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BLACKNEY, a Glimpse of the Forest


westerner
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As mention a couple of posts ago I have been thinking about a name for the layout and a back story. reading a book I bought for my late father, H. W. Parr's "The Great Western Railway in Dean", I came upon the most unsuccessful of the Forest's lines, "The Forest of Dean Central Railway" which departed from the Gloucester/South Wales line at Awre Junction and then through Blakeney with the idea of linking to Foxes Bridge and New Fancy Collieries. Unfortunately the Branch neber reached further than Howbeach Sidings to the north of Blakeney . This Line despite a revival during World War 11 was officially closed on 2nd Aug 1949. However the track from Awre to Blakeney remained until 1962 as a siding fro condemned wagons. Blakeney never had a passenger station just one siding known as Blakeney Goods.
In my railway world of the Forest Railways Blakeney did have a small station with a couple of sidings and the track was kept for a further 25 chains or so beyond the station under a narrow over bridge. This means I can do away with buffer stops thus giving me an extra 6 inches to play with allowing a little more flexibility in shunting.
Below is a crude track plan to give you an idea.
 

332936426_Plan10.jpg.2e83e00f67cc67048e2ddf986dca6e5e.jpg

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8 hours ago, westerner said:

As mention a couple of posts ago I have been thinking about a name for the layout and a back story. reading a book I bought for my late father, H. W. Parr's "The Great Western Railway in Dean", I came upon the most unsuccessful of the Forest's lines, "The Forest of Dean Central Railway" which departed from the Gloucester/South Wales line at Awre Junction and then through Blakeney with the idea of linking to Foxes Bridge and New Fancy Collieries. Unfortunately the Branch neber reached further than Howbeach Sidings to the north of Blakeney . This Line despite a revival during World War 11 was officially closed on 2nd Aug 1949. However the track from Awre to Blakeney remained until 1962 as a siding fro condemned wagons. Blakeney never had a passenger station just one siding known as Blakeney Goods.
In my railway world of the Forest Railways Blakeney did have a small station with a couple of sidings and the track was kept for a further 25 chains or so beyond the station under a narrow over bridge. This means I can do away with buffer stops thus giving me an extra 6 inches to play with allowing a little more flexibility in shunting.
Below is a crude track plan to give you an idea.
 

332936426_Plan10.jpg.2e83e00f67cc67048e2ddf986dca6e5e.jpg

 

I like the plan you've worked up. Do those squares each represent 6" in length/width? 

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Is there any particular reason for having the three differently-sized baseboards? I would think that three 4'x2' boards would be ideal, especially at the fiddle-yard end. If your sector plate is only about 30" long, you won't get much more than a small tank engine, 3x wagons and a brake van onto it. If you have a 4' long board in the centre, you may be able to put in another siding. You may also be able to use a Left-handed point to create a bay platform if you wanted to expand the operation of the layout.

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The squares are indeed 6 inches. 

 

The reason for the different length boards is due the size of the room (less than 12ft and so that points do not go over baseboard joints. Thinking about the boards could be 1x 4ft and 2 x 3ft 6 inches. That might be more sensible. I think I was keeping the total length to 10ft 6 to allow me to get to both sides of the layout without ducking under, I'm not quite in the first flush of youth, the room is 11ft 6 inches long.

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That last left-hand point at the loco-release. If you substitute a Wye point, you can sneak an extra 1.5" inches or so of length and you don't have to swing that short siding quite so hard toward the front of the layout.

 

I recommend getting yourself a bit of extra length on that sector-plate, even if you get it to 36". At that length, you get a small tank engine, 4x wagons and a brake van, or a pair of medium-sized bogie coaches with a tank engine.

Edited by hartleymartin
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2 hours ago, westerner said:

The squares are indeed 6 inches. 

 

The reason for the different length boards is due the size of the room (less than 12ft and so that points do not go over baseboard joints. Thinking about the boards could be 1x 4ft and 2 x 3ft 6 inches. That might be more sensible. I think I was keeping the total length to 10ft 6 to allow me to get to both sides of the layout without ducking under, I'm not quite in the first flush of youth, the room is 11ft 6 inches long.

