Jump to content
 

GWR mainline terminus on an 6ft by 2ft board. Advice needed.


Recommended Posts

Hi all! I hope that you are all well during these difficult times. I have finally picked up the courage to start building my own layout. As my loft is currently ' Not safe to be building into it'

I have to get the layout into my room. It fits fine, but I have no idea how to get started properly. Some of the larges engines that will be used quite frequently will be Castles, Halls, Modified Halls, Granges, a B12, and my pride and joy, a Rebuilt West Country class. Any tips on how to get started, or even some trackplans would be absolutely fantastic. Bearing in mind hat I only have 7 points. 3 Left, 3 Right, and 1 Y point. Thank you very much.

Edited by GWRswindon101
Link to post
Share on other sites

If you do have another board to run things on to (fiddle yard or traverser) then I expect you are looking at a variation of Minories. Loads of information on this forum. For example.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/60091-theory-of-general-minories/

 

Small layout track plans? Look at the classic if you can.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/7539/peco_products_pb_3_the_railway_modeller_book_of_60_plans_for_small_locations/stockdetail.aspx

 

 

 

Jason

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Probably best in Layout Design topic, might get @Harlequin interested.

With 57ft/60 ft coaches you are looking at 10" per coach and a GWR 4-6-0 is another 10" so loco and 6 coaches takes up your whole 6ft.  With BR Mk 1s and Pacifics make that 5 coaches and a loco, with 75ft Mk3s and class 57, its got to be a loco and 4.

My GWR Branch terminus lets me run round 4 X 60 ft B set coaches in a 7ft length.  from first point to buffers, but that's off a single track and I have plenty of main line for shunting, about 25 feet.  Shortest possible approach track work for a 2 platform terminus  would be a scissors crossover, that's about 2 X 2ft radius points at 8" each plus a short crossing say 4" so 20" give or take which leaves 4ft 4" for the train, that's  loco 3 coaches and a short 4 wheel van.  No running round, you would need a pilot loco. Set track doesn't allow this configuration.

 

I did a doodle and came up with a scissors at the station throat which allows 4 possibly 5 coach trains.   Did 2 versions, track spacing us wide but put a two arch bridge at the baseboard/ FY join to hide it.  Island platform has optional run rounds, bit like Minehead viewed thru a fairground distorted mirror.   Without it just needs a short crossing and the two right and two left points you have already. With run rounds it needs the three ways or the run round is uselessly short.   Have fun

Screenshot (380).png

Edited by DavidCBroad
Typo
  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

And a Minories inspired version.  Too big for 6 x 2  but 4 platforms, top 3 can be arrivals or departures, bottom departures only, perhaps used for parcels traffic, bit like 1 and 1a Paddington

Screenshot (381)a.png

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

You could look at modelling only part of a larger station, as explored here.

 

Alternatively, think about possibly modelling the station throat and some very short platforms (loco+2 or 3), but arrange things so that platforms and platform roads cross the board joint at right angles, allowing extensions to be inserted if and when space becomes available. It's a theme adopted by Freezer in several of the designs in 60 Plans, most notably on Dugdale Road.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

The perennial problem of glamour locos on glamour trains in tiny spaces.

 

If you model a mainline terminus in 6ft it becomes like one of those kids puzzles with the square blocks, you have to move one block to free up space to move another block; and it’s never the one you want to shift.

 

 

Thinking out of the box, with some “Rule #1” sprinkled on top…..

 

The Southern Railway holiday expresses like the ACE started out as large trains but by the time they reached their destination, they had split into much smaller ones.  The locos used would certainly be called mainline (West Country, BoB etc.)

 

How about developing this into a GWR version?

 

The train starts at Paddington, heads into South Wales, beyond Swansea and onwards to Tenby and Milford Haven, but a portion of the original train is destined for Marloes and St Brides (totally fictitious railway but  a cracking name).

 

Of course there would be a turntable for these large engines, but that can be off-scene.

 

You can also have local passenger trains with 2 coaches and a pannier, some freight - fish traffic,  local general goods and household coal.

 

Maybe it’s stretching the imagination, but isn’t that what this hobby is all about?

