6x2 Shunting Plank - Fictional, inspired by West Saint John, New Brunswick

[Nova Scotian]

Long story short, I am currently 260 miles away from my baseboards etc, separated by a border, and see no route to continuing to build the layout for/with my kids for the next several months.

 

Yesterday I ended up down a rabbit hole, which lead me to looking at some historical maps and photos of a nearby area I know well (where I go running) that was set up a bit like an Inglenook for several years after through-trains were stopped. Three tracks, common area/user, etc, including an overpass bridge entering the yard.

 

I want somewhere to test/run, and also rebuild my skills after many years off - so I started mapping out the tracks etc, but was quickly disappointed as everything over here is so "large" that even compressed it would be very dull, the alignments were all wrong etc etc.

 

However, I do have 6' by 2' available to me, not 4 feet, and it made me think of another location I know quite well. It's really interesting, and I'll try and describe it below and then how I've compressed it into a draft plan below. What excites me about this one is there are three future "exits" from the plank to fit into a larger layout. I'm hoping those in the know can comment on potential improvements to the trackplan and things to consider. I've included a couple of aerial views from google maps of the subject area that inspired this.

 

Top left is one of the future exits/entrances - and a fascinating one too. The railway crosses two roads without grade separation, one of them a relatively busy road that it cuts across at a pretty oblique angle. The road layout there is horrific , so it would all be very fun to model in the future. For the shunting plank I start after the two road crossings, but before a third which leads to an industrial car park (grey) and further into more industrial sites. The top left exit in the future would go through a scenic break before arriving at a port (in real life it goes through a few km of neighbourhood, a marshalling yard, and then arrives at the port).

 

At the top is a brewery - yellow are the fermentation tanks (rough), and the square is the hopper for the grain. So lots of built structure interest, and I wanted to be able to shunt a grain hopper or two in and out of that siding at the very top.

 

Second top siding has a warehouse building, high level, for loading direct into boxcars. This is a little bit artistic license, you can see they used to do this but the line has been realigned recently. The second building at the end is my own artistic license because that siding used to run straight ahead and connect through, but the rail has been torn up as it probably wasn't useful. 

 

The third track is essentially "straight through" - this allows me to connect on the right hand side with a future baseboard for run-through trains. In real life it runs through one marshalling yard, turns a corner, through a larger marshalling (and being converted to multimodal yard) before then disappearing off into the Canadian wilderness for 800km.

 

Coming off that third track I wanted some operational interest, so added a place where I could run around, I hope. As you'll see in the aerial photos this isn't true to life, but doing it true to life would be quite restrictive and dull in the space I have available. The two sidings on the far right from this in the future would build into the marshalling yard I'd attach to the side here. (as per real life). I've cut down the number of tracks and compressed everything to try and fit in the length. Purple square is electrical and lineside equipment area.

 

Bottom left - this in real life goes to a fantastic bridge over a well known local landmark, with a steelworks just beyond (and then a city, marshalling yards x2, then Canadian wilderness), so in future I plan to run another board off the side here to continue that piece on. In real life the track splits, with two tracks in this direction, one of which splits further into an industrial site, while only one track traverses the bridge. However, I could not for the life of me make it all fit in this size with half-decent radii and without being constant points/switches.

 

So, I like this because I can see the real location in my head (and google maps), it has operational interest due to not just sidings, but runaround, and in the future I would build new baseboards off the left, bottom left, and right. Left is the port, bottom left is the bridge, right would be a marshalling yard I could use as fiddle yard.

 

I don't plan to make it too realistic - I have a mixture of North American HO and British OO rolling stock. I am slowly adding to it when something cheap comes up nearby, and I plan to start building some brass kits (OO - Judith Edge and/or High-level) soon, along with more OO wagons. I think this shunting plank lends itself to 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 and two axle wagons. I'm expecting to use all PECO points, and probably PECO code 100 flexitrack, although as you can see I used settrack to try and create the trackplan. I won't be running 120 car unit trains through the layout... ever... so no real concerns on compressing it like I have.

 

My concerns:

- There's a large gap in the scenic top left - this is mostly because I wanted to give enough room to reverse up a shunter with a couple of wagons. I'll add some more buildings + tanks here as in real life, plus some artistic license probably, but had left it bare as was trying to get the track right.

- I don't feel as though I've used the space as well as I could have, but I have an eye on future expansion. Suggestions?

- The area at the front in the middle is pretty open, am I missing a track to have more track/interest here? I don't see where else I could throw more points in to do so...

 

All suggestions gratefully received (and for those that have helped in the past - I still plan to build the layout with/for my kids, but COVID-19 very much got in the way).

 

 

Edited February 20, 2021 by Nova Scotian
Better (?) topic name

[Nova Scotian]

Also any suggestions on how to wire it up are appreciated. I'm thinking initially wiring pretty much the entire thing with droppers (before and after every point/switch), and using electrofrog. This is because I'm DC and would rather not depend on the blades to keep good contact.

 

I'm also leaning more toward using the example above (google maps) as inspiration, but setting it more firmly in a UK industrial setting. Is there anything I need to be aware of?

