Shed/MPD layouts (steam era)

[SD85]

Hello all, just wanting some advice if possible on building and operating a steam era shed layout.

 

Being somewhat obsessed with Bulleid pacifics I have been acquiring them for a few years now and have been gradually weathering/renumbering/detailing them. I therefore have decided to build a shed layout based in 1967 at the very end of Southern Region steam and have been acquiring books/photos/source materials for the purpose. Currently am putting together a fleet of locomotives which will eventually all be models of individual prototypes that were running on the Southern Region in 1967 and am renumbering and weathering to that end, as well as acquiring the odd class 33/Hymek/73/Warship.

 

I don't have a huge amount of space and as I haven't constructed a layout before I have decided not to model a specific shed (if I was going to then Guildford or Bournemouth would be contenders) and therefore I want to just build a relatively small shed (think Basingstoke or Weymouth size) as a first effort that won't take ages to complete and that I can hopefully exhibit.

 

The key thing is that I want something that's operationally interesting within these parameters. However I am somewhat concerned that modelling a shed won't prove stimulating enough, especially not over an exhibition. My preferences for layout operation tend to be either large scale main line efforts (which the club I am a member of caters for on their system) or shunting puzzles. A loco shed seems to me a potentially tricky thing to model in a limited space while providing consistent operational interest - locos come in, coal/water/ash cleaned out, rest, go out again.....

I will maintain interest in part through use of a turntable (and given the space limitations possibly a semi-roundhouse design) and a shed pilot a la Guildford for moving tool vans/coal wagons etc about, but a general track plan is stumping me a bit as I also want it to look reasonably realistic.

The closest thing I've found suitable to my requirements is the old SECR shed at Cannon Street (closed and demolished in 1926) which was in a very cramped site with a 4/5 road shed served by a turntable and coaling/water facilities squeezed in on the approach roads. I would probably like something akin to this but with additional space for a little shunting of aforementioned coal and tool wagons, and a road where I can park locos that have been withdrawn (building a couple of Dapol 4MTs for this purpose).

Size-wise, no fixed parameters but probably looking to work in a space of 8x2 ft or less and the layout must be portable or at least easy to pack up and move.

Any suggestions or advice on track plans, operational procedures and scheduling would be appreciated. Thanks.

Edited March 5, 2019 by SD85

[Flying Pig]

If you could bear to model just part of the depot, you could concentrate on coal, ash, water, turning and short term stabling, where most of the movement us concentrated, and include the more static sheds and sidings only as your space allowed.   Loco sheds cut off to one or two loco lengths can still effectively suggest a much bigger building and also make good view blocks for lines disappearing behind.

[The Johnster]

Seconded, Simon.  Turntables are space eaters and perhaps this can be 'off stage' as well, a road leading to a loco-sized cassette that can be picked up and turned around.  The action takes place around the coaling and watering facilities and ash pits, and the 'throat' of the loco storage roads as the locos are positioned conveniently for their next jobs.  A roundhouse shed building with only one road accessing it will leave you some space for detail cameos (sounds like you are thinking of exhibiting).

 

Another action area is the access and exit roads; locos arriving at the shed come to a 'Stop' board where there is a telephone to the foreman's office; he will instruct crews as to where they are to leave their locos or tell them to leave it there for a shed crew to deal with.  A queue of locos can build up here,  The exit will be marked by a ground signal, and in 1967 both semaphore disc or position light are possible, and this is another place where queues may develop.  Make sure only one leaves the shed at a time and the signal goes back to danger before the next one escapes.  

 

If you are going into DCC sound, a loco moving around on a shed will sound it's whistle before moving off as a warning to anybody in the area, and a 'good look out' kept by the crew for other locos moving about.  This will lead to cautious approaches on blind corners and instructions to use some through roads in one direction only.  Practice is to keep the footpaths (usually concrete) clear of stabled locos, and a very common mistake on MPD models is locos stopped half in and half out of the shed building, blocking the path crossing the entrances; any crew that did this would hear about it very quickly from the shed foreman if their mates who had to walk in the oily muck off the path to get around the obstruction haven't got to them first!

