Coarse O Gauge in a Spare Room

[brianusa]

As this is a tinplate layout, how much shunting will be involved?  Certainly not a lot of automatic uncoupling with the current 0 couplers so the heavenly hand can only place wagons on the short sidings which means there has to be easy access.  Also the head shunt can be eliminated as the train can be left on the main.  Even on a layout of my size, shunting is minimal.

      Brian.

[Nearholmer]

Shunting is a matter of taste; I enjoy it, and thoroughly dislike Hornby "automatic" couplings, so endorse Brian's point about all sidings needing to be accessible.

 

I'm envisaging this layout as at desk level, and being operated while seated, but is that the intent? I ask, because it affects how far you can reach, as, of course, does how tall you are, and the length of your arms. The ergonomics of the layout design, in short.

 

 

[Joe61264]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I'm envisaging this layout as at desk level, and being operated while seated, but is that the intent? I ask, because it affects how far you can reach, as, of course, does how tall you are, and the length of your arms. The ergonomics of the layout design, in short.

 

 

I will certainly have a seat in the room for when trains are circulating, but am happy to stand for shunting if it proves too far. I’m fairly tall with long(ish) arms so there shouldn’t be any trouble reaching across for the goods line or passenger line.

 

In terms of the 1 or 2 line goods yard I may leave that to experiment with once the rest of the layout is in place, and I can use trial and error to decide.

[Flying Pig]

13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Shunting is a matter of taste; I enjoy it, and thoroughly dislike Hornby "automatic" couplings, so endorse Brian's point about all sidings needing to be accessible.

 

Do coarse 0 wagons loose shunt reliably?

[Chimer]

Do you ever need to shut that door?  If not, you could just open it and build baseboards in front of it .....

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

Do coarse 0 wagons loose shunt reliably?

If you mean buffer-to-buffer, perfectly, with two provisos that are just the same as with fine-scale: buffer heights are the same; and, curve isn’t so tight as to cause buffer-locking.

Given the typical coarse- scaler’s love of tight curves, and collecting ancient wagons from multiple manufacturers, with disparate couplings, these conditions aren’t always satisfied in practice!

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Flying Pig]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

If you mean buffer-to-buffer, perfectly, with two provisos that are just the same as with fine-scale: buffer heights are the same; and, curve isn’t so tight as to cause buffer-locking.

 

I meant as in being uncoupled, given a shove and then allowed to roll into the selected siding.  It appears as though the manual couplings and greater mass would allow this, though I take your point about buffer locking.

[Nearholmer]

Ah, right, now I get you.

 

Some will; some won't. The trouble with "coarse scale" as a term is that it covers things from 100+years of manufacture, using a host of different materials and methods. The bearings on a lot of modern-made ones, for instance, are not particularly free-rolling, and many old tinplate ones are very light.

 

Personally, I wouldn't design a layout on the basis of being able to shunt that way.

[Joe61264]

My mind is now turning to how the layout would operate beyond the Clockwise passenger and Anti-clockwise Freight. 
I’m a fan of running things to a sequence/timetable, and am thinking it is well suited to this with a bit of imagination in use, for instance the Station and Yard representing several different locations on a train’s journey. They both start and finish with a loco on the MPD, and set of vehicles on the bottom yard/sidings, go pick up their trains then work as required for a few laps each. 
Too give the freight ‘activities’ a waybill type system springs to mind, but I’m wondering what to do with the passenger diagram beyond just cycling and stopping at stations on the way. One option is that it stops and runs round at some point, but I’m drawing a bit of a blank otherwise. Does the collective have any suggestions?

The idea of leaving the door open permanently is very tempting, and I could always hang a curtain across the doorway for a bit of heat retention

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Joe61264 said:

The idea of leaving the door open permanently is very tempting, and I could always hang a curtain across the doorway for a bit of heat retention

 

A door is quite useful for stopping the movement of dust and especially moisture from the rest of the house.  But if it needs to be open while you're operating anyway, perhaps that's moot.

 

1 hour ago, Joe61264 said:

but I’m wondering what to do with the passenger diagram beyond just cycling and stopping at stations on the way. One option is that it stops and runs round at some point, but I’m drawing a bit of a blank otherwise.

 

Loco off shed; collects carriages and runs round if necessary; departs and cycles; runs round and reverses; cycles again; terminates and disposes of carriages; returns to shed.  That's a reasonable amount of operation for a session.  Perhaps you can add the working of tail traffic? 

[Nearholmer]

In "cunning plan" mode: the width of the hallway is rather tight, but imagine a curve in the hallway, allowing one to erect the ironing board along the hall ......

 

Which is all OK, if you don't mind crawling in and out between room and hallway to operate whatever is out there.

 

To give you an idea of how small a terminus can be, herewith a photo of my ludicrously small study bookshelf one - 2240 x 420, with 300 clear of the points at each end to allow running round. There is bags of clearance to run round a train of  three six-wheelers.

 

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Joe61264]

14 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Loco off shed; collects carriages and runs round if necessary; departs and cycles; runs round and reverses; cycles again; terminates and disposes of carriages; returns to shed.  That's a reasonable amount of operation for a session.  Perhaps you can add the working of tail traffic? 

Tail traffic added into that suggestion sounds good, Milk Tankers, Goods Vans or Parcels Vans could always be kept in the goods facilities until they’re to be attached. I think we’re onto a winner here! 

