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branch off a branch layout design ideas


whart57
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I'm posting this as a bit of a spin-off from the Theory of Minories topic. That topic started delving into having more than one terminus, which was not really the Minories concept. However I think the ideas are worth pursuing.

 

The classic example, the ur-design if you like, is probably the Berrow-East Brent layout of c1960, though possibly Peter Denny's Buckingham-Stony Stratford preceded it. The basic design is something like this:

 

image.png.8f3b9bb433052693693ecfc538951f24.png

 

How many real life examples of this are there? Not many I think. In the Minories topic there was mention of the lines on Sheppey where until WW1 trains ran into Sheerness Dockyard and then went back out again to go on to Sheerness on Sea. However it was possible to run directly from Sittingbourne to Sheerness on Sea as indeed trains did when the Dockyard station was closed for security reasons during the war.

 

The reason for pursuing this layout design is to allow more operation between small stations rather than in and out of a fiddle yard. So a variant might be a junction where the normal operation is a train running first to one terminus and then returning to run back out to the other. Sounds crazy? Well it's how things worked on Romney Marsh.

 

image.png.4c3f60cfc267e5de5e4287bdc73286c9.png

 

I can't think of other examples of this sort of operation, though I presume there must be.

 

The idea is to minimise the use of the fiddle yard in operations.

 

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These days I think Georgemas Junction works like this for Wick and Thurso. A much larger example is Fort William, with the Mallaig extension forming a trailing junction with the line from Glasgow.

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Plenty of reversing junctions around. Cromer comes to mind, as does Bere Alston and one on the Looe branch.

 

Services like the Dungeness/ New Romney ones are less common, but the rump of the Woodhead route is operated like that, though the junction is a triangle.

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The branch to Brixham from Churston on the Kingswear line often gets a mention.  It has the advantage that large express locomotives and trains can run through heading for Kingswear on the principal branch line, especially if you model a Summer setting.

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Bourne End?  Maidenhead - Marlow services must reverse; Marlow was originally a branch off a branch when the line ran through to High Wycombe.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

Bourne End?  Maidenhead - Marlow services must reverse; Marlow was originally a branch off a branch when the line ran through to High Wycombe.  

 

 

 

You could get away with Bourne, after the M&GN closed; as it became the terminus of the 'branch' from Spalding, but with the 'branch' to Billingborough open for a few years. 

 

However, whether one return pick-up goods per day, worked mainly by an 03/04 with the occasional class 10, would provide enough operational interest is highly debatable. However, until the early 1960s, the sugar beet season did bring an Ivatt 4MT back to the line. 

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4 hours ago, whart57 said:

Actually there was a sizeable rail-served gravel pit at Dungeness

 

Depending on date, you could also include the Lydd Ranges Railway connection at Lydd. The ranges railway seems to have been standard gauge in its first incarnation (1890s-1920s), although the later version (WW2 onwards?) was/is 2ft gauge and didn't connect to the station so far as I know.

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23 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Depending on date, you could also include the Lydd Ranges Railway connection at Lydd. The ranges railway seems to have been standard gauge in its first incarnation (1890s-1920s), although the later version (WW2 onwards?) was/is 2ft gauge and didn't connect to the station so far as I know.

 

Apparently the 60cm gauge was more for shifting targets around the ranges. Shingle is not easy to move around on

 

The Middleton Press book covering the New Romney branch has some great pictures of the Military railway before WW1. Artillery on flat trucks, whole regiments of horses, massive amounts of straw and hay to feed said horses. Goods traffic of the most esoteric sorts. In fact Lydd camp is almost a layout on its own. Or it could be part of the overall plan

 

image.png.1b08c8b1eebc2631ad188f9a28ff21a8.png

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2 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Apparently the 60cm gauge was more for shifting targets around the ranges.

 

It is quite complex system, or was when I saw it, with different sections for different purposes. A lot was used for self-propelled trolleys carrying mock tanks, the track being in zigzags so that the "tanks" appeared to cross to and fro, but there were locos and wagons too. One of my photos has got in here somehow, I didn't put it there! http://wikimapia.org/7259034/Lydd-Ranges

 

But, the earlier incarnation would make for a superb diorama, would it not?

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Bodmin General takes some beating for weirdness.    A terminus fed by trains from a junction on the GW main line and a through station on the LSWR Padstow line where the trains didn't terminate but reversed direction and departed t'other way a bit pronto. 

Wick with the  Wick and Lybster diverging at the throat circa 1930 or Georgemas Juction with lines from Wick to Thurso and Inverness in the 1960s would be worth a look

The L shape with branch in front of FY does not work well as either the curve has to be very sharp on the inner radius or the curve gobbles up a lot of length.   Loco from one end appearing at the other station while shunting is also an issue.  Buckingham had a Canal Wharf in front of the main line as it curved away from the station at one time which may be something better than a station to hide the FY with.   It also had a turntable FY which reduces the amount of fiddling dramatically.

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1 hour ago, DavidCBroad said:

The L shape with branch in front of FY does not work well as either the curve has to be very sharp on the inner radius or the curve gobbles up a lot of length.   Loco from one end appearing at the other station while shunting is also an issue.  Buckingham had a Canal Wharf in front of the main line as it curved away from the station at one time which may be something better than a station to hide the FY with.  

