Coder Tim Posted January 23, 2016 Share Posted January 23, 2016 Hi, I've posted a similar trackplan before but as part of a much larger scheme and without much attention to the MPD itself. I'm looking for a more manageable chunk so I've decided to extract the shed as a project in it's own right. As such it's been expanded and detailed, and I'd appreciate some feedback on it. Basically have I done anything obviously stupid or improbable? The design is very loosely based on Kings Cross' Passenger Loco Shed. I know the number of loco spurs is unlikely but that's a concession I'm willing to make to allow me to display locos that aren't currently in use. The idea is for locos to move from top to bottom through stages of cleaning the fire, coaling, turning, watering, and finally stabling. The main lines will eventually run above the top and the station throat is to the left. Thoughts or opinions? Cheers, Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMay Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Which is the way in? At the top left? And it's viewed from the bottom and on the left is a 4 road low-relief shed with some low-relief Airfix kits just inside the building, and hiding the entrance to the fiddle yard behind it, right? I wish people would put operating and viewing positions on their plans. This stuff is critical to presentation gentlemen! It looks OK to me. Remember that the #1 priority is water. Engines might be coming onto shed low on water and they need water to avoid melting the fusible plugs and having a minor drama. Maybe try to work fewer in reversals in the processing, and also remember that in the prototype they would have more sidings for coal and ash wagons than indicated above. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 All good points, thanks! I've linked the spurs directly to the turntable which should reduce the number of reversals drastically. I was a bit worried about clearance but I've checked and a pacific leaving the spur point furthest to the right will clear the point without fouling the turntable. I've also added more water columns, including one near the entrance for emergencies. Not sure if there are too many now? Finally I added an extra siding for coal and ash wagons. All in all I think it's looking a lot better. You read it pretty much exactly right despite the missing information. I've added that in now anyway. The one thing I'm not so keen on is the low relief shed. It's supposed to be more of a servicing depot in a city near a busy station rather than a stabling point. I don't think there would be a shed at such a facility but I could be wrong? I also think the spurs with inspection pits are unlikely but I'm letting that slide so that I can have some extra locos on display. Instead of the shed I've gone with a low relief mill to help locate the scene in West Yorkshire in the steam/diesel transition era. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCB Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Version 2 looks much better. But for me it really needs a dummy shed behind the pits and all the pits the same length, As a stabling point I think the coaler and spurs are over the top, maybe the lines off the turntable Ranelagh Bridge style, and a small coal grab, but I don't know of a full size coaler away from a loco shed. Operationally 1 looks quite awkward as the entrance track would have to act as a headshunt for movements on and off the pits. Is the station a terminus? is it LNER? If so an old Hornby Flying Scotsman or two could provide front ends and tender backs to block the dummy shed entrances. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
edcayton Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Depending on your period there were many examples where sheds had fallen down, burnt down or been demolished, leaving traces to various degrees. That would certainly explain open roads with pits. Ed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyMay Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Depending on your period there were many examples where sheds had fallen down, burnt down or been demolished, leaving traces to various degrees. That would certainly explain open roads with pits. Ed Well, yes, roofs fell down due to wartime neglect or attentions of the Luftwafe. It is a good approach when modelling sheds to leave the roof off because who honestly wants to hide their model engines with a shed roof? But you still need a place to put the surviving shell, and I think here you would need to reduce the shed to 2 roads for it to fit correctly in the footprint available. By my reckoning also in the 2nd plan the roads that are 4th/5th from the top duplicate each other, and you could save yourself a set of points and just have one road there. Sorry I don't have access to my books and I'm being a bit senile here so can someone remind me what comes second (after water) when processing engines? Do they get ash done second or coal? I agree with David that although a station might have a turntable and a place to temporarily rest engines (of course it will have water), the presence of heavier ash and coal plants implies an MPD with overnight storage facilities. Finally, I think the low-relief shed can work quite well, but there should be a few cm of shed not least to hide the exit to the FY. You could also make one of the roads exit into the fiddle yard as well as the low relief loco idea. Also I think MPDs were generally about this size (i.e. 4 road sheds), or bigger. Smaller MPDs were less common, IMHO and would be found in smaller cities where they wouldn't have had the big locos in. