rake length - prototypical or shorter?

[Steven B]

22 hours ago, Bloxley said:

Unfortuanately its HHA not HAA wagons im after... these are 20m ling in real life, so approximately 240mm in oo scale. So a rake of 20 is 5 metres??? Even a rake of 10 is huge!!! 

 

Opps, second attempt - short prototypical rakes of HHA:

Four behind a class 66: https://flic.kr/p/2m3gFwy

Five behind class 70: https://flic.kr/p/2mbnWjX

 

Eight behind a class 66: https://flic.kr/p/acr5Xu

 

I do agree with the suggestions above about being able to reduce the length of a train if you can't see the whole length. For a passenger train I think you need to take a bit more care to ensure the formation looks right. For example if only three coaches of an HST can be seen then I'd probably end up with:

TF TF Buffet TS TS TGS

so that the TGS and buffet can't be see at the same time - a big give away of the train length being reduced.

 

 

Steven B.

 

 

[Phil Bullock]

All the principles discussed here are as applied to Abbotswood Junction …. And there are a couple more.

 

No station …. So nothing to define the length of a passenger train

 

Goods loops start in the fiddle yard so full train never stationary on scenic part of layout.

 

Rebuild at 27ft long should be ok for 10 100 ton tank cars plus pair of 37s but it’s a tight squeeze between pointwork. Motorail loaded to 16 so that should be fun…. Suspect it might exceed ability of a Bachmann peak.

[w124bob]

Perhaps instead of using HAA's, use HBA/HEA wagons. A dozen behind a coal sector loco of any type is perfectly reasonable. They first appeared in in 1978 and were used on MGR circuits, as well as non power station work, eventually finding use for some scrap metal workings mixed with other airbrake scrap traffic wagons. The Bachmann HBA/HEA is a lovely model (also as HSA for scrap and RNA for flask wagon barrier work). Here is a link to a Flickr coal sector group https://www.flickr.com/groups/2713302@N25/pool/ and Chadderton goods plenty of short trains https://www.chaddy-goods.co.uk/ also search for the Deepdale branch on Google and Flickr there are pictures with everything from pairs of class20's, to 25, 37 blue and sector, 40 ,45 and 56.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

23 hours ago, w124bob said:

Perhaps instead of using HAA's, use HBA/HEA wagons. A dozen behind a coal sector loco of any type is perfectly reasonable. They first appeared in in 1978 and were used on MGR circuits, as well as non power station work, eventually finding use for some scrap metal workings mixed with other airbrake scrap traffic wagons. The Bachmann HBA/HEA is a lovely model (also as HSA for scrap and RNA for flask wagon barrier work). Here is a link to a Flickr coal sector group https://www.flickr.com/groups/2713302@N25/pool/ and Chadderton goods plenty of short trains https://www.chaddy-goods.co.uk/ also search for the Deepdale branch on Google and Flickr there are pictures with everything from pairs of class20's, to 25, 37 blue and sector, 40 ,45 and 56.

 

 

I would agree (& we have 2 nice HAAs on the way so hopefully an equally good HEA is in development somewhere), but the OP is modelling the longer bogie HHA wagons, not 4-wheeler HAAs.

[westerner]

One way around the conundrum is to choose a place where shorter trains were regularly run with large engines, Somwewhere like the Kinswear branch when trains were divided at Newton Abbot with half going down the branch, still hauled by a Castle or in later days a Warship or Western and the other half went on to Plymouth and Cornwall. 

[The Johnster]

Clearly in a perfect world we would model scale length trains with the correct number of vehicles in the interest of authenticity, and we would have sufficient room to do this.  We would also lay our track to scale radius curves, and we would have sufficient room to do this.  In the real world nearly all of us compromise, and may be helped to create an impression of getting away with it by clever manipulation of sight lines, lighting, viewing from the outside of curves, clever positioning of scenic breaks and so on.  I try, which does not always mean that I succeed, to ensure that there is room for trains in my platforms and room to spare in run around loops, and to position signals a little way back from the junctions they protect.  This is not only prototypical, but helps to create an impression (I think that's the right word, not illusion) that the layout is not cramped and everything is on the limit.

 

One must cut one's cloth and so on; my platform can accommodate a 3 coach train and the run around loop 4, but most trains are 2 coaches, and my coal trains are of 11 wagons and the brake van, far too short but the best I can do.  Viewing is from fairly close up, though, and the limitations of the short coal trains are not obvious all at once.