Question on Freezer track plan

[AngusDe]

All,

 

I'd just like to throw up a defence of CJF's plans! They were a great inspiration throughout my formative years as a modeller (OK train set player), I started buying the RM in the early 70s with my pocket money and started a Saturday job in a model railway shop when I was 16 in 1975, and I bought box loads of old Railway Modeller magazines and all his plan books etc (as well as the more modern books by others) etc. They are, undoubtedly, geared towards operation and are inevitably shrunk to fit, but in the 50s/60s even the Mk1 coaches of Hornby and Triang were very much shorter than scale length. In the end I see nothing wrong with cramming track into the space for more operational interest.

 

All his smaller plans, such as anything stating 15" (R1 ish in modern track) as the min radius, were based around the Hornby (Doublo) geometry with R1(ish) points which also had a larger divergence (I think 30deg compared with modern setracks 22 1/2 deg) and as such don't scale readily to modern set track and R2 points but are still a good starting point for a layout in a small space using setrack.

 

As a armchair modeller (having moved 17 times in my 30 working years) my constant doodling has provided hours of pleasure for myself and amusement for others, with little ever getting past the sketching stage and with the advent of suitable programs such as AnyRail (my favourite) I've been disappointed in how many of my carefully drawn plans don't actually fit the anticipated space. However I've tried several of CJFs plans as a starting point and managed to produce something similar using modern setrack in the same space.

 

To recap on the track, Hornby (doublo) had 15 inch (R1 ish)radius curves and points and a larger (R2 ish) radius 17.25 inch (3rail 38-64 and 2rail 59-65). The current setrack geometry was set by Triang (Hornby) now Hornby series4 (62-73) which was replaced by super6 (69-now) and "adopted" by Peco Setrack (mid70s-now) with R1 rad 321mmm, R2 is 438mm, R3 and R4 were subsequent developments. Interestingly the biggest difference between Peco and Hornby ranges was that from mid 70s to mid 80s the Peco setrack curved points were R1/R2 (initially Peco didn't have a R3 in the range) whilst Hornby curved points were R2/R3, subsequently Peco went with Hornby on R2/3 and R3 and now R4 track. Peco setrack is not to be confused with streamline small radius points etc. Initially at least the Triang/Hornby track had generous clearances on frogs etc for backward compatibility with older Triang models and their coarser wheel sets and Peco generally gives better running with modern stock, especially the curved points.

 

Palitoy/Mainline/Airfix/Bachmann/etc used Peco made track, and Hornby for a time had their track manufactured by Roco in Austria, as at times did some of the others, but now I think all but Peco is made in China.

 

In the end I'd always recommend streamline over setrack (if you've the space), and EM/P4 over OO (if you've the time and space), even though I don't get shunting planks and depot layouts (dioramas really I reckon) I do enjoy everyone's layouts on here, both doodles and built!

 

My all time favourite CJF layout was in the Railway Modeller sometime in the 70s/80s and was a representation of Euston in the proverbial 16ft x 8ft garage space, if anyone has a copy they could send me I'd love to try and see how doable it really was, lol!....

 

In the meantime here's a CJF inspired plan in AnyRail (based on plan SP3 from RM 60 plans fror small railways 4th ed, not quiet Minories but a CJF classic that was often revisited)

 

 

I think it's workable as a branchline with short 2 coach trains and fits the original 6' x 3'3" concept, as it used R1 track you'd have to pick and choose the stock etc.

 

And here is another (based on SP29 in the same book)

 

This time using R2 setrack curves and streamline small radius points etc, it's a classic Deane pattern layout with fiddle yard behind the terminus and a link providing a continous run. In CJFs plans this always seemed to be through a gasworks but in my plans its always a dock branch with the odd passenger (boat) train to justifty more trains, etc... The central operating well area is barely 2' x 3'6" at its widest so perhaps for folk slimmer than myself... The plan also illustrates I think the improved appearance of even small (2') radius points over setrack.

 

Many more where they came from, some even entirely my own work, anyway I hope the above ramblings are of interest...

 

Cheers,

 

Angus

[54Strat]

With regard to the integrity of track plans, I think there's two uses in which track plans can cause confusion;

 

If a plan is presented as a proposal, then it makes sense, as Kenton and Jack have commented, to model it accurately around a contemporary track system. Really, there's no excuse not to. Unfortunately for most if not all cases, these plans are never as accurate as we rightly assume them to be. The plans fail us.

 

If a plan is presented as a description of an existing layout, then it always should be considered to be an interpretation. For a magazine to describe a layout perfectly in a plan would require a great deal of research and work, and even with the best will in the world mistakes will be made that the author, the editor and the layout owner will miss. ( I invite you to examine the plan of Haldon Vale in April's RM for example) Add deadlines, and inaccurately supplied information, then no wonder plans fail to deliver accuracy but to be honest, it hardly detracts from the value in this case. But because of our expectation that track plans are accurate, we fail the plans.

Paul

[Kenton]

But some sort of plan is better than no plan at all and we are just left to imagine how a train gets from A to B.