[Joe61264]

11 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

In "cunning plan" mode: the width of the hallway is rather tight, but imagine a curve in the hallway, allowing one to erect the ironing board along the hall ......

 

Which is all OK, if you don't mind crawling in and out between room and hallway to operate whatever is out there.

 

To give you an idea of how small a terminus can be, herewith a photo of my ludicrously small study bookshelf one - 2240 x 420, with 300 clear of the points at each end to allow running round. There is bags of clearance to run round a train of  three six-wheelers.

 

 

Something that had crossed my mind too, and I do like the idea of the trains coming and going from ‘somewhere’. That tiny terminus has encouraged me to explore the idea even more, and of course as it would have to be portable it opens up the prospect of taking it to visit/exhibit! 
it’s a very slippery slope mind, as that terminus would end somewhere by the doorway for the second bedroom...bit of an empire forming here.

I’ll come up with a plan for the hallway Terminus, but it will I think be a bolt-on addition once the core layout is built

 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

19 hours ago, Joe61264 said:

My mind is now turning to how the layout would operate beyond the Clockwise passenger and Anti-clockwise Freight. 
I’m a fan of running things to a sequence/timetable, and am thinking it is well suited to this with a bit of imagination in use, for instance the Station and Yard representing several different locations on a train’s journey. They both start and finish with a loco on the MPD, and set of vehicles on the bottom yard/sidings, go pick up their trains then work as required for a few laps each. 
Too give the freight ‘activities’ a waybill type system springs to mind, but I’m wondering what to do with the passenger diagram beyond just cycling and stopping at stations on the way. One option is that it stops and runs round at some point, but I’m drawing a bit of a blank otherwise. Does the collective have any suggestions?

The idea of leaving the door open permanently is very tempting, and I could always hang a curtain across the doorway for a bit of heat retention

Hi there.  This looks like a great project.

 

Regarding passenger trains, it would be perfectly possible to have a passenger-only layout with plenty of shunting, particularly for earlier eras.  In addition to the types of tail traffic already mentioned, another example can be horse boxes (often marshalled behind the engine, rather than at the tail).  Go way back and you have the Lord’s carriage on a flat wagon too - or come forwards and call it MotorRail!  If space / rolling stock is available, you can also add / subtract buffet and restaurant coaches, lengthen or shorten trains for different times of day, add extra holiday trains to Summer Saturday timetables, there are Sleepers, Newspapers and Mail to carry, trains that divide (or join), slip coaches and observation Pullmans and no doubt others I’ve not thought of.  You may not have space for all these on this layout (at the same time), but the possibilities can be endless.  An observation I think belongs to @DavidCBroad is that, in the steam era, it was seen as an inefficient use of motive power to pull any more carriages in a train than were needed, so shunting was common.

 

The rolling stock for my current very simple continuous run test track totals three 4-wheel coaches and one locomotive.  As well as alternating which direction my train travels, I decided the other day to run alternate ‘Services’ as either two or three coach trains, and made it an arbitrary bylaw that first class accommodation must always be in the first coach immediately behind the engine (in either direction).  Station stops were either one, two or five laps apart.  I did not get bored,  Keith.

[Joe61264]

The operating info is fantastic and got me scribbling out more than a few ideas of how to run the yet-to-be-named layout. Today was a treat in more than one way; firstly going to the pub with friends again, secondly the first pieces of rolling stock arrived, and thirdly the fact I’d bought 5 not 3 coaches! I should have checked the eBay listing more carefully but it was a very pleasant surprise. An order for a 27” loop has gone in with Ron at Maldon so hopefully they won’t be confined to boxes for too long. 

[Nearholmer]

SECR?

 

I think Colin Toten (Raylo) might still have some Terriers left in SECR livery. Those coaches are fairly heavy for a Terrier, though, so one would probably only manage two or three, a bit like the real thing.

[Joe61264]

SECR indeed. I’ve got my eye on one of the terriers to match, as well as keeping an eye on Ace’s website for news of the E and D classes.

 

The other missing link is a controller. The Gaugemaster Large Scale unit is one option, but I seem to recall suggestion of using a ‘generic’ piece of electronics equipment of which the name escapes me. Is anyone able to offer thoughts?

 

Cheers,

Joe

[Nearholmer]

Some people favour “bench power supplies” as used for testing electronics, especially people who run trains of all sorts of different voltages, AC as well as DC.

 

Personally, I’ve got on very well with Gaugemaster units. A 12V 1A one is OK for a single modern loco like a Terrier, but I mostly use the ‘LGB’ 2.5A one.

[Lacathedrale]

Yes in my brief experiement I was quite surprised at the 'period' pulling power for the models i.e. not very much! Still, they look gorgeous!

[Nearholmer]

I’ve found that tractive effort is broadly proportionate to the prototype, which is no surprise really, because it’s a function of mass and friction, and little locos weigh a lot less than big ones.

The locos with ETS mechs, or mechs with cast-iron wheels, do best, because the coefficient of friction with NS rail is higher than with stainless steel, which is used for tyres on a lot of Chinese-built coarse-0 locos.

[Joe61264]

As construction is looming and progress seems imminent, I have started a new thread in Layout Topics on the below link:

 

Hope to see folk there!