Branch Line Terminus in Restricted Space Help Needed

[JST]

1 hour ago, Harlequin said:

The drawing that I canibalised to create the baseboards above was for a layout about the same size and it only had a 4 coach run round ability.

So 6 coach will have to include the curve onto the fat board and I'm going to try to make it smooth and organic. (But not today, sadly.)

 

 

 Phil,

I fully appreciate that a curved platform will be needed and I am happy with that. The viewing angle of the curves will help I think. Thank you very much for your efforts and help. Time is not an issue.

 

John

[KeithMacdonald]

Did someone mention St.Ives? Perhaps too much curve (and not enough straight) to be useful though?

 

[Karhedron]

Try looking at Marlow as a source of inspiration. For much of the year it just had a 1400 and autocoach trundling to Bourne End or Maidenhead but it also had a long platform for the summer Regatta traffic. 

 

It had an interesting arrangement of a bay platform with the goods shed behind it but also on the platform. I haven't seen the arrangement elsewhere but it is a handy space saver that does away with the need for a kick-back. Here is a shot of the bay platform in use by a Railcar with the goods shed visible in the background. The 5-plank wagon is standing on the goods shed road.

 

 

Here is a view from the opposite direction showing the station building with the main platform behind it. The goods shed is visible on the right although the delivery lorry is blocking the view a bit.

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Karhedron

[KeithMacdonald]

Err, opposite extreme - not enough curve?

 

[JST]

St Ives looks closer to what I will end up with but I like the station building at Marlow.  I have left a decent space on the layout for a station building so we shall see.....

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Perhaps it's time to roll out Kingswear... 

 

 

a pared down version, obviously.  Interestingly, I suspect a certain Frank Dyer may have borrowed Kingswear for an early version of Borchester...

 

[Karhedron]

17 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Err, opposite extreme - not enough curve?

 

A curve beyond the station throat is easy to add. The bit I was looking to highlight was the arrangement of a goods shed just behind a bay platform which is quite a nifty space-saver.

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, JST said:

 

I will check my measurements but I calculated that it needs more than 2.3 metres to allow for the loco runaround at the station end. I am happy about doing curved platforms as I have some in the main station. The gradient is fixed now and there is no possibility of changing it due to the building constraints . The branch line crosses the 4 main lines in the hidden (or will be hidden) section as it enters the new baseboard.

At this point I perhaps need to explain my fixation with long trains. As a lad I used to get frustrated with 2 short platforms and trains of 4 coaches max as was the norm on the standard 6x4 type layout. I have now gone in the other direction and my main station has 8 platforms 4 of which will take 10 coach trains. The shortest platform (the branch line bay) takes 5 coaches. A tad excessive maybe, but I love it!

I agree with you about longer trains but do you need to run round the longest of them ? The station I keep returning to (in terms of optimum dollar to explosion ratio) is  the old Fort William terminus which had just two points but some incredibly busy periods when two long distance trains arrived from Glasgow and Mallaig followed by a summer relief and all three platforms were occupied with the need to add and detach sleepers, restaurant cars, observation cars, car carrying vans (Mallaig -Ft. William when the A roads were single track with passing places) and then tail loads of fish, perishables, parcels et al)    There was a releasing crossover between two of the platforms but it was almost never used and was taken out in I think the early 1950s as good use was made of pilot locos. There were no goods facilities actually at the station though the harbour extension had been used at one time to bring in grain by sea for rail shipment to various whisky distilleries. Goods trains did use the approach line as a headshunt for one of the goods yards a little way up the line and had to come up to the station signalbox to obtain or relinquish their tokens as it was single track to Mallaig Jct.

Ft. William was AFAIK unique as a reversing terminus handling that sort of traffic  but it occurs to me that maybe yours doesn't need to be a BLT as such (which  almost invariably would have had a goods yard) but could be a racecourse, hoilday excursion, ferry harbour (bit hard to explain the up grade) ) or secondary city terminus, all  with minimal or no goods facililties.

