Ingletyme - A Very Puzzling BLT!

[BG John]

Ingeltyme was a quiet and relatively unimportant station on a former GWR branch line. Apart from the dairy that provided important traffic for the line, nothing much happened there. Until one dark and stormy night in the late 1950s, when the river bridge at the terminus end of the station collapsed without warning, and it suddenly became the most important station on the line.
 
Although still viable, traffic on the branch was in steady decline, and the cost of rebuilding the bridge could not be justified, so the line beyond the river was closed, and Ingletyme became the new terminus. The bridge had been right at the end of the goods loop, and to complicate matters, not only had the storm destroyed the bridge, but the land part of the loop and the platform occupied became unstable. The only practical option was to drastically shorten the loop, that was now needed to run round trains, and take part of the platform out of use. With declining passenger traffic, one of the new AC Cars railbuses was brought in from the Cirencester and Tetbury branches, whose passengers found themselves once again with locomotive hauled carriages that were exchanged for it.
 
Freight traffic showed a dramatic increase at the station, with trade formerly handled at stations on the now closed part of the line transfered to Ingletyme. With very limited facilities, and a very short run round loop, this made operations complicated, and the railway staff devised some clever and imaginative time saving methods to operate the station. So well known did they become, that in the early 1970s, John Allen in the United States copied the layout of the station and the method of operation for his Timesaver Model Railway Shunting Puzzle.
 
Operations in the sidings owned by the dairy were also challenging, especially as the owners kindly allowed the sidings to be used for the extra railway traffic that couldn’t be handled in the station. It’s not clear whether the way the dairy was operated was copied by a railwayman, who was also a railway modeller, from Alan Wright’s contemporary Wright Lines layout, or if it was the inspiration for the later Inglenook Sidings Shunting Puzzle, but strangely Ingletyme Dairy does happen to be situated a short distance from the town, in the hamlet of Ingle Nook.
 
And if you believe that…….

[BG John]

I've been trying to get back into modelling for a few years now. I hadn't got anywhere with "Small, Broad and Totally Pointless" since I stopped working on it in my van when I was travelling, and over the last couple of years have designed various EM and broad gauge layouts that didn't get started. I did build one of the baseboards for an EM BLT, that was also going to be called Ingletyme, but that's all that happened.

 

With all the other stuff going on in my life at the moment, I eventually came to the conclusion that there was too much work involved in either EM or 4mm broad gauge, and that things might happen if I went for something simpler. So for the first time in 43 years, I'm back to 00 Gauge!

 

The space I had for the first Ingletyme design was 15ft long, 2ft wide at each end, and 1ft wide in the middle. It was going to have a branch terminus at one end, with the track plan from the Timesaver Shunting Puzzle, but stretched out to make a proper station. To use it as a puzzle, the plan was to put markers at appropriate points, and hope that I could make myself stick to the rules! The other end was going to have a fiddle yard, with an Inglenook Shunting Puzzle in the form of sidings for a quarry or something. I just got as far as building the baseboard for the terminus.

 

When I bought my current house, there was an old wardrobe in one of the sheds. At least the top was solid, but the base had got rather damp! So I dismantled it, and ended up with two nice solid sheets of 16mm plywood. These were cut up to make the top and framing for the board. There aren't a lot of exhibitions around this way, so there didn't seem much point in making it portable, although it could be taken out occasionally. So I didn't bother about weight or size!

 

The top was cut to suit the 2ft reducing to 1ft space available:

 

 

The curved edges were marked out using a scythe blade:

 

 

Evidence of the original plan for this board:

 

 

The station was planned to be 6ft long, so I needed to add a bit onto the length:

 

[BG John]

Most of the second sheet of ply was cut into strips for the framing, cut to length, and laid in place:

 

 

Then it was screwed and glued together. A piece of thinner ply was used to join the separate parts of the top:

 

 

The completed board:

 

 

[BG John]

This was the site for the new layout, with the 2ft wide terminus end going into the alcove under the stairs, and the 1ft wide part on top of the bookshelves I was building:

 

 

Although I didn't build the other baseboards, I did cut out the top for the one at the other end, so I could lay out the full Templot plan:

 

 

The narrow end of the completed board rests on the bookshelves, while the wide end sits on two of these brackets screwed to the wall:

 

 

And that was as far as I got in February 2013. Nothing else happened until I decided to succumb to the simplicity of a smaller 00 layout just before Christmas 2014!

