Help with a small P4 shelf layout please

[hayfield]

With my new work room nearing completion and modelling now being possible I am hoping to start track building demos at shows again ( if invites recommence), I need something very small and portable to work on/ demonstrate, plus I have a small collection of P4 locos (57xx, 94xx, Triang Nelly and 2 Pugs). So why not include both

 

The idea is to fit on a 4' x 1- 1.25' baseboard

 

I have cheated a bit by pinching someone else's design, or rather my memory of it. Here is a Templot screen shot

 

 

Train enters bottom right into a small station (light railway?) platform top left, which could either be a terminus or enlarged later for a through station

I wanted to use Y or curved turnouts to increase the radii of small points/turnouts plus plenty of curved tracks for a flow

 

There are two sidings and a runaround, I have a Langley etched station building to use which is very light railway'ish. Track will be ply timbers and sleepers with plastic chairs.

 

Thoughts and ideas on improving the plan is most welcomed 

 

Templot box file

Proposed P4 shelf layout plan 2018.box

 

Thanks

[Jeff Smith]

Will it be fed by a fiddle yard at lower right? I think you need one in order to do any meaningful shunting. It looks as though you could minimise the release track to the shortest wheelbase loco that you intend running and maximise the loop length.

[hayfield]

Will it be fed by a fiddle yard at lower right? I think you need one in order to do any meaningful shunting. It looks as though you could minimise the release track to the shortest wheelbase loco that you intend running and maximise the loop length.

 

Jeff

 

Yes that's correct a fiddle yard bottom right, also for expansion if required a left hand fiddle yard top left using a road over bridge. Somehow I have lost the curving flow that I remember, it had one normal turnout and 3 Y turnouts. The reasons for the Y's is in hand built track you can get a much larger radius in a smaller space than you can on a conventional straight turnout.

 

I just want a design which covers these requirements

 

1  Small,  Initially will be a demonstration piece for track building demonstration so must be very portable

2  Flowing trackwork,  a design which is devoid of straight track, compact but allows stock to move through turnouts without lurching from side to side

3  A layout to run my P4 stock 

4  Simple design which despite the gauge being used public can engage with

 

As can be seen, not quite there with the use of Y's and the flowing aspect, any suggestions will be most welcome

Edited January 16, 2018 by hayfield

[lapford34102]

I like that, looks flowing and you've avoided any dreaded "S" curves with the pointwork.- assuming 3 links ?

No idea what you've in mind for scenery buildings etc so my only comments would be

To drift the lower LH siding round to be almost parallel with the run round and lengthen it a tad

Move upper RH point left a little to give a slightly longer siding there.

Try not to limit the run round length too much as you will want to run something larger at some point - believe me...!

 

Stu

[hayfield]

Stu

 

Thanks, the sidings length are fluid as are the curves on them. My main layout is in EM gauge, this really is something of a demonstration piece plus a place to run a few P4 items I have. Having said this it could be an ideal test piece for baseboard design, scenic methods etc and no reason why it cannot  be a demonstrable piece on its own

 

I have a Langley etched station building to use and perhaps a few other things like the Ratio concrete shed etc could be utilised

[Harlequin]

Here are some centre lines, keeping most of the curvature in the same sense to try to make the design "flow".

• All points could have straight sections.
• First points right against the edge of the board and perpendicular where the fiddle yard enters.
• Diagonal layout to make best use of area.
• 6in spur for small loco at far end.

Edited January 16, 2018 by Harlequin

[Jeff Smith]

Assuming the kick-back siding is just for brake van parking it needs to be shorter and the point moved to the right to allow a maximum length train to pull forward far enough to reverse into the siding. Unless you are to horse or fly shunt the maximum length train will be determined by the loop length, train minus the engine and brake van.

 

Also I think the lower siding needs to be as long as possible to accommodate a couple of empty wagons to be picked up.

