Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[KNP]

Nice to see you back

Edited December 9, 2020 by KNP

[Nearholmer]

Well, the main thing is that you are emerging from 2020 in a more positive frame of mind.

 

One thing I'd say about the new, streamlined, layout concept is that it might be a good idea to leave open an option or two for adding complications in future. It may be that the streamlined entity totally fits your wants, but I've seldom met a model railway enthusiast who doesn't, at some stage, develop expansionist ambitions.

 

The sort of thing I have in mind is leaving the option to add a high-level terminus or something if the mood strikes later.

 

Kevin

[Annie]

Very good to see you back again Martin.  Pushing on with a layout you'll never be happy with is only going to end in misery, so starting again is really the best option.

[Harlequin]

Great to hear from you, Martin.

It sounds like you’re back on track.

[brumtb]

Welcome back Martin, glad to see you amongst us again and with renewed enthusiasm. I hope this new idea works out well.

I know from my own experience that too much complication and inaccessible areas can lead to a sort of mental and physical inertia!

Keep it manageable but always keep in mind Kevin's suggestion for when the streamlined layout is working and you want an extra project.

All the very best

 

Tony 

[BWsTrains]

1 hour ago, chuffinghell said:

Welcome back 

likewise, Colin

[St Enodoc]

3 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

Hello to anyone still out there after such a long time. I am still here, alive and kicking and feeling a bit more like a human with interests again. It has been a terrible year of course though I think I should put that in perspective and consider my year has been better than most. I am still well, as is my elderly friend Sheila and my daughter Megan. No virus and no other major issues. My mental health has been up and down like a Bishop's cassock as the politically improper saying goes but is currently on the up slope as my interest in wargaming, model railways and a few other subjects is rising which is amazing considering how I was feeling last time I posted here.

I have to confess to not having even switched the power on on the layout since probably February when Neil was last here. We encountered a very annoying feature of the reversing triangle gizmo on that day that appeared to affect the polarity switching software of the DCC Concepts point motors so that was a depressing discovery. Neil took the reversing module away and then lockdown hit.

In the last month or so I have written down a list of things which began as thoughts about the state of the railway but morphed into a list of things I really would like to have in a model and which this one doesn't deliver and I realised that a big part of my low mood was my reluctance to admit that I had made several big mistakes with the design. I have learned a lot, mostly in what not to do and going back over this thread I do find many of you warning me of exactly those things early on, which in my blind lust for progress I ignored. I feel suitably humbled.

But I must face the facts and the reality and accept that I have built (or had built for me) a model railway that just isn't going to work. I have been playing about in AnyRail and come up with another design which is ... well, its entirely different. Its just a case of sitting down with Neil and discussing the wholesale dismantling of the NM&GSR and rebuilding it into a very different form ... but one that will satisfy me more and be more future proof as regards my physical suppleness (or lack of it as the years pass).

The new plan has a continuous double track run and in my mind might represent part of a company such as the M&SWJ or the M&GN where these were doubled, that kind of railway, that sort of level of financial (in)stability. There is a single main terminus and I have heavily based that on a mirror image of Hunstanton because that terminus is just so interesting in terms of its platform layout and intense seasonal traffic. The colliery will remain because collieries and I go together like two things that go together extremely well, as Blackadder might say. There will also be a single track branch line from the terminus going around 2.5 walls of the room to end at a BLT, because, well, BLTs and I go together like... you get the idea.

Whereas the NM&GSR v1.0 had 7 stations, a colliery and a fiddle yard (9 operator positions for full efficiency), v2.0 has just 2 stations, a colliery and passing loops which may or may not be fiddled. They may just store up to 12 trains to be run in sequence. As I will be operating solo for a lot of the time the unwieldy number of operator positions in v1.0 was a big problem and it struck me that in effect I was really just playing trains on a half-dozen small layouts bolted together, sending a train to station X, shunting it there and driving it on to station Y, shunting it there and so on. There was also the mid-room duck-under which was over four feet wide and which I now view with some distaste. The doorway lifting flap although technically brilliant (thanks Alan & Neil) has proven to be a massive pain in the regions we don't speak of on family forums. The garage still has moisture change issues and the flap is continuously "breathing" so that no matter how much we plane off it's end, it swells to always stick tight in the space available. So NM&GSR v2.0 has no lifting flap and no duck-under, or at least not one you need to negotiate to run the major part of the layout. The new plan now incorporates an upright walk-in and a large principal operating well 3 feet 3 ins wide and 13 ft long. The way the storage loops are curved round means there is a 15" wide duck-under to get at the BLT operating position but I can live with such a small duck-under to a position that isn't a primary operating space.

