Intercity Depot's

[Chris.D]

After having second thoughts with a layout that I have been thinking building, I am currently exploring the options of having an Intercity depot.

 

My biggest problem is that I am having difficulty in finding Intercity depot layouts (I'm not really surprised with their size!) and the only one I am aware of is the excellent Aberdeen Kirkhill on this forum. Are there any others out there or are these a rariety?

 

A depot that I have looked to model is Long Rock at Penzance, due to the unusal feature of a single road shed and the layout of the track work, which would lead to a good operational interest. I have played around with the depot, to fit in the available 10ft x 4ft, which I will upload later.

 

I am wondering whether anyone has got any suggestion for an Intercity depot, or even could link me to any other layouts of similar genre.

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Bomag]

I am not certain by what you mean by 'Intercity depot' - the I/C sector had several types of depot, diesel locos, electric locos, HST/Cl91 and rolling stock. A compact, but busy, I/C depot was Willesdon. If you want stock/HST as well as being small you could try Landore

[Dunedin]

Thank you for the comment regarding Kirkhill. I think you'll find layouts of this sort aren't common. One of the things that excited me about the prospect of building Kirkhill was that I had never seen such a layout before at any exhibitions and from the feedback that Flood and I have had, neither has anyone else.

 

I presume of course that you are referring to InterCity coaching stock / HST depots as opposed to loco depots?

 

If you are looking for track plans, then I don't think you will find any in the usual railway modelling-type books because it seems to be such a niche area to model. One of my sources of reference was the Quail Map Company's books on British Railways track diagrams. (The Western Region one includes Long Rock.) These have the track layouts for all the UK rail system including depots and yards, although you do have to know which activities take place where because the purpose of each road or siding isn't explained. They make a good start though.

 

In the case of Kirkhill, I knew what we needed:

• arrivals & fuelling
• carriage wash
• cleaning roads
• maintenance shed
• sleeper CET discharge road

Knowing what the process at a depot was, and the constraints regarding the overall size of the layout (which ended up growing considerably), the track plan fell into place almost naturally.

 

I think if the layout looks credible (as the feedback suggests it does with Kirkhill) you can make up your own plan, unless of course space isn't an issue! If only.....

[SNCF stephen]

British Rail produced a book to celebrate their "21 years of progress" and Chaper 5 is dedicated to the maintenance aspect. It is not a long chapter being 4 pages but it does mention the maintenance process and what goes on and when during the night. It is quite interesting and is not too specific to each depot so you could use it to position the trackwork and other structures on your layout.

 

This book is not too hard to obtain and is quite an interesting read.

 

 

[Chris.D]

Thanks for all the replies so far and the information regarding Kirkhill.

 

Yes, I do indeed mean HST/Rolling Stock Depot as opposed to Loco Depots.

 

I shall keep a look out for the book "21 Year Progress" which should help me with inspiration and also a good read, along with trying to obtain copies of the track plans.

 

I think my main problem will be with the availbale space and trying to achieve something that looks right along with good operation aspect too. Hopefully once I have decided what features I want, a track plan should spring to mind!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[modfather]

What about picking bits of spm - the end of the main shed would hide one scene break while allowing the modelling of the lathe, marsh junction and the coalfield...

[Bomag]

Spam????

[eastwestdivide]

Modfather did you mean spm = St Philips Marsh? (spelling?)

[Chris.D]

Im sure Modfathers post does say SPM, or my eyesight is playing up!

 

After a few days thinking now, I have realised that Long Rock is the depot that most appeals to me due to the compact size and the variety of movements/stock available for such a compact Intercity depot. As mentioned in my first post, I have uploaded a track plan of Long Rock, much scaled down and croped so I can fit it into the space available.

 

 

I have included the yard, which I believe would incorporate most of the movements around the depot and also part of the shed, which I plan to use as the scenic break. Also in corporated is the fuelling road, next to the shed and some sidings at the top which appear to be used as storage for the spare sleeper vehicles and for the fuel wagons. I have included the mainline, which will probably be non-operational (maybe a DCC programming track) for the effect.

 

As you can probably tell, there are a few areas that I have encounted problems with, firstly the run in and out of the fiddle yard and also the access to the top sidings. I have planned to place the fiddle yard behind the depot and loop back with the track at the scenic break, but the space isn't available to that. On solution is to reduce the yard length as at the moment it can accomodate a 2+5 HST in the three middle sidings, but I'm not sure if reducing them to 2+4 will give me the required space. Another option would be to maybe shuffle the depot around, but 'm not too sure if this would detract from the Long Rock feel/look.

 

Cheers

 

Chris