 

Your shed will need a pilot to handle loco coal, enparts, tanks for your diesel fuel, and any dead locos, and this is a classic USA job, perhaps shared with a 350hp diesel shunter.  You might want to take it easy on the withdrawn 4MTs, as most of these will have been stored around the back awaiting disposal away from the busy areas where they are in the way.  Model these, and perhaps one or two construction kit spam cans, without the coupling or connecting rods, which can be put into the empty tender bunkers.  An occasional move off shed for delivery to scrap yards can be made, and you need to have a brake van for these.  Ballast the locos, and lubricate the bearings with 

 

You also might need a breakdown crane, which also needs a brake van, but these denote a very major shed; perhaps you've only modelled a corner of it!  Smaller sheds, yer Guilfords or Basingstokes, would probably have breakdown vans, converted passenger stock in the form of a tool van, which carried jacks, wrecking gear, packing timber for the jacks, ropes, and suchlike, and a mess van which catered to the breakdown crew's catering and sleeping needs out on a job which might be of indeterminate length.  Canton had a crane and vans in separate trains; the vans were out about once a week to some minor incident somewhere, often Cardiff Docks.

 

I am no expert on the Southern in 1967, but would have thought that Warships on shed were mostly confined to 9 Elms and places west of Salisbury, where there was already no steam.  D65xx (we didn't call them 33s then), a visiting Brush Type 4 or Hymek from the WR, 350 hp shunting engines, and possibly a D29xx though I associate those specifically with Southampton and Eastleigh.

 

77014 spent some time on the Southern at the end of steam if you want something a bit left field.

 

Buildings are the shed itself, with perhaps a repair shop, the coaling stage, a sand house and a boiler house for heating to keep it dry.  Various offices for the shed foreman and the cabins and messrooms for locomen, fitters and so on, and the stores, were often incorporated to the side of the main running shed building, but not always and may be dotted around the place.  

[SD85]

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated. I had indeed thought of just modelling part of the shed as it would save space and building construction time.

 

The turntable I'd probably prefer to keep on display as it provides a visual stimuli and keeps things moving, especially in an exhibition context.

 

Regarding the withdrawn locomotives, yeah I think they were usually shunted onto lines in remote parts of the depot, though there are a couple of shots of withdrawn Standards sitting next to the coaling stage at Guildford, and sometimes locos were just dumped in the shed roads and left there towards the end.

 

Not planning on using DCC as I know nothing about electrics and was just going to use the tried and tested route of DC with isolating switches. Want to keep electrics as simple as possible really. Definitely not planning on sound as I remain to be convinced by it in 4mm - it seems a lot of money for not much return. Graham Muz's Canute Road Quay layout has an ambient background noise file which worked well when I saw it a week or so ago, so maybe I could use something similar.

A crane would be nice but that would be extra storage space. I think Guildford did have a 36T crane, certainly I've seen photos of it parked up alongside the shed.

 

Warships don't often turn up on shed scenes in 1967 compared to 33s and Hymeks but I do have at least one photo of a Warship inside Salisbury shed.

The shed pilot will definitely be a USA tank. I would like a B4 too but that's out of period sadly.

Initially I was modelling the shed in the 1964-66 period, then 1966-67, now just 1967. I like the challenge of modelling the Bulleids this way. Done a few light pacifics so far and I enjoy the variations in weathering. Idea is to have some absolutely filthy, some cleaned but with grime rapidly overlaying the efforts, and a couple burnished up fully on the assumption that they've just done railtour duty. Most will be without nameplates (one of the disadvantages of modelling 1967, though it saves money on Fox etched parts) but a couple will run with them. I have modelled 34071 without plates but with the brackets still in place - had to scratch these up from card, would be nice if someone decided to make them as etchings.

Edited March 6, 2019 by SD85

[DCB]

8X2 is a bit tight and RTR turntables just eat space.   Our MPD is about your size area wise but linear so around 12 feet X 1ft  The Turntable is beyond the shed with two through roads each side of the shed and three roads between, 2 into the shed and one alongside. It was a 3 road shed originally but you can't see locos in the shed so we shortened it. 1967 you could leave most of the roof off.

