DCB Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 7 hours ago, Jenks465 said: The Railroad Tornado and Pullman's are the longest items of stock that I own so I've been using them to test the clearances on the curves and points because I figure if they get through fine then everything else should too? That reminds me of a visit to the West Somerset railway a few years ago. It is supposed to be a traditional GWR Branch line. Except when we got to Williton, Tornado turned up heading East and a West Country heading West, Not at all the GWR branch line experience we were hoping for... 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zomboid Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 12 hours ago, Jenks465 said: The Railroad Tornado and Pullman's are the longest items of stock that I own so I've been using them to test the clearances on the curves and points because I figure if they get through fine then everything else should too? It depends on whether you might ever actually use such things, but if you ever run any mk3 or even 800 sized carriages they'll be bigger. And I believe the GWR did make some mk3 length carriages. Though if you stick to the steam & transition era then not using vehicles that big isn't especially limiting. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zomboid Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 4 hours ago, DCB said: That reminds me of a visit to the West Somerset railway a few years ago. It is supposed to be a traditional GWR Branch line. Except when we got to Williton, Tornado turned up heading East and a West Country heading West, Not at all the GWR branch line experience we were hoping for... The Minehead line isn't really a traditional GWR branch. It's pretty much a single track main line, like Newquay, Kingswear or the SDJR. Plus modern heritage railways are really nothing whatsoever like traditional branch lines. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenks465 Posted November 9, 2021 Author Share Posted November 9, 2021 31 minutes ago, Zomboid said: It depends on whether you might ever actually use such things, but if you ever run any mk3 or even 800 sized carriages they'll be bigger. And I believe the GWR did make some mk3 length carriages. Though if you stick to the steam & transition era then not using vehicles that big isn't especially limiting. I think a MK1 will probably as long as it gets for passenger coaches (trying to stick to late 40s early 50s stock as much as possible) which I believe is similar in length to the railroad pullman and a Manor class will probably be the longest loco. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingEdwardII Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 5 hours ago, DCB said: West Somerset railway ... is supposed to be a traditional GWR Branch line. Depends what you mean by a "traditional GWR branch line". The West Somerset is in some ways typical of a certain kind of GWR branch line - a south west seaside branch line. These places dealt with a pile of heavy long distance traffic during the summer - summer Saturdays here were not for the faint hearted. Full sized trains arrived and departed to/from London, the Midlands and the North, carrying the throngs of holiday makers that made these seaside resorts what they were. All this was long before the days of cheap air travel to Mediterranean resorts. The 1950s were the peak for this kind of travel - ordinary folk had the money and the time off to enjoy these sorts of holiday and car ownership was still relatively limited. So, we're talking long trains and big locos. Minehead station is classic - a branch line terminus, but one with 2 huge platforms that can handle very long trains. You will find much the same at the termini of other lines, such as Kingswear. So these preserved lines are not so far off the mark. This ain't Hemyock or Tiverton... Yours, Mike. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenks465 Posted November 9, 2021 Author Share Posted November 9, 2021 1 hour ago, KingEdwardII said: Depends what you mean by a "traditional GWR branch line". The West Somerset is in some ways typical of a certain kind of GWR branch line - a south west seaside branch line. These places dealt with a pile of heavy long distance traffic during the summer - summer Saturdays here were not for the faint hearted. Full sized trains arrived and departed to/from London, the Midlands and the North, carrying the throngs of holiday makers that made these seaside resorts what they were. All this was long before the days of cheap air travel to Mediterranean resorts. The 1950s were the peak for this kind of travel - ordinary folk had the money and the time off to enjoy these sorts of holiday and car ownership was still relatively limited. So, we're talking long trains and big locos. Minehead station is classic - a branch line terminus, but one with 2 huge platforms that can handle very long trains. You will find much the same at the termini of other lines, such as Kingswear. So these preserved lines are not so far off the mark. This ain't Hemyock or Tiverton... Yours, Mike. Can I ask what the largest locos allowed over the Minehead branch were? I've seen pictures of large prairie tanks but was anything larger seen? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) Panniers, small Prairies, large Prairies, Dean Goods, Collett Goods, Bulldogs(??) & Moguls in GWR days Standard 3MT 2-6-2T, Class 22, Class 35 and DMUs in later times. Edited November 9, 2021 by woodenhead 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted November 9, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 9, 2021 1 hour ago, Jenks465 said: Can I ask what the largest locos allowed over the Minehead branch were? I've seen pictures of large prairie tanks but was anything larger seen? The Minehead branch was 'Blue' under the western route availability (RA) system but it got a lot more complicated than that because certain Blue classes were banned completely from any part of the branch (all the 2-8-0s including the 28XX and also 9F 2-10-0s although on the other hand 'Halls' and 'Granges' (which were Red RA) were allowed as far as Bishops Lydeard. So if looking at Western engines look for the little coloured 'dot' near the numberplate and if it is Blue (except for the big freight types) or Yellow, or there is no dot at all then it was allowed on the Minehead branch. Usually 43XX 2-6-0s or a large prairie of the 41XX series were used over the branch on through trains. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCB Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 14 hours ago, KingEdwardII said: Depends what you mean by a "traditional GWR branch line". The West Somerset is in some ways typical of a certain kind of GWR branch line - a south west seaside branch line. These places dealt with a pile of heavy long distance traffic during the summer - summer Saturdays here were not for the faint hearted. Full sized trains arrived and departed to/from London, the Midlands and the North, carrying the throngs of holiday makers that made these seaside resorts what they were. All this was long before the days of cheap air travel to Mediterranean resorts. The 1950s were the peak for this kind of travel - ordinary folk had the money and the time off to enjoy these sorts of holiday and car ownership was still relatively limited. So, we're talking long trains and big locos. Minehead station is classic - a branch line terminus, but one with 2 huge platforms that can handle very long trains. You will find much the same at the termini of other lines, such as Kingswear. So these preserved lines are not so far off the mark. This ain't Hemyock or Tiverton... Yours, Mike. It was a blue route and the preserve of 51XX Prairies, not the Double Red of Tornado. Me I would rather see a Hymek or the 9351 class mogul... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCB Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) Duplicate Post Edited November 10, 2021 by DCB Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenks465 Posted November 10, 2021 Author Share Posted November 10, 2021 I've laid out a curve of the radius I'm thinking about for the inside line of the passing loop. Doesn't look too bad to me but I'm used to looking at settrack curves. What does everyone think? 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Harlequin Posted November 10, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 10, 2021 4 minutes ago, Jenks465 said: I've laid out a curve of the radius I'm thinking about for the inside line of the passing loop. Doesn't look too bad to me but I'm used to looking at settrack curves. What does everyone think? Not bad! 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zomboid Posted November 10, 2021 Share Posted November 10, 2021 Looks like a pretty luxurious radius to me 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Chimer Posted November 12, 2021 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 12, 2021 What radius is that then? I reckon you can get very close to 4', and every extra inch is going to make things look better. Try mocking up a platform on the inside of the curve, and see how big a gap you've got to mind ...... The only constraint you've got (apart from the obvious one of space) is having to fit in the curve into the goods yard, passing inside a reasonably wide (3-3.5" maybe) platform 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
whart57 Posted November 12, 2021 Share Posted November 12, 2021 On 22/10/2021 at 11:17, Jenks465 said: Hi all, I've recently moved into a new property with a little space that I'm able to use for a layout. After a bit of messing around on Anyrail I've come up with the idea below and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or suggestions? I've looked through the responses and I see that several people far more experienced than me in OO gauge have made suggestions. So it's probably a little late to be chipping in ideas. My main problem with this is this is a railway out of Freezerland and I'm afraid those plans grate with me. Another thing that grates is the very sharp curve through the platform, that always looks horrible. The first thing I'd ask myself with this is, which came first, the mainline or the branch? The follow up is to ask whether this is all one company or were they separate companies up to Nationalisation? The main change I would make is to reconstruct the main line platforms. Try putting a larger radius curve through the platform and a sharper one at the end after the platform has dropped away. This will probably require moving the mainline station a bit to the left. Another idea I offer is to have the two stations completely separate. Perhaps the branch came first and built a terminal station like at Stamford and then years later the mainline came past on the other side of town. A link line was laid in between the two. If you can manage to give this a platform at the mainline station then you could even have a shuttle service between the two run by a single coach autotrain or a small railbus like those AEC four wheelers of the 1950s. That would also be a way to get a slip coach from main to branch. That would probably mean shifting the actual junction onto the boards on the left. You will need scenic treatment to emphasise distance between the lines, plenty of view blockers such as overbridges and tall warehouses So that is my belated two pennorth Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenks465 Posted November 12, 2021 Author Share Posted November 12, 2021 8 hours ago, Chimer said: What radius is that then? I reckon you can get very close to 4', and every extra inch is going to make things look better. Try mocking up a platform on the inside of the curve, and see how big a gap you've got to mind ...... The only constraint you've got (apart from the obvious one of space) is having to fit in the curve into the goods yard, passing inside a reasonably wide (3-3.5" maybe) platform It's a 42 inch radius. I'll have a play around and see if I can go any wider. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenks465 Posted November 16, 2021 Author Share Posted November 16, 2021 Got everything laid out other than the goods yard now All fits at least......now for some serious "testing"!! 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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