Dawlish in OO

[PeterLoader]

Hi

This post is to introduce my 'layout of a lifetime 2' based upon Dawlish, Newton Abbot and Kingswear set in the 1930s with some freedom to run what takes my fancy, including my son's modern day stuff.

 

The reason it is layout 2 is that I originally intended it to be Exeter St. Davids and Ilfracombe rather than Newton Abbot and Kingswear. I got most of the track laid for that until a change of domestic circumstances led to an unplanned house sale - unfortunately the layout was not built to be moved so the best I could do is recycle track and wood for the new layout. The design for that layout made it as plan of the month in the Railway Modeller in March 2012 and the concept for the new layout is pretty similar but with some lessons learned. It also meant I have a reasonable amount of Southern rolling stock which I didn't want to ditch - I do like the Maunsell coaches!

This background explains why Newton Abbot is slightly different to the real thing. It has gained an additional platform (which means I can re-use the station buildings from the Exeter layout that I had started to build) and I have assumed that the Southern has somehow managed to link up via the Moretonhampstead branch (with joint running powers) to run occasional trains through Newton Abbot. Apart from the additional platform, I think the design is a pretty good compression of the real layout and it encompasses Aller Junction. It was actually seeing articles and videos for the Little Aller Junction layout, combined with a lack of enthusiasm to rebuild something I had already almost completed that led me to switch from Exeter to Newton Abbot for this layout.

 

For me, this diverse hobby is mainly about operating the layout, with the next most enjoyable bit being the design and planning, including layout design and the timetable. Track laying and scenery are satisfying to have done oneself provided that the results are reasonable, but are not the main source of enjoyment for me. The railway is housed in a 8.5m x 3.5m fully insulated and air-conditioned garden room (max size to avoid building regs etc). It has the potential to be operated in four modes:

• terminus only - by running direct from fiddleyard to Kingswear
• watching the trains go by - running the circuit through Dawlish
• focus on Newton Abbot - using Goodrington sidings as a 2nd fiddleyard
• run the full layout encompassing all station

 

So far I have laid most of the track apart from Kingswear which is not started and probably won't be for some time (I've got an intermediate set of 5 sidings at 'Goodrington' which will act as an 'in transit' storage / fiddleyard once Kingswear is built. I also have the loco shed and Moretonhampstead line into Newton Abbot to lay. No scenery has been started but I do have some station buildings for Newton Abbot (as above) and Metcalfe kits which I used previously for the Dawlish station buildings, plus the spans of the Dawlish bridge which I glued in place last weekend (after the pic below was taken).

 

I've been working up a timetable but have created a 'quickie' version which I started running weekend before last - encouraging that it seems to be fun to operate! Operation combines a Z21 for running the trains with elink+Railmaster for controlling the points and setting routes. I didn't get as far as connecting the point motors to decoders last time - this time I have and it makes so much difference to operating a layout of this size, along with having wireless handsets (multimaus, phone, tablet) rather than a fixed location controller.

 

If there is sufficient interest I'll continue the posts to explain more about the design etc. If not I won't clog up the site unnecessarily!

In the meantime , two pics attached. The first one shows a Hall at Newton Abbot with the 06:20 arrival from Paddington alongside City of London awaiting to depart for Kingswear with a connecting train. The coaches on the Kingswear train will work back as through coaches for Liverpool to be attached to a Plymouth > Crewe train at Newton Abbot at around 09:45. The second picture shows the Hall a little earlier as it passes through Dawlish.

 

Enjoy!

 

Peter

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by PeterLoader
pictures lost

[DCB]

Sounds great. But for accuracy  Watch out for train formations.  I have a Wild Swan book somewhere about 1930 GWR Train formations including the West of England line and there was no Southern stock mentioned.    Lots of LMS and some LNER through coaches but no Southern. Post WW2 SR stock ran a couple of Exeter - Plymouth locals, but not back in the 1930s.   Lots of trains combined GW and LMS stock at Bristol Temple Meads for West of England destinations. 

Locos could be an issue, Bulldogs were common as pilots from NA to Plymouth, I have an idea 3150 Prairies were around the big boiler ones no one does RTR and 517s and Metros were around in the early 1930s after the Cities etc were withdrawn.

I like the idea of late 1950s summer Saturdays.  Long passenger trains Nose to tail, 7 minute nominal headway,  no locals, no goods. 

Don't forget the sea wall wasn't level. Dawlish Station was on a hump with a down grade towards Plymouth to help Atmospheric trains get started.  

[Barry Ten]

The original post makes it clear why Southern stock would run on the layout:

 

This background explains why Newton Abbot is slightly different to the real thing. It has gained an additional platform (which means I can re-use the station buildings from the Exeter layout that I had started to build) and I have assumed that the Southern has somehow managed to link up via the Moretonhampstead branch (with joint running powers) to run occasional trains through Newton Abbot. 

[MonsalDan]

Sounds really interesting, would love to see a track plan.

Also, noting Southern trains at Newton Abbot as others have touched upon.  I've seen a few photos of N class Moguls at the turntable which is another excuse to include them.  I'm not sure why they went there and the caption in the book (I think it was Scenes from the Past 19) wasn't clear on why either.

Looking forward to seeing more

[Neal Ball]

Wow this sounds great!

 

I'm jealous of the size.... wish when we relocated over here, I had "nicked" more space for Henley on Thames! I use something like 5m x 3m (8.5 x 3.5m sounds even better!)

 

Don't worry about clogging the airwaves of RmWeb - we need to see more.... and as @MonsalDan says, it would be great to see a track plan.

 

Keep on going with the posts - cant get enough of the GWR in the 1930's :-)

[Barry Ten]

1 hour ago, MonsalDan said:

Sounds really interesting, would love to see a track plan.

Also, noting Southern trains at Newton Abbot as others have touched upon.  I've seen a few photos of N class Moguls at the turntable which is another excuse to include them.  I'm not sure why they went there and the caption in the book (I think it was Scenes from the Past 19) wasn't clear on why either.

Looking forward to seeing more

 

route familiarisation, maybe?

[gwrrob]

29 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

route familiarisation, maybe?

 

Yes, Western men had to know the route to Okehampton too.

[MonsalDan]

38 minutes ago, Barry Ten said:

 

route familiarisation, maybe?

That's what I wondered, but surely if it was route familiarisation then they would continue beyond Newton Abbot to Plymouth and not be turned around?  I wondered if maybe it was a freight working to Hackney Yard but it could be either really.

[PeterLoader]

Thanks for your initial feedback - as Barry Ten has kindly pointed out from my initial post, my use of Southern stock is justified through paragraph he quoted!

Will get onto the trackplan in due course...

[gwrrob]

10 minutes ago, MonsalDan said:

That's what I wondered, but surely if it was route familiarisation then they would continue beyond Newton Abbot to Plymouth and not be turned around?  I wondered if maybe it was a freight working to Hackney Yard but it could be either really.

 

I've seen a photo and have a model of 1848 at Aller Junction on a down stopper from Newton to Plymouth.

[Chris M]

It's nice to know my little layout (Little Aller Junction) served as inspiration. There is something special about seeing trains from two destinations run side by side. I'm moving on to a new project, Dawlish Warren, and Little Aller Junction will have to be dismantled in a couple of months time.

 

All the best with your project.

 

 

[PeterLoader]

2 hours ago, Chris M said:

It's nice to know my little layout (Little Aller Junction) served as inspiration. There is something special about seeing trains from two destinations run side by side. I'm moving on to a new project, Dawlish Warren, and Little Aller Junction will have to be dismantled in a couple of months time.

 

All the best with your project.

 

 

 

It was very much an inspiration. A shame if you are going to dismantle it - is it not worth selling on and letting others benefit from it?

I thought about including Dawlish Warren instead of Dawlish on my railway - but decided I had enough operational stuff on my plate with Newton Abbot and therefore kept with Dawlish for watching trains go by.

[Powerhaul 70 Pey]

Looking forward to this layout developing.  I went to Dawlish last year, really nice place.  Love coastal railways.

[TrevorP1]

Will enjoy following this. I don’t get there often enough but the Dawlish - Teignmouth area is one of my favourite places. I’m the worlds worst to say this but keep up the posts!

[PeterLoader]

ok... so tonight was in the watch trains go by mode - a 17-wagon freight and 9-coach Cornish Riviera. Pics below - sorry only mobile phone this time as it is getting late. Whilst watching the trains I also sorted two snags  a dead zone (that in my Newton Abbot is) in the approach to platform 1 and a misaligned rail across my lifting section that more demanding rolling stock was derailing on. Problem with large layouts is that there is loads of ongoing maintenance and a lot to do between initial build and final commissioning!

First pic shows Cornish Riviera at speed on the bridge at Dawlish headed by 6002 King William IV; second shows it passing the freight on the other side of the station hauled by 4283.

Will get on to publishing the plan in the next day or two...

Premier League returns tomorrow and Exeter City are in the play-off semis on Thursday so it may be be later than that - apologies in advance!

Peter

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by PeterLoader

[PeterLoader]

4 hours ago, Chris M said:

It's nice to know my little layout (Little Aller Junction) served as inspiration. There is something special about seeing trains from two destinations run side by side. I'm moving on to a new project, Dawlish Warren, and Little Aller Junction will have to be dismantled in a couple of months time.

