First proper layout - Track plan advice for an 8x1.5 BLT

[Eridani]

Hi all. I'm planning to build my first proper layout over the summer, and I'm looking for some advice on setting up a layout that's both operationally satisfying and plausible (although I'm not too bothered with strict historical accuracy, since I've got a pretty mix-and-match selection of rolling stock). The track is mostly Hornby setrack, since that's all I've got laying around, although the flex is Peco. The main constraint is the baseboard, which will probably be made up of two 1220x610 boards that'll need to be disconnected for easier transport and storage. As for trains, the longest loco I'm planning to run is a Fowler 4p 2-6-4t, and I'll generally keep train lengths to two coaches or shorter to keep in the loop.

 

Attached are a couple drafts of the track and building layout. All the buildings are metcalfe kits, which I've already put together for the temporary layout I've got at the moment.

Power will be from an HM6000 unit (Connected at the red arrows)

Thanks a lot for any advice! 

[Kris]

How do you intend to change the locos end in the fiddle area?

I wonder if this is the case of too much track. I wonder if less could create more for you here. 

[Chimer]

Electrickery note:  you need additional feeds - as drawn, you have no power to the tracks marked "engine shed" and "goods shed 1" in the top pic, or the one kicking back from the goods shed in the lower one.

[Eridani]

19 minutes ago, Kris said:

How do you intend to change the locos end in the fiddle area?

I wonder if this is the case of too much track. I wonder if less could create more for you here. 

I’ve considered using something like a Peco loco lift or a short cassette to run the loco around - what do you think the ideal fiddle yard design is for a layout like this?

Thanks for the track advice too, is there a specific siding/feature that’s cluttering the layout?

[imt]

Your layout looks a lot like an early try of mine.  It's a good starter - since it gives you the chance to set up and run a small sequence and shunt etc.  I enjoyed mine, but of course moved on.  There are a couple of things you need to look at:

 

1) Your fiddle yard entry/exit point will have to go to the right somewhat - you have a point overlapping your board join.

2) Where are you operating this from?  If you can get to the back that's OK, but if not then loading things in/out of the fiddle yard will be a pain - reaching over the backscene.  

3) "kick-back" sidings look OK, but they are a pain to shunt and operate.  Maybe OK for the engine shed but not goods.

4) it's not good practice to run locos through goods sheds - and the kick-back on the lower plan would need that to be done.

5) you need to plan how/when/if you might need to shunt using the fiddle yard and make sure you have an empty line for that

6) why do you want/need an engine shed - and if you do, where's the coaling/fuel facilities?

 

What space constraints do you have?  You could make these boards your layout and just have a light extension that you join on with a fiddle yard.  Or a slightly shorter scenic area with a light fiddle yard 

 

You need to think a bit about the traffic you will be running - and how you get a goods train in and split up.  Passenger you have thought about, but goods?  As it stands if  you run a train into the loop, you can shunt back into the right hand side sidings - but how/where do you get rid of a brake van?  Are you intending a "pilot" loco?  What are your various sidings for - who/what do they serve, how much traffic?

 

I could go on for hours but I won't!

 

[Nick Holliday]

12 hours ago, Eridani said:

Hi all. I'm planning to build my first proper layout over the summer, and I'm looking for some advice on setting up a layout that's both operationally satisfying and plausible (although I'm not too bothered with strict historical accuracy, since I've got a pretty mix-and-match selection of rolling stock). The track is mostly Hornby setrack, since that's all I've got laying around, although the flex is Peco. The main constraint is the baseboard, which will probably be made up of two 1220x610 boards that'll need to be disconnected for easier transport and storage. As for trains, the longest loco I'm planning to run is a Fowler 4p 2-6-4t, and I'll generally keep train lengths to two coaches or shorter to keep in the loop.

 

Attached are a couple drafts of the track and building layout. All the buildings are metcalfe kits, which I've already put together for the temporary layout I've got at the moment.

Power will be from an HM6000 unit (Connected at the red arrows)

Thanks a lot for any advice! 

I would suggest that the second plan is pretty unworkable.  There are too many kick-back sidings and these not only make shunting a painful process, they also severely restrict any siding space, as room always has to be left for the loco. In real life, such an arrangement would probably have ben shunted using horses or man-power, and the goods shed would not be positioned where you have it.

For the first plan, I would be tempted to create an "Inglenook Sidings" with three sidings in the space on the right, and, instead of the station building lower left, which doesn't appear to have any function, have some sort of loading bay/cattle dock/goods shed arrangement, which gives a purposes to this siding. This is a view of my version of Fittleworth, courtesy of Chris Nevard.

