FoxUnpopuli

Deleted, oops.

Pig has it. Apologies for my inconsistent and incorrect spellings. This was me marking up a plan of Harborne station to see how it might scale. The coloured squares are 1metre in 4mm/ft scale. Chad Valley toy factory and some nice semidetached houses make a fair surrounding. Also the retaining wall behind the turntable looks interesting. Warwickshire Railways has a lot of info: https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/lms/harborne.htm As for location, I live in Dauntsey, and Dauntsey Lock station and the buildings of the village are interesting, but I'm not confined to one carrier. I have LMS and LNER stocks, a little GWR and a singular Southern locomotive... One of the station sheds was going to be a rebuild of Waterloo as if the 1943 Abercrombie plan actually went forward, and the London stations became much more interconnected. What Abercrombie was suggesting could be extended to make many of the London terminii into joint stations. Waterloo could have been a starting out point for all four carriers - and a model of the station and planned surrounding buildings to the south bank would be a fun challenge... later.

The percentages are the gradients (i.e. 2% = 1 in 50) but I think you're correct about the transitions. As it happens, I think you've all scared me away from doing steep slopes in the shed, so a substantial redesign is on the cards. @Harlequin or anyone else - you're welcome to have a crack. I've added the end-to-end comment, which suggests the station would be on one side, and the yard/carriage storage on the other. The loco shed could be on either side. What I want: Town terminus station with three passenger platform faces, 8 carriages + loco each minimum each. Goods/parcels dock which may, or may not, be attached to these platforms; 3 or 4 bogie carriages. Access to up and down directions of the outdoor loop (i.e. exit to top-left or bottom-left.) Locomotive shedding area (roundhouse?) with ashpits/coaling stage/watering. Carriage storage if possible. Goods yard / industry area. Technical guidelines: Ideally min radius 900mm, 762mm acceptable in pointwork and goods/shunting/slow running areas. (Discuss?) Peco Code 75 Streamline (but not Bullhead yet as I like variety in my points!) Switchable DC or DCC (so sectioning ideas appreciated.) General construction will be a variant on American-style L-girder - laminated plywood substrates. End-to-end running between terminus and carriage storage/goods yard (which will serve as fiddle yard) inside building.. Period/area: LNER/LMS joint - somewhere in the Leicestershire/Lincolnshire area 1945-1947, but 1956-1958 as a guest starring period.

@DavidCBroad Turntable: yes, you're right... but it's certainly a talking point, no? I saw Harbourn station and liked it, hence its inclusion. Time will tell if it remains here, but I do take your point it looks odd. Maybe the three goods sidings would not all connect to it - some pointwork to get a single escape road would probably work better. Your 'B' point is great information. Yes, now I see that having the carriage sidings alongside the station means that all Empty Coaching Stock movements have to block the mainline. It looks like there needs to be a large headshunt/escape (i.e. like the 'goods route') accessible from the platforms before the main junction throat of the station. Similarly if the loco stabling is to the station side, then again, as you imply, some other headhunt & access is required to not block everything up (too much.) Thank you for this useful feedback. Now... why is the height of the layout a potential issue? The chipboarded area is the 3440x3440mm (3.6x3.6m external) planform of the room. The open area to the right is a 'garage' for large garden equipment. The shed is built on 750mm groundscews (https://www.groundscrewcentre.co.uk/) - visible clearly in the garage area. I've not put in the wood blocks on top of the screws here, you can see I've used upside-down joist hangers to cap the screw and stop the open screw top digging into the wood. The wood is floor joist material - 195x45mm thick. With the floor being 22mm chip on these 195mm joists, and then there being minimum 100mm-ish clearance to the ground... you can see that this puts any permanent way exiting the shed through the wall effectively a foot higher than anything inside. The garden runs for 60 metres or so off to the left of this shot. This gives me an interesting engineering decision - if I make a high-/eye-level layout inside, the PW is above head height outside... awkward to engineer, but practically quite useful for access around the garden. Conversely, if I make it a 'sensible' level outside, it becomes a little low to be practical inside. Of course, I can put gradients in... at 1-in-100 or so! Estimating a 30 metre run to the next station, that allows me just a 300mm drop. Traditional garden railways sit lower, on brickwork for stability. Very sensible. We shall see if I can engineer a practical solution to my particular elevation problems! I think I'll make something that will sit low and get myself a comfy office chair. I can make some drop down workbenches which will allow me to stand and do stock maintenance, etc, but be clear of the layout so it can still be run if necessary, but be lifted out of the way for 'formal' running sessions. Other possibly interesting things in the photo: the stud walls are stacking up to the left. I've built all the walls and some of the roof trusses now, I can probably put the walls in place this week. Then, just waiting on the steel profile roofing (with skylight sheets) to arrive before I clad the walls and assemble the roof.

