Castle Aching

[Northroader]

Thing with cassettes is you can lift em in, and lift em out, nice and slick, so if West Norfolk isn’t the Bakerloo line, you don’t need two cassettes side by side on the tracks, just one can be used, and plenty of standing parkspace in front where you can place them, this saves a point each end on the length too. 

I like the lonely junction out in the country, that has good potential, but there’s not enough room to cross trains there, I’d be wanting to do it as all single lines, so just one point, rather than four points and a diamond, fancy but wasteful. Only place that comes to mind is Smallbrook Junction on the IoW, if it was off season single track to St.Johns?

Then there’s the big sweeping curve into Achingham, which looks very S bendish, could it be slightly shorter with less curvature and Achingham tilted the other way? There’s just a slight pinch at the buffer stop end of Achingham. QMight improve the aisle space near the door for an idle bystander from Wiltshire with a beer in his hand.

[nick_bastable]

Just a thought get rid of the cassattes and replace with a traverser saves four points

[Edwardian]

9 minutes ago, nick_bastable said:

Just a thought get rid of the cassattes and replace with a traverser saves four points

 

I arrived at cassettes quite some years ago in the concept planning, but that is not to say that other options should not be revisited.

 

The attraction of cassettes was:

 

(i) At both cassette yards, as at both termini, locos need to be turned.  It struck me that separate loco cassettes was easier and more space-efficient than TTs in the fiddleyard and preferred to manual handling.

 

(ii) With cassettes, I can have as many trains as I can store cassettes. Any other style of FY and I am limited to the number of tracks on the board. Now, it might take an age to achieve this, but knowing there is room for expansion is welcome, so:

 

- GER mainline passenger

- MGN mainline passenger

- MR mainline passenger

- GNR mainline passenger

- GER tramway passenger

- WNR Norwich passenger

- WNR Bury passenger

- WNR Local Set 1

- WNR Local Set 2

- WNR Northern Branches Set

- WNR tramway passenger

 

Then there will be the goods services.

 

These can all be kept ready without the need for constant handling.

 

(iii) Space efficient: shorter than a ladder FY, less wide than a traverser.

[Annie]

So far so good.  A nice new install of Basemapz and it all went like clockwork.  Should keep me out of trouble for a day or two.

 

 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Thing with cassettes is you can lift em in, and lift em out, nice and slick, so if West Norfolk isn’t the Bakerloo line, you don’t need two cassettes side by side on the tracks, just one can be used, and plenty of standing parkspace in front where you can place them, this saves a point each end on the length too. 

 

Yes, let's go with a single, central cassette space.

 

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

I like the lonely junction out in the country, that has good potential, but there’s not enough room to cross trains there, I’d be wanting to do it as all single lines, so just one point, rather than four points and a diamond, fancy but wasteful. Only place that comes to mind is Smallbrook Junction on the IoW, if it was off season single track to St.Johns?

 

One day, in another house, after a lottery win, I'll build the junction and Aching Constable.  Until then there is not space to do that lonely junction justice.

 

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

Then there’s the big sweeping curve into Achingham, which looks very S bendish, could it be slightly shorter with less curvature and Achingham tilted the other way?

 

 

Yes, but that's 'cos I like S bends!

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Northroader said:

 

There’s just a slight pinch at the buffer stop end of Achingham. QMight improve the aisle space near the door for an idle bystander from Wiltshire with a beer in his hand.

 

I'll make sure I have a supply in.

 

[Schooner]

 

Beats SCARM for sure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was that the sort of thing you had in mind? Stock excepting, of course.

 

Nowhere near as good as Trainz (nice start @Annie, and good to know it was only operator error this end!), but a useful few minutes. It all works as (I think) intended; the balance of station to scenic run lies with @Edwardian but is pleasing enough as it stands; the platform to train ratio seems about right etc etc

 

Very rough timings, running at an all-or-nothing 16mph:

• CA - A'ham c. 2 mins
• CA - cassette c.1'30"
• CA - BM c. 2'30"

We can check timetables, and the operator can get around the layout :)

 

No plan survives contact and all that, but I wish you joy of your layout, Sir!

