Point size

[MartynA]

I am building a small (6' x 2') terminus Victorian era station. Nothing too fancy, just a runaround loop, a few sidings, engine shed and goods shed. Mainly short trains such as a Webb coal tank and a couple of coaches or seven wagon freight. On Peco 75 rail, what are people's thoughts of short points? I had intended to use medium length for aesthetics but the short ones are easier to work with. Would a mixture (e.g. Medium on the platform roads and short on the sidings) be a better compromise? Thanks in advance for your advice.

[Edge]

For running reliability, go for the largest points which fit your space - they will pay you back with trouble free running of locos and rolling stock, as well as avoiding unrealistic model overhangs on coaches and bogie wagons (my personal pet peeve). That being said, Peco products are generally pretty decent regardless, so you should be fine mix and matching the two diffenet kinds of points

[DCB]

I find the Peco medium 3ft radius code 100 are a good compromise between looks, operation and space saving, 7 coach trains will reverse over them whereas the small 2ft are a bit touchy with 7 and the long points take a lot of space so logically the code 75 should be equally good.

However if you have only 6ft length you are going to have to save every possible millimeter.  I would use 2ft for the run round and a medium 3ft for the approach from the fiddle yard, better still a 3 way to save some more space The run round needs to be as long as you can squeeze in on such a small layout and indeed they are generally very long on prototype stations..

Narrowing the gap between tracks, the 6ft also saves length, I come down to 44mm ish whereas the standard is 50 mm I think and it saves half an inch length here and there which can make all the difference.  

If you are only using Tank engines then trimming the length beyond the loco release crossover or run round points to Tank Engine length id probably worthwhile.  The GWR  Faringdon terminus had this feature and when 2-6-0 locos turned up they had to resort to rope shunting to run round as there was not enough room to operate the crossover points.

I operate a Branch Terminus sometimes, It will just take 4 coach trains in the run round loop, an 0-6-0 tender loco just squeezes past the release crossover and trains are generally 2 coaches, however goods are usually 17 wagons or more which is great fun as the trains are too long to run round and the resulting shunts to sort things out make shunting planks look like something the average Tabby Cat could sort out