[BG John]

Having decided that if I was going to actually get something built it would have to be made as simple and straightforward as possible, 00 gauge with Peco track seemed to be the shocking conclusion I came to. The last points I bought must have been Triang Super 4, purchased with pocket money or presents from ancient relatives, when I wasn't long out of short trousers! I've been building track (on the odd occasions I actually do any modelling) since I was about 16! So Templot was put to one side, and I installed SCARM.

 

I've tended not to operate my layouts much, but in recent years I've become rather fascinated with shunting puzzles, although I've never actually tried using one! All the recent layouts I've designed, but not built, have incorporated them in some form, but I wanted something that looked like a "proper" railway too. I'm also fascinated by micro-layouts, or pretty small ones even if they don't qualify as a micro. The track plan of a Timesaver is similar to many GWR branch stations, although they're rather more spread out, so I started dreaming up excuses for creating a very truncated one, hence the unbelievable tale I started this topic with!

 

Using Peco Code 75 track and medium radius points, I just managed to squeeze a Timesaver and a suitable length fiddle yard into 6ft. It's actually nearer 6'1", and that extra inch probably makes all the difference! Being a shunting puzzle, it's OK if space is tight, as the rules specify the number of vehicles that are allowed on each piece of track, but I still wanted it to look fairly realistic. The original plan was that the station would be a Timesaver, and one of the sidings would be extended into a dairy in front of the fiddle yard, with an uncoupler positioned so that only the regulation two wagons could be left in it. It was also going to be a goods only line, having lost its passenger service, so there would be a weed covered platform, part of which was used for loading wagons. Then I came across the Heljan Railbus, and passenger services were restored! Just after ordering the track, it dawned on me that there was room to turn the dairy into an Inglenook, so just before they closed for Christmas, another order went off to Hattons. I'd been dithering about buying the Railbus, but then I discovered that I had room for a catchpoint on the dairy sidings, so in my third order I finally gave in and bought the Railbus too! It turns out that SCARM is pretty accurate, and I had been rather cautious in assuming things wouldn't fit as well in real life as they did on the computer. It was only when I came to lay it out with the real track, rather than templates, that I convinced myself of this!

 

So this is what I came up with:

 

The platform had to be cut short at the end of the station building and goods shed, which will butt up against the backscene. The loop had to be shortened to fit, and I'll probably put some rusting remains of the original loop, or indented ballast where it was lifted, in front of the goods shed. I originally thought that the goods shed had been sold off and the siding shortened, but the current plan is to fix a wagon just inside the shed, so it appears to be in use.

 

The 2.5 road sector plate is intended to have two tracks that will hold a loco, 4 wagons and a brake van. The .5 is part of the shunting puzzle, where two wagons are shunted into a siding somewhere off stage. It will probably have to swing under some low-relief buildings, as space is a bit tight there.

 

The dairy is a 3-3-5 Inglenook, and the headshunt ends just on the main line before the point in the platform.

 

I've measured all this as carefully as I can with the loco and stock I've bought for it, and it all seems to fit. Just!

 

The 3D views from SCARM may give a better idea. I haven't bothered to get the buildings quite right, as I can visualise it better in my head, and with the mockups on the real thing. All the buildings are Scalescenes kits, although none will be built as intended!

 

 

[BG John]

For anyone mystified about shunting puzzles, the best place to discover them is here http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/index.html, where the Timesaver and Inglenook track plan and rules are explained, and you get some idea of where the nonsense in my first post comes from!

[BG John]

Here's the start of the real thing. The first step was to draw parallel lines on a sheet of paper to position the platform, loop and siding tracks, then I cut almost all the track to length. The only piece of the station area I didn't do was the loop, as this will need accurate cutting when the track is laid. The missing track in the dairy siding will also be cut to length when I stick the track down.

 

As I was cutting the track, it was tested with the longest combination of stock that would need to fit on it. For two vehicles I used a Bachmann Pannier and an Airfix Toad, for three vehicles I added a Bachmann Ale wagon (ex cattle wagon). It's tight, but should be OK. The loop is actually quite generous, as it will just take more than the rules allow, but with short British stock and medium radius points it's as short as I can make it. I'll position uncouplers to make sure I stick to the regulations, but it's long enough to run round a bogie coach, so I can run short loco hauled passenger trains.

 

The goods shed mockup is the inner layers of the Scalescenes kit, that will but against the end and rear backscenes, so positioning of the siding is quite critical.