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 26, 2016 Author Share Posted January 26, 2016 Great advice everyone, really appreciate it! I think the general consensus is right: a stabling point just wouldn't handle the kind of locos I want in the volume I want. I've gone with the low relief shed which would give me the option to expand it into a fully modeled one if I ever build the full layout with station and whatnot. I can also solve the problem of it being unrealistically near the station by simply putting it further down the line, don't know why I didn't think of that sooner. Like the idea of a shed without a roof, if I do eventually build the full shed I'll probably go that route. I've removed the redundant road because it was indeed redundant. If I've got the order of coal and ash wrong I can swap them fairly easily, will have to do a bit of research to find that out. The hypothetical station is an ex-LMS terminus. Thanks again! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mightbe Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 I refer you to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWnjd2eftY Interestingly the 'shed flow' takes locos right under the coal tower before taking on water. I don't know if it's a typical order, but it's very informative. Quentin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bike2steam Posted January 27, 2016 Share Posted January 27, 2016 Now plan 3 looks much better, looks less cramped, the even length inspection pits are an improvement. You need ash pit(s), separate from the ash tower. Remove water cranes from bottle-necks/turnouts/ within clearance sections, one fixed to the water-tower, and the middle one on the plan ( mid-way between turnouts) would be sufficient. Get the operator behind the layout to make room for crowds that want to see it, and best to look at who's talking to you instead of being in the awkward position of having two people talking to you , one on each side, if it's N gauge there wont be much room. I've had to ignore layouts at shows because the operator is in front, conversing with others, and there's not been enough room to view it !?!? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 28, 2016 Author Share Posted January 28, 2016 Now I think we're getting somewhere That video was really informative, thanks. One thing I hadn't realised was that coaling is done on the way back out. I've had to tweak things quite a bit to take account of that. The major change is that the in road is now the bottom of the three that connect to the table. The middle of those three can be in or out and the top is out only as it doesn't have any ash facilities. I've also fixed the scale of various items. The biggest offenders were the water cranes. Even now they would be a scale 2ft in diameter. Any smaller and you wouldn't be able to see them on the plan though! I've thinned out the number of cranes as suggested. I can see a couple of flaws now but I'm not sure what to do about them. The ash pit is pretty close to the turntable, would this have happened in the real world? I've placed it here so that a loco dropping ash won't block the entrance / exit of the shed for another loco. It would mean that second loco would have to access coal and the turntable via a reverse move, would it be worth putting in a relief link to avoid this (shown in red)? The pit is also not directly adjacent to the ash tower. I've shown an ash dolly to transfer ash to the tower for loading onto wagons, does that seem like a reasonable arrangement? Finally getting onto the coaling roads from the shed requires either use of the turntable or a reverse move. This seems like it could become a bottleneck by forcing locos that don't need to be turned to use the table anyway. I can't find a solution for that. I'm not planning on taking it to any exhibitions so being able to talk to people viewing it isn't a huge issue. I'm planning on having the controls remote anyway though so I can change operating position if I ever do decide to take it on the road. Thanks again for all the input so far! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mightbe Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 It's looking pretty good! I can't provide any definite answer on the location of the ash pit, but what's preventing you from putting it on the middle track to the turntable? Have you thought about shifting the water tower to the left a couple inches to better hide the entrance and expose that 3-way? Btw, is this N or 2mmfs? I assume the layout is 4'? Quentin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 29, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 29, 2016 I think you've gone a bit OTT with the coaler for what is basically a small shed area - the original 2 road arrangement fitted the scale of the site much better. And the ash arrangement in Post No.3 is far better - engines coming on would clean/drop the fire then proceed for coal then to turn if required then stable for either attention or ready for their next job. You need to think about these facilities in relation not just to their purpose but how they would influence, and impact on, movements around the layout and remember that you are effectively carrying out some compression to fit things into your site and I can't really see how the layout in No.10 would work effectively. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 29, 2016 Author Share Posted January 29, 2016 There is supposed to be an ash pit on the middle road under the tower. I may or may not have forgotten to add it to the previous diagram *cough*. The problem with having that be the main place to drop ash is that it would mean using the table both on entry and exit which is doubling the usage of what is already a pinch-point. Unfortunately having it where it is blocks the shed exit. Happily by thinking about it to produce this reply I found a solution: move the turnout to the shed towards the table and put the pit on the other side. I've decided to move the water tower altogether because I've always liked them and want it on full display. I'll find something else to put in as a view block without obscuring the three-way. Yep, 4 feet long. It's going to be in n because I'm not a fan of changing wheelsets. I am going to hand-build the track using Finetrax components though. The coaler is based on the scenecraft one. Only two of the roads are for coaling with the third road (the top one of the three) being the wagon hoist / tippler. Is that still overkill? Happy to change it if so but I felt I didn't make the diagram overly clear so should check. Some minor tweaks this time and I have two potential arrangements. I've shown both. The first has coal after stabling and the second has it before. I prefer the second but what do you guys think? Also, is it reasonable to have coal before stabling rather than after? The video says not but people on here suggest yes and I'm more inclined to trust you than a public information film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 29, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 29, 2016 The lower drawing is better - gets the process better arranged - an engine coming on first cleans the fire then goes to the coaler and you use your common siding for coal coming in/ash going out. On the second. lower drawing, there is then a choice - engines ready for work, which might only have had teh fire cleaned and not even been coaled, unless essential, drop onto the middle siding to wait their call to work. Engines going to shed come off the table via the lower road and go to shed - only potential conflict is with engines coming off shed by that's not too much bother and some engines will in any case have been kept clear by going to the middle road instead. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bike2steam Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 Now I think we're getting somewhere One thing I hadn't realised was that coaling is done on the way back out. Not necessarily, depends on who's procedures you follow. From about 1933 the LMS rebuilt many of it's loco sheds to make them more efficient and set down the following rules of movement on entry to shed yard. 1) Coaling with simultaneous watering. 2) Ash disposal/fire cleaning 3) Turning 4) Stabling in shed for examination, if required. Or return to further duties. From 'LMS Engine Sheds- Volume 1' by Chris Hawkins , published by Wild Swan Publications. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 30, 2016 Author Share Posted January 30, 2016 Right then, I think we have a winner: the second version from post #13 I hadn't thought of using the middle road to queue locos going straight back into traffic but I like it, thanks for the idea! Thanks for posting the excerpt from LMS Engine Sheds, I really wish that book was still in print. Looks like I have coal and ash in the wrong order but that's trivial to fix. Finally, thanks to everyone who commented, really appreciate it! I'll post a build thread at some point, although it could be a while. Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted January 30, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 30, 2016 Right then, I think we have a winner: the second version from post #13 I hadn't thought of using the middle road to queue locos going straight back into traffic but I like it, thanks for the idea! Thanks for posting the excerpt from LMS Engine Sheds, I really wish that book was still in print. Looks like I have coal and ash in the wrong order but that's trivial to fix. Finally, thanks to everyone who commented, really appreciate it! I'll post a build thread at some point, although it could be a while. Tim Don't worry about coal and ash - the GW seems to have gone in for ash first then coal or even ash alongside the coaling stage at some sheds. The key bit is really having somewhere to load away the ash - there being rather a lot of it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mightbe Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 For visual balance I'd keep the second one as-is. It's not a large shed so probably wouldn't have been extensively rebuilt to follow a trivial reordering. You also need some visual weight on that half of the layout to draw the eye. Quentin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted January 31, 2016 Author Share Posted January 31, 2016 Yep, I agree the visual balance is better with coal and ash in the order they are so that's how I'll leave them. Next step is some experiments in turnout building in n... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coder Tim Posted April 2, 2016 Author Share Posted April 2, 2016 Hi all, finally started a build thread for this: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/109868-anonymous-mpd/ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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