“WASHBOURNE”

[Northroader]

With these two points, Don, there had to be a curve at the point blade end. The rest of the curve beyond the crossing I straightened out, so they could give a crossover. Really it should work better if the straight run was longer. “S” curves will always be a problem, “reverse” curves with a straight bit in the middle should be better,

“Seasoned 0 scalers”,… and me, too, Jordan. Looking back over this thread, no layout ever gets finished, and working, Something always happens, and it looks like it’s happened again. What do I do with two tight curve points? Mmmm….

 

[Donw]

If you have straightened out beyond the crossing the only thing you could do is to increase the 6ft way. However if the curve is too tight for some of you locos it will either mean a lot of work on those locos or change the turnouts. A while back I laid a 4ft curve in the loft I had then and tried stock round it even my Mogul went round.   It might be practical to have a 4ft crossover if you have the room but I dont know if anyone makes them. It is a pity Peco doesn;t makes turnouts of 4ft or 4ft 6in radius  to complement the ones they do make. A lot of modellers would find them very useful in the goods yard where a small shunter and short wagons could cope it would also look better with the mainline turnouts being bigger. What I have seen of your locos they are not big beasts extra side play might work for some of them.

 

Don  

[Caley Jim]

Ideally a crossover should have straight crossings, as opposed to curviform, which then produce a straight section between the crossings. Of course, with RTR track you don't have the option, unless they are made that way. 

 

Jim

[Northroader]

The baseboard with the setrack crossover has been put into store for now, and I’m going back to the scheme with just a running track with a passenger platform, and a short siding to shunt goods wagons. I’ve got two foamboard sections which at one time were going to be either side of the main board when it was a “run through”, so one is now staying as a fiddle yard board, and one has become the main board for the layout. The foamboard, 10mm thickness, came in a pack cut to A0 paper size, and so the major dimension of the pack determines the layout size, each unit is 33.25”, 845mm, long, and so a total overall length of 66.5”, 1,690mm. The width of each board is 13.75”, 350mm. There’s a single thickness top, with a supporting frame underneath in two and three thickness strips. Where the boards join and bolt together, I’ve got some ply pads to reinforce the join. There’s a further piece behind to act as a backscene support, also bolted on. This is just flat, without curved end pieces, as I want to keep an open look, allowing better illumination.

The track is laid on 4mm self adhesive cork tiles, and is glued down with Evostik, as I couldn’t spike into foamboard. I happen to have a 72” radius trammel from way back, and I used this to set the curve on the main track.

The track is supported at the run off by a piece of copper clad board. It is Peco streamline bullhead, but I’ve cut through the web between the sleepers and increased the individual spacing. The fiddle yard has cassettes using ply strip, which has led to a discrepancy in height between the two boards.

Theres a piece of foamboard glued down behind to give a continental height platform, and a loose fitting piece on top to make up a British platform. Then I wired up, and started test running, getting some derailments. Bad time, I nearly Run Away To Sea, but worked out one rail at the board run off was 1mm too high, which was corrected. The 6’ radius means that I can run six coupled locos through, and propel trains in and out, much better than that crossover.

For now I’m testing the interface between the cassette ends and the two tracks.

The other thing I’m trying out is tree planting, mainly to disguise the run off out of the station, rather than an over bridge or tunnel, and I also need to need to fill the gap left of the station building, rather than go for the big buildings you usually get behind a microlayout.

Edited May 31 by Northroader

[F-UnitMad]

Very nice, Bob. I like the track at an angle to the baseboard edge, always an effective trick. Those are decent looking trees as well. 👍👍

[Northroader]

Thanks, Jordan. The pundits always stress having a design not having the tracks parallel with the front baseboard edge, and I just about had the room. The main line curves to go square on to the fiddle yard, but the siding is still angled at the join, so the cassette has enough room to link in skew whiff. I’ve trimmed the shoulders off the cassette end to help with the clearances at the far end.

The trees are by Heki, strictly they’re for H0 layouts, but I reckon you can get away with little trees in one scale being big trees in another. The base of the trunk has had a slight addition in height, while I was putting a brass rod up the middle to locate it. This goes into a plastic tube glued down into a foamboard pad.

Edited May 31 by Northroader

[Donw]

I think it works well. Will it have one of those nice painted backscenes we have seen on earlier layouts I do hope so.

 

It was a shame about the crossover but you could have any loco now.

 

Don

[Northroader]

Yes, Don, right now I’m waiting for delivery of a roll of cartridge paper, then I can get cracking on painting the back.

with the crossover, I think it just shows there’s a downward limit with having a small line as to how you can fit pointwork in, and run anything bigger than four wheel jobs.

[F-UnitMad]

2 hours ago, Northroader said:

with the crossover, I think it just shows there’s a downward limit with having a small line as to how you can fit pointwork in, and run anything bigger than four wheel jobs.

Yes, tighter the curve radius, smaller the stock has to be.

Although in this case, some advice I received was to actually extend this piece of rolling stock, so it would fit.... 🙄🙄😂😂😂

I suppose it would've made a passable impression of a turntable... 🤔🤪👌