Time to tune the Piano

[Flying Pig]

Since everyone seems to be at it, here's a variation on Pacific 231G's plan that allows the sidings to be shunted directly from the back road, which may of course be too convenient for some tastes! That's a single slip by the way.

 

[Kris]

Interesting variation Simon. I think that it would be better with a plan crossing rather than a slip.

[Pacific231G]

I've had a more detailed look at this in XtrkCad, tried a few shunting moves and adjusted the lengths a little to suit the rolling stock I use.

 

 

This clearly has too much stock on it to operate but shows the capacities and clearances. With standard European swb wagons and a 6" long loco it will enable a five wagon train to be hidden in the fiddle, emerge and be shunted. The two goods sidings each have a three wagon capacity so an Inglenook puzzle is possible. The loco release will also hold two wagons while the platform track will hold three wagons clear of the loop or two wagons and a loco so the five wagon train can be moved fairly quickly into the sidings.

One small catch with the Piano in 00 and HO scale is that the near central position of the fiddle yard point makes it hard to split the layout into two equal sized boards for transport. With this plan I make it that you end up with a 3'4" and a 2'8" board but that is then the whole layout.

P.H. Heaths original version was built on a single 5ft x 1ft board which could be a bit unwieldy.

[Flying Pig]

The slip is needed to allow the sidings to be shunted from the longer headshunt (red routes and L below). If you split the back road as I've shown you have effectively four sidings to shunt which should be enough for anyone. The short headshunt (S in blue below) is only used for running round, though the section of loop I've labelled K could be used as a brake van kip.

 

[Dave777]

True, and I can see where Kris is coming from - could you shunt the middle siding on the left via the blue route? Probably about the same length?

 

Some interesting variations being shown here.

 

 

[Rob T]

Evening all,

 

Thanks for all of the replies. I must admit you have given me much to think about.

 

As usual, I am now considering a change. I have spent some time this weekend 'playing trains' and have explored a few of the ideas posted here and the points made by various posters have been valid in terms of the tightness of the space.

 

I have had a re-measure of the space available and can fit a board up to 7ft if I can construct a folding, lightweight board which can fold down the middle into a box comprising two 3.5 ft x 1 ft parts.

 

With this in mind, I have evolved the plan into the below. This builds on the original design, but takes in ideas from later developments with the opposing points in the loop. I have tried to keep the medium radius points as they look considerably better (IMHO). I have also been careful to keep any turnouts away from the join (the black line). I have also managed to increase the loop to a more useable length. What are your thoughts?

 

 

Thanks,

 

Rob.

[Coombe Barton]

... I can construct a folding, lightweight board which can fold down the middle into a box comprising two 3.5 ft x 1 ft parts.

Stating the obvious, that's going to be twice the weight (if you fold it) of separate boards. You may have difficulty moving tha weight around without damage to the layout, the surroundings or yourself.

[Kris]

A folding board of that size will work. Unless you massively over engineer it, the weight should not be an issue.

 

If you find that your goods shed is too small then you could always have the shed in the same place but from the point that it meets the edge of the board have the shed open to allow viewing inside. This could make for an interesting feature.

 

The fiddle line.

Have you considered having a cassette system here to allow you to swap trains in and out? No need to change the track layout.

[Dave777]

I've built a folding baseboard and it's a bit 'pros and cons'. It ensures perfect alignment of the tracks each time (although that can easily be achieved via other means), but it does make for a more complicated build overall. Worth a ponder if the added build complexity offsets the fancy storage option it provides!

 

I'm glad you've found the extra room though because having read in the very first post that you had built the boards already I kept looking at Kris' 'curvy' version and thinking 'Shame he's built the boards, as stick an extra foot in that to lengthen the loop and you're ready to go'.

 

 

I like it.

 

 

[trisonic]

If you're not careful you just end up with yet another "timesaver" layout.........

Aren't you moving away from the very parameters that you set yourself (which sounded interesting)?

 

Best, Pete.

[Rob T]

Evening everyone,

 

Belated thanks for all of the replies (I've had a really manic time at work, so haven't been able to get online for a bit).