[Pacific231G]

On 16/02/2020 at 16:05, Moxy said:

 

That has reminded me, didn't C J Freezer draw up St Ives in one of his Peco track plan books?  I can't find my copies of the Peco books at the moment, but if I remember correctly, it was drawn to fit in a cupboard under the stairs, with an extension into the hall.  The shape of the site is about the same as yours.

Yes he did, I'm looking at it now and, in an early RM I have, there is an article about Tregunna . It did look awfully cramped though.   

[KeithMacdonald]

Quote

The station I keep returning to (in terms of optimum dollar to explosion ratio) is  the old Fort William terminus which had just two points but some incredibly busy periods when two long distance trains arrived from Glasgow and Mallaig followed by a summer relief and all three platforms were occupied with the need to add and detach sleepers, restaurant cars, observation cars, car carrying vans

 

(Thread drift already)

Anyone found any good plans of that Fort William terminus ?

[KeithMacdonald]

53 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

Interestingly, I suspect a certain Frank Dyer may have borrowed Kingswear for an early version of Borchester...

 

A keen Archers fan by any chance?

 

 

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

34 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

(Thread drift already)

Anyone found any good plans of that Fort William terminus ?

 

 

[Nearholmer]

I’m going to zoom in on Seaton, to highlight the true ingenuity and space-saving nature of it all.

 

The goods shed was integral with the passenger station, and goods that needed to be stored were unloaded or unloaded by way of the passenger platform. Other goods were loaded/off-loaded on the off-side of wagons standing in the bay road.

 

There was another siding, but that was primarily used for coal and, earlier I think, for stone from a local quarry.

 

Given that it was all Southern Nouveau, you could build an ‘in the spirit of’ model using old Hornby Dublo (plastic, late version) buildings, even if they are really more LMS and BR nouveau.

 

CJF always put this one in his plan books too!

 

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Nearholmer

[JST]

It all just reinforces the point that in real life they squeezed it all in best they could given the space available - which is my philosophy on the modelling front! 

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

(Thread drift already)

Anyone found any good plans of that Fort William terminus ?

I hope not. I just saw it as a good example of a small simple terminus that can handle longer main line trains without a long throat and with no need to run-round them.

On plans,  yes I have lots of good plans of the old Ft.William station including a signalbox diagram . For the track plan and its topography  just go to the National Library of Scotland's map collection  or  just go here (for 1899 with the quayside extension at its fullest extent)

https://maps.nls.uk/view/82887615

For a later 1963 1:1250 map go here

https://maps.nls.uk/view/130179203

 

For two of the other places we've been discussing

Marlow in 1899 is here

https://maps.nls.uk/view/104183729

and in 1932, with an extra goods siding

https://maps.nls.uk/view/104196706

and for St. Ives in 1936

https://maps.nls.uk/view/105995512

 

The NLS is a brilliant resource and the 25inch or later  1:1250 maps show details such as signal posts, the position of pointwork and the switch end position  (though the surveyors missed the releasing crossover at Ft. William)  The maps to go for are the 25inch to the mile ones or sometimes for later dates the 1:1250.  The collection doesn't include OS maps that are still in copyright but fortunately map copyrights are much shorter than for other works. 

I hope this is useful (and on topic )

 

Edited February 17, 2020 by Pacific231G

[KeithMacdonald]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m going to zoom in on Seaton, to highlight the true ingenuity and space-saving nature of it all.

 

 

Also from NLS ;-)

 

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=50.7065&lon=-3.0595&layers=168&b=1

 

[PatB]

How about Filey? Adaptable as a "What if?", to any location that had/might have had a holiday camp. 

Edited February 17, 2020 by PatB

[DCB]

It's a bit unusual to have a BLT site which has plenty of length but is short of width, more like a city terminus site.