 

 

[BG John]

I knew my set of The Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture would come in handy one day!

 

This is what was underneath:

PVA painted onto the baseboard:

 

Cork placed on top and pressed down with a roller:

 

Then it was weighted down with the books until dry.

 

A warning! I had a roll of Javis 1/8" cork underlay that I bought some years ago, that was under the books in the first photo. The bit in the last photo was from a new roll of the same product, with the same part number (but a different size sheet). Guess what? The new sheet is thicker than the old one! I'll need to do some sanding and packing when I lay the track:

[south_tyne]

Here's the start of the real thing. The first step was to draw parallel lines on a sheet of paper to position the platform, loop and siding tracks, then I cut almost all the track to length. The only piece of the station area I didn't do was the loop, as this will need accurate cutting when the track is laid. The missing track in the dairy siding will also be cut to length when I stick the track down.

 

As I was cutting the track, it was tested with the longest combination of stock that would need to fit on it. For two vehicles I used a Bachmann Pannier and an Airfix Toad, for three vehicles I added a Bachmann Ale wagon (ex cattle wagon). It's tight, but should be OK. The loop is actually quite generous, as it will just take more than the rules allow, but with short British stock and medium radius points it's as short as I can make it. I'll position uncouplers to make sure I stick to the regulations, but it's long enough to run round a bogie coach, so I can run short loco hauled passenger trains.

 

The goods shed mockup is the inner layers of the Scalescenes kit, that will but against the end and rear backscenes, so positioning of the siding is quite critical.

 

DSCF6880.JPG

 

DSCF6882.JPG

 

Hi John,

 

Just checking in here! Interesting to see the real-life interpretation of the plan! So... excuse my stupidity, but the section here is 6 feet long? (well with that critical extra inch!) I think sticking to the medium radius points is definitely the right idea, the trackplan seems to flow much better in the flesh than on the page (that is in no way intended as a criticism) but it seems to work even better in 3D!

 

I am going to follow your progress with interest. 

 

Cheers,

David

[BG John]

Yes, it's 6ft plus a bit, by 1ft at one end and 2ft at the other. I was quite impressed with SCARM, but wasn't confident that it would fit in real life. So I printed out Peco templates and tried them, but still wasn't totally sure. So I ordered the track for the station, and tried the real points in place. Then I cut most of the track to length, made sure the right number of vehicles fitted, and that there was enough clearance on adjoining tracks, and then I was fairly happy! Next job is to start sticking the track down, and testing it as I go, so it doesn't all need ripping it up if it doesn't work! Everything is very tight! But as you say, it seems to flow nicely on the real thing, and I don't think there's too much track for the space. I'd like a few more inches along the back of the goods yard, as I think that will be a bit tricky to make look convincing, but compromises are needed on small layouts.

 

The dairy was originally going to have two medium radius points, but when I went to order them, Hattons were out of stock, so I redesigned it, and I think they were out of stock of whatever I changed to, so on the third attempt I ended up with the large radius Ys, that they had! I think the curviness improves it.

 

I was just about to start tracklaying, when I realised I didn't have a small enough soldering iron bit to rewire the Electrofrog points without melting the sleepers! It wasn't needed for the copper clad points I've built in the past! So there was a delay until I could go shopping, and helping out real railways by setting up Facebook pages and stuff has got in the way now.

 

The other thing I've done so far, but not written up yet, is building very rough mock-ups of the main buildings, which are all butchered Scalescenes kits. There's too much clutter on the layout at the moment for photos! How the buildings fit is also a critical part of fitting everything in, as I hope you'll see soon.

[BG John]

No progress on the layout yet, as I've been distracted by getting involved with a bigger railway, but I did get a chance to test and run in the loco and railbus today. Anyone following my other current topic will know what I ran them on, but I'm not admitting it here . The railbus is new, and the pannier is a pre owned one from Hattons.

 

[BG John]

So much for making steady progress! After an extended period of thinking, I finally started track laying on Thursday!

 

I'm laying short sections at a time, stuck down with PVA, and weighted with the first things that came to hand! I was intending to hold it in place with temporary pins, but the ply baseboard is so tough that banging things into it would probably knock everything out of alignment! It seems to be working well enough though.