Operation will consist of two trains leaving the terminus and circulating around the main line so I get my "watching trains and sipping (insert beverage of choice)" itch scratched. These two can be left to run while I shunt the colliery or the main terminus goods yard or work away at getting locos off and onto the right ends of passenger rakes in the platforms. The branch can be operated from the main terminus if I use a push-pull set or a rail car of some sort and the once a day freight and Saturdays only cattle market trains will be the only times I'll need to get under the storage loop board to actually shunt that station. The rest of the time everything else is within reach of basically a single central seat on wheels.

Neil is going to phone me on Friday and I'll be breaking the news to him then. Depending on how he takes the news he may or may not subsequently be a suspect in my untimely death.

Good news: you're back in action and you're going to have a railway that you can enjoy running on your own.

 

Not-so-good news: I was really looking forward to seeing that CJF design realised...

 

Anyway, welcome back and look forward to seeing more as you progress.

[Martin S-C]

Thank you all, having your support helps tremendously. Yes, I was very unhappy to realise that the NM&GSR was itself the problem - or rather its design was. The concept is a sound one and I still love the idea very much but it would work much better for a club effort.

I'm going to hold off showing the new plan until Neil and I have had a chat. I'd rather there was some chance of it seeing the light of day before people either applaud it or highlight its deficiencies, and I am certain there are some. I find the AnyRail software result itself very train-setty as the track graphics actually represent the full width of the track to the sleeper ends even though they are edged in a highlighted tone which makes them look like a pair of rails when in fact they aren't. This makes tracks on the plans using the software look chunky. The plan right now is quite train-setty as well because I've not played about with any kind of transition curves or other wanderings away from straight lines.

Tony - yes, the inaccessible areas of track such as storage loops under another station and tunnels on gradients with all the track cleaning hassles were two of the things I wrote down in my list of "woes". I will definitely not have any tracks underneath other tracks in the new plan, other than one overline bridge on the branch. I have narrowed the baseboards as well with 2ft 3ins being the maximum depth and will also lower the baseboard height a tad, probably 3" to 4" because while a high baseboard gives a better viewing angle it makes reaching across without a step stool quite the inconvenience. Its fine if you're an Iain Rice type with a small layout that can be worked on at lap-height and displayed at near eye height but not so good for a big fixed layout.

All these factors are accumulations of things that began to wear me down without me realising they were, hence my low mood at the end of last year.

In many ways its a refreshing and empowering revelation to realise what it is that was wrong before I even take corrective action.

 

St. Enodoc - well, the new plan is very CJF-ish as well Call me a nutcase but I am a bit of a CJF fan. When I was a kid his Plan of the Month always held me spellbound, especially his big crazy convoluted ones.

[Regularity]

4 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

In the last month or so I have written down a list of things which began as thoughts about the state of the railway but morphed into a list of things I really would like to have in a model and which this one doesn't deliver and I realised that a big part of my low mood was my reluctance to admit that I had made several big mistakes with the design. I have learned a lot, mostly in what not to do and going back over this thread I do find many of you warning me of exactly those things early on, which in my blind lust for progress I ignored. I feel suitably humbled.

Wow!

You might feel humbled, but that’s a courageous thing to do, and also very wise.

CJF’s plans were usually designed to allow for flexibility of operations - he was very firmly wedded to the idea of using mass produced track (especially Peco, even after he moved on) and RTR stock as the sound basis of a thorough-going operational layout, and whilst he might have erred on the side of not always accepting that there are other ways of enjoying the hobby*, I think he got it right for the majority, and “Average Enthusiast” meant the typical 68% or so, not “mediocre modeller”. He knew what he was doing at the Modeller, and produced a very balanced mainstream magazine.
 

* He was right in that, say, Lydham Heath in S scale really isn’t for everyone. Wrong in thinking that it wasn’t right for anyone. Not a man to countenance disagreement with his opinions, in my personal experience.

 

Good to see you back after 8 months, and more power to you elbow for being ballsy enough to admit to making mistakes. And total respect for having the confidence to exercise the wisdom to act on thus knowledge.
 

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, Martin S-C said:

Call me a nutcase but I am a bit of a CJF fan. When I was a kid his Plan of the Month always held me spellbound, especially his big crazy convoluted ones.

Me too.

[lezz01]

CJF had many faults as well as many virtues. His biggest was his almost total blindness to fine scale. His tour de force was undoubtedly Minories. He drew that plan based in a cutting but he told me one night in the library of The Model Railway club that although that was the easiest way to do it scenically, he thought the way it would look best was on a viaduct. He envisioned that the ground level, starting at the station building end, fell away towards the fiddle yard end culminating in a street running at 90 deg to the track that was on the embankment of a large river with the railway crossing over both the street and the river on a bridge. The track would then vanish between two large warehouses into the fiddle yard, the front one of which could be the railway goods warehouse which would hide the said FY. Genius, pure genius!!!  You can do a great deal worse than taking inspiration from dear old Cyril. 

