Are These Planning Books Any Good?

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Sturminster_Newton said:

Remember that CJF plans can adapt to other scales N, TT, O by dint of his grid resizing to 6, 9 and 21" Indeed you can continue up the scale by multiplying the base board dimensions. When I was setting out my garden line I multiplied a few of the 009 plans by a factor of 4 to get a handle on how much space I needed for a reasonable size station in the great out doors.

 

Similarly some plans can rescaled by using the ruling radius as the grid pitch...

 

Grided plans can operate outside their design scale if you do a little pondering and thinking outside the constraining box.

I like the idea of using the ruling radius as the grid pitch - especially because older plans often had sharper curves than we now use.  If it can be stretched a bit further, then transition curves may become possible in some cases (which published plans don’t always try to include).  Point length and clearances for longer rolling stock on curves can also be checked when re-drawing.

I’m not a Garden Railway Modeller, but I’ve not thought of converting indoor plan elements for outdoor use - nice idea.

[Nearholmer]

CJF 00 plans work particularly well in coarse-scale 0, probably because they are firmly rooted in the plans that CJF himself saw in magazines in his formative years. His oft-used 15” radius, which I think matches Hornby Dublo, become 27”, which (believe it or not) is a very common radius in coarse-0. Very helpfully, an 8ft x 4ft layout in 00 becomes a garage-sized layout in 0.

[Sturminster_Newton]

I'm not suggesting you might take a CJF "rabbit warren" layout plan and build it in your garden.

 

BUT the basic principles of the design would work without having to build your own version of the Cambrian Mountains across your garden.

 

Although duplicating the basic design in mirror image would allow one to 'design out' the hidden roller coaster links between levels and build it a space of 16 x 16 probably more the preserve of those with G-scale leanings and electric traction.

 

The key to all the design books it to take elements mix match and rearrange them rather than slavishly copy them.

 

There are a couple of CJF small layouts built on four modules 3'3 x 15" with a ruling radius of 15". All of which should be manageable on four modules of 1000 x 450 mm with modern R2 in OO.

 

My slight improvement is to add an additional module as fiddle yard to the design and make far better us of an 8x4 space than a flat slab of ply on a frame the usual basis of a train-set railway. 

[Zomboid]

15 minutes ago, Sturminster_Newton said:

I'm not suggesting you might take a CJF "rabbit warren" layout plan and build it in your garden

Shame, that would be fun

 

Many garden layouts are actually a bit that way from what I can tell. Probably not exactly what I'd do personally, but they do look fun.

[Sturminster_Newton]

30 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

CJF 00 plans work particularly well in coarse-scale 0, probably because they are firmly rooted in the plans that CJF himself saw in magazines in his formative years. His oft-used 15” radius, which I think matches Hornby Dublo, become 27”, which (believe it or not) is a very common radius in coarse-0. Very helpfully, an 8ft x 4ft layout in 00 becomes a garage-sized layout in 0.

 

Atlas 3 rail is available as 0-27, 0-31 and a whole raft of other radius that would need a small public hall to set up a simple circuit plus some heart-stoppingly expensive and fairly complex track packs, for those that like 'out of the box' lines.

 

Meanwhile my experiment with modular construction using derived R0 and R1 geometry continues. I have had some custom cut track templates produced, details to follow, to make laying decent curves a possibility for this 10-thumbed muddler. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Sturminster_Newton

[Sturminster_Newton]

2 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Shame, that would be fun

 

Many garden layouts are actually a bit that way from what I can tell. Probably not exactly what I'd do personally, but they do look fun.

 

A few of us have enough space to 'get in' a couple of scale miles of run so muddling a section of a small mineral line is possible.

 

Equally a small quarry line is possible in a much smaller space.

 

And there was/is a model of the Leighton Buzzard line based on Mamod cast metal track and featuring small locomotives just life the prototype...which would please many.

[Nearholmer]

“Atlas 3 rail is available as 0-27, 0-31 and a whole raft of other radius......,”

 

Tricky stuff though, because American set-track numbers refers to the diameter in inches, not the radius, so what is needed for a CJF plan is O-54 (they use an ‘O’, strangely), which is very popular and actually looks OK with small locos if you are standing in the middle of the circuit.

 

All coarse-0 track is expensive, except tinplate, the positive feature being that it is so robust that your grandchildren can inherit it.

[RLBH]

On 21/07/2020 at 08:46, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I’m not a Garden Railway Modeller, but I’ve not thought of converting indoor plan elements for outdoor use - nice idea.

Living in a second-floor flat, my garden railway musings are largely unconstrained by considerations such as the available land. I've realised that an N-gauge garage sized track plan will take up a large garden if modelled in 45mm gauge. Almost exactly the size of my shared back court, in fact. I'm not sure that the owners of the other eleven flats would agree that it's a fortunate coincidence.

 

Coming the other way, a CJF 00-gauge plan built to the original sizes but in N gauge will take care of points growing over 50 years and mitigate the issue of cramming lots of track into a layout. In N, it's the same amount of track, but it's not nearly so overcrowded!

[PatB]

On 21/07/2020 at 18:23, Nearholmer said:

“Atlas 3 rail is available as 0-27, 0-31 and a whole raft of other radius......,”

 

Tricky stuff though, because American set-track numbers refers to the diameter in inches, not the radius, so what is needed for a CJF plan is O-54 (they use an ‘O’, strangely), which is very popular and actually looks OK with small locos if you are standing in the middle of the circuit.

 

All coarse-0 track is expensive, except tinplate, the positive feature being that it is so robust that your grandchildren can inherit it.

Or, if you can live with huge overhangs and quite a lot of flange noise, you can build a CJF 00 R1 plan in O-27 in the same space. Which is a tad mindboggling.