 

I'm removing the wire jumpers from the Electrofrog points, and soldering wires across the stock rail and closure rail. Then adding a length of wire to the Peco wire from the frog. All the wires are a good length so I can do temporary connections for testing. All colour coded too, as long as I don't run out of purple wire! I've got loads of red and black! I'm also adding wires to most of the sections of plain track, so should be fairly well covered in case of a failure. It's a real pain doing this while I'm track laying. I'm used to adding wires later, discretely soldered to the outside of the rail on copper clad sleepers!

 

All but one of the point motors are Peco, mostly they will be mounted under the baseboard, but the first one had to be attached directly under the point, and a couple need to be above the baseboard as there is framing in the way. The one motor that isn't Peco is a SEEP, that I just happened to have lying around, which is going on the catch point.

 

As can be seen, I drew parallel straight lines to mark one rail of each track, that I've layed the straight track to. The curves are a bit of trial and error to run smoothly, look good and head in the right direction! The wiggly lines were drawn round the ends of the sleepers to mark out where to apply the PVA to the cork underlay.

 

 

This is how far I'd got early this morning (as in before bed, rather than after I got up!). Next bit to be stuck down is the runround loop, where the two milk tanks are. This is incredibly short, but actually a bit on the long side for a timesaver. I should only be able to get one wagon in the loop clear of the point the milk tanks are on, but it may be possible to squeeze three wagons on the main line, where only two are allowed. This is the minimum length I could make it with Peco medium radius points. It probably works better with modern long wheelbase British stock, or big American bogie wagons.

 

Before I lay the sidings at the back of the layout, I want to build the goods shed, as this will be right against the rear and end backscenes. It will be easier to build the shed and lay the siding to fit, than try to adapt the Scalescenes kit to fit the track!

 

I haven't tried a loco on it yet, but am pushing the Dapol milk tanks around. They seem a bit prone to derail easily, so it's a good test to make sure my track laying is a good as possible!

 

 

 

 

[BG John]

Track laying is finished. Now I just need to fit point motors and microswitches, wire it, and see if it works!

 

The Anglepoise lamp is in the fiddle yard. I'll build that later, probably using a sector plate, but for now will just connect a piece of track. The disconnected track next to the goods shed is the remains of the original loop (that was removed when the river bridge collapsed), and will have the rails removed when the glue is set.

 

All the structures, except the signal box, are very rough mockups, in case you think I don't set my modelling standards very high! They're all Scalescenes kits. I don't really want to use the Ratio signalbox, as I'd like to keep it for a future EM layout.

 

You may notice "Small, Broad and Totally Pointless" lurking in the background of this view! I have to walk past it to get to Ingletyme, and the idea is to motivate me to get on with it. When it stops being a useful place to dump stuff I'm using on Ingletyme!

 

Bridge hiding the fiddle yard on the left, and the one that's needed to give the road somewhere to go that crosses the line to the dairy. I'd originally planned to have a sharp bend and run the road between the dairy and the fiddle yard, but it wouldn't fit. Both bridges will be single track Scalescenes.

 

The dairy, with two Scalescenes kits. The low-relief factory will be wider when I build the final version, and I may put a canopy across one or more tracks.

[BG John]

I fitted the point motors and microswitches today. First off was this one, that had to be on top of the baseboard due to the point being right over the baseboard framing.

 

 

I used the Peco extension bar, shortened by one pin, connected to a non locking Peco base. The motor is on the baseboard, and the point on cork, and I found that the extension piece was jumping off the tiebar with the force of the solenoid, so I needed something to guide it. I just happened to have a tiny offcut of Peco track just the right size, that makes a good guide to control lateral and vertical movement, and also acts as a stop. It's fully adjustable using the screws and washers too! The microswitch is screwed to an inch high wooden block.

 

The plan is that all this will be below ground level. Just to the left of it will be a gate across the track that marks the start of the private dairy sidings, and a little to the right will be a road on a higher level leading to the overbridge. This bit of ground will probably be abandoned and neglected, so I can make a removable cover with the joins hidden by gorse, brambles or other signs of neglect.

[BG John]

Next up was this one, also above the baseboard, but with no room for a motor next to the point.

 

 

It's uses a wire in tube, with the tube held in place with screws. I'd cut a slot in the cork all the way to the motor, but had to pack up the motor end of the tube to line it up. Both ends of the wire were made into a loop, with the point end dropped over the pin on the tiebar, and the other end attached to the drive bar on the motor before fitting to the base.

 

The appalling soldering is due to not finding my fibreglass brush to clean it up properly until after I'd finished the job, but it will do!