 

I am looking hard into the folding baseboard option. I am not too worried about weight as I will build it as light as possible, plus I don't have to move it far from where I intend to store it to where it'll be run, so I don't think damage will be a problem. I think the folding option will make storage easier and will minimise set-up time (therefore maximising modelling time).

 

I'm also not too put-off by the prospect of building another board. The last was made with off-cuts from previous DIY projects so I've not lost out financially. I'm sure I will find a use for it in the future too. Also, I really enjoyed building it with my Dad, so the idea of some more 'father-son' bonding time to build a new board is great.

 

Finally, Pete (trisonic), I know where you are coming from with the 'another timesaver layout' point. However, I do feel that the revised plan ticks more of my criteria than I could fit into 6 ft. I am looking to build a small layout in the limited space available in my flat. I really want a plan which fits passenger and freight operation into the space and allows some interesting shunting operation. I used the Piano Line plan for inspiration and as soon as I saw Kris' revised and more 'flowing' interpretation it felt 'right.' There were also some great contributions from other posters which I wanted to try to incorporate. To do that (as well as in order to fit a longer run around loop) I needed to lengthen the board.

 

I think that I've managed to fit as many of the elements of what I'm looking for as possible into the space but the next steps are to build the board, buy some more track and put it all together so I can 'play trains' a bit to find out.

 

I am hoping to draft some plans for the board as well as some more detailed layout plans, so I will try to post them on here shortly for further advice/comments.

 

All the best, and thanks for the assistance so far!

 

Rob.

[down the sdjr]

On 31/10/2010 at 19:06, Pacific231G said:

 

Hi Rob

It was my article on early microlayouts for Carl's site that included the Piano Line and it is a plan I keep coming back to.

I think the easiest addition would be a siding on the right hand side and that keeps the original length of the loop.

This is P.H. Heath's original plan with that second siding added.

 

I actually preferred a second version of the Piano Line inspired by Heath's original that appeared a couple of years later. The tunnel and hill on the original looked a bit unnatural and having the platform at the rear avoided the sharp S currve. I liked the overbridge as a scenic break as it reminded me of the situation of the Bristol dock railway.

I've also added an extra siding to this.

 

I think that either version would be quite good fun to shunt as with sidings in both directions there's plenty of scope for problem solving while in say a quayside setting you'd have at least three places to park wagons.

 

Heath's ingenious "Piano" plan is by the way far more prototypical than it may appear. I'm looking now at a trackplan almost identical to the second one at Saint-Mard Nord on the metre gauge Meaux-Dammartin tramway in Seine-et-Marne SE of Paris and a very similar arrangement also used to exist at the Valmondois terminus of the Chemin de Fer de Valmondois a Marines north of Paris where the MTVS museum now lives and that definitely handled both passengers and goods.

Hello everybody,

I dont want to hijack this thread but ive been thinking of doing this layout in 0 gauge. I have 10 feet by 2 feet available, does anyone think this will work with Peco code 124 bullhead track and points? (the points look a tad large to me).

Thanks.

[DCB]

1 hour ago, down the sdjr said:

Hello everybody,

I dont want to hijack this thread but ive been thinking of doing this layout in 0 gauge. I have 10 feet by 2 feet available, does anyone think this will work with Peco code 124 bullhead track and points? (the points look a tad large to me).

Thanks.

No it won't work.   You will need 12 feet.   Its already terribly cramped.  CJ Feezer did some better ones 60 years ago in 60 plans for small railways/large railways/ Railways, etc.  He probably did 60 plans for the cupboard under the sink and the greenhouse as well

Why not put a post asking for O gauge plans for a 12ft X2ft instead of starting from something which won't work?

[Nearholmer]

Yes, it will work, but probably only if you use the Peco set-track points,  which have c40" curve radius, rather than any of the larger radius 'ordinary' ones.

 

You might need/want to cut-down the diverging curved sections too, to avoid very 'jinky' reverse curves - several other threads deal with this topic.