Our station is a terminus so locos come on shed through a headshunt taking 2 locos, They go under the coaler and take on fuel and water, on down to the TT turn and then come back past the shed.  There is a spur for the next 2 locos due out, room for 3 locos in each shed road plus 3 beside it and two more spurs , one taking 1 tender loco  off the turntable and one taking 3 tanks by the coaler.

The problem is getting the loco against the buffers out of the shed, that is equally an issue on the full size.

See pics from 2005 when it was under construction.  The Black 5 and Gaiety Pannier have been pensioned off and the 64XX was scrapped when the Bachmann came out but the other locos are still going strong 

Roundhouses like Guildford, Inverness, St Blazey etc are great but rare.  GWR ones are totally boring big rectangular brick boxes with 2 to 4 turntables, you might just as well keep your locos in a box as build a GWR type, mind you a low relief GW roundhouse where your loco goes through a hole in the wall  onto a cassette woud be a good dodge if one was really stuck for space.   

 

[The Johnster]

A B4 is a lovely little thing, but sadly not only is it out of period but pretty much restricted to Southampton Docks, where the short wheelbase was needed.  You seem to be thinking in terms of Guildford or Basingstoke for your inspiration, and a B4 would shatter that illusion. 

 

Check out Tondu for a GW roundhouse that wasn't a boring brick box; those ventilators would give you hours of modelling fun.  Old Oak had the ultimate roundhouse model railway space saver, an entrance on a skew road through the side.

[pH]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

A B4 is a lovely little thing, but sadly not only is it out of period but pretty much restricted to Southampton Docks, where the short wheelbase was needed.  You seem to be thinking in terms of Guildford or Basingstoke for your inspiration, and a B4 would shatter that illusion. 

 

Not far out of period, and not shattering the illusion, if Guildford was the inspiration. Guildford had a single B4 (two different engines, 30086/9) between 1955 and 1963. 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/preselector/6039380939

 

http://www.davidheyscollection.com/userimages/00001-a-attewell-guildford-50s-3.jpg

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by pH
To add link to picture of 30086

[dpgibbons]

I'd suggest looking at the early iteration of Warley MRC's 82G shed layout for inspiration, not least as it's inspired by Bournemouth. Link to video here.

 

The shed is modelled in partial low relief and conceals the entry road, whilst the turntable is used space efficiently to save turnouts. The primitive coaling arrangements take up hardly any space. With this layout, locos could be run onto cassettes from entry and shed roads to save fiddle room. A steady stream of locos can be on-scene being coaled, watered and turned without impinging on the shed roads.

 

Another good idea they practise is that during the operating sequence they progress from early nationalisation through to end of steam.  

[4firstimes]

There is the correct understanding that layouts of locomotive power depots have a limited appeal , and this limitation manifests the understanding of how locomotive depots where actually worked. There have been several articles in the railway press over the years of how locomotive depots were actually worked , a good descrption appears in train shunting and marshalling for the modeller by Bob Essery . Remember this is a typical MPD if there was any such thing. Modelling MPDs is an interesting subject in its self ,  and whilst there where some excellent examples which stand out as ideal candidates ;success is the one which is  not too large and stand chance of completion before interest is lost. The issue is really that there are in all the popular  scales a good selection of the main items for the infrastructure, the smaller details which bring a layout of a mpd are those items which need to be scratch build and eventually determine the future. A model of a mpd is really a series of cameos unlike a layout, and building these cameos is time and resource intensive . My diorama 16A of Sub 40A is one such example however despite the simplistic layout there is a lot of operational interest . There was is an article on this forum and I have attached the track layout , in N gauge the diorama could be built in a space of  5ft x 1ft but to clear baseboard frames it has been extended to 6ft x1ft more convenient size to break down for transit.

[DCB]

Laying out a loco shed so it can be operated if not realistically, at least operated in a logical manner will make all the difference to the enjoyment.  Of course really awful loco shed layouts were not uncommon, Edinburgh St Margarets was a classic, but you do need to be able to get the engines in and out and shunt the coal stage.  

It looks like some tracks are missing from the OS map.  The blob by the turntable looks to me to be an elevated coal stage while there is not enough length for the one by the shed to be significantly raised.  There aren't any sidings to put the coal wagons in or take them from either.