[hayfield]

Phil

 

Thanks, two problems which could be overcome easily

The first being the lack of Y turnouts, but just use A5's. The second is preference which is the top right turnout being too far left, easily rectified. Otherwise much better than my idea

 

Jeff

 

Thanks I think what I said above agrees with your suggestion

[davknigh]

Have you considered a scaled down version of Arun Quay? The article in MRJ 258 gives the O scale dimensions and it should fit in the space you have in 4mm scale.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Jeff Smith]

John - I'm a great fan of modest sized lightweight baseboards.  I've attached a couple of pics of a 1' x 3' demo board I built over 30 years ago for P4 display at our local show in Dunstable.  It just has plastic chair/plywood sleeper plain track on a braced 1/4" ply trackbed.  You can see from the underside it is just the profiled ends and sides in 1/4" ply with formers and relatively thin square section strengtheners.  I'm a great believer in the 'railway in the landscape' look hence the open baseboard design.  The rest of the shell is thin paper mache.  This baseboard ended up being the approach for my GWR terminus by adding two more 3' x 18" boards.  The final pictures show the whole layout which only uses a three way point and two single points.

 

[hayfield]

Jeff

 

I was thinking of building the track as you have on a ply base, then depending on how I wish to proceed use light weight ply frames, initially may have a simple soft wood frame for the build. Another idea is to have a hinged section on the end holding the fiddle yard and or a front scenic section which folds on top for transportation 

[Izzy]

I built a small 7mm layout back in the 90's which used wye's (pre-Templot and hand drawn/designed) and have posted a shot somewhere on RMweb but can't find it so have posted it again here. I hope this is okay.

 

 

 

As you say it gives larger radius points but is challenging to get to flow nicely with the reverse curves. It was on two metre length boards, with a third for the fiddle and another 2' 'extra' board past the platform that could be added, so should fit into 4' for P4 (the main station area), but I have had trouble trying to replicate it in Templot using A4.5's and it looks a bit overcrowded and not quite right. I think it should curve slightly through the centre line, like a sagging washing line if you know what I mean.

 

Anyway, here is the screenshot, it might be of interest.

 

 

regards

 

Izzy

[hayfield]

Izzy

 

Sooo much better than mine with the exception of one too many turnouts (have 4 in mind for some reason !!) any chance of a box file of it please

 

Could do with the left hand end going up a bit and the right going down a bit, twisting it a bit but with the plain track at the left end curving slightly back on its self to be square on with the end .

 

Was thinking about it when I woke up not knowing you posted this, Top left could be made with the ability to convert to another exit by making the last 2" removable and a fiddle yard with a short scenic section of a bridge ?

[Izzy]

Izzy

 

Sooo much better than mine with the exception of one too many turnouts (have 4 in mind for some reason !!) any chance of a box file of it please

 

Could do with the left hand end going up a bit and the right going down a bit, twisting it a bit but with the plain track at the left end curving slightly back on its self to be square on with the end .

 

Was thinking about it when I woke up not knowing you posted this, Top left could be made with the ability to convert to another exit by making the last 2" removable and a fiddle yard with a short scenic section of a bridge ?

 

Pleased it's of interest and help. I would agree with all your thoughts regarding adjustments to improve it and I will play some more with Templot to see what results. Looking at further photos of the 7mm layout I notice I curved the whole design a bit. Currently the point blades are handed in those box files I am creating with wye's, offset to sidings or not the 'main' route. I haven't got around to trying the new method Martin has introduced for making wye's with equal offset blades, which of course the 7mm hand design layout used and helps the flow of the track a bit more.

 

Anyway, here is the box file for above: for Hayfield.box I'm afraid I haven't adjusted any timbering as I always leave this till a plan is finalised.

 

I set the fiddle yard entrance in the middle to allow maximum travel for a sector plate and at least three roads. I think this would remain okay if the top right siding was removed. Neither of the short right hand sidngs are much good really, only able to take about 1 wagon, I just found they helped the look of it all in the 7mm version - disguised the use of wye's - and when shunting to avoid using the fiddle yard exit road and going off scene too much. The lower left siding led to a (working) sand hopper, so this was quite useful (the children - of all ages - used to love this at exhibitions).

