New Layout Based on Orpington

[Newmodeller96]

Hi Everyone,

 

So I have decided to model Orpington Station in its 1980s-1990s British Rail / Network South East running period. 
 

I am wondering if anyone can help me to fit as much of the attached plan as possible onto the attached baseboard plan? I keep trying but am struggling. I was thinking of putting the stations on a curve so that they finish at the top right of the baseboard, also I wasn’t going to include the area around the turntable on the left of the picture.

 

Also does anyone have any imagery of that era in orpington would be amazing! 

 

Any help much appreciated.

H

[ikcdab]

Is that the 1980s/1990s track plan? I ask because I thought goods shed and turntables had long gone by then.

[woodenhead]

In your chosen time period Orpington has 8 platforms - 4 through lines and 4 bays (all facing London) plus 4 carriage sidings.

[Flying Pig]

Assuming you are working in 00, the length of an 8-12 coach train of mainline Mk1 stock (e.g. a 4 CIG) is going to be 2-3m so the platforms and car sheds are probably going to be at least that each.  I think you'll need to do some significant compression to fit everything into your space.  

[SRman]

What scale are you working in, Newmodeller96? Also, I cannot read the dimensions on your plan, so it would help if you could state them separately.

My memories of Orpington in 1986 correspond with Woodenhead's description. The car sheds were still in place when I used the station a few times during that visit. I think they had gone on another visit I did in 1999.

Depending on those board dimensions, it may work in N gauge.

[Kris]

Do you have access to both sides of the boards as they are rather wide to reach over?

[KeithMacdonald]

I just took a screen grab from here:

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.37253&lon=0.09121&layers=170&b=1

 

Then pasted it into AnyRail. My scaling for an OO gauge layout might be a bit adrift(?), but at the moment I reckon it would need a space 12 metres long?

 

[ikcdab]

59 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

I just took a screen grab from here:

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.37253&lon=0.09121&layers=170&b=1

 

Then pasted it into AnyRail. My scaling for an OO gauge layout might be a bit adrift(?), but at the moment I reckon it would need a space 12 metres long?

 

Very few layouts are built to scale, so suggesting the OP needs 12m is a bit unfair. He was asking for advice on how best to fit the layout into the space he has. A lot of compression will be required, but then virtually all layouts are like that. 

For the OP, i think first you need a plan of the station at the date you are modelling.

Then can you give us a sketch of your baseboards with clear dimensions?

[Harlequin]

Hi H,

 

Assuming that you want to make a OO model (you haven’t told us what scale you are intending) the space available is barely big enough for a small branch line terminus, let alone a mainline through station.

 

If you are intending to operate the layout, not just treat it as a diorama, you need to leave room for somewhere for trains to go to and come from - usually a fiddle yard or storage yard. A through station like Orpington either needs a fiddle yard at either end long enough to hold the longest train or for both ends to be connected in a continuous circuit. Fiddle yards and curves consume a lot of space.

 

Fiddle yards are usually on the same level as the scenic area. Alternatively, they can be above or below but to do that you need ramps of one kind or another which themselves take up space and have to be carefully designed to make them work reliably.

 

You need to consider how far you can reach across the baseboards comfortably so that you can work at the back without damaging the stuff at the front. 1400mm is almost certainly too far.

 

You are discovering the compromises that modellers have to make to reconcile their ambitions with the space available. This is often uncomfortable.

 

Look at track plans in books and magazines to see what sort of layouts can fit in your space or conversely, what space is needed to model a station like Orpington.

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Harlequin

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 20/10/2020 at 23:53, ikcdab said:

Is that the 1980s/1990s track plan? I ask because I thought goods shed and turntables had long gone by then.

 

It's more complicated than that. The whole track layout would have changed at the time of Kent Coast Electrification and the reconstruction of the Chislehurst Junctions, and, I think, again at the time of London Bridge resignalling (1976) .

 

As Woodenhead mentions, there are four bay platforms now, 1 on the upside (Victoria) and 3 on the downside (Charing Cross / Cannon Street). I am not sure when the new platform, 2 bays on east side,  was put in.

 

But anyway, even in N, the OP has nothing like enough space. One might just devise a plan that has some of the operational features of Orpington but it won't be in any way a model of Orpington.

 

Edit: That OS map has some very odd features, e.g. single track south towards Sevenoaks. Is it totally incorrect? Or was it surveyed at a time when the line was undergoing some serious works?

Re-edit: It's not the OS map at fault. Some of it has not been picked up by Anyrail. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Joseph_Pestell

[KeithMacdonald]

12 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Very few layouts are built to scale, so suggesting the OP needs 12m is a bit unfair. He was asking for advice on how best to fit the layout into the space he has. A lot of compression will be required, but then virtually all layouts are like that. 

For the OP, i think first you need a plan of the station at the date you are modelling.

Then can you give us a sketch of your baseboards with clear dimensions?

 

+1 for pedantically stating the obvious.

[Newmodeller96]

Hi Everyone, as @ikcdabmentioned I was never looking to directly model Orpington but more how I could compromise the plans so that I can make it work in the space I have. 

 

Sorry for a couple of omissions i made in my original post. Yes I am modelling in 00, and no I don’t have access from both sides just from the end and the “inside” edge of the layout. 

 

Thanks

H

[Joseph_Pestell]

14 minutes ago, Newmodeller96 said:

Hi Everyone, as @ikcdabmentioned I was never looking to directly model Orpington but more how I could compromise the plans so that I can make it work in the space I have. 

