New plan

[bodmin65]

Just wondering what other modeller's thoughts of this plan are?

 

What would you do with it? 

Edited November 7, 2018 by bodmin65

[Flying Pig]

It winds about rather a lot. What is it meant to be? It doesn't look as though it could be a complete layout, as there's not really enough headshunt on the left and none at all on the right. Will it be part of something larger?

[bodmin65]

Back to the drawing board again I guess.

[Zomboid]

What are your trying to achieve? You'll get a lot more helpful advice if you say that you want a steam era BLT, or a diesel depot layout, or an urban terminus and so on.

That plan looks a bit like you've plonked track down to fill a space, but maybe with some context it would make more sense.

[imt]

Why have you got a point at the extreme right side of the baseboard?  No room to do anything there, or are the more baseboards or more space you haven't told us about?  C'est magnifique mais ce n'est pas un chemin de fer - if you get my drift?

[DCB]

At first glance it has something of the look of the bagpipes.

[The Johnster]

The point at the extreme right cannot serve any purpose unless there is a length of track to the right of it, so if this is the entire layout it doesn't work.  With a fiddle yard to the right of that point, it has the look of an industrial or perhaps a dockside set up.  There is a run around facility, and traffic can be shunted off to the various sidings which can either serve factories or warehouses or be storage.  

 

Train arrives from right hand end, runs into one of the loop roads; the other one must be empty or capable of being emptied.  Traffic for the 'top' siding is marshalled at the front end of the train, and the loco shunts that siding, then runs around the train to be able to shunt the others.  Inward traffic is exchanged for outward, and the outward train made up, possibly with another run around movement for the brake van if this is appropriate for the period.

 

This will be a trip working from a local marshalling sidings, with an 0-6-0T in steam days, later an 08 or 03/4, and later still a big main line diesel.  Probably not an electric, and possibly a tender loco or type1 or 2 diesel in a more rural area where the distance from the marshalling sidings is greater.

Edited November 9, 2018 by The Johnster

[DCB]

You could stick a 3 way point on the top RH corner and make it sort of usable.   And have a bit of a fiddle, maybe have the bottom as a quayside as per my drawing.  Ideal layout for the Hornby Peckett but it looks like the sort of cramped industrial setting where main line engines like Gronks  Panniers and Jinties would fear to tread.

[Flying Pig]

Ideal layout for the Hornby Peckett

Not really, it's N gauge (check the Peco catalogue numbers)

 

It does have the look of an industrial setting though.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Just wondering what other modeller's thoughts of this plan are?

 

What would you do with it? 

 

From the way it's been drawn, I would infer that there are perhaps short fiddle yards (1 ft cassettes) at each end.

 

As a 6' x 1' layout on one board with 4' of scenics, it would be very effective as an industrial shunting layout. I like the fact that there are plenty of curves.

[bodmin65]

God I hate English model railway track. It doesn't gell together that well even in the planning stage.

 

My issue is I'm getting caught with the ratio of track to scenery.

[bodmin65]

I could possibly extend it by about another 4 ft overall.

[bodmin65]

I did consider just doing a section of double track through some scenery, that's not of a perticular area.

 

At least that way I could run almost anything put together and it wouldn't look out of place.

 

Only thing is it would be the beginning of another roundy roundy type of layout.

[imt]

If you have that 4 feet, put 2 either side for fiddle yards and build an industrial scene in the middle.  I think David's 3 way amendment would be best.

[The Johnster]

I think a basic question to be addressed is what you would like the layout to do, in terms of operation.  Do you like to watch trains running through scenery, or would you prefer shunting problems and breaking down/making up trains?.  This layout lends itself well to the latter suggestion but less well to the first.  Do you like to run fast passenger or long goods trains, in which case this is again probably not the track plan for you.  Do you like a lot of locomotives, in which case it could perhaps be adapted to a loco yard setup, but has more the feel of a stabling/signing on point that an MPD/TMD.  

 

What sort of modelling do you like to do?  There is not so much scope on this layout for scenery or non-railway/industrial buildings, but plenty for small, intimately detailed, cameos and scenes.  

 

We are all, I think, assuming that your preference is for an industrial shunting problem layout because this plan looks like one of those, but mention of double track through some scenery suggests a very different type of layout.  I would advise some thought on this matter before you start modelling and have committed yourself to a layout that might not be right for you.  I'd be perfectly happy with it, incidentally, but not everybody has the same tastes or requirements as I do!

 

With fiddle yards at each end, it could also lend itself to a 'light railway' scenario, with inspiration from the likes of the Kent and East Sussex, Weston, Clevedon and Portishead, or Wisbech and Upwell.  This would need a bit of thinking out, in terms of a back story and raison d'etre, but would provide a more rural or rustic alternative to the industrial/dockside environment.

[Flying Pig]

God I hate English model railway track. It doesn't gell together that well even in the planning stage.

My issue is I'm getting caught with the ratio of track to scenery.

No, your issue, as Johnster pointed out, is that you aren't making it at all clear to us what kind of layout you're trying to achieve. We really can't help unless you do.

 

And Peco track can gel together perfectly well, although their Code 80 range is tricky as the points don't all have the same divergence angle. Code 55 does, as do the 00 Streamline ranges.

[bodmin65]

I guess I'm trying to do one end of a marshaling yard really.

[The Johnster]

If by that you mean the 'throat' area between the reception/departure roads and the sorting roads, where the hump is in a hump yard, then to be honest it doesn't quite 'gel'.  What are all the short sidings for?  The general impression is of a small scale but busy distribution facility, where a local trip arrives from a marshalling yard elsewhere and the train is broken up for wagons to be shunted to the customer's premises, and collected for forming into the return trip.  This is a very viable type of minimal space layout; check out 'Arun Quay' for a very good example.  See my post no.7.

 

A throat area of a marshalling yard could be modelled in your space, but you need to infer that there are a large number of long sidings out of sight in one direction and a few equally long recep/depart roads in the other, and have the yard pilot moving back and forth across the scene with various 'cuts' of wagons, interspersed by the big train engines coming off their trains in the reception and proceeding to shed or next duty.  This needs a number of roads in each direction traversing the scenic break into the fiddle yards, and the short sidings used as loco staging and van kips, and perhaps the odd crippled wagon, the scene being set off with the shunter's and wagon examiner's cabin and some big floodlights.  There is probably no need for a run around loop in this case.

 

What sort of period are we talking about, Bodmin?