layout Help on new branch line layout

[Joeh260]

Started this as a new topic for this as I have changed the layout idea completely. The baseboards for the layout are already made and the current scenic area is 12" x 2" as shown in the pdf file below. The rest of the current baseboards will form a temporary fiddle yard until I have the time to set up more baseboards and hopefully slightly warmer weather. 

 

The pdf attached below shows the track plan that I'm relatively happy with but have a few questions about and would also like some suggestions on. I would prefer if only slight modifications where made to the track on the plan as the rear of the baseboard is quite restricted for space underneath which will make installing point motors and wiring rather difficult if possible at all.

My questions are;

1. How would I signal this layout? (placement of signals and what kind)

2. On diagram B any suggestions what I could put in this area? I have looked at putting longer sidings as shown on diagram C in the red box but it looks quite forced being so cluttered around that area. however it give more storage for wagons/coaches and may look slightly more prototypical than having the goods yard coming of the passing loop for the station.

3. With the goods yard being rather small only holding around 5-6 wagons on each line what sort of goods would be taken to/from this sort of yard. perhaps the main industry for this goods yard could be placed opposing it in the area designated in that white box on diagram B.

track plan.pdf

Any pictures of similar types of layout or real locations for inspiration would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks 

Joe

[The Johnster]

The layout will work well enough as it is drawn, but I have some suggestions, made in the spirit of ‘this is what I’d do’; I’m not you and your thoughts may be different entirely.  
 

Firstly, I’d introduce a gentle curvature to impart a more natural ‘feel’ to the scene, with the running line entering towards the rear top right, and curving towards the bottom, I assume front edge, then back towards the rear at the left ‘town’ end. 
 

This opens several possibilities.  There will be room at the town end for the stub end of the loop to diverge with a Y point to a siding serving a goods shed, provenance store, or even a small industry.  This means the goods yard, at the country end, can be devoted to mileage and coal staithes, with maybe a cattle or end loading dock. 
 

In addition, as the running line now enters the fiddle yard at the rear of the layout, if we assume that it is not a sector plate type, there is now a bit of space in front of the ‘throat’ of it to extend the goods yard roads into.  

This means that the area behind the bay platform, since the curve has brought the platform, loop, and bay towards the front edge, is now ripe for development; town buildings, industry, harbour, canal wharf, dairy, quarry, colliery exchange sidings, hill, whatever. 

[Miserable]

Have you considered using curved points? I may be just me, but I find they can add a nice 'flow' to the layout. With yours switching from top to bottom this may work? The down side is you may have to angle the platforms, or have curved ones. Below is my track plan which uses only curved points (one home made) and a Y. The space is not wildly dissimilar to yours.

[Joeh260]

4 hours ago, The Johnster said:

The layout will work well enough as it is drawn, but I have some suggestions, made in the spirit of ‘this is what I’d do’; I’m not you and your thoughts may be different entirely.  
 

Firstly, I’d introduce a gentle curvature to impart a more natural ‘feel’ to the scene, with the running line entering towards the rear top right, and curving towards the bottom, I assume front edge, then back towards the rear at the left ‘town’ end. 
 

This opens several possibilities.  There will be room at the town end for the stub end of the loop to diverge with a Y point to a siding serving a goods shed, provenance store, or even a small industry.  This means the goods yard, at the country end, can be devoted to mileage and coal staithes, with maybe a cattle or end loading dock. 
 

In addition, as the running line now enters the fiddle yard at the rear of the layout, if we assume that it is not a sector plate type, there is now a bit of space in front of the ‘throat’ of it to extend the goods yard roads into.  

This means that the area behind the bay platform, since the curve has brought the platform, loop, and bay towards the front edge, is now ripe for development; town buildings, industry, harbour, canal wharf, dairy, quarry, colliery exchange sidings, hill, whatever. 

 

Don't think I have interpreted your idea properly (if at all) Something more like this?

2.pdf

[The Johnster]

That’s the sort of thing, but I’d imagined the curve running more towards the rear of the boards at the town end as well. 
 

[Joeh260]

51 minutes ago, Miserable said:

Have you considered using curved points? I may be just me, but I find they can add a nice 'flow' to the layout. With yours switching from top to bottom this may work? The down side is you may have to angle the platforms, or have curved ones. Below is my track plan which uses only curved points (one home made) and a Y. The space is not wildly dissimilar to yours.

I have considered the use of curved points and will more than likely have to use one or two, however I find most ready available curved points seem to look like they are quite a sharp radius'.

[Miserable]

2 minutes ago, Joeh260 said:

I have considered the use of curved points and will more than likely have to use one or two, however I find most ready available curved points seem to look like they are quite a sharp radius'.