 

It is a very cramped plan, for very a very cramped space, but it works, and has been made to work very well in less than 10ft in 0. There are pictures of a very good ) version on p1 (keep scrolling down) of my thread here https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/150413-nellies-new-railway-deliberately-old-fashioned-00/

 

 

Of course, if you have 12ft, use it, but I'm assuming that, since you specified 10ft, you meant 10ft, rather than 12ft.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Pacific231G]

4 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

No it won't work.   You will need 12 feet.   Its already terribly cramped.  CJ Feezer did some better ones 60 years ago in 60 plans for small railways/large railways/ Railways, etc.  He probably did 60 plans for the cupboard under the sink and the greenhouse as well

Why not put a post asking for O gauge plans for a 12ft X2ft instead of starting from something which won't work?

Really David? Then  Goonhilly must be a figment of my imagination. Tony Collins' O gauge layout is 9ft 6ins x 20ins and it does use Peco BH track.  The original slightly smaller and simpler version was 9ft x 1ft and is in the Gauge O Guild's Small Layout's vol 2 (Though I work in H0 I find these two volumes very useful)  I saw it Goonhilly at Wycrail in 2008 and had a good chat about it with Tony. He said the layout IS cramped, but good fun to operate. It works and looks good so, while more length would certainly help, if ten feet is all you have to play with you're fine.

This is my plan of the layout drawn on a six inch grid. It may not be precisely accurate but you can see that it's perfectly doable.

Kevin- this is based on Peco code124 Bullhead medium points  SL-E791BH &SL-E792BH not Setrack and I'm pretty sure that's what Tony Collins used .  You can also see that he solved one of the problems with the Rev. P.H.Heath's original Piano plan (which was on a single 5ftx1ft board) which  is that it was hard to split the layout into two equal length boards as the entry point was over where the join would be. 

The fiddle yard for Goonhilly is cassette based and I've often operated a piano based layout in H0 that works the same way.  For a home layout I'm not so sure about fiddling round the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2020 by Pacific231G

[down the sdjr]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, it will work, but probably only if you use the Peco set-track points,  which have c40" curve radius, rather than any of the larger radius 'ordinary' ones.

 

You might need/want to cut-down the diverging curved sections too, to avoid very 'jinky' reverse curves - several other threads deal with this topic.

 

It is a very cramped plan, for very a very cramped space, but it works, and has been made to work very well in less than 10ft in 0. There are pictures of a very good ) version on p1 (keep scrolling down) of my thread here https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/150413-nellies-new-railway-deliberately-old-fashioned-00/

 

 

Of course, if you have 12ft, use it, but I'm assuming that, since you specified 10ft, you meant 10ft, rather than 12ft.

 

 

Thank you Nearholmer, I presume you mean 2nd radius points and yes i have 10 ft.

[down the sdjr]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Really David? Then  Goonhilly must be a figment of my imagination. Tony Collins' O gauge layout is 9ft 6ins x 20ins and it does use Peco BH track.  The original slightly smaller and simpler version was 9ft x 1ft and is in the Gauge O Guild's Small Layout's vol 2 (Though I work in H0 I find these two volumes very useful)  I saw it Goonhilly at Wycrail in 2008 and had a good chat abouit it with Tony. He said the layout IS cramped, but good fun to operate. It works and looks good so, while more length would certainly help, if ten feet is all you have to play with you're fine.

This is my plan of the layout drawn on a six inch grid. It may not be precisely accurate but you can see that it's perfectly doable.

Kevin- this is based on Peco code124 Bullhead medium points  SL-E791BH &SL-E792BH not Setrack and I'm pretty sure that's what Tony Collins used .  You can also see that he solved one of the problems with the Rev. P.H.Heaths original Piano plan which  is that it was hard to split the layout into two equal length boards as the entry point was over the half way point. 

The fiddle yard for Goonhilly is cassette based and I've often operated a piano based layout in H0 that works the same way.  For a home I'm not so sure about fiddling round the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you Pacific 231B, that looks great.

I have a 00 gauge loft layout and this is a move to 0 guage, maybe just a 3f jinty and a pannier with 1 coach and a few wagons. i would like to get more into scratch building and the finer details i could do in 0 gauge. Maybe i should start a new thread.

thank you.

