Station Approach Pointwork Critique

[scottystitch]

Using Nottingham Victoria as a starting point, I've 'designed' the attached main line station in AnyRail.  To make it fit, the approaches have been altered quite markedly.

 

The approach on the right of the plan serves its purpose, but I wonder if it looks implausible. Does anyone know if there are prototypes for this type of pointwork, with platform access coming off a pair of main lines like that?

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2019 by scottystitch

[Joseph_Pestell]

Looks reasonable. Almost too good to be interesting to operate but probably what the real railway would lay out for a busy station. The GCR was, of course, a latecomer and station design had moved on from what was typical elsewhere. You may find it easier and more economical of pointwork to have the bay platforms in the middle as per Edinburgh, Rugby, etc.

[Miss Prism]

How many more facing pointlocks will be required in your plan compared to Nottingham Victoria?

 

[scottystitch]

9 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Looks reasonable. Almost too good to be interesting to operate but probably what the real railway would lay out for a busy station. The GCR was, of course, a latecomer and station design had moved on from what was typical elsewhere. You may find it easier and more economical of pointwork to have the bay platforms in the middle as per Edinburgh, Rugby, etc.

 

Thanks Joseph, interesting points. The latter, regarding the bays, I had pondered. Since the station would be scottish based, probably Caledonia territory, I had considered the bays in the middle, but the left hand set are motorail sidings (you weren't to know that , of course) and so have to go on the outside. For balance the right hand set are on the outside as well.

[scottystitch]

4 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

How many more facing pointlocks will be required in your plan compared to Nottingham Victoria?

 

 

Eek! This is where my ignorance of certain matters lets me down.

 

I don't know is the answer.

 

I probably have this wrong, but I was under the impression that facing point locks wouldn't necessarily be applicable here since the line speed would be quite low; no more than 30mph?

[Joseph_Pestell]

FPLs on any points with passenger traffic in a facing direction.

 

I can see that Motorail would more likely be from a bay at the side for road access. But not impossible from a central bay if laid out like Waverley with ramps from a road. Or the Motorail can be very much a siding as the car wagons will need to be shunted there anyway.

 

I take it that you won't be putting all this in a deep cutting like Nottingham.

 

Given your Scottish interest plus Motorail, should you be looking at Stirling?

[Harlequin]

Trains entering from the left have to crossover and travel "wrong road" for a short distance to get into the bottom five loops. If that's how it really was, fair enough, but while that's going on all outbound, leftbound movements are blocked. 

 

Lots of FPLs are inevitable where running lines branch into a big station like this.

 

Is the central crossover just a simple diamond or a scissors crossing? If your graphic was bigger it would be easier to see the details...

 

[scottystitch]

24 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

FPLs on any points with passenger traffic in a facing direction.

Thanks for that. Duly noted.

24 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

I can see that Motorail would more likely be from a bay at the side for road access. But not impossible from a central bay if laid out like Waverley with ramps from a road. Or the Motorail can be very much a siding as the car wagons will need to be shunted there anyway.

 

I take it that you won't be putting all this in a deep cutting like Nottingham.

 

Given your Scottish interest plus Motorail, should you be looking at Stirling?

It's all rather hypothetical at the moment, to be honest. Plan A is Glasgow North which is at the gestation of construction, but it hinges on a number of things. If these fall through I need a plan B and this is a contender for Plan B.

 

I did envisage a cutting to justify having the approaches on curves like they are.

 

I have looked at Stirling before, but the approaches being curved, by necessity, would compromise the prototype too much for my eyes and so a fictional layout would suit me better. Ditto Perth (my first choice). Also, one of the operating criteria (actually the main one) is for lots of engine changes. Stirling didn't do a lot of that for main line services. I should have said that this is a transition era plan, 62-64, that sort of time frame.

 

My main reason for posting was the approaches.

[scottystitch]

20 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Trains entering from the left have to crossover and travel "wrong road" for a short distance to get into the bottom five loops. If that's how it really was, fair enough, but while that's going on all outbound, leftbound movements are blocked. 