Fort William is a bit of a red herring. Its a Main line station and didn't act as a terminus, the majority of trains changed locos and went back the way they came at least as far as Mallaig Junction.   Three trains a day was typical.   Sparse even by GW BLT standards.      Kingswear was bursting at the seams.  The carriage sidings were really awkward to shunt and any attempt to down size it makes it far worse. Trains had to be broken up before they could access the sidings, good fun if you enjoy shunting but if you can only move two carriages at a time it becomes horribly tedious. Getting a decent size station building will be challenging, the only way I can see is across the platform end a la Bodmin GWR, but with all that length you can afford to use 6" or so for buildings.

Seaton definitely looks like a contender, my kind of station, no sign of a headshunt or kick back siding.

[KeithMacdonald]

Is the BLT at Bude the wrong shape? As in, there's a curve off to the left, but it's at the wrong end of the platform.

 

[DCB]

Bude is nice but wide. The curve goes to the harbour which is at quite a high level on a Canal approached by a sea lock and only accessible at high tide, the sea lock was in a bad way when I last went 5 or so years ago.   I am pretty sure the long Bay was an actual passenger platform not a loading dock as many  BLT ones were

If you want to keep the character of Bude it won't fit on 330mm wide in 00.   The turntable will be at least 200 mm (50ft off the shelf ones are nearer 75 foot 300mm) and at 50mm per track you can barely squeeze 2 tracks past in 330mm width.  I suppose you could drop the harbour branch and put a 90 degree bend by the turntable to poke the TT in a corner which would fit Harlequin's baseboard shape with the advantage of plenty of room for a station building as the tracks converge to just a single road. Trouble is I would want the bend to be the other way to operate from the bottom. 

[Harlequin]

Hi John,

 

Here's my first stab at it:

• The first thing you'll notice is that I'm suggesting a bigger fillet because it allows a more continuous curve instead of a dogleg station. Is that possible?
• The platforms are long enough for 6-coach trains, with run round on the Main side plus a 4-6-0 standing proudly at the head!
• The platform looks a bit skinny but it is wider than the regulation 12ft along most of its length, and it gets wider towards the station building to try to give it a bit of "heft".
• Carriage siding can hold 6 coaches.
• I've plonked a station building on just because that's the obvious place for it - not saying you should change your plans.
• Engine shed, carriage siding and goods yard are all naturally trapped to protect the passenger lines - no need for catch points (if I've done it right).
• Engine shed connects to run round loop, which would normally be kept free so no problem with loco getting in and out
• The goods yard could be laid out in a number of different ways.
• It might just be possible to fit a turntable in the engine shed area.
• Smallest radius of 610mm is in the 1 Double slip in the goods yard. Other parts: 1 Large right, 3 Medium left, 1 Medium right, 2 curved right, 1 curved left.

 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Harlequin

[Nearholmer]

That’s very good!

[JST]

Thanks Phil, that is brilliant! I certainly think I could make the fillet bigger (it was always a best guess compromise) so I will head off to the railway room armed with the measure!

 

I have avoided using double slips on the layout as Peco don't do a code 100 electro frog version but maybe I will give it a go. At least it will not be on a main running line should it give problems.

 

A turntable would be nice so I will look carefully at that although I favour the DCC fitted Heljan turntable which is a bit bigger than the Peco version.

 

Much food for thought and I will feed back how I get on with it.

[clachnaharry]

That really is very nice.  Could the St Ivesish goods yard be opened out a bit by running one siding parallel with the bay platform, or at least closer to it. This would also allow the Goods shed siding to be straightened up and lengthened. It might allow the removal of the double slip in favour of back to back points. The headshunt woudl then be furhter from the running line, but it could go behind the signal box - handy the signalman's coal delivery!

Edited February 20, 2020 by clachnaharry

[JST]

Just been and had another look whereupon it dawned on me that a turntable is a no go due to the fact that it would be over where the main lines run underneath with the attendant clearance and access issues. It could go where I originally planned to put the loco shed but that would ruin the workable simplicity of Harlequin's design.

 

The good news is that the enlarged fillet is entirely possible!