I forget the numbers for Peco, but they aren't that tight (in O they min 6ft radius). I appologise if granny, eggs, but have you had a go with AnyRail, the free software I used for my plan. It has all the Peco etc templates in it - you just join the dots with flexitrack. You can add buildings and so on. Just a thought.

[Joeh260]

11 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

That’s the sort of thing, but I’d imagined the curve running more towards the rear of the boards at the town end as well. 
 

so fully curving the station so it points more towards the top left?

 

2 minutes ago, Miserable said:

I forget the numbers for Peco, but they aren't that tight (in O they min 6ft radius). I appologise if granny, eggs, but have you had a go with AnyRail, the free software I used for my plan. It has all the Peco etc templates in it - you just join the dots with flexitrack. You can add buildings and so on. Just a thought.

I haven't tried AnyRail but its probably worth doing if it will give the dimensions of the pre-existing peco track. ill have to try it later.

[Joeh260]

Had a go trying AnyRail earlier, only got up to this point. 3.pdf not sure if this new plan would look any better so any feedback would be appreciated. I find that the points leading into the goods yard front the centre of the station area may look strange if actually used.

 

Perhaps if the main running line that connects up to the fiddle yard would be lowered down to about half way down the right hand side then there may be room to put the goods yard above the station at the rear of the board instead of at the front like on current plans. if the station was still curved then the should be a decent enough space to do that. 

[The Johnster]

13 hours ago, Joeh260 said:

curving the station so it points more towards the top left

Yes.  This releases the area bottom left currently occupied by the loco release headshunt and loop siding.  The overall curvature induces an illusion of increased length as the trains approach the viewer from a more head-on angle and turn into a more ¾ front then a side on view.  
 

In addition, my view is that very few real termini are dead straight as most were built under constraints imposed by the local geography and the land available for purchase.  Railways were empowered by their authorising Acts of Parliament to compulsory purchase land needed, but of course they had to compensate the owners at a rate imposed by government, so they wiggled about a bit to reduce that cost, especially the smaller branch termini which were often undercapitalised by local interests in the initial flotation before being absorbed into larger companies (the GW built hardly any of it’s BLTs, and I doubt many of the other big railways) did either. 

[Joeh260]

Had another try on AnyRail and tried to put the goods yard at the rear of the layout but making it fit in a bit better and holding more rolling stock whilst not looking as forced. not sure if it looks better than having the goods yard on the front as it will be less visible. However the station may look slightly bigger as @The Johnstersaid "The overall curvature induces an illusion of increased length as the trains approach the viewer from a more head-on angle and turn into a more ¾ front then a side on view" but takes a very similar amount of space as the original plan. Plus a few curved points have been used as suggested which has enabled the station to be more on a gradual curve whilst taking slightly less space.

4.pdf

 

Still undecided on where the goods yard should be positioned yet but I do think the station being curved is an improvement.

[Miserable]

On 01/01/2021 at 15:10, Joeh260 said:

Had a go trying AnyRail earlier, only got up to this point. 3.pdf not sure if this new plan would look any better so any feedback would be appreciated. I find that the points leading into the goods yard front the centre of the station area may look strange if actually used.

 

Perhaps if the main running line that connects up to the fiddle yard would be lowered down to about half way down the right hand side then there may be room to put the goods yard above the station at the rear of the board instead of at the front like on current plans. if the station was still curved then the should be a decent enough space to do that. 

 For me, that would be a plan. It would all perhaps a small stabling point where the yard currently is?

[Miserable]

On 01/01/2021 at 18:03, Joeh260 said:

Still undecided on where the goods yard should be positioned yet but I do think the station being curved is an improvement.

Just seen the second one. FWIW I think that is very more 'railway' if you see what I mean, a nice country station.

[Nearholmer]

Is this 0 or 00?

 

I started reading it as 00, and had a suggestion, but then 0 points got mentioned.

 

Anyway, here goes: you platforms are pretty long in comparison with the total area on view, which constricts what you can do, and affects the overall look of the thing. How long will the trains (and hence FY be)?

 

The barely concealed hint in that being that if you kept trains shorter than those platforms imply, you could probably have a better layout.

[Joeh260]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Is this 0 or 00?

 

I started reading it as 00, and had a suggestion, but then 0 points got mentioned.

 

Anyway, here goes: you platforms are pretty long in comparison with the total area on view, which constricts what you can do, and affects the overall look of the thing. How long will the trains (and hence FY be)?

 

The barely concealed hint in that being that if you kept trains shorter than those platforms imply, you could probably have a better layout.