 

@Nearholmer's points are worth a thought. By losing the BoT double junction, one gains the space to de-Toy-Train-ify the scenic run CA - A'ham which would be a big improvement. I'm sure there will be room for further improvement as the station layouts get refined also. Add in compound curvature and it should be looking really rather relaxed, which is ideal :)

 

[Edwardian]

Somewhere, in the Multiverse, there is no doubt a version of the West Norfolk Railway operated by Deutsche Bahn with diesels, so that's fine.  Looks good, though, and very much what I had in mind.

[Compound2632]

What is the width between baseboards? (Considering anticipated girth plus clearance.) Also what is the baseboard height above floor level? (Considering elbow flailing.)

Edited May 24, 2022 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

What is the width between baseboards? (Considering anticipated girth plus clearance.)

 

I think each square is 1'

 

2 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Also what is the baseboard height above floor level? (Considering elbow flailing.)

 

I'll have to check, but I seem to recall CA is about 43" high. 

[Andy Hayter]

It occurs to me that Achingham could be controlled, along with the storage cassettes en route to Birchingham Market from behind Achingham.  This would avoid the A/BM operator conflicts.

[Donw]

One can find some great S curves in real life the Coleford branch between Milkwall and Darkhill/Fetterhill in the Forest is a good example. However you really need the geography to create the need for them.  Perhaps not so easy in Norfolk but a river might help.

 

One thing not mentioned about traversers is the they need nearly double the width of the traverser itself . Say the traverser had six tracks  say 14 ins wide. the access track needs to be about 13 ins out from the wall  to met the outer traverser track. So the outer edge of the traverser would be  about  26ins from the wall to met the inner track.  More tracks would need more room.

 

Don

[Northroader]

Thought of a lonely junction:

https://signalbox.org/~SBdiagram.php?id= 966

[Nearholmer]

I challenge Edwardian to build a “vertical traverser” for this location, thereby saving the trouble of cassettes and the space of a horizontal traverser. Ideally, it could be left locked in the fully raised position to act as a set of display shelves when the layout isn’t operating.

 

A dumb waiter for trains?

 

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Nearholmer

[Northroader]

You’ll still need to turn your cassettes, though. You could stack them vertically on a rack, as long as there’s something to stop them dropping off accidentally, rack with lips sort of thing.

[MrWolf]

You could have a vertical traverser, powered even and fitted with a control system. 

Each "shelf" on the traverser could be made to lift off for rotation. It could actually be a real space saver.

[Donw]

It could be really good quite an engineering task. I believe someone was offering some for sale but I think there was some issues.

 

Don

 

just found home made one  http://www.rosewarnejunction.me.uk/vertical-traverser/

[Edwardian]

Fascinating. 

 

However ....

 

Beyond my technical prowess and a lot off faff for the sake of storing cassettes, for which I should have ample space to shelve and which I reckon I can lift without mechanical intervention!

 

As for doubling as display shelves, I'm not sure the illusion, such as it is, would benefit from the sight of the stock of the WNR hovering over the West Norfolk landscape. With judicious forestry and building up the Achingham board's townscape, I hope to screen the non-scenic area.  When one one glances across the layout, above the treetops one should see ...

 

 

 

[Regularity]

Any such contraption needs counter-balancing, else it becomes a finger guillotine… 

(Or maybe just a bad bruise. Anyone who went behind the late Sam Bonfield’s “Emwell” in its original format in the mid 1980s will recall this possibility.)

[Regularity]

15 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Beyond my technical prowess and a lot off faff for the sake of storing cassettes, for which I should have ample space to shelve and which I reckon I can lift without mechanical intervention!

Ah, how we all understand:

 

Nothing like a little judicious levity!

[MrWolf]

An anti runback device would be really simple and installed as a matter of course.

The way I was thinking, powered by hand or motor and indexing circuit, would give a positive lock at all stop positions in both directions.

Believe me, you can scale the idea up when creating a device that can rotate and position a tank hull so that all of the welds are performed in the horizontal position for maximum strength and speed of production. Much more chance of nipped fingers there!