 

All the best with your project.

 

 

PS - thanks for taking the time to reply - I hope you like what you see albeit I have a long way to go before the finished article is there and if it is half as good as yours it will certainly do me!

[Chris M]

1 hour ago, PeterLoader said:

 

It was very much an inspiration. A shame if you are going to dismantle it - is it not worth selling on and letting others benefit from it?

 

 

I have had interest from some friends but I've said no. I have looked at all the items I can re-use and I reckon I will be able to use items that would cost me over £500 to buy new. Also some bits of the layout are a bit tired. Unfortunately these are in difficult places to access. It runs fine at the moment but I expect it will cause issues in the not too distant future. 

[Chris M]

Your layout is looking promising, the bridge at Dawlish is very recognisable. You have a big challenge ahead and I look forward to seeing progress.

 

My project is much smaller. It's still a challenge, especially making buildings in N gauge. I'm getting on well though, well at least I think I am!

 

[PeterLoader]

10 hours ago, Chris M said:

Your layout is looking promising, the bridge at Dawlish is very recognisable. You have a big challenge ahead and I look forward to seeing progress.

 

My project is much smaller. It's still a challenge, especially making buildings in N gauge. I'm getting on well though, well at least I think I am!

 

Looking good - my first weekend away with the lady who is now my wife of 9 months we had lunch in the Mount Pleasant Inn en route walking from Starcross to Dawlish. Looking forward to seeing videos of your new railway as per all the Little Aller Junction ones. Quick question - what colour ballast do you think I should be using? I've got that job to look forward to (not) but may as well get it right - you seem to have switched from grey to brown!

Edited June 17, 2020 by PeterLoader

[PeterLoader]

So here we go with the track plan. I will show this via 3 diagrams to avoid overlapping tracks causing confusion. It is also probably worth pointing out at this stage a couple of ‘design features’ which although  I came up with myself, I have seen subsequently but rarely.

Firstly, to remove the need for too many gradients (which weren’t successful on my old layout) the line from Paddington fiddleyard to Dawlish crosses the lines just to the west of Aller Junction on the level. I had originally considered such a design and thought maybe it was flawed until I saw a layout (Settle and Carlisle one as I recall) in one of the model magazines which used the same concept. This gave me renewed confidence to pursue it, enabling me to retain a single main fiddleyard and other operating features I wanted and which outweighed the downsides of this arrangement.

Secondly, the Goodrington sidings bit,  as acting as a fiddleyard for trains terminating at Paignton, is mainly there to represent a delay for trains that have left Kingswear and are enroute to Newton Abbot or vice versa, enabling several trains to be held in that state and removing the need for trains to arrive at Newton Abbot a minute or so after leaving Kingswear. I’ve only seen that on a West of Scotland layout on RMWeb in the last few weeks but it seems a useful concept.

 

So the first diagram below shows the Paddington / Penzance fiddleyard and Dawlish station. The way I normally describe the layout is to imagine that yourjourney starts from the fiddleyard as if you were coming from Paddington, i.e. exiting from the bottom right. You go across the top, down the left hand side crossing the tracks from Aller Junction and through Dawlish. To the right of Dawlish, you can either go left to Newton Abbot or carry straight on and complete further circuits through Dawlish. This enables the ‘watch trains go by’ running of the railway, although to access the Penzance entry to the fiddleyard, you do have to go through Newton Abbot.The main part of fiddleyard itself contains a mixture of sidings designed to hold 6, 8 or 10-coach trains. There are also some other odds and ends for spare locos, push pull trains and also the some sidings for Southern trains (adjacent to the turntable).

 

The second diagram simply adds in the Newton Abbot element. So after passing through Dawlish you turn left towards Newton Abbot. You can also see the line from Moretonhampstead also coming in from the fiddleyard into Newton Abbot, either to the bay platform or crossing the mainline.

From Newton Abbot, you can either head left at Aller Junction to access the Penzance end of the fiddleyard or take the right hand set of tracks towards Kingswear. In doing so, you cross the line from the Paddington fiddleyard as previously mentioned. This reverses the arrangement of the real Aller Junction as the Kingswear line is to the left; however this makes it easier for the Kingswear line to run at the back of the fiddleyard out of the way. This is all shown below:

 

The Kingswear line then runs along the bottom of the diagram as single track (it was a choice of double track and one less track for the full length of the fiddleyard or the extra fiddleyard capacity and the latter won out - there is however a buffer of one 6-coach train after Aller Junction but out of sight). This line rises at a gradient of 1 in 100 until it reaches the temporary holding area ('Goodrington'), shown to the right of the diagram with the single track then continuing along the top to Kingswear which will be on the left hand side of the plan. Kingswear station will accommodate 6-coach trains although two of the sidings at Goodrington will accommodate longer trains for those terminating at Paignton. The Kingswear branch is shown below with the other track deleted to hopefully make it clearer. The Kingswear line is the only part of the layout on a different level:

Although Goodrington only shows 4 sidings, there are actually 5 sidings as I managed to get an extra one in when I came to laying it. The line terminates there currently as the Kingswear bit has not been started. Time for some scenery and a break from track laying - and for the coffers to recover!