 

Sorry for a couple of omissions i made in my original post. Yes I am modelling in 00, and no I don’t have access from both sides just from the end and the “inside” edge of the layout. 

 

Thanks

H

Yes, I think we all understood that.

 

Railway modellers are good at squeezing a quart into a pint pot. But you are looking to put several gallons into your pint. It simply won't work.

 

The best that you can hope for in that sort of space is a small terminus (such as Holborn Viaduct).

[ikcdab]

6 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

+1 for pedantically stating the obvious.

and your point is?

 

[Newmodeller96]

21 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Very few layouts are built to scale, so suggesting the OP needs 12m is a bit unfair. He was asking for advice on how best to fit the layout into the space he has. A lot of compression will be required, but then virtually all layouts are like that. 

For the OP, i think first you need a plan of the station at the date you are modelling.

Then can you give us a sketch of your baseboards with clear dimensions?

Hi @ikcdab here is a better picture with the dimensions on! I’m really not sure I am going to fit what I am hoping for with getting Orpington on here. I think I am going to have to change my ideas! See what you think. Also thought of the possibility of having a fiddle yard under the layout? 

 

The dimension in the top left is 820mm

Edited October 22, 2020 by Newmodeller96

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, Newmodeller96 said:

Hi @ikcdab here is a better picture with the dimensions on! I’m really not sure I am going to fit what I am hoping for with getting Orpington on here. I think I am going to have to change my ideas! See what you think. Also thought of the possibility of having a fiddle yard under the layout? 

 

The dimension in the top left is 820mm

Now I've seen the dimensions,  I agree with you. Think of the length of (say) a 6-coach train and loco, 1.8m. That's more than half of your longest, 3m, length. I'd have a bit of a rethink and look for a smaller ststion,  or evern just a locoyard or set of freight sidings.

[RobinofLoxley]

With these dimensions people almost always opt for a shunting layout of some kind. In this case the toe of the L-shape could take trains off-scene.

[Newmodeller96]

Thanks @ikcdaband @RobinofLoxleyany chance you would have an examples of something I could fit in this space?

[Newmodeller96]

17 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Now I've seen the dimensions,  I agree with you. Think of the length of (say) a 6-coach train and loco, 1.8m. That's more than half of your longest, 3m, length. I'd have a bit of a rethink and look for a smaller ststion,  or evern just a locoyard or set of freight sidings.

So I have had a bit of a play and have come up with this!

The main shed is based on Finsbury Park depot, with the single line station modelled slightly on seaford as it mainly takes 2 and 3 car emu/dmus (that I know of) 

 

I could do with some help with the fiddle yard and what to do with the bottom of the layout at the end of the lines into the depot.

 

thanks in advance

 

[Newmodeller96]

21 hours ago, ikcdab said:

Now I've seen the dimensions,  I agree with you. Think of the length of (say) a 6-coach train and loco, 1.8m. That's more than half of your longest, 3m, length. I'd have a bit of a rethink and look for a smaller ststion,  or evern just a locoyard or set of freight sidings.

I have had another play! Which do you think would be better?? 

[Zomboid]

How many locos do you have? That looks like it'd house about £20k worth of modern RTR.

 

It's also nothing like Orpington station. So the question i think you should address before playing with Anyrail (or whatever program you use) it's what do you want to do with your model railway?

 

The big shed with tiny station is a modellers cliché that is almost unheard of in the real world. The only one I know of is at Corkerhill, and that's a through station by an EMU depot. I'd avoid it personally.

[Newmodeller96]

2 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

How many locos do you have? That looks like it'd house about £20k worth of modern RTR.

 

It's also nothing like Orpington station. So the question i think you should address before playing with Anyrail (or whatever program you use) it's what do you want to do with your model railway?

 

The big shed with tiny station is a modellers cliché that is almost unheard of in the real world. The only one I know of is at Corkerhill, and that's a through station by an EMU depot. I'd avoid it personally.

If you follow through the posts I had decided to move to a TMD. yeah it is going to hold a lot of stock and something I hope to do over the years it takes to build and create. I have modelled this on Finsbury Park and I have stuck the small station on the front for something different. Do you think just stick to the TMD then? 

[Zomboid]

Personally I wouldn't have a perfunctory halt as a terminus for MU trains next to a huge shed. I'd focus on the shed. But that's just my opinion, you don't have to please me.

[phil-b259]

On 22/10/2020 at 08:20, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

As Woodenhead mentions, there are four bay platforms now, 1 on the upside (Victoria) and 3 on the downside (Charing Cross / Cannon Street). I am not sure when the new platform, 2 bays on east side,  was put in.

 

 

 

They were done in the early 1990s as part of the upgrade for the channel tunnel. Orpington being the end of the 4 track section meant it was the last place Eurostars could overtake domestic trains before Sevenoaks - and as such it was necessary to remove the trains which up till then had reversed in the through platforms.

 

NSE thus built 2 brand new bay platforms on the eastern side of the formation to accommodate the displaced trains. This change was also accompanied by the demolition of the carriage shed plus resignalling of the entire layout decommissioning the 1950s Kent coast electrification era signalling (The London Bridge resignalling never reached as far as Orpington) and control transferring to the new IECC at Ashford

Edited October 23, 2020 by phil-b259

[Newmodeller96]

12 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

Personally I wouldn't have a perfunctory halt as a terminus for MU trains next to a huge shed. I'd focus on the shed. But that's just my opinion, you don't have to please me.

I’m just happy to hear other people’s opinions as it gives me things to think about.