[Dungrange]

In terms of wiring it up, I'd probably split the layout into two sections with the two ST202 short straights in your loop crossovers being the dividing point with both rail joints being isolated.  The top half of the layout would be fed from the left side and the bottom half would be fed between the two points that are toe to toe in the bottom right. I think that would ensure that all turnouts are fed from the toe end.  If you plan on having more than one locomotive on the layout at the same time, then you'll need somewhere to isolate one of the locomotives whilst the other is running round.

 

In terms of the track layout, the two sidings in the bottom right seem rather too short to be useful (probably only about 8" maximum between the clearance point and a buffer stop).  However, I suppose it very much depends on the stock that you intend to use.  

 

In terms of track spacing, I'd expect there to be a little extra space between your warehouse siding and the 'through' line.  I'm not sure about North American practice, but in the UK, whilst double tracks would normally have 6' between the running lines, sidings would normally be 10' from the nearest running line, which would provide additional room to walk round the wagon in the siding.  I'm not sure that I see a need for the two ST202 tracks that you've placed in the loop crossovers: I'd be tempted to remove these to make the look closer to the through running line and move the sidings away from the running line, but that is purely because I think it would look better rather for any specific operational reason.

[Nova Scotian]

40 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

In terms of wiring it up, I'd probably split the layout into two sections with the two ST202 short straights in your loop crossovers being the dividing point with both rail joints being isolated.  The top half of the layout would be fed from the left side and the bottom half would be fed between the two points that are toe to toe in the bottom right. I think that would ensure that all turnouts are fed from the toe end.  If you plan on having more than one locomotive on the layout at the same time, then you'll need somewhere to isolate one of the locomotives whilst the other is running round.

 

In terms of the track layout, the two sidings in the bottom right seem rather too short to be useful (probably only about 8" maximum between the clearance point and a buffer stop).  However, I suppose it very much depends on the stock that you intend to use.  

 

In terms of track spacing, I'd expect there to be a little extra space between your warehouse siding and the 'through' line.  I'm not sure about North American practice, but in the UK, whilst double tracks would normally have 6' between the running lines, sidings would normally be 10' from the nearest running line, which would provide additional room to walk round the wagon in the siding.  I'm not sure that I see a need for the two ST202 tracks that you've placed in the loop crossovers: I'd be tempted to remove these to make the look closer to the through running line and move the sidings away from the running line, but that is purely because I think it would look better rather for any specific operational reason.

This is great - thank you.

You are correct on the two sidings bottom right looking a bit stupid and being mainly useless. I had originally built those in as the "inspiration" for this has a short marshalling yard of sorts that I would later be able to build onto that right hand side. It's a bit complex and I'm speaking from a position of relative ignorance, but as far as I can tell there are seven tracks in total off on the right (where future boards would be). One goes into a woodchip loading conveyer, one has buffer stops, and four combine into a track that then goes into a pulp mill (before splitting off again). The final one, which I have kept on the plank design above, exits bottom left to cross a river towards the main part of the city. To compress it down I cut out the marshalling yard, but put in the two sidings to "connect up" in future. Looking at them and their utility I think you're right on cutting them.

 

The aerial of the lines suggests the tracks are relatively evenly spaced (where they're wider it's because of equipment). I think this is the expectation that nothing is going quickly through there - exiting bottom left there's speed restrictions heading on to the bridge and a relatively steep falling grade. Exiting top left you had three grade level crossings and I've never seen anything go more than 15mph through those. 

 

Screenshot below you can see the white/grey grain hopper absolute top left. Bottom right (at the edge) is that start of two locomotives on the "through-line". To me that doesn't look like any extra spacing?

HOWEVER - modifying it to be more UK, as an inspiration more than modelling real life, I should consider the spacing. I have room on the board for the depth, it's the length that's most challenging.

 

Stock-wise I'm looking at two axle wagons - the typical 5 plan, 7 plank, 12 ton box van etc. Nothing overly long at this point.

 

Really appreciate your thoughts and improvements, will have a crack at a redesign another evening and post update.

[Nova Scotian]

Had another go at the track plan.

 

To try and be more "real to life" I have made the run-through track also be the track that diverges to the bottom left.

 

To better reflect UK practice as per poster above I've added space either side of the run-through line.

 

I've also managed to make the sidings at all ends slightly longer.

 

All curves are R2 which is fine for these purposes, things are only ever going to be going slowly through here even if/when I do incorporate into a larger layout.

 

I still have a runaround, and can build out a marshalling yard on the right in the future.

 

However, it still doesn't look "right" to me - am I missing a track with three-way turnouts (I can't get them R2 though right?) or something else that'll get more interest?

 

[Dungrange]

2 hours ago, Nova Scotian said:

However, it still doesn't look "right" to me - am I missing a track with three-way turnouts (I can't get them R2 though right?) or something else that'll get more interest?

 

 

The only place that I you could use a three way point would be to combine the two points bottom right.  However, you are correct that to use a three way point you would have to move away from set-track geometry as there isn't a three-way point in that range.  I believe that Peco's three-way point in the code 100 streamline range is a small radius turnout (nominally 2' curve) and medium radius turnout (nominally 3' curve) superimposed on one another with the heel ends aligned and the position of the switchblades at the toe end differing by the difference in length between the small and medium radius points (~40 mm).