[Nearholmer]

As has been discussed before, the big challenge in trying to convert the Piano, which is very specifically designed as a "one board" layout  in 00, into 0 is the crucial geometry, which maximises viable train length by putting the point to the FY  bang on the centre-line of the layout.

 

For a portable scheme in 0, one board would be too big, which is why Goonhilly has two boards, with the point to the FY off-centre, thereby losing a tiny bit of train length. Another option is to go for three boards (maybe 1 metre each, but that's more carpentry and wiring hassle.

 

Of course, if yours is to be "loft locked", you don't have to worry about all that, you can follow the original (with a bit of smoothing, I suggest).

 

Even if you do create a separate thread, it would be great to have it linked here, because this thread is "Piano Central".

 

PS: what 231G says about "fiddling round the back" is very relevant. I've decided that I need to turn the small 00 layout that I'm building now around to avoid that very problem ........ its on top of quite a high set of bookshelves, and reaching over a back-scene to fiddle isn't going to work.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Andy Kirkham]

Apologies if this has already been covered but I'm not familiar with the original Piano Line I wonder if some kind person could explain the sigificance of the name.

[down the sdjr]

18 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

As has been discussed before, the big challenge in trying to convert the Piano, which is very specifically designed as a "one board" layout  in 00, into 0 is the crucial geometry, which maximises viable train length by putting the point to the FY  bang on the centre-line of the layout.

 

For a portable scheme in 0, one board would be too big, which is why Goonhilly has two boards, with the point to the FY off-centre, thereby losing a tiny bit of train length. Another option is to go for three boards (maybe 1 metre each, but that's more carpentry and wiring hassle.

 

Of course, if yours is to be "loft locked", you don't have to worry about all that, you can follow the original (with a bit of smoothing, I suggest).

 

Even if you do create a separate thread, it would be great to have it linked here, because this thread is "Piano Central".

 

PS: what 231G says about "fiddling round the back" is very relevant. I've decided that I need to turn the small 00 layout that I'm building now around to avoid that very problem ........ its on top of quite a high set of bookshelves, and reaching over a back-scene to fiddle isn't going to work.

Mine as i say will be loft locked on a shelf around chest height, so the fiddle yard at the back may be a problem and it has crossed my mind before. look forward to reading your thread.

[Schooner]

16 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Apologies if this has already been covered but I'm not familiar with the original Piano Line I wonder if some kind person could explain the sigificance of the name.

 

Designed to fit atop an upright piano

[down the sdjr]

15 minutes ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Apologies if this has already been covered but I'm not familiar with the original Piano Line I wonder if some kind person could explain the sigificance of the name.

Hi andy, small 00 gauge layout 5ftx1ft designed to fit on top of a piano, old schoolclassic stuff circa 1965.

[down the sdjr]

10 minutes ago, down the sdjr said:

(with a bit of smoothing, I suggest).

Care to elaborate?

[Nearholmer]

If you look at the original Piano, it has very tightly curved turnouts, and the arc of turnout is large. The same will be true if you use the Peco 0 set-track turnouts as they come.

 

But, if you cut back the curved track to bring the arc down from (I think) 22.5 degrees to, say, 18 degrees or less, you will find that everything looks more flowing and slightly less toy-train-set.

[DCB]

7 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Really David? Then  Goonhilly must be a figment of my imagination. Tony Collins' O gauge layout is 9ft 6ins x 20ins and it does use Peco BH track.  The original slightly smaller and simpler version was 9ft x 1ft and is in the Gauge O Guild's Small Layout's vol 2 (Though I work in H0 I find these two volumes very useful)  I saw it Goonhilly at Wycrail in 2008 and had a good chat about it with Tony. He said the layout IS cramped, but good fun to operate. It works and looks good so, while more length would certainly help, if ten feet is all you have to play with you're fine.

 

 

 

You make a sarcastic personal comment about me and them prove I was absolutely right by doing as I suggested and designed a different layout 12 ft X 2 in O gauge to replace the  7ft by 1ft in OO which won't scale up to fit 12 X 2 ft in O gauge. 

You did exactly as I suggested.    Why?    I can only think you didn't read the thread properly. Especially that only the single comment before mine was less than 9 years old.