 

Tell the story, make it half-way believable and Bob’s your mother’s brother.

 

 

PS - If you use “Marloes and St Brides” as your layout name, I want credit  :lol:

 

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

I'd suggest a fictional GW scenario with a large main line station, terminus or through doesn't matter, but what is actually modelled is a suburban section to the side of it.  I'm thinking of something a bit like Cardiff General's Riverside Branch island platforms 8 and 9, which curved away from the main body of the station towards the Riverside Branch.  These were used for suburban and auto trains during the daytime, later 116 dmus of course, but were also used overnight for parcels traffic, which is your excuse for the big engines.  In addition, you might have a loco spur where big engines are stabled during the day awaiting loco changes on through expresses.  

 

My idea means that this is a big station and there is as station pilot handy 24/7, and there is therefore no need for run arounds; the pilot can remove the stock and release the train loco. The set up is that the branch was built some time after the main line station had been completed, and the background can perhaps suggest the side wall of the main station, which unlike Cardiff General has an overall roof or is at least separated off by the wall. 

 

The Riverside platforms at Cardiff General also featured the Strawberry Sidings, which were shortish roads that could be used to stable the likes of TPO, Catering, or Sleeping Cars on your model.  Maybe there's an end loading dock as well, for Siphon H, Mogos, and Pythons.

 

That's my take on the problem, which is basically unsolvable; 6'x2' is nowhere near big enough for a main line terminus with big engines pulling credible main line trains.  10 coaches, not a prohibitively long main line rake in steam days, is about 9' long in 00, and a loco will round it up to 10.  If you allow for the train to be clear inside the points for an engine release, that's another 2 feet, then you have to allow clearance at the other end of the loop.  If this is the longest train on your layout, at least one of your fiddle yard roads must be 10' long as well.  We are now up to 22' of track run, and we haven't yet considered the crossovers and junctions at the station 'throat' yet, nor the possibility of having any scenic run for the train to pass through.  

 

You don't want to hear any of this, you want to be able to run express trains with big engines; the suburban/parcels at night scenario at least ticks some of your boxes.

 

12 hours ago, wirey33 said:

 

PS - If you use “Marloes and St Brides” as your layout name, I want credit  :lol:

'Marloes for Skomer Island' 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I'd suggest a fictional GW scenario with a large main line station, terminus or through doesn't matter, but what is actually modelled is a suburban section to the side of it.  I'm thinking of something a bit like Cardiff General's Riverside Branch island platforms 8 and 9, which curved away from the main body of the station towards the Riverside Branch.  These were used for suburban and auto trains during the daytime, later 116 dmus of course, but were also used overnight for parcels traffic, which is your excuse for the big engines.  In addition, you might have a loco spur where big engines are stabled during the day awaiting loco changes on through expresses.  

 

My idea means that this is a big station and there is as station pilot handy 24/7, and there is therefore no need for run arounds; the pilot can remove the stock and release the train loco. The set up is that the branch was built some time after the main line station had been completed, and the background can perhaps suggest the side wall of the main station, which unlike Cardiff General has an overall roof or is at least separated off by the wall. 

 

The Riverside platforms at Cardiff General also featured the Strawberry Sidings, which were shortish roads that could be used to stable the likes of TPO, Catering, or Sleeping Cars on your model.  Maybe there's an end loading dock as well, for Siphon H, Mogos, and Pythons.

 

That's my take on the problem, which is basically unsolvable; 6'x2' is nowhere near big enough for a main line terminus with big engines pulling credible main line trains.  10 coaches, not a prohibitively long main line rake in steam days, is about 9' long in 00, and a loco will round it up to 10.  If you allow for the train to be clear inside the points for an engine release, that's another 2 feet, then you have to allow clearance at the other end of the loop.  If this is the longest train on your layout, at least one of your fiddle yard roads must be 10' long as well.  We are now up to 22' of track run, and we haven't yet considered the crossovers and junctions at the station 'throat' yet, nor the possibility of having any scenic run for the train to pass through.  

 

You don't want to hear any of this, you want to be able to run express trains with big engines; the suburban/parcels at night scenario at least ticks some of your boxes.