A word of caution however, don't take his comments about train length as gospel. His plans were based on commercial products from a time when scale length stock meant nothing to manufacturers. Especially those of coaching stock. So if you're building a Cyril layout you need to add a bit to the platforms and increase the radius as well.       

Regards Lez.   

[Bluemonkey presents....]

Welcome back Martin, glad you are well.

If it helps my planned layout have been baseboard constructed twice with a working double once and now it is stalled pending further (potential) room developments. This has been over a period of 14 years so keep pushing on a railway modeller is never beaten just delayed.

[Martin S-C]

8 hours ago, lezz01 said:

He envisioned that the ground level, starting at the station building end, fell away towards the fiddle yard end culminating in a street running at 90 deg to the track that was on the embankment of a large river with the railway crossing over both the street and the river on a bridge. The track would then vanish between two large warehouses into the fiddle yard, the front one of which could be the railway goods warehouse which would hide the said FY.

That sounds exactly like the kind of visual effect Iain Rice is well known for using.

[Annie]

It started me thinking about a revision of my own digital version of 'Minories'.

[Nick C]

Welcome back Martin!

[Martin S-C]

13 hours ago, lezz01 said:

A word of caution however, don't take his comments about train length as gospel. His plans were based on commercial products from a time when scale length stock meant nothing to manufacturers. Especially those of coaching stock. So if you're building a Cyril layout you need to add a bit to the platforms and increase the radius as well.

I'm not basing the plan on any of his, but the concept bears a family resemblance. Having been weaned on his work I find it extremely hard not to plan the way he did. I could never be satisfied with a tiny Iain Rice or Chris Nevard bucolic little rural or industrial space, you know, something in the 5 ft x 18" league. Yes I have drawn in a lot of track once again but I wanted to try to get a double track run into the space available which happens to be 27 ft x 7 ft 8 ins. The access door is 5 ft 6 ins from one end so a loop of double track with the inner radius at 24" just fits in that end of the room leaving a clear entry without a lifting flap or duck under (that was Imperative Requirement #1).

The terminus has 2 platform faces of 6ft length and 2 of 5 ft. Trains will be 4 x 57ft coaches plus a 4-4-0 loco and maybe a van or two. My chopped up Tri-Ang clerestories are down at around 50 ft length in some cases so I think trains will look about right in the platforms. That's another bugbear of mine - trains as long as platforms and having the platforms a fair bit longer than the trains using them was another Imperative Requirement. The plan of Hunstanton I've based mine on is before the platform lengthening and the simplification of station throat track work which I understand was in the early 1960s. The branch line train will be tiny - just two coaches and one these is a 4-wheeler or it'll be a steam railmotor so that will look lost in a 5 ft platform which is the intention. I will still get some nice shunty activity as the branch terminus will have a dairy Hemyock style as well as a furniture factory so freight vehicles will have to be moved across the station throat between yard and branch platform. The space I have for the terminus is about 15 ft x 2 ft 3 ins plus another 3 ft for the approach curve.

Coal traffic will simply run mostly around the main line. Loaded trains will either go to the main terminus for town customers plus some loads to go down the branch and the rest will go to the storage loops. In both locations I'll use my magnetic grabber device to pull the loads out although I am toying with the idea of a loose loader at the screens which in this plan are against the operating well side of the colliery instead of the far wall side. The loaded trains leave in the direction that does not give a direct run to the terminus so all will be reversed via the main line double junction, similarly for empties leaving the terminus. This is just a ploy to play toy trains a bit more. Freight trains were 8 wagons plus brake on the NM&GSR and on this plan I think I can fit in 10 + brake.

Regarding the NM&GSR it is not dead and its spirit lives on, mostly because I have a lot of stock painted in its various liveries. I think the main terminus will still be Nether Madder and the storage loops / rest of the world destination will be Green Soudley. The branch terminus will remain as Witts End because I have sufficient locos and stock in the Witts End Light Railway livery.

Here is a photo of a pre-grouping Hunstanton and I found this view interesting as a small complete train is stabled in the longer road formed between the loco release crossovers between the platforms. It seems to be a tank engine and two coaches. My plan is the mirror image of this as the attached scribble I hope shows.

[Regularity]

14 hours ago, lezz01 said:

CJF had many faults as well as many virtues. His biggest was his almost total blindness to fine scale.

I notice that you don't specify whether that's a fault or a virtue...

 

33 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

My plan is the mirror image of this as the attached scribble I hope sho

That's very nice.

[Martin S-C]

47 minutes ago, Regularity said:

I notice that you don't specify whether that's a fault or a virtue...

Nice to know that Sigmund Freud is alive and well on RMWeb.

[lezz01]

Well given that I've just returned to the finescale camp as my 00 gauge home layout based on a CJF plan had been in a hiatus for more years than I care to admit. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. 

Regards Lez.

[Martin S-C]

I am sure the man rises to the occasion or some such platitude along those lines.

 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, lezz01 said:

Well given that I've just returned to the finescale camp as my 00 gauge home layout based on a CJF plan had been in a hiatus for more years than I care to admit. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. 

Regards Lez.

You have the advantage on me from your personal contact with CJF but from his writings I formed the impression that he had no fundamental objection to "finescale" but like any good sceptic wanted to see evidence that it worked before praising it (autonomous air taxis anyone?).

[Nearholmer]

I'm never sure precisely what "finescale" means, whether, beyond wheel and track standards, its a measurable thing, or whether its a state of mind, and I'm equally unsure which track/wheel standards are allowed to call themselves finescale, or indeed who does the allowing, and on what authority, but, if EM is finescale, then CJF clearly wasn't blind to it, because a few of his plans in the PSL book are identified as specifically targeted at EM.

 

Of course, he might have been perfectly able to see it, but have been blind to its charms, which is a subtly different thing, and much easier to understand.

[lezz01]

15 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I'm never sure precisely what "finescale" means, whether, beyond wheel and track standards, its a measurable thing, or whether its a state of mind, and I'm equally unsure which track/wheel standards are allowed to call themselves finescale, or indeed who does the allowing, and on what authority, but, if EM is finescale, then CJF clearly wasn't blind to it, because a few of his plans in the PSL book are identified as specifically targeted at EM.

 

Of course, he might have been perfectly able to see it, but have been blind to its charms, which is a subtly different thing, and much easier to understand.

Yes but if you have ever tried to build one in EM as I have, you soon find out that he had little idea of EM geometry. Cyril and his son Nick, modeled Swiss HO themselves.

As to what finescale means I would say that it's closer to the prototype than commercial offerings give you. The fact that off the shelf 4mm scale still uses 3.5mm scale track is the biggest compromise that is hardest to swallow. Hand building track is not hard at all, indeed these days you don't even need to be able to solder to produce EM or P4 track. As for stock, EM is just a case of changing the wheelsets. It's more challenging in P4 because of the need to spring or compensate stock but even then there are products available to enable producing a fully sprung chassis without soldering. Plus you get more satisfaction from building things yourself, well I do anyway.

Regards Lez.      

[Nearholmer]

5 minutes ago, lezz01 said:

little idea of EM geometry

 

I thought EM was a set of wheel/track interface standards, rather than a set of rules of geometry.

 

EM standards don't say anything about, for instance, point geometry, do they?

[benjy14]

Hi Martin,

 

It is really good to see you posting again. I have followed your layout with interest and whilst it must have been a very diifcult decision, I think that you're doing the right thing; if you're not happy with it now, you never will be. As you've taken your decision, I was hoping to offer a little friendly advice...

 

I am in the process of constructing a large US layout depecting the Union Pacific over Sherman Hill. I spent about three years designing it, first in my head and then, when the room became available, on the computer (using XTrkCad as it happens but that's not relevant). As part of this process, I followed the advice of famous American professional layout designer John Armstrong. When he was contracted by a customer, he would always ask them to draw up a list of "givens and druthers"; that is, a list of things that the layout must (or must not) have and a list of things that it would be nice to have. This would allow Armstong to ensure that his design fulfilled his customers' expectations and it was very successful. When I was planning my layout, I wrote my own list to ensure that the design I ended up met my expectations. For example (and I don't say this to rub salt in the wound), it was essential for me to avoid a duck-under to access the layout; whilst this meant two helixes, it was a compromise that I was prepared to make to ensure my "givens" were met.

 

I would therefore like to suggest that you consider doing this yourself with the plans for your new layout. I know you already have a plan but perhaps it would be worth making your own "givens and druthers" list, and seeing how your new plan fits with that list. You may well have already done this but if not, it could also be beneficial.

 

For what it's worth. I have constructed my layout almost precisely as I designed it (aside from tweaking some of the sidings in the storage yard and getting the measurements of my room slightly wrong!) and it is panning out exactly how I hoped it would. The only thing that has come as a surprise is just how good it is under the control of the computer...  If you're interested in reading more, I go into a bit more depth in the opening post of my Dale Junction thread. 

 

All the very best with planning and construction of your new layout! I'll be watching with interest

 

Best wishes,

Ben

Edited December 10, 2020 by benjy14
Corrected typos.