 

The problem is that the streamline range has a common diverging angle of 12 degrees, whereas the set-track range is based around a diverging angle of 22.5 degrees (ie an eighth of a circle).  Therefore you can't really mix and match without using flexi-track.

 

I note that your title refers to 'inglenook', although there doesn't look to be any part of this track plan that actually meets that concept, which needs two sidings that can accommodate three wagons, one siding that can accommodate five wagons and a head-shunt that can accommodate a locomotive and three wagons.  I think the only suggestion that I could make would be to move the point that's bottom right into the loop, so that the point is situated to the left of the rightmost crossover.  This would increase the length of both of your sidings in the bottom right of your plan.  The top one would be longer because it would start from the loop and therefore have a extra ST-200 in place of the point and with the lower siding coming off the loop in advance of the crossover, it would be one ST-201 longer.  That may therefore allow you to perform the inglenook shunting puzzle on the bottom half of the layout, although it's obviously stock dependent whether you can actually fit the 3-3-5 criteria.

 

Apart from that, I think it looks okay for the space that you have available.

[Nova Scotian]

4 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

The only place that I you could use a three way point would be to combine the two points bottom right.  However, you are correct that to use a three way point you would have to move away from set-track geometry as there isn't a three-way point in that range.  I believe that Peco's three-way point in the code 100 streamline range is a small radius turnout (nominally 2' curve) and medium radius turnout (nominally 3' curve) superimposed on one another with the heel ends aligned and the position of the switchblades at the toe end differing by the difference in length between the small and medium radius points (~40 mm).

 

The problem is that the streamline range has a common diverging angle of 12 degrees, whereas the set-track range is based around a diverging angle of 22.5 degrees (ie an eighth of a circle).  Therefore you can't really mix and match without using flexi-track.

 

I note that your title refers to 'inglenook', although there doesn't look to be any part of this track plan that actually meets that concept, which needs two sidings that can accommodate three wagons, one siding that can accommodate five wagons and a head-shunt that can accommodate a locomotive and three wagons.  I think the only suggestion that I could make would be to move the point that's bottom right into the loop, so that the point is situated to the left of the rightmost crossover.  This would increase the length of both of your sidings in the bottom right of your plan.  The top one would be longer because it would start from the loop and therefore have a extra ST-200 in place of the point and with the lower siding coming off the loop in advance of the crossover, it would be one ST-201 longer.  That may therefore allow you to perform the inglenook shunting puzzle on the bottom half of the layout, although it's obviously stock dependent whether you can actually fit the 3-3-5 criteria.

 

Apart from that, I think it looks okay for the space that you have available.

You're right - I had that in the title as that's essentially where I started from ("want a shunting plank, build an inglenook"), but as it evolved to be inspired by a location and be open to being combined as part of a larger layout (middle board, not an end one) it's moved away from the purity of the shunting puzzle. I will rename.

 

I've also made a decision to only use short, 2-axle rolling stock on it - this will give me more room to move stock around. Although still not a lot.

Your feedback on the thread has been greatly appreciated - I will dedicate myself to starting a build soon and posting photos.

[Dungrange]

I agree that there's no need to be constrained to the Inglenook concept, as long as it's a conscious decision to move away from that concept.  I guess the operational concern that I'd have is that the sidings serving your warehouse at the top of the plan can accommodate more wagons than the head-shunt, which just seems to be a single ST-201 straight, so you'll need several moves to get the wagons in and out of the siding.  That said, I believe that there were numerous places where the head-shunt was significantly shorter than the sidings it served, so it's not necessarily an unbelievable scenario.  Perhaps the need for a larger number of moves is a positive.

 

I'll look forward to seeing how this progresses - I like the concept, but my desire for large bogie wagons means it's not workable with the stock that I have.

[Nova Scotian]

 

33 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

I guess the operational concern that I'd have is that the sidings serving your warehouse at the top of the plan can accommodate more wagons than the head-shunt, which just seems to be a single ST-201 straight, so you'll need several moves to get the wagons in and out of the siding.  That said, I believe that there were numerous places where the head-shunt was significantly shorter than the sidings it served, so it's not necessarily an unbelievable scenario.  Perhaps the need for a larger number of moves is a positive.

 

Yeah, I moved the layout up and down and around to try and make more room for the headshunt. Because my plan is to exit top left to a port (through scenic break) I figure once that next section is done I have all the room I'll need for the headshunt then. In "real life" those shunting moves are performed on the run through line, so I'm not concerned about doing it for the layout...

 

I may also curve that top left exit - it would give me a smidgen more track, and be more interesting.

 

I could also come up with a small flip-up portion off the end there on hinges... another foot of track would give room at the headshunt and once I am ready for expansion I remove the flip-up portion. I don't think I'm ready for the whole world of cassettes though...

[Nova Scotian]

Curving the track slightly gives me 4cm more track length, just under half a fish van...

 

I had to break out some pi to work that one out!