[Hroth]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Fascinating. 

 

However ....

 

Beyond my technical prowess and a lot off faff for the sake of storing cassettes, for which I should have ample space to shelve and which I reckon I can lift without mechanical intervention!

 

As for doubling as display shelves, I'm not sure the illusion, such as it is, would benefit from the sight of the stock of the WNR hovering over the West Norfolk landscape. With judicious forestry and building up the Achingham board's townscape, I hope to screen the non-scenic area.  When one one glances across the layout, above the treetops one should see ...

 

 

 

 

Blue roller blinds in front of the shelves?

You might even paint Cirrus clouds on them...

 

[Nearholmer]

6 hours ago, Regularity said:

Any such contraption needs counter-balancing, else it becomes a finger guillotine… 

The whole thing should work by counterbalance. A lot of the ones shown in mags, on the web, or for sale, are massively over complicated because they don’t.

[Edwardian]

Returning to developments that might actually come to pass .....

 

Here again is the latest full iteration of Schooner's plan:

 

 

Here is a map covering the area:

 

 

 

Note that the top cassette yard has changed, to allow a single cassette road between the double running lines.  All of this will be off-stage so no part of either ACSJ or ACNJ are part of the modelled scene.

 

This has further advantages:

 

(i) If we position the connection between the Smoxborough biscuit works and the mainline as between Achingham Junction and ACSJ, the connection can be represented by the cassette yard. Huntley & Palmer's traffic can be brought into CA's yard. We might send a WNR locomotive to collect it, or we might grant mainline running permission to H&P's brace of W4 Pecketts.

 

(ii) The non-scenic portion can also be taken to encompass Hillingham and the junction with the MGN, so this traffic can come and go from the right place, rather than wrongly using ACNJ as necessitated by other plan iterations.  

 

(iii) The exchange sidings on Birchoverham Heath with the West Norfolk Soil Amendment Co's NG system would also be encompassed by the non-scenic section, so we can bear this traffic in mind also.

 

Thus, a lot comes in and out of the 'rest of the world' cassette yard, with the above 3 elements joining mainline traffic from the GER, the WNR Norwich and Bury services, the Wofringham and Bishop's Lynn traffic.  I have my doubts that the WNR would countenance the Norfolk Minerals Railways assorted relic running on WN metals, but, again, that's something I can do from time to time.

 

In short, the above plan allows everything on and to the WNR to appear on the layout and, furthermore, to go to and from the right points of entry/exit.  Thus, I am limited only by imagination (and modelling time and sensible timetabling constraints!)              

[jcredfer]

I wonder if you are aware of the DCC Concepts Storage Depots, which come in a variety of lengths and drop onto the track, directly, saving much exacting engineering.

https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/motive-power-depot-drive-onoff-storage-560mm/ 

 

They aren't particularly inexpensive, until you work out how much it would cost to produce something similarly efficient from scratch.  Such are the benefits of Scale of Economy.  There is also the small consideration that they can be purchased individually, as the need emerges.

 

{No connection with the company, apart from some satisfactory purchases and noticed the, various length, storage in passing.}

 

I see that, recently, Peco have something similar, but in the form of cassettes which could be joined together, for longer lengths.  I haven't looked, in sufficient detail to see what joined up length limits for the joined-up segments may apply.  The DCC Concepts ones come as a complete length.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by jcredfer

[Edwardian]

11 minutes ago, jcredfer said:

I wonder if you are aware of the DCC Concepts Storage Depots, which come in a variety of lengths and drop onto the track, directly, saving much exacting engineering.

https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/motive-power-depot-drive-onoff-storage-560mm/ 

 

They aren't particularly inexpensive, until you work out how much it would cost to produce something similarly efficient from scratch.  Such are the benefits of Scale of Economy.  There is also the small consideration that they can be purchased individually, as the need emerges.

 

{No connection with the company, apart from some satisfactory purchases and noticed the, various length, storage in passing.}

 

 

That's rather brilliant.