Yes that was in my mind

20 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

 

Lots of FPLs are inevitable where running lines branch into a big station like this.

 

Is the central crossover just a simple diamond or a scissors crossing? If your graphic was bigger it would be easier to see the details...

 

It is a scissors. Perth originally had two like this and Waverley I think still has two, definitely still has one.

 

I've tried to upload a larger image, but it's now at the size limit of export from AnyRail

[Joseph_Pestell]

54 minutes ago, scottystitch said:

Thanks for that. Duly noted.

It's all rather hypothetical at the moment, to be honest. Plan A is Glasgow North which is at the gestation of construction, but it hinges on a number of things. If these fall through I need a plan B and this is a contender for Plan B.

 

I did envisage a cutting to justify having the approaches on curves like they are.

 

I have looked at Stirling before, but the approaches being curved, by necessity, would compromise the prototype too much for my eyes and so a fictional layout would suit me better. Ditto Perth (my first choice). Also, one of the operating criteria (actually the main one) is for lots of engine changes. Stirling didn't do a lot of that for main line services. I should have said that this is a transition era plan, 62-64, that sort of time frame.

 

My main reason for posting was the approaches.

 

I like Glasgow North as a concept for the traffic movements/locomotive variety that it offers. But I would not follow the "official" trackplan which is rather dull. Better to have only some platforms accessible from both routes.

 

As to Plan B, with the through station, no reason why the curves should not  be in cuttings but the station area on an embankment e.g. Sheffield Victoria, Birmingham Snow Hill.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

How many more facing pointlocks will be required in your plan compared to Nottingham Victoria?

 

Some more - the main reason being the set of bays completely to one side of all the through lines running from left to right on the Anyrail plan.  At  Nottingham Victoria that wasn't the case as the bays were enclosed by running lines in both directions, and the later layout was even simpler but still with 4 through platform faces and two pairs of bays at each end.

[Joseph_Pestell]

3 hours ago, scottystitch said:

Using Nottingham Victoria as a starting point, I've 'designed' the attached main line station in AnyRail.  To make it fit, the approaches have been altered quite markedly.

 

The approach on the right of the plan serves its purpose, but I wonder if it looks implausible. Does anyone know if there are prototypes for this type of pointwork, with platform access coming off a pair of main lines like that?

 

 

 

 

Just thinking that the location of bays relative to through lines is rather more like Chester - but that only because Chester was enlarged several times.  And your rh approach very different.

[Compound2632]

Bays at both ends of the station makes for an immensely long station - realistic, if you've got the space, otherwise not surprising the throats have to be compromised. A large station with lots of platform canopies isn't going to be much fun as lots of the layout is more-or-less hidden from view. Plan B might be to model half the station, with an overbridge acting as scenic break. After all, it's the platform ends where the interest will be focused - it's certainly where the small boys with their ABCs will be congregating!

[Compound2632]

With Plan B, there's the additional advantage that the hidden part of the station can function as the fiddle yard, so you've saved space and pointwork.

 

Sorry, just thinking out loud - I've never built a layout anything like this.

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Bays at both ends of the station makes for an immensely long station - realistic, if you've got the space, otherwise not surprising the throats have to be compromised. A large station with lots of platform canopies isn't going to be much fun as lots of the layout is more-or-less hidden from view. Plan B might be to model half the station, with an overbridge acting as scenic break. After all, it's the platform ends where the interest will be focused - it's certainly where the small boys with their ABCs will be congregating!

 

See Waverley West.

 

Oddly, I see now in April's Modern Railways that two platforms at the east end of Waverley were used for Motorail at one time. I had not known that.

[scottystitch]

5 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

See Waverley West.

 

Oddly, I see now in April's Modern Railways that two platforms at the east end of Waverley were used for Motorail at one time. I had not known that.

Yes indeed, that's where the inspiration for a platform based motorail comes from. I remember Intercity branded motorail vans in waverley back in the 80s. Those platforms are the ones that have now been lengthened to accommodate terminating IEPs.