 

 

After I'd finished, it dawned on me that the tube should continue under the motor, as there's quite a bit of bare wire, but it was too late by then! If it causes problems, I'll have to file two short lengths of tube down to get two half tubes, then tape them together!

The microswitch is operated by the bar on the non locking point motor.

 

[BG John]

Finally, I could tip the board up, and see the spaghetti I'd created dropping wires through from above! It's all colour coded, but still needs some unravelling!

 

 

This is my "standard" method for operating the points. Peco motor on non locking base screwed under the baseboard, driving the tiebar through a slot in the board, with the microswitch driven by the bar in the base. All these are now fitted.

 

 

The other exceptions to this are the catch point, that has a SEEP motor screwed directly under the baseboard, as it doesn't need a microswitch, and one where the Peco motor is attached directly to the point in a big hole in the baseboard, because the board was reinforced at that point, and too thick to mount it underneath. I still need to fix the microswitch for this one, as I need to search for some suitable bits, and it was too dark to go hunting by the time I got this far.

[BG John]

I was going to get on with the wiring today, until I discovered I didn't have all the bits I needed. So now I have to wait for the post to arrive. Instead, I started on the fiddle yard. This will be a sector plate, and space is tight. It will be at the back of the layout, but will normally be operated from the front, just to complicate things!

 

The first step was to design it. I stuck three bits of A4 paper together, and marked out three parallel lines for the track centres. There's only room for the centre one to be full length, and that's on a slight curve, so the final plan deviates somewhat from the straight lines I started with! Once I'd got it right, I stuck the plan on a piece of thin ply I happened to have lying around. It's almost exactly the same thickness as the cork underlay. Then I cut it out using a jigsaw, and sanded the edges. Here it is, in the two extreme positions.

 

You may notice that the microswitch has disappeared from the point motor I fitted it to yesterday. Maybe I should have planned the fiddle yard before fitting point motors! Or maybe that's the reason I cut the tube too short, as deep down somewhere in my head I knew the solenoid would have to be moved!!!

 

 

 

As the layout is designed as two shunting puzzles, the aim is to do lots of shunting, and not have a lot of trains arriving and leaving, so one long track should be enough. The short one at the back is just for the railcar, that will arrive at intervals to disrupt shunting.

 

The track at the front is more complicated! This is intended to be the track for the two wagons at this end of the timesaver. But it also takes a loco, that breaks the rules. The idea is that the two wagons are actually being shunted off to a private siding just up the line, so it wouldn't look right if the loco didn't disappear under the bridge. There will be low relief buildings covering the front of the fiddle yard, and the front track will slide underneath them. I'm working on a cunning plan to make sure that cheating by putting three wagons on that track, or leaving the loco there, will be foiled!!! I also have a devious plan for getting access to it when it's behind the backscene!

[john flann]

Interesting: two questions:-

 

one, as a shunting layout what couplings do you intend to use?

 

two, what method of working/operation will you adopt?

[BG John]

At the moment I'm intending to stick with the Hornby type, with strategically placed uncoupling ramps, but if that doesn't work I'll think again. I'm not sure what I'd change to, and if I'd use something that plugs into the NEM sockets, or fit Spratt and Winkles as I have quite a large stock of them.

 

By method of working/operation, do you mean DC/DCC, or how I'll organise the shunting? The answer to the first is DC, and the second is I don't know yet!

[BG John]

Shocking things are happening to Ingletyme . Watch this space, and all will be revealed soon!

[BG John]

Ingletyme is no more. Although it got off to a good start, there were various things I wasn't happy with. It was intended to be a fairly quick way to get back into modelling, and encourage me to get started with the projects I've wanted to do for a very long time, but it was going so slowly that it was actually holding them up. So after lots of dithering and indecisiveness, I decided it had to go. I was going to sell the OO gauge stock I bought for it, but part of me didn't want to, and I'd have wasted a lot of money for no gain. So I've been planning a new layout to run it on. I learned lots of useful stuff from what I did on Ingletyme, and hope to apply it to getting the new layout built much more quickly, so all the money and effort hasn't been wasted.

 

I've nearly finished lifting the track, and have got it up with little damage, despite being well stuck down, so I'll be re-using the points on the new layout. The baseboard will be sanded down, and used on one of my long term ambition layouts, and I've got the materials for the board for the new layout. The new layout is planned, and I've started on the buildings, but you'll have to wait a while before it's let loose on the world!