As for the fiddle yard, I used cassettes, which can be stored on small shelves on the back scene, and give you greater flexibility.  They could be 3 feet long, and you turn the whole train, or you have separate cassettes for the loco and the stock. You could have two tracks in the fiddle yard, one fixed to take a regular shuttle, the other serving the cassette.

[RobinofLoxley]

The first difficulty that I see is that you have a ladder of points connected to each other sitting in the join area. You will have to split this ladder up in order to have  track you can cut across the join. This will cause this layout concept terminal damage Im afraid.

 

It isnt a bad try for starters. As has been said, it probably looks better on paper/screen than it would actually do as an operating layout.

 

I have been coping with having lots of heritage setrack on my own layout and I sympathise. But you may need to look at acquiring one or two Peco streamline points and in doing track plans for your space i wouldnt exclude them totally.

 

You could maybe start reading the Minories thread, its all about baseboards this size. A lot to get through, 85 pages in fact

[RobinofLoxley]

Just a rough doodle to peruse. On a small BLT layout the station was too large and dominant in the original - something served by a tank engine and 2 coaches probably wouldnt be so large and a run-around is the most you would get. Im not prescriptive on what the 'legs' are for; the only point is that the small angle of the right hand siding is essential to break up the monotony of the 22.5 degree setrack points.

[Kris]

12 hours ago, Eridani said:

I’ve considered using something like a Peco loco lift or a short cassette to run the loco around - what do you think the ideal fiddle yard design is for a layout like this?

Thanks for the track advice too, is there a specific siding/feature that’s cluttering the layout?

I can't give you an individual track to remove to make it less cluttered.

I have had a poke and come up with this. I would consider removing the siding to the LH side at the front. 

 

[Eridani]

 

On 13/05/2021 at 07:24, Nick Holliday said:

For the first plan, I would be tempted to create an "Inglenook Sidings" with three sidings in the space on the right, and, instead of the station building lower left, which doesn't appear to have any function, have some sort of loading bay/cattle dock/goods shedarrangement, which gives a purposes to this siding.

I’ve moved the goods shed to what looks like a more useful position, and I definitely prefer the inglenook-like arrangement. I’m still a little unsure on the position of the engine spur and shed though - would loco storage and refuelling take place on the same siding? Thanks a lot for all the advice!

 

[The Johnster]

Coaling stage would be a very simple affair on the shed road; yes, loco storage and refuelling are on the same siding.  With this in mind your loco shed is a bit cramped and could be repositioned where there is more room, or done away with altogether and the loco stabled at the big shed at the junction.  I’m not a fan of loco sheds on minimum space BLTs; they are not unrealistic and plenty of examples could be found, but they are dead space and space is at a premium; the loco is out working all day or out of sight inside the shed at night.  The shed road needs to be long enough for the loco stand outside the actual shed for coaling and firedropping without fouling any other roads. 
 

The 3 sidings kicking back off the run around loop seem to have no definable purpose, and are I assume an Inglenook.  Inglenooks are really shunting puzzles and very fine ones at that, but the puzzle rules specify sidings and a headshunt of a specific length and wagon capacity.  They are a puzzle game and really not ideal for a realistically operated BLT; yours is, as you say, merely an ‘Inglenook-type arrangement. Personally, I’d have a traffic generating industry of some sort here, dairy, small factory. The top road now becomes the loco shed, but as I say is in my view better dispensed with, which leaves room for a fourth fiddle yard road, and the middle is for the factory, low relief against the fiddle yard scenic dividing wall.  The bottom road now becomes the mileage and coal road. 
 

The bay platform can now serve several functions; it can be a departure road, leaving the main platform free for incoming traffic, or used by auto/push-pull/railcar/dmus, or parcels traffic.  Angled so that there is more room between the end of it and the station building, it can serve as an end loading dock, and cattle pens might be on the platform towards the top.  
 

There are several advantages to this despite losing the coal stage road, loco shed, and one of the 3 Inglenook roads.  You save money on turnouts, and there is a more open and spacious feel to the layout, and each siding has a specific purpose, which will give a degree of realism to your shunting and provide reason for different types of stock; end loaders, cattle, NPCCS, etc. Perhaps the factory’s loading platform is narrow and needs sliding door vans. 
 

Moreover, there is now room for a fourth fiddle yard road and/or to provide space between the fiddle yard roads, very useful for getting your fingers in to lift stock off or place it on when the adjacent roads are occupied.  
 