 

The intention of this layout design strategy is not so much to hide the fiddle yard as to make it less important for operations. The amount of space available will obviously also have an effect. After all the distance from Lydd to Dungeness scales out as around 250 feet in OO. More pertinently from the start of the run round loop at Dungeness to the buffer stops scales out at just over 11 feet. Compromise is always necessary and on a home layout the sneaking appearance of a loco at the throat of the "wrong station" may well be the trade off between realism in appearance and realism in operation. (On an exhibition layout you can just make things bigger)

 

You mention Peter Denny's Buckingham. Would that layout have achieved iconic status if it hadn't grown into a complete railway system which could be operated with minimal input from the fiddle yard? I doubt it would have achieved its fame as a simple terminus to fiddle yard design.

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Silloth in Cumbria- technically a branch (and one laid to insanely tight-radius curves in places, as it was built on an old ship canal), but busy with holiday traffic from Carlisle in the summer.  A branch line led off from Silloth station to a military facility, there was a convalescent home and some rail-served military establishments at one time to the west of the old station.  Plus you had the docks branch which continued beyond the station.

 

Depending on if you count the Cambrian Coast Line as a branch (I would these days) there was the wartime industrial branch line at Harlech which led off to the military ranges in the dunes, just north of the station?

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56 minutes ago, whart57 said:

Compromise is always necessary and on a home layout the sneaking appearance of a loco at the throat of the "wrong station" may well be the trade off between realism in appearance and realism in operation.

This was part of the point of the MAD/SAD section in the Minories thread, with a short hidden section between the two stations you can have a pointwork to enable shunting to not appear on the wrong section.

With minor branches you could probably just have a couple of feet of hidden plain line if the trains are small enough.

Obviously it comes at the cost of some length in the scenic bits.

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1 hour ago, whart57 said:

You mention Peter Denny's Buckingham. Would that layout have achieved iconic status if it hadn't grown into a complete railway system which could be operated with minimal input from the fiddle yard? I doubt it would have achieved its fame as a simple terminus to fiddle yard design.

 

Buckingham was terminus to fiddle yard, at least in its best known incarnation  (I'm not sure how it is currently configured, but its custodian @t-b-g would know). Granted, there was an additional station at Grandborough Junction but a fiddle yard was integral to the working of the main line.  The branch to Leighton Buzzard faced the terminus, exactly as per the general thrust of this thread although I think it was generally worked from the junction.

 

BTW, I think there's a minor distinction to be drawn between systems where a train reverses at the terminus to serve the branch, which seems to be the majority of prototype examples on this thread, and the traditional "branch off a branch" model setup, where the branch is worked with a separate train.   Berrow was I think of the latter type.  It gives a reason to have an additional train and locomotive and an excuse for the Dreaded Bay at the main terminus.

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1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Buckingham was terminus to fiddle yard, at least in its best known incarnation  (I'm not sure how it is currently configured, but its custodian @t-b-g would know). Granted, there was an additional station at Grandborough Junction but a fiddle yard was integral to the working of the main line.  The branch to Leighton Buzzard faced the terminus, exactly as per the general thrust of this thread although I think it was generally worked from the junction.

 

BTW, I think there's a minor distinction to be drawn between systems where a train reverses at the terminus to serve the branch, which seems to be the majority of prototype examples on this thread, and the traditional "branch off a branch" model setup, where the branch is worked with a separate train.   Berrow was I think of the latter type.  It gives a reason to have an additional train and locomotive and an excuse for the Dreaded Bay at the main terminus.

 

Earlier versions of Buckingham were exactly have you have drawn, with the "main line" running from a fiddle yard to Buckingham and a smaller terminus in front of the fiddle yard. The present version has Fiddle yard - Grandborough Junction - Buckingham with the lines splitting at Grandborough so you either go to the fiddle yard or to Leighton Buzzard. There is also the "Verney Junction" branch, which just goes from Grandborough alongside the line to Buckingham and ends in a short tunnel, worked only by a Push-pull train.

 

In the timetable, there are no trains that come from the fiddle yard, reverse at Grandborough and go up the branch. Trains are either Buckingham -Grandborough -Leighton Buzzard (and the same in reverse) or Grandborough to Leighton Buzzard and return. Some trains do a mix of the two during the sequence, s they will go from Buckingh to Leighton Buzzard, back to Grandborough, return to Leighton Buzzard and then go back to Buckingham. Various trains connect at Grandborough and one working includes a slip coach, detached at Grandborough and worked up the branch and back, to be re-attached at Grandborough later. The goods do the same. The pick up goods works from either Buckingham or Grandborough to Leighton Buzzard and back. Wagns for "other destinations" (Fiddle Yard) are collected at Grandborough, worked to Buckingham to pick more wagons up and then depart as an up express goods, which goes through Grandborough non stop.

 

At present, Leighton Buzzard is still to be attached to the rest of the layout, so we have all this still to come. There is plenty of operational interest just with the fiddle yard, Grandborough Junction and Buckingham.

 

 

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