 

If anyone made it his far I hope that the above is reasonably clear with some idea of the thought processes behind the plan. This is version 0.24c! 24 excludes all the versions before I got onto doing one with the fiddleyard line crossing the mainlines which there were probably 20 of as well.

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by PeterLoader

[Nick Gough]

Great to see another '30s GWR main line.

 

I'm looking forward to how this develops.

[DLT]

Amazing project!

[PeterLoader]

Well this weekend's efforts involved building a bridge - two bridges in fact and joining them together. I had noticed that the bridge just on the Newton Abbot side of Aller Junction looked quite like a Metcalfe kit. I actually need mine as a scenic break on the other side of Aller Junction so that is what I now have.

As I managed to get those made Friday night / Saturday including a general tidy up, I was able to use my Father's Day time to run some trains. This is a continuation of the 'simple' version of the timetable, starting with the 09:38 arrival at Newton Abbot from Kingswear which is the through coaches for Liverpool to be attached to the Plymouth > Crewe train. Here are the through coaches passing the under the new bridge behind City of London... shame about the giant soldering iron cable!

 

 

Next 5764 backs the Kingswear coaches onto the Plymouth > Crewe train....

 

 

then here is the combined train at Dawlish...

 

 

which was then passed by 4283 on a down freight...

 

 

This was meant to be the simple timetable but there is still a fair bit to do. Once the Crewe train has left, City of London needs to go back on shed and take on water prior to getting ready for the next lot of coaches from London to be detached and taken to Kingswear. In the meantime, 5764 needs to get a couple of strengthening coaches out of the carriage sidings to put in platform 6 ready to have the through coaches attached - during which time that freight that was passing Dawlish will make it round to the down through line. It will be held there until the Paddington > Penzance train has passed - I think the first van was an empty ale van but on this occasion it won't be dropped at Peter's Brewery as the track is not pinned down yet!

[Rivercider]

On 16/06/2020 at 23:21, PeterLoader said:

 Quick question - what colour ballast do you think I should be using? I've got that job to look forward to (not) but may as well get it right - you seem to have switched from grey to brown!

 

I don't know where the ballast came from in the 1930s, but the local quarry at Stoneycombe supplied a pink limestone ballast during the 1960s and 1970s.

Meldon Quarry on Dartmoor which was owned by the SR produced a darker grey hornfels ballast, which was also used by the WR from sometime after nationalisation.

 

cheers

Edited June 23, 2020 by Rivercider
Additional info

[PeterLoader]

The other week my lad's class mates showed some interest in the railway so I created a video for them to share via their weekly zoom call so I thought I would post a link as a March 2021 update.

So one end of the beach at Dawlish is well advanced now - this being the end with the nudist bathers (which hopefully none of the children noticed!). I'm currently working on the engine shed area at Newton Abbot - can't believe that involves 6 turnouts including the one that goes to the carriage works. The latter I thought I might include as a convenient place to store modern rolling stock when I'm running steam and vice versa. I should be able to get three sidings each able to take 3 coaches so it could hide some DMUs. Then again I could simply get some trays and hide them in a cupboard!

The other main development is to replace my Hornby elink system with iTrain. I got fed up with Hornby telling me the reason I couldn't deinstall and then reinstall railmaster to my new laptop was all my fault when every other piece of software I had worked fine. iTrain is more expensive but looks a lot better, albeit I won't be using many of the automation features. What it does give is a nice visualisation of the routes that have been set - see attached images. In the first image, the orange shows that the track is set for using the continuous circuit through Dawlish - i.e." watch the trains go by" mode.

In the second image, a route is set from one of the fiddleyard sidings all the way through Dawlish and into Newton Abbot. A train from Newton Abbot to Dawlish is also routed in the up direction. iTrain ensures that conflicting routes can't be set which is helpful for avoiding collisions - hence the up train is not routed any further.

Finally from my update, does anyone know how to fix the controller on a Heljan 89011 turntable. Annoyingly I had just spent an hour or two getting the turntable to work by cleaning it and then the controller failed within half an hour - completely dead with no power light showing.