 

'Marloes for Skomer Island' 

All true, but it's also true that many attractive and not too unconvincing main line termini have been built in much less than that. If you accept five (or even four if you're really pushed) coaches as representative of an express, you can fit adequate facilities into 8-10 feet all up, especially if you bend the end round a 90 degree curve. Not ideal, and not fashionable, but doable and provides a bit more operational interest than shuffling locos around another MPD. 

 

In 6ft, though, you'll not fit a whole station. As an alternative to the King's Pancreas or Cardiff General ideas, you could go the opposite way and model the buffer stops of a largish terminus. With 2ft width to play with, you could get in several pairs of roads. Maybe have a couple of shorter ones for locals and parcels for visual interest. The platforms can disappear under a bridge at the limit of the scenic area. That way, only the loco and first 2-3 coaches of your express come into view. Loco uncouples, station pilot removes stock, loco leaves to be serviced and turned. Pilot places stock in departure road. Feed it all with a traverser fiddle yard and you don't lose any length to pointwork. You might get something fun to play with into 6ft.

And your express trains won't cost 400 quid a pop either. 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

This is the very visually effective method behind a West London layout I can’t for the life of me put a name to now just, there is no pointwork at all and trains simply arrive at a platform from a fiddle yard and, for dmus or autos, go back whence they came, or, if they are loco hauled, another loco appears to remove the stock, either as ecs or another service, releasing the original loco.   There is, IIRC, a parcels/milk depot road and the look is similar to South Kensington TFL.  
 

Actually, as a place to show off/display locos and stock, this might suit the OP’s purposes very well, but is a bit lacking in operational potential.  

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

That's the one, Snoops, thank you.  I think the fy's a sector plate so that any train can access any platform.  It's very effective but wouldn't do for me; i need to see a station throat and turnouts!  If I ever built a Minories it would have a street level goods yard.  

 

I once designed, though never built, a layout that was split in to lengths, ' total length, which suited a site I had at the time.  The set up was a double track main line with a goods line to the front of it; there was a trailing crossover and trailing connections to a marshalling yard at the front and carriage sidings at the back.  The scenic section was 3' long between two massive urban looking road girder overbridges angled away from the front, and consisted of the turnouts and the entrance parts of the carriage sidings and the marshalling yard.  At each end was a 4' sector plate fy, and trains could be up to 4 steam era coaches or 12 wagons long; the point was that when the loco entered the fy, the tail end of the train had not left the originating fy, and the whole scenic part could be occupied by a train.

 

The idea was to be able to convince yourself that your trains were really 14 coach pacific hauled expresses, or 60 wagon freights, and traffic could be as continuous as you liked with the carriage shed and marshalling yard pilots shuffling back and forth, the nearside goods line finishing here and any through traffic on it having to join the nearside main.  Trains need to be reversed out of the carriage sidings and the marshalling yard and use the trailing xover to proceed on their proper line, or can be drawn past the access turnouts and set back.  A signal box and a couple of shunters' cabins and that's about it. main line action as intense as you like, restaurant cars, sleeping cars, TPOs, big engines, small engines, locals, trip freights.  Everything contained by retaining walls, a lot of soot, and a generally claustrophobic feel, maybe lit by shafts of sunlight; it owes more than a little to a cross between Roath-Long Dyke/Newtown in Cardiff and Bishop Treacy's photos of Royal Scots in Lime St cutting. with a hint of the eastern approach to Leeds City from the Hull direction thrown in, perhaps an element of Lawrence Hill at the Midland bridge end.

 

The track plan is based on the British Rail double arrow symbol to some extent, and the scenic area can be made even shorter by 3-way points.  I've always imagined it in steam/diesel changeover days, about 1962 or 3, with MAS signalling to suggest a large city.

 

Problem is that it requires either a massive width of fy with about 30 roads in each direction, or an impractical amount of handling of stock. and it needs at least 4 operators (up fy, down fy, carriage sdgs, marshalling yd) to manage a credible intensity of traffic and handle the stock!  The inferred 30 road marshalling yard and big carriage shed are in reality only one or two fy roads each!

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...