to the standard current Streamline geometry.

A station does not have to be a passenger station - a stand alone goods yard is, of course, a station too. The point I was making should have been fairly obvious: If you have some reason for trains to stop on scene then operations are more varied. Even infrequent and simple stopping operations add different movement to the baseline trains passing through. You can choose/design the station to meet your desired level of on scene operations. I know this is getting slightly off topic. Maybe the OP would like to change the title of this thread to clarify that he was asking about station buildings.

That's the thing, though, you have to just like watching trains go by and nothing else. A station makes other things happen - that's why they are so popular. I'm not advocating against landscape only scenes, they can be great! Just pointing out the huge member of the Elaphantidae family with the trunk sitting in the corner over there.

Here's a quick sketch suggestion for you. You can see it's very similar, just some slight re-arrangements and a bit of a curve. The curve allows the yard to open up more and for the lines to reach into the far corner. Putting the goods shed on the run round spur opens up the yard even more. The run round loop is just long enough to clear 3 coaches. The shed track traps the run round loop. Plain track before the first point allows locos to stay on scene while they run round and lets you see the Home signal better.

Have you got any kind of interference suppression components fitted in the motor circuit? They can affect a decoder's back-EMF measurement. P.S. You need to test decoders from other manufacturers before singling out Zimos in particular. My guess is that they would all show the same symptoms.

Please have a serious word with your S&T department about the interlocking between your points and signals!

Ah yes. That makes sense. Duh! I hope you can get it to work without too much trouble. I think I'd better go and inspect some turnouts I bought recently!

It's very unusual for a turnout to be duff out of the packet. You could try cleaning between the blade and the stock rail to ensure they are clean and making electrical contact (a fibre glass pen is ideal).

Here's my suggestion: I think you've got much too much going on and you should be thinking like the directors of a private railway and trying to make everything as economical as possible. When you placed trains on the drawing above it looked like the run round was plenty big enough so you could: Abandon the bay platform. Slim down the platform now that it's single sided to give more room to the yard. Push the release crossover as far to the right as you dare, leaving just enough run round. Put the goods shed on the spur off the run round. Abandon the existing goods shed line or shorten it so it butts up to the shed, leaving just the mileage siding splaying enough to give room in the yard for access. Replace the expensive slip with just a normal turnout leading to the engine shed. In fact, I would go further and flip the whole station top to bottom so that the platform and station building are along the back and I'd try to get a few more curves in but you probably don;t want to do that. P.S. Technically, you need some sort of trap where the run round rejoins the main line. That could be a dummy trap or for space reasons you could use your double slip there leading to a little stub siding.

Sorry. I was looking at your photo of the shed at Rhayader and imagining a sliding door like that. Of course hinged doors would neatly solve the problem!

Yep, also: It's away from the goods yard so would be difficult for the staff to manage the two sides with two public access points. You have to keep moving empties and full vans from one side of the station to the other. Shunting vans into it will be really tedious because of the kickback and no track beyond it. Vans will have to fetched from the yard two at a time - and all those shunting moves will disappear off-scene in an unsatisfying way. It's off a passenger line so has to be trapped and signalled in a very expensive, non-Cardi-Bach way. (There's not enough room for a goods shed door to open at the moment, BTW.) P.S. Bullhead rail sleepers are much more prone to becoming skewiff than standard track because they aren't connected in pairs like Code75/Code100.

Maybe something like this?

I've been reading about the Cardi-Bach recently and there was a reference to Newport in the Price book. He says that: The board of the Whitland and Taf Vale Railway considered changing it's name to the "Whitland, Cardigan & Newport Railway" in 1876. At the time they were pushing the bill for the Cardigan extension through Parliament and they were advised to change the company name simply to the "Whitland and Cardigan Railway", which they did. That bill passed easily. The Directors proposed putting a further bill forward to extend to Newport and Fishguard in the following session but that never happened.