The layout will be 00 gauge. I planed on running 4-5 coach trains. The platform will probably look much longer though due to the additional space required for the headshunt. 

[Nearholmer]

I’d personally advocate sticking to the four cars, and pulling the platform length back to close to the minimum that will fit those plus allow loco release, which I think is <6ft, so less than half your viewing length.

 

Check it through and see, because the more room you can get for the ‘throat’ and goods yard the better the layout will look.

[Joeh260]

Updated the design once again. I have reduced the platform length as suggested by @Nearholmer then moved the platform around a bit. On the two designs on the pdf file below I have alternated the position of the goods yard so on the lower design the main focal point would be the goods yard hopefully reducing the attention from the station and the platform length. The lower track plan also allowed the whole station to be brought slightly more to the right increasing the overall area of the town (far left).

On the pdf the platform start and end is marked in yellow.

5.pdf

 

Any other suggestions/improvements welcome. 

 

Edit: lower track plan doesn't really indicate increased space on the far left very well as I forgot to decease the track length beyond the point.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Joeh260

[Miserable]

I'd go for the upper one myself, it 'flows' better to my eye. Plus extending the right-hand run round extension to either a stabling point, small shed or perhaps a 'specialist' goods siding, such as a grain elevator. Each unto their own though :-)

[Nearholmer]

I think in both you will be popping in and out of the FY as you shunt the goods yard, which may or may not suit you.

 

Of the two, the top one flows better, so why not simply mirror-image it if you want the yard at the front for shunting?

 

BTW, you could use the siding nearest the platform as a dual-purpose road - a bay platform sometimes, and a goods road at other times, unloading on the ‘off’ side. Such practice is rarely shown on layouts, but wasn’t unknown in reality. Having the option of a bay can nicely increase operational options.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Miserable]

I was going to say its a pity Anyrail cannot export a 3d view like Templot, but having checked it appears it can and it's built-in. This is a really good way  of 'standing on the track and looking down the iine' to see how it looks. Unfortunately Wine crashes when trying it Linux - ho hum!

[Joeh260]

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I think in both you will be popping in and out of the FY as you shunt the goods yard, which may or may not suit you.

 

Of the two, the top one flows better, so why not simply mirror-image it if you want the yard at the front for shunting?

 

BTW, you could use the siding nearest the platform as a dual-purpose road - a bay platform sometimes, and a goods road at other times, unloading on the ‘off’ side. Such practice is rarely shown on layouts, but wasn’t unknown in reality. Having the option of a bay can nicely increase operational options.

I can see what you mean with the fiddle yard being entered numerous times during operation any ideas on a way to overcome this problem?

[Miserable]

22 minutes ago, Joeh260 said:

I can see what you mean with the fiddle yard being entered numerous times during operation any ideas on a way to overcome this problem?

I think this might work, it's a bit hard to do the geometry in my head... How about moving the right-hand most points on to the heel of the three-way. This would I think give a sharp curve into the fiddle yard which would I think be a shame with the rest looking so nice, but perhaps moving the three-way left may ease that - it would mean sacrificing some siding length? 

[Nearholmer]

The classic thing to avoid “popping in and out” is to use a headshunt.

 

This is the sort of thing I have in mind, although it obviously needs to be checked for whether it will all fit in the space - gut feel is that it should.

 

 

[Joeh260]

Just as an idea what do you think something more like this. Do you think would be an overall better option? It would significantly reduce the fiddle yard to 5-6 roads that can hold a locomotive and 4-5 coaches however it significantly increases the scenic area and reduces various other issues. I know that the space isn't very well utilised on that plan listed below but couldn't use any more track on the free version of AnyRail.

6.pdf

 

any ideas/input?

Edited January 4, 2021 by Joeh260

[Miserable]

38 minutes ago, Joeh260 said:

Just as an idea what do you think something more like this. Do you think would be an overall better option? It would significantly reduce the fiddle yard to 5-6 roads that can hold a locomotive and 4-5 coaches however it significantly increases the scenic area and reduces various other issues. I know that the space isn't very well utilised on that plan listed below but couldn't use any more track on the free version of AnyRail.

6.pdf 64.51 kB · 3 downloads

 

any ideas/input?

Well that certainly opens it up! Potential for interesting bridge or such on the approach. I suppose having the goods yard split adds operation potential, more need to cross over and such. One of the appealing features of your designs is avoiding filling every space with track, they've all had a nice small country station feel to them. Obviously it's up to you but I'd not go for a whole lot more track - J guess it depends on how you feel about doing scenery ;-)