 

Curving the top left road for a straight exit might make the whole platform road a bit reverse curvy unless a straight A4/5 is used. All needs a bit of suck and see to discover what results. I'll post any further worthwhile box files generated.

 

regards

 

Izzy

[Orion]

U could make that a lot smoother without losing anything much e.g. this quick mod I knocked up in a few minutes. Much nicer if you put in the running line as a nice smooth curve and only then modify to include pointwork, rather than do things one bit at a time and adding the bits together like a jigsaw puzzle. A lot of things just didn't line up properly in plan in the very first post, for example

 

Hay001.box

[hayfield]

Izzy and Orion

 

Thank you both for the plans, just finished laying flooring in my new workroom, so a bit tired

 

I do like the 3 Y's in the foreground of the photo and there is a reverse curve at the other end, understand what you are saying about the platform, loosing the extreme right hand siding and extending the siding may resolve the platform issue.

 

Play value is of little interest, rather than (1) a small interesting plan to demonstrate track building, (2) somewhere to run a small collection of P4 stock (3) a place to try out scenic methods prior to using them on the main layout

[Orion]

U can make mine more of a Y by curving it. Dead easy in Templot. I have done it for U in the attached. It's a slightly neater version of my earlier one. I have been playing around with it in a different gauge. Hope it all still fits Ur max size OK

 

Hay001.box

[roythebus]

In my view the whole layout needs to be on a flowing curve or s curve. with Y points it looks too much like a train set. As you're using Templot, forget the idea of Y points, they are a train set idea. 

 

I've tried downloading the box file onto Templot but as I'm running Templot on a Mac through wine it's not an easy task to import files, anyone got any ideas?

 

Anyway, the idea is to start with a clean sheet; get the curves of the main route first, then add turnouts as required; where adjacent tracks are required parallel with the main running line, you can easily make a turnout into a crossover and adjust the hand of the crossover lengthwise. you can even make the crossover with a left and right hand turnout in Templot, it's very flexible. It will also show a warning if a crossover has a reverse curve that is unlikely to affect running.

[Izzy]

Here are a couple of shots of my current P4 plank All Saints East (5'x1' + 2'6" fiddle) and the A5 wyes in front of the signal box. You can see the difference in comparison with the standard loco release A5 to the left. Apart from the fact they use my long time construction of just standard plastic chairs on ply sleepers - with no special chairs apart from the slide ones (all that was originally available when Len Newman/Alan Gibson put some of the first ones in my hands) - I don't think they look too bad. The image of those on my previous 7mm layout suffer from tight telephoto compression due to the angle and nature of the shot.

 

 

 

 

 

I find it's never easy trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot as is often needed with minimum space layouts, all I have ever seemed to build due to lack of space to do anything else, whatever the scale involved!

 

regards

 

Izzy

[hayfield]

 

I have moved away from the Y's as suggested plus started with 2 curves, then added the turnouts.

 

The idea is for a small (light railway) branch line terminus, which could evolve into a through station

[hayfield]

 

Had another try at refining the plan, learnt how to rotate the group slightly. Then I curved the left hand exit slightly, I decided to have a 2" to 4" removable end section which could be changed to a fiddle yard.

 

At the right end I curved the first turnout into a Y shape so the entrance is square to the base board

[hayfield]

Latest version of the plan

 

 

Just done a bit of work on the 2 right hand turnouts, as I may start to build one next week. Both were increased in size to A5's (to match my filing jig, plus remembered Martin saying to shorten the switches to 9' ones, also slightly altered the geometry slightly of the one second from the left, think it flows better. I know the top right siding is out of register, no issue with this as I am not quite decided on its shape and length

[hayfield]

 

I have made some adjustments including some suggestions from Bob which were PM'd to me..

 

The position of the bottom left turnout has been altered to give a longer siding, all turnouts now A5's though the top left may well be changed to an A6 to increase the radii.

 

Kept the Vees to round numbers just to make filing simpler with the EMGS Vee filing jig

 

May also rotate the plan slightly just to keep the station platform intact