Very good points. Test track: good idea, and entirely doable. One of the models I do want to do is the Lickey incline (at 1-in-37ish) - and model it faithfully with banking locomotives. Logically, if I wanted 1-in-40 inside, I'd have to bank that too. So, sounds like 1-in-100 is more sensible if I want to do them at all. I do want to model Bournville shed* and have started on a decent locomotive roster for it, with some Saltley and Bromsgrove residents and some occasional Bristol and Birmingham visitors. As for basic operation, yes, your points are well made. But... I would like to shy away from 'fiddle yards'... simply because in theory, I'll have enough room and locations for stock to realistically move from A to B to C and thus have transient homes. If I need somewhere to store stuff first (not an incorrect assumption) then perhaps what I should be thinking about is modelling a marshalling yard with some carriage sidings on the left-hand side, and a loco shed on the other. Father and I have discussed him modelling a proper hump-shunting yard, and we've done a fair bit of research to this end. It would about as complex to operate as the real things were dangerous, but it's a challenge we'd like to try. But for this - no. Just sidings. Maybe this first venture boils down to: 'Functional and self-contained' versus 'a part of a larger layout'. No reason that the former couldn't develop into the latter later? * and Bournville's Cadbury factory, later.

Click pic for 3440x3440pixels. I can supply the .any file to anyone interested.

Hi Phil! Nice to see you here, many thanks. To answer your questions: Single 762mm standard door width, hinged in the centre to the left side, opening inwards. At least, that's the plan at the moment. It could open outwards, as it would open into a 'garage area' of the same shed (overall size of the building is 3.6x6m.) If it opens outwards, however, we can't leave anything in the way in the garage area. Yes, the door jamb means the width is 900mm at the north edge, I could have gone 900mm all around but I pushed for 1m. I'm quite lanky and the layout will be relatively low (for reasons that will become obvious when I post photos of the shed.) Time will tell if I've made a boo-boo, and things can always change or be rebuilt. Track elevations are marked on the image if you click on it (it's quite large - actually 1pixel per mm) but at the bridge the runs curving northwards from the station are at 90mm (should be, but I see they're at 80mm - good spot) and the highest part of the southbound lines are about 10mm - so 80mm rail to rail was the design. The station area is flat at 80mm, and the goods area on the left-hand/west side is flat at ~33mm. Everything otherwise ramps up and down to suit. Elevation changes are a challenge I want to model - everyone seems to shy away from them for the most part unless they're deliberately trying to achieve a multilevel layout. I want to do it to replicate a landscape where someone built a railway!

Good tip - and yes, I bought Anyrail as I liked it It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. I have used 45mm centres for parallel tracks, widening to Peco's standard 50mm at pointwork as required. I just about nailed the platform edges by eyeball, but yes, the roadbed highlights a couple of clashes. I think the platform size is adequate, I'm sure there are prototypical design minimums... and they can be found here on RMWeb somewhere.