 

Thanks that's useful. The location of the points might have an influence on the length of the respective baseboard. They are fairly big in 7mm scale and you really need 120cm to have a couple of standard Peco turnouts back to back. 

 

You can definitely do a lot in a 10'6" space though, even in O gauge. 

 

Will you be able to access the sector plate with ease if the layout is flush against a wall?  

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Just a thought on the sector-plate: Perhaps make the back-scene on that board removable and any buildings similarly removable, or have a long loading platform with the main building on the far-left which would be less obstructive. Another thought just putting it out there would be to make the building low-relief and attached to the removable back-scene, and run some sort of control rod or lever under the layout to move the sector plate.

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Use a cassette on the sector plate. Short length of plastic gutter will do. Add some lifting straps and locating dowels so you can do the fiddling on the bench. Now would be a good time to test/ assess auto coupling whilst your stock is limited.

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Thanks chaps for your thoughts at this stage in the game all contributions are valuable. I was thinking of making a removable back board in front of the fiddle yard or some way of being able to move it from either side, as there will be one passenger train and one goods train I'm thinking of just a two road sector plate, I never quite seem to get on with cassettes.As to the length of a crossover according to Peco their Medium radius Code 124 points are 416mm long so making a crossover 832 mm long some 323/4 ins. Having just measured the Templates in crossover formation it comes to slightly less, however I'll go by their measurements. By the way that does result in a 6ft gap between rails.

Please keep the ideas coming in.

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8 hours ago, westerner said:

Thanks chaps for your thoughts at this stage in the game all contributions are valuable. I was thinking of making a removable back board in front of the fiddle yard or some way of being able to move it from either side, as there will be one passenger train and one goods train I'm thinking of just a two road sector plate, I never quite seem to get on with cassettes.As to the length of a crossover according to Peco their Medium radius Code 124 points are 416mm long so making a crossover 832 mm long some 323/4 ins. Having just measured the Templates in crossover formation it comes to slightly less, however I'll go by their measurements. By the way that does result in a 6ft gap between rails.

Please keep the ideas coming in.

 

I would agree with your experiences with cassettes. Personally I feel they are too unwieldy in 7mm scale given the weight and bulk of the stock. I am always petrified about an accident! I would stick with a sector plate or traversed.

 

This will no doubt be a case of 'teaching granny to suck eggs', and therefore I apologise, but I would recommend printing out the Peco point templates and doing some 1:1 planning. Try various formations, leave it for a few days, keep coming back for another look with fresh eyes. Nothing beats that full size visualisation and you can shuffle some wagons around, work out siding and look lengths and clearances before commiting any serious funds to pointwork or cutting any wood! 

 

David 

 

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Hi Alan, I've another idea for you. If the layout is to be flush to the wall and operated from the front you could make the board on the left a complete fiddle yard board, with the siding going ''offstage'' to a factory/dock/yard etc. I know you would lose a bit of ''scenery'' but you'd have good access to the sector plate and you could shunt open wagons offstage full and return them empty or vica versa. I'd definatly go with the sector plate to ''close'' the run round loop, I've used that on my layout and I like how it works.

Just another thought. Whatever you decide I'm sure it will look great and I'm looking forward to seeing the results.

I might be interested in any stock you're selling Alan as well.

Steve.

Edited by sb67
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Actually another thought - Blakeney is in Norfolk. Is there anything you are not telling us!

 

Personally I am using cassettes on Black Notley. I will be operating fairly short trains - you can see one of them on some of my pictures from last year

 

Paul R

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3 hours ago, pwr said:

Ah

 

There's always two!

 

Gillingham another case in point.

 

Paul R

There's 'two' of quite a lot of places in the UK; even big places like 'Newcastle', 'Stratford' & 'Bradford'. Going to the wrong one could be rather expensive and embarrassing; as an ex-HGV Driver ask me how I know, or why I always checked delivery addresses very carefully ever after, so there was never a second time... :rolleyes: :fool: ;)

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 Not done anything O gauge in the last few weeks as I have been finishing off my Cameo layout Louville Lane, that is now done. I have however bought another Parkside kit, a GWR Brake Van and 2 of the three points I'll need for the layout. As you may have noticed I've added the word Glos. to the title to stop any confusion with Blakeney in North Norfolk or anywhere else for that matter.                   

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