The untethered nature of the HM6000 controller means that there is no need to have all the facilities in a specific area, and they can be spread about without affecting the convenience of operating.  

[Flying Pig]

2 hours ago, Eridani said:

 

I’ve moved the goods shed to what looks like a more useful position, and I definitely prefer the inglenook-like arrangement. I’m still a little unsure on the position of the engine spur and shed though - would loco storage and refuelling take place on the same siding? Thanks a lot for all the advice!

 

 

Can you devise a straighter exit from the fiddle yard? At the moment, the station is pushed to the front of the board with dead space behind and too little in front where you want to put the sidings.

[RobinofLoxley]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Can you devise a straighter exit from the fiddle yard? At the moment, the station is pushed to the front of the board with dead space behind and too little in front where you want to put the sidings.

The new design is an improvement but the station is still too dominant I feel. The bay platform is at the end of big reverse curve; fwiw my opinion is that the station should be single platform, the loco facilities can branch off it. Mr Johnster is right that the sidings in front need a purpose such as a dairy, brewery, timber yard, etc. That would work.

[Flying Pig]

 

Ok, something simple like this.  There is scope to move the station back a few more inches to free up room for the goods yard, but I got sick of fighting the pitiful editor on my tablet.  I've included a short carriage dock behind the platform, but on second thoughts, fitting a tail load onto a loco and two coaches in the fiddle yard is probably not going to work so it might be better left out.

 

Loco shed is at bottom left a la Wallingford and partly sunk into the backscene so as not to dominate, but I've moved the station building out of its shadow anyway.  That allows all the goods sidings to face the same way which is more convenient for shunting.  We've discussed kickback yards before in this forum and there were prototype examples.

 

 

[Chimer]

I see a potential problem in that you can shunt the kickback sidings, whether they have specific purposes or not, to your heart's content, but the max length of train you can then run round and depart with is only around 15" - is that enough?  And if you're going to be using tension lock couplings, where you need 2" of straight track to fit the uncoupling ramps, that comes down to under a foot.  Maybe not an issue, but maybe something else to think about .....

[Flying Pig]

3 hours ago, Chimer said:

I see a potential problem in that you can shunt the kickback sidings, whether they have specific purposes or not, to your heart's content, but the max length of train you can then run round and depart with is only around 15" - is that enough?  And if you're going to be using tension lock couplings, where you need 2" of straight track to fit the uncoupling ramps, that comes down to under a foot.  Maybe not an issue, but maybe something else to think about .....

 

You would run round with the train in the platform road, which is about 20", granted a short train but about all the fiddle yard can handle.  The core of @Eridani's design is well balanced in terms of length.

 

Here's a neater straight plan.  

 

 

 

[Chimer]

9 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

You would run round with the train in the platform road, which is about 20", granted a short train but about all the fiddle yard can handle.  The core of @Eridani's design is well balanced in terms of length.

 

 

Granted, but to get the train to the platform road to run round, you'd have to propel it into the fiddle yard first .....

[Eridani]

I've put together a straight plan as per @Flying Pig's advice, and it certainly looks neater than with the curved fiddle yard approach. I'm still unsure on the station location though, since my original plan had it in the middle of the board to make space for some scenery at the street-level entrance (although that means the yard is also in the middle, obviously wasting the limited space). At the moment, I intend to operate the layout facing the fiddle yard, but that's not set in stone. I considered adding a fourth fiddle yard road too, although I feel it would've been slightly too short.

 

 

This one is even closet to their plan, and includes my attempt at filling in the space behind the station. While there's no space in front of the layout for scenery, I could squeeze in a couple of workers' cottages to fill the empty space between the two goods yards. There's less space for industry however, though I could probably change the siding arrangement on the right. 

As always, thanks for the help! 

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Eridani

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Eridani said:

While there's no space in front of the layout for scenery

 

Well if you will fill the baseboards with track, that isn't surprising I'd strongly suggest you build this plan without the kickback sidings on the right hand board to start with and see how it goes.

[RobinofLoxley]

2 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Well if you will fill the baseboards with track, that isn't surprising I'd strongly suggest you build this plan without the kickback sidings on the right hand board to start with and see how it goes.

The third one isnt useful and looks out of place, two sidings need a story, and different angles.

 

Much better with the station building at the back I think.

3 hours ago, Eridani said:

At the moment, I intend to operate the layout facing the fiddle yard, but that's not set in stone. I considered adding a fourth fiddle yard road too, although I feel it would've been slightly too short.