I'm building my first shed for the house, this will have to be a general workshop and storage shed (for woodworking mostly - building more sheds) but the eventual goal will be for it to be to house the first of the garden railway 'stations'. At the moment I just would like somewhere to run some locomotives, not quite sure if I have a focus on what's important yet. This isn't my first layout, as I've helped construct and run exhibition layouts before now, but it will be the first in... well, a good long while! The space available is a U inside a ~3.44m/11'3" square, but the layout will eventually pierce the walls, to access the outdoor loop routes 'North' and 'South' (for want of better terms.) Attached is my starter plan, not particularly scientifically laid, with the approximate pierce points through the walls. What I want in the right-hand side of the shed: Town terminus station, with a turntable at the end of the platform used as the pointwork for the runarounds (like Harbourne station.) Three passenger platform faces, 8 carriages + loco each minimum each. Goods/parcels dock which may, or may not, be attached to these platforms; 3 or 4 bogie carriages. Access to up and down directions of the outdoor loop (i.e. exit to top-left or bottom-left.) Locomotive shedding area (roundhouse?) with ashpits/coaling stage/watering. Carriage storage if possible. What I'd like in the left hand side of the shed: Exits to outdoor loop. Goods yard / industry area. Triangle to the loop if it fits. Technical guidelines: Inclines are OK at 1 in 40. There will be superelevation. Ideally min radius 900mm, 762mm acceptable in pointwork and goods/shunting/slow running areas. (Discuss?) Peco Code 75 Streamline (but not Bullhead yet as I like variety in my points!) Switchable DC or DCC (so sectioning ideas appreciated.) General construction will be a variant on American-style L-girder - laminated plywood substrates (hence the capability to superelevate, and have inclines.) Period/area: LNER/LMS joint - somewhere in the Leicestershire/Lincolnshire area 1945-1947, but 1956-1958 as a guest starring period. The station/layout is fictional - but if someone can come up with a real location that ticks some of the boxes (has to have a loco shed) then I'm up for that. A simpler through station on the left with shed/industry junctioned off to the right is also feasible. I've come up with the following, but you may be able to tell I forgot the accesses to the 'south' and added them on very hurriedly this morning. I've included it here and now because I'd like comments before I rebuild it in a slightly more tidy way - hopefully with some improvements for prototypical pointwork at the station throat. The right-hand/station side of layout will be constructed first, and that area will be used as a test-bed for various techniques, as well as locomotive and stock storage for my growing fleet. When the left-hand side is added, it should all combine to work as a layout (just) without the outdoor loop. That said, the layout could be two separated 'straight' layouts with no 'U' inside the shed. A large radius U linking the two could be added outside at the 'south' end later. There is no access to loop across at the 'north' end of the layout. Any help and comments greatly appreciated. I'm not sure I want to accomodate a roundy-roundy inside the space, useful as it might be for running in locomotives, etc. I may have a separate perimeter loop at eye level for doing just this. Cunning and/or elegant solutions will not be pooh-poohed.

A very nice 'shop indeed.

Compare and contrast to https://www.specialistaggregates.com/ if you need bit more volume.

Just a quick note in this thread... not exactly OT, but it's definitely well targetted. I have two complete unbuilt plastic model kits of Formula 1 cars... 1992 Williams Renault FW14B - Hasegawa FS-9 (1:24) (only assembly on this is the top inner front wishbone shrouds are glued to the nosecone halves.) 1998 McLaren Mercedes MP4/13 - Tamiya 20046 (1:20) (Untouched.) Both of them appear difficult to get hold of now. First dibs on these to RMWebbers, I'd prefer to send both together to one of you before I Ebay them. PMs please.

Ooh, fab. Thank you.

I did just have the same thought - at least to pass on what I have - so I'll index the book photos I have in this post, and I have 'Big Four', so I'll include them. Prepare for edits... All with unshaded Gill Sans, unless otherwise noted. LNER 4-6-0's at work 1000 Springbok, dirty green, 12/7/47 1158 & 1159, apple green (ex Vulcan, black cylinders) 5/47 E1051, ex-works black - possible LNER lined red - with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS', 7/2/48 1003 Gazelle, apple green, black cylinders, 29/7/47 1282, apple green, full LNER livery, 5/6/48 (with electric lamps) 1222, apple green, 8/47 61251, apparently lined apple green - with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS', 7/7/48 1123, apple green, 9/3/47 61163 & 61111, both apple green - with 'BRITISH RAILWAYS', 20/7/48 1223, apple green, in charge of 'The Master Cutler' 13/10/47 1112, filthy, but possibly lined black! On freight duty. Summer 1947 The Big Four in Colour 1100, apple green, August 1947 1134, almost ex-works apple green, 1948 Colour-Rail website 1018 apple green 1947 1028 apple green 1/1949 1029 apple green 6/47 1083 black with block lettering, 1948 1119 apple green, yellow buffer letters, 5/47 1154 apple green, 6/1948 1183 apple green 1948 1187 apple green 9/47 1268 apple green 1948 1277 apple green 6/48 61081 apple green, BRITISH RAILWAYS, 1948 61163 apple green, BRITISH RAILWAYS, 20/9/1948 E1299 apple green, BRITISH RAILWAYS, 8/1948 61322 apple green, BRITISH RAILWAYS, 1949 RCTS Online 1042 apple green, with mounts for nameplate, ?? 1119 lined buffer beam implies apple green, ?? 1017 Bushbuck, apple green, 1947

Holy thread resurrection, Batman... ... can anyone assist me in finding photographs of the Thompson B1s in LNER colours? I've just surfed the whole of the Rail-Online archive and I'm fairly certain all of them were BR liveries - some in Apple Green from 1948, admittedly. Can anyone assist with some pre-Nat images? As a quid pro quo starter, I found this wonderful image and will be recreating this very engine from the 61026 model I have: