Nether Madder and Green Soudley Rly

[Martin S-C]

32 minutes ago, Regularity said:

At a running junction, rather than in station limits, it would be more usual to gave 4 turnouts and a diamond.

 

The trouble I have is I'm compressing areas a great deal and I already have one of those a few feet away so a second one so close would look very wrong.

[Harlequin]

Quick sketch of how a simple round-the-room circuit could work without losing the key elements:

 

 

Obviously you'd want to re-arrange the main station a bit. (It is unavoidably a through-station but terminal platforms could be justified, especially associated with the branch line.)

Arrows show where I've pushed things around to get more space.

 

There are Pros and Cons, of course! But hopefully it's food for thought...

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Harlequin

[wiggoforgold]

My own preference with the amount of space available would be to reduce the amount of track and increase the amount of scenery to give more of a "railway in a landscape" feel. Possibly reduce the number of sidings?

Alex

[Corbs]

9 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Quick sketch of how a simple round-the-room circuit could work without losing the key elements:

 

 

Obviously you'd want to re-arrange the main station a bit. (It is unavoidably a through-station but terminal platforms could be justified, especially associated with the branch line.)

Arrows show where I've pushed things around to get more space.

 

There are Pros and Cons, obviously! But hopefully it's food for thought...

 

 

In theory, if the branch line kept climbing along the bottom wall, the branch station could be positioned above the fiddle yard at a decent height interval?

[Martin S-C]

11 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Quick sketch of how a simple round-the-room circuit could work without losing the key elements:

Very interesting. I had assumed the circuit track would come off the lifting flap against the wall and pass behind the entire station and so I'd lose a big chunk of scenic run but this idea is better. With your suggestion of the track passing through a set of station buffer stops in effect the model becomes a terminus to fiddle yard plan with the "stalk" of single line track on the lifting flap as a loco spur for the fiddle yard and the circuit becomes just a way to let a couple of trains circle around while in relaxing mode. I like the freight loop that accesses the colliery as well making it easier for trains to leave/arrive in either direction.

I am rather wedded to the Hunstanton track plan though and I do prefer terminus working to a through station.
 

1 hour ago, Corbs said:

In theory, if the branch line kept climbing along the bottom wall, the branch station could be positioned above the fiddle yard at a decent height interval?

Hmm... food for thought. That's another 8ft of run giving me 408" of track so I'd get a 7" rise at a 1 in 58 gradient and a 6" rise at 1 in 68.

Then no duck-unders at all, which is very appealing.

[Corbs]

Hi Martin, the above made me think of Ted Polet's Craigcorrie and Dunalistair Railway, in particular how some of the 'getting from one place to the other' track is hidden behind the (removable) backscene. So if you did do a climbing branch line, you might not have to incorporate it into the scenery, it could potentially be behind the sky for some of its route, helping you to focus scenery on the foreground elements and not have the 'crazy town tracks everywhere' feeling?

 

https://www.009dutch.nl/cdr/main/eframe.htm

[Regularity]

13 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

The trouble I have is I'm compressing areas a great deal and I already have one of those a few feet away so a second one so close would look very wrong.

Fair enough.

As with everyone else, I can make observations and suggestions, but at the end of the day, it is your layout and you have to be comfortable with the decisions you make. I have no issues with anything I say being redundant.

[Nearholmer]

Building on what Corbs has said, I advocate looking for Colm Flanagan's thread here. He is a genius for concealing tracks between scenic profiles set c3" from the wall, which then becomes "the sky", and in narrow "slot cuttings" within scenic sections, which are arranged rather like ha-ha, with the near face slightly higher than the far face. His harbour-scene is a miracle of stage-set design using forced perspective - it looks like the view across a wide, curving bay, complete with distant boat at anchor on the far side, but is only about 12" across, to a scenic profile, behind which I think is track.

 

On my own layout, there is a FY behind the retaining wall at Paltry Circus, easily accessible by reaching over, but effectively invisible unless looked for when viewing normally  to anyone with an eye-height up to mine.

 

I've thought about what I would do in your space (in Coarse-0 of course), which is longer, but narrower, than mine, and I would definitely go for a terminus (I love all that shunting about) with a hidden continuous-run behind it, concealed by one of Mr Flanagan's scenic profiles.

 

Another option that I want to try sometime is to use a roller-blind, fixed to the ceiling or a bracket, with scenery painted on the lower part, just like a 'fly' on a stage. rolling  it up would raise it far enough to access the hidden world, but not high enough to involve rolling the painted section.

[Nick C]

17 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

I agree with what people were saying in that it does now look decidedly more rural. Below is another update using a single slip graphic and shifting that crossing westwards a tad to ease the left hand divergent curve. I have made the observer/guest viewing well smaller now and there now seems to be a good deal more baseboard exposed that is trackless. CJF would have fits if he could see the abuse we are heaping on his concepts.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rr2yjf1d5xihtlh/NewPlan_FiveB.jpg

I like this one. The junction by the signal box bottom centre is very much reminiscent of Smallbrook Junction on the Isle of Wight. 

[Martin S-C]

Currently exploring what happens with a conventional run and a lifting door flap. It allows the colliery to spread out, makes the goods yard more spacious and gives some space between branch line and backscene. I'm going to try a second version with the branch terminus across the angle towards the door again, I just feel like the old problems will return if I hide the storage roads even with that much clearance.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nrtrxs35wbctb1r/NewPlan_Six.jpg

[Caley Jim]

In addition to being able to sit back and watch a train circulate on the main line, it should be possible to arrange a push-pull set to automatically shuttle back and forth from platform 4 to the branch terminus.  This can be switched out to allow you to run a freight on the branch.

 

Jim

[Nearholmer]

I like junctions as much as termini, so I think if it were me I would reorganise the big station on the 'door flap' version along the lines of Rev. Denny's Grandborough Junction, which I regard as the ultimate in model junction design, and possibly pump the BLT a bit to give terminal satisfaction. But, we each have our own prediliction.

[Martin S-C]

I very much agree with you on Grandborough Junction. In its final form I preferred it over Buckingham.

More AnyRail doodling coming up.

[Harlequin]

 

To separate the main and branch lines more you could possibly run the main line closest to the well, then the colliery, then the branch line outside that. That would be good in a few ways:

• The main and branch lines would be better separated and have very different paths, helping to better differentiate them.
• The colliery buildings would partially obscure the branch line. They could be quite close to the branch line because colliery development might have cut into the hillside and created retaining walls.
• It feels "right" for a colliery to be set on/in a hillside in my mind. (Is that true for your kind of colliery?)
• It helps the mainline cross under the branch at a less acute angle.

The difficulty with that idea is that the main line would then have a much tighter curve around the end into the main station - but there are probably ways to manage that.

 

There might be room in the bottom right corner for a private siding off the branch line, either inside or outside, to feed a small industry.

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Harlequin

[Martin S-C]

I like that idea Phil, I'll have a play about with that tomorrow (er... today).

[Martin S-C]

Had a bit of a stumble this morning when I realised that it is key to me that the main station is NOT on the continuous run. While the idea of a Grandborough Junction style station is appealing I would rather not have to have my shunting/marshalling operations at the main "source of interest" on the layout be interrupted every 3 mins by a train trundling through. I would like to be able to leave a train circulating the main run and be able to play shunty things with both freight and passenger at the terminus so I'm back to having the circuit avoid the main station entirely. I do not want a gradient so it needs to run behind or in front of the station. Behind makes more sense in terms of relationships between adjacent tracks but then I lose a big section of the continuous run behind scenery.

Thoughts?

[Harlequin]

12 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

Had a bit of a stumble this morning when I realised that it is key to me that the main station is NOT on the continuous run. While the idea of a Grandborough Junction style station is appealing I would rather not have to have my shunting/marshalling operations at the main "source of interest" on the layout be interrupted every 3 mins by a train trundling through. I would like to be able to leave a train circulating the main run and be able to play shunty things with both freight and passenger at the terminus so I'm back to having the circuit avoid the main station entirely. I do not want a gradient so it needs to run behind or in front of the station. Behind makes more sense in terms of relationships between adjacent tracks but then I lose a big section of the continuous run behind scenery.

Thoughts?

No problem: Headshunts.

 

I think you have plenty of tracks to use as headshunts in the current version of the main station for the goods yard, the parcels and the engine shed areas but you might consider adding more depending on how you think the station would  be operated. You would only need to stop running on the main line when something needed to cross from the branch/engine shed side to the parcels/goods side. Maybe an acceptable compromise?

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Harlequin

[Martin S-C]

Changes on this test drawing are to place the colliery between the main and branch lines thus separating them.

Points of discussion:

1) This lowers the rural look of the branch and raises its industrialised look, so it has more of a Welsh Valleys mood than a Forest of Dean line. The backscene here now has to depict the major colliery structures such as winding house, pump house, etc which previously were off scene within the operating well. Thus backscene here is now industrial rather than pretty-pretty.

2) Extremely tight radius of main line leaving terminus now but this could be masked with a forest scene inside the curve.

3) Baseboards are now extremely simple, all corner shaping has been removed and all sides are parallel.

4) The branch terminus is now brought across to just beyond the doorway at a more acute angle and is operated from within the main operating well = huge bonus.

 

5) Only real drawback of this is the continuous run passing through the terminus. I'd like it to go around it but joining it back up at the right hand end is a problem.

[Sandhole]

Just now, Martin S-C said:

Changes on this test drawing are to place the colliery between the main and branch lines thus separating them.

Points of discussion:

1) This lowers the rural look of the branch and raises its industrialised look, so it has more of a Welsh Valleys mood than a Forest of Dean line. The backscene here now has to depict the major colliery structures such as winding house, pump house, etc which previously were off scene within the operating well. Thus backscene here is now industrial rather than pretty-pretty.

2) Extremely tight radius of main line leaving terminus now but this could be masked with a forest scene inside the curve.

