Clipstone Quarry

[Twright]

Hi all

 

I thought it was about time to start a thread on my forthcoming 009 layout although it will take a while to be built as I need to finish building my compressed version of Weymouth harbour railway first.

 Inspiration from 'End of the Line', 'Moving Coal' and others have led me to want a working layout, one that moves something (probably sand, I know it isn't good for mechanisms but I aim to keep spillage to a minimum) from one end to another without resorting to the 'cheating' of having fixed loads (not that I have anything against them). I have mocked up several track plans but always seem to change it after a while so the one below may well change. I already have a board, 925x140mm, hence why it is so narrow and I am reluctant to build another. 

 

 

Basically, the wagons are loaded at the quarry at the left hand side, travel through the country and then get tipped at the right hand end, either at the tip, or into the sand bagging shed. I shall use some form chute (disguised as the sand washer) to load the tippers and will protypically tip them through a hidden hole in the base board at the other end into a tub (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/120156-009-working-tippers/?p=2630034). Motive power will be from the 2 Simplex 20/28 hp locos I have (yet to be painted or finished) and maybe in the future I will get some other engines. I have 1 rake of peco tippers and an unfinished bogie wagon in the style of the WD D class and will make some other fuel/tool wagons to add some more interest.

 

Here is a full size mock-up.

 

 

 

[Corbs]

Great idea Tom, will be watching with interest.

[Nile]

You could do with some sort of scenic break in the middle of the layout, to give the impression of distance between the ends.

I built something vaguely similar to this idea, and having just one type of cargo can make operation a bit boring. Adding some other stuff in is a good idea.

[Corbs]

Maybe an overbridge or something would work for the middle? Or something like an overhead pipeline?

[sir douglas]

you may like "Fen end pit" by David Barham, that is if you've not already seen it. 16mm scale with working drag line

[Twright]

You could do with some sort of scenic break in the middle of the layout, to give the impression of distance between the ends.

I built something vaguely similar to this idea, and having just one type of cargo can make operation a bit boring. Adding some other stuff in is a good idea.

 

Yes, see below with Corbs idea. I agree the loads are limited but I have loaded raw sand, unloaded, bagged sand, spares and  maybe if I extended it I could included preservation passenger services (like the iron horse railroad on the Leighton Buzzard line when it was still in commercial use). One idea from elsewhere was making the layout modular, so I could give everything more space and then included other industries on the line.

 

Maybe an overbridge or something would work for the middle? Or something like an overhead pipeline?

 

Yes, I hadn't really thought about the middle section but that could be good.

 

you may like "Fen end pit" by David Barham, that is if you've not already seen it. 16mm scale with working drag line

 

I have seen Fen end pit, 16mm scale gives so many more options not available to 009.

[Twright]

After much deliberation, here's another plan.

 

 

I have come to the conclusion, that I cannot put all the elements of the quarry in 1m of space. Therefore, as the 2 most important parts to me are the loading/unloading, I will represent these to start with. The black lines represent a scenic break and where once I have finished the first sections I may cut the baseboard to add in a run of country side, a loco shed, road tip and bagging areas. The quarry is at the left hand end and in the middle there will be a tip into a narrow boat with a false floor. the right hand end will have the head shunt behind a bank which I will add scenery to both ends so that with careful planning of track, I can turn it around and make it into the countryside section when the other parts are added (or I could just add a fiddle yard and move the canal section to the end, then giving a run in the countryside, we shall see).

The benefit to having a fiddle yard is that I can run bagging/spares/passenger trains to the quarry without having to have all the sidings. However I do lose the complete visibility which I wanted, showing that there's no trickery with the loads.

[Twright]

This is how I could see it extending. Boards 1, 5 and 6 would be the original ones.

 

 

1 is a working sand quarry

2 is a possibly disused quarry that passenger trains run into

3 is countryside with a river and a level crossing

4 is a halt

5 is the canal exchange

6 is countryside

7 is the main passenger station

8 is the loco shed

9 is the bagging and tipping

 

They all have 1 track in the centre of each end and when combined would be 13ft long.

[Corbs]

Awesome, I had a similar plan cooking up in the old noggin. You could even do a curved module, or a pair of curves.

[Twright]

Thanks, yes I could, or even a junction, passenger one way, sand the other...

[Twright]

I have finally got around to modifying the board, cutting 1 corner down to allow a lorry to be loaded. While in the mood for some railway modelling I then laid all the track which now only needs some final wiring to complete it. I decided in the end to stick with a single board but in the future I may extend it through the quarry, remodelling it from a working quarry to a disused one and building a new larger quarry.

The 6 peco hoppers have all been painted, weathered and numbered, the bogie wagon needs some extra painting and I have some more underframes to build some extra wagons on. The 2 simplexes are painted and just need some final detailing. I have another loco built on a kato chassis and an arnold chassis that will have a steam body on it.