 

what would you put in it anyway? Im struggling to see how the layout would operate requiring three roads - if your start point is two locos plus x on the fiddle yard and one in the engine shed, where can you put any more and move them around?

[Eridani]

2 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

The third one isnt useful and looks out of place, two sidings need a story, and different angles.

 

Much better with the station building at the back I think.

I agree, I definitely need to work on those, although I put three sidings there to use as a kind of shunting puzzle arrangement.

As for the station, are you referring to the first plan in my last message? My main issue with that arrangement is that without the curved entrance, the fiddle yard ends up wasting space at the front of the layout (top of the images).

Sorry if I haven’t been clear enough with the orientation of the layout

[RobinofLoxley]

I was looking at your post just before Mr Flying Pig, and commenting that of the two layouts I preferred the lower ( and I prefer it to your earlier efforts too).

 

Im not convinced that you need 3 roads in the fiddle yard, I would have said one fixed siding and one cassette. However Ive no idea how skilful you are feeling in the build area as the cassette would preferably slot into the longest space available to make transferring stock with it worthwhile.

 

Having the board join where a point finishes could be tricky. Much further up I put in a doodle with only plain track crossings and all at 90 degrees to the board join,  thats going backwards a bit but that is a real difficult ask.

 

Then there's all these sidings at the front. The left hand could be useful operationally, OK I get you were thinking of a shunting puzzle arrangement, but it looks wrong to have those sidings there as the longest single track section in the plan is this kickback siding at the front. Its part of the challenge of this layout size.

 

 

[Harlequin]

Hi Eradini,

 

You have very little space to play with and so I think it's important to use the area in front of the fiddle yard for some railway connected something or other. You could have just one or two kickback sidings in front acting as your goods yard, keeping passenger and loco facilities on the left. Or some kickback sidings for private industry and goods on the left with loco facilities off-scene. (Loco facilities look nice but they don't add much to the operations and depending on era they were often removed from small BLTs anyway.) Kick back sidings are more difficult to shunt, it's true, but you don't want to make operations too easy!

 

Alternatively, imagine that the main line split in two at the station, with one arm entering the FY and the other passing in front of it and heading off-scene on the right. You would imagine that trains sometimes enter and leave the scene by the front arm but in reality they never would do (unless you can connect a cassette to the right hand side of the layout). Then the front arm could be used as a long headshunt for performing all your run round moves and goods yard shunting on scene, without the loco disappearing into the FY in an annoying way. Maybe have a single industrial siding alongside.

 

Straight track aligned with the baseboards might be boring. If you have a DMU service it will only ever move in one dimension, sliding back and forth along the main axis of the layout. Some turn and maybe even curved platforms is good if you can do it and the turn might give a more natural angle into the FY.

 

Typically in small layout like this, with the FY in the position you have it, points take up too much space in the FY - they are too expensive in terms of space they consume. People often use a sector table instead in cases like this, probably with only two tracks. if you did that then the ratio of fiddle yard to scenic would be better, say roughly, 5ft6in of scenic run, 6in for the scenic break where the track enters the FY and a 2ft sector table.

 

Why do you need the bay platform? Is it realistic? If you abandoned the bay platform then you'd have more room for the other tracks and scenery and the platform could be longer.

 

Finally, if you take any of these idea on board, and if you're going to make a serious effort on this model, please throw away the Settrack! Honestly, it's a false economy to use it just because you've got it. Once the track is down you've got to live with it for the lifetime of the layout (aesthetically and operationally) and it would be a relatively small price to buy something better now, which would make the layout much more likely to be satisfying in the long run.

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by Harlequin

[Eridani]

15 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Im not convinced that you need 3 roads in the fiddle yard, I would have said one fixed siding and one cassette. However Ive no idea how skilful you are feeling in the build area as the cassette would preferably slot into the longest space available to make transferring stock with it worthwhile.

I'll probably use the longest road as a headshunt for the station, and the other two for storing trains off-scene (I feel like 3 gives a little more breathing room than 2). I've given both cassettes and a sector plate some thought before, but I'm less confident in my woodworking skills beyond putting the boards together. 

[Eridani]

 

14 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Straight track aligned with the baseboards might be boring. If you have a DMU service it will only ever move in one dimension, sliding back and forth along the main axis of the layout. Some turn and maybe even curved platforms is good if you can do it and the turn might give a more natural angle into the FY.

Any thoughts on this rough plan? I know it's still got the settrack points and bay, although an obvious issue is that the loco runs around in the fiddle yard.