3) Baseboards are now extremely simple, all corner shaping has been removed and all sides are parallel.

4) The branch terminus is now brought across to just beyond the doorway at a more acute angle and is operated from within the main operating well = huge bonus.

 

5) Only real drawback of this is the continuous run passing through the terminus. I'd like it to go around it but joining it back up at the right hand end is a problem.

The tight radius doesn't really come into tings, so long as your locos can get round it. You aren't looking head on at it and you are right, it can be masked by a scenic break.
I think the plan is great. Loads of interest and stuff to 'play' with.
NICE.

[Martin S-C]

Plan Seven_B: a small adjustment to the right hand curve buying me a bit more wider radius by twisting the colliery exit a few degrees. Also buys me some more scenic room at the front for the cost of some between main and branch at the back. I could even have a modular scenic board here to be changed over as moods take me (farmyard, fields, woods, village, industry...)

I am thinking now that if the continuous run comes into the station on platform 1 that would work better. On this side of the through line we have pretty much all the freight shunting except for loco coal and branch freights and on the further side almost all the shunting required to swap over train engines.

I could introduce a double slip at the red marked position with a loco (pilot?) headshunt to give more flexibility. The only moves the running line now fouls are moving sets in/out of the carriage sidings which shouldn't be a terribly frequent occurrence.

Operating the storage loop points from the main station would mean no need at all for a storage loop operator except for exchanging stock from the drawers under the layout which I envisage might only be done once every 3~4 operating sessions and would be an hour's work prior to powering the layout up and would include track cleaning once all the storage loop tracks are empty.

[Harlequin]

The blue high level BLT section is not so big that it couldn't be made demountable... That is to say, it could be permanent most of the time and you duck under it normally but when frequent access is needed to the storage end it could be carefully lifted off and stacked somewhere.

 

The crossovers against the platform faces might be troublesome for your 4-4-0s. If the main station were a through station, then you could imagine the left hand end of it being off-scene, like @KNP's Encombe, and you could then run some of the loops off-scene to the left, thus removing the crossovers from between the platforms. But that would mean more track crossing the controversial lifting flap so maybe a non-starter...

 

Can you explain why you prefer a terminus to a through station? I still don't really get it so I can't decide at the moment if the pseudo-terminus is the best solution or whether a proper through station could be made to do what you want.

 

(Wouldn't the miner's halt be on the colliery side of the track?)

 

[Martin S-C]

22 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

The blue high level BLT section is not so big that it couldn't be made demountable... That is to say, it could be permanent most of the time and you duck under it normally but when frequent access is needed to the storage end it could be carefully lifted off and stacked somewhere.

 

The crossovers against the platform faces might be troublesome for your 4-4-0s. If the main station were a through station, then you could imagine the left hand end of it being off-scene, like @KNP's Encombe, and you could then run some of the loops off-scene to the left, thus removing the crossovers from between the platforms. But that would mean more track crossing the controversial lifting flap so maybe a non-starter...

 

Can you explain why you prefer a terminus to a through station? I still don't really get it so I can't decide at the moment if the pseudo-terminus is the best solution or whether a proper through station could be made to do what you want.

 

(Wouldn't the miner's halt be on the colliery side of the track?)

 

"it could be carefully lifted off and stacked somewhere."

Or taken to an exhibition...

I prefer termini because of the greater amount of operations there - running locos around, taking locos off to shed and attaching new ones, turning locos - this then adds the freight moves associated with a loco shed. Goods all need to arrive and be broken down and depart. I realise some of this occurs with a through station as well, or even indeed all of it.

Yes, I should move the halt to the far side of the track.

[woodenhead]

With the lifting section and the talk of lifting the branch terminus for stacking.

 

I got this through email today and it's an interesting development when it comes to matching up sections of baseboard and feeding power automatically.

 

https://www.dccconcepts.com/news/

https://www.dccconcepts.com/product-category/specialised-model-accessories/legacy-products/legacy-models-power-points/

 

[Regularity]

2 hours ago, Martin S-C said:

5) Only real drawback of this is the continuous run passing through the terminus. I'd like it to go around it but joining it back up at the right hand end is a problem.

Why not flip the passenger station platforms over, to be more like Hunstanton, and have the through lines at the rear of the station?

 

Or just extend platforms 3&4 to form the continuous run - this was a later addition when the second company came on the scene, and wished to connect their line to the pre-existing terminus.

Edited December 16, 2020 by Regularity
See attachment.

[Harlequin]

46 minutes ago, Martin S-C said:

I prefer termini because of the greater amount of operations there - running locos around, taking locos off to shed and attaching new ones, turning locos - this then adds the freight moves associated with a loco shed. Goods all need to arrive and be broken down and depart. I realise some of this occurs with a through station as well, or even indeed all of it.

 

Hoist by your own Petard! 

Yes, exactly, you can do all of that at a through station, and then there are the extra through services to add more operations.

With a suitable back story you can terminate main line trains at the station even though it's not a terminus.