I need help with some scenery planning please.

[bkz2457]

This is my first post, so may well be in the wrong place, i have returned to model railways after a long "layoff".

My last layout was in the loft and large but never got "finished, finished" if you like, changes in temperature and the climb up the ladder after a while brought about an abrupt halt followed by boxing it away.

With the small box room becoming available recently, my wife suggested using the available space so i have!

It measures 6ft 6ins x 6ft 6ins give or take a little, the current layout is based on the readily available plan "Ayr" [but will not be prototypical of Ayr at all] as i needed access to the center in order to be able to do any topside work.

Few layouts seem to allow for central operation and i wanted to get up and running without an awful lot of planning!

A couple of mistakes i made was probably extending the original size a bit and not leaving my self a lot of room around the outside.

The second one was fitting surface mount point motors then deciding to mount new motors underneath! There are probably more blunders but hey-ho. 

I have opted for dcc again, track is down and ballasted droppers are in place and this is where i need some ideas.

Apart from the platforms which are done, i'm stuck on what to do with buildings scenery etc, the center cutaway doesn't help in that department, there is a small area addition to the right hand side where the window is located.

Sadly as it is a flat based round and round "loop" its not ideal, but i do like to see movement, as its not large i don't envisage a tunnel but i need something that would in the real world, give access to the two platforms from the "other side" of the layout, i'm also a big fan of terraced houses! I would like it to look inhabited.

 I mainly want to model the LMS|BR period late 40's onwards, but just steam, i'm not aiming for perfection but something that is a bit realistic.

I have added my plan [slightly modified] i'm no expert with paint shop, so apologies, but any ideas for scenery and buildings would be great, i have so much stuff going around in my head i can't decide.

The little dots by the way are my point switches, built in to the board to save space.

 

[Chrisr40]

Hi, best bit of advice I can give is change your topic title to something more descriptive of the advice you need  it will attract more comments. Good luck.

[Pete the Elaner]

Terraced houses makes me think 'urban'.

Access to the platforms could be from a road passing above, with the station building at road level & stairs down to the platforms.

Boxing the railway in with retaining walls & underneath roads always makes a compact layout look a little more realistic.

The biggest drawback is that retaining walls, buildings & roadways take a lot longer to build than fields & fences. Another drawback is that derailments always seem to happen where it is harder to rescue them.

 

The easier option is a country station. You could feature a subway to access the far platforms but a footbridge would probably be more appropriate. A level crossing would allow vehicles to access both sides of the line.

[cypherman]

Hi,

You want something for passengers to cross the line but you do not seem to want the obvious footbridge. It is unfortunate in that you have already constructed your platforms before unless you are using Hornby platforms. For the Hornby platforms they make/made a subway platform. So you could go under the track. If not you could always butcher a couple of them to fit.

Edited October 22, 2021 by cypherman

[ISW]

I'd move the point switches off the baseboard to give you more space for scenery in the middle. The switches could be in a little box on the edge of the baseboard, or connected by a fly-lead.

 

I agree with a previous post that adding a tunnel / covered section (probably the top-left area) is a good idea. If you are worried about access to derailments, put an access hole in the outside edge for the 'hand of God'. The top of the tunnel then provides 'land' for a road and/or buildings.

 

You could make the 'depot' a little more compact by making the building parallel to the 3-sidings (or vice-versa).

 

Ian

[Philou]

I would check that you can reach into all the corners from where you propose to have your operating well - 900mm would be a good rule-of-thumb - errr - as it were.

 

For terraced houses you couldn't do better than to try Scalescenes ones - come in low relief (front/back) and full width. Fairly easy to hack about to create some variety and its pay once and copy as many times as you want (no connection - just a happy customer). For speedy build, there is Metcalfe and other makes.

 

I like the idea mentioned above of an urban station hemmed-in by walls and the like (think Liverpool Lime Street). Variations  of Cyril Freezer's 'Minories' plan abound all having that slightly gloomy feel about them and plenty of bridges to divide up the scene (do avoid the bus-on-a-bridge scenario though ).

 

Good luck - the first few steps are the hard ones,

 

Philip

[RobinofLoxley]

You must be a very slim guy bkz because the operating well shown is tiny. Its got to double in size. The comment about point switches is right, they need to be off the top surface.

 

I notice that you have  lot of curved points, almost inevitable, with steam locos some wont go round them at least not the inside radius. Tender drives are better for that.

 

There seem to be two sides where the track runs very close to board edges so you cant do much more than have a printed backscene there. But behind the station you have room for a wall with possibly some low relief buildings above it. Low relief bildings can be cut back to a profile of only a few cm if required. The opposite side could be simply landscaped with rising banks. Its hard to locate a place where a scenic break, to give the illusion that the trains are appearing from somewhere, would work, because of the busy layout, but a road bridge could be located above the loco shed, running diagonally NW-SE to do that.

 

I think all the track is down, is that right? Becuase Im sure that 95% of people would tell you that you dont need those bay platforms.

 

Best of luck whatever you decide

[bkz2457]

Thank you for all the replies so far!

Yes i am fairly slim but that "sketch" is not quite to scale, its just to give an idea of where i am.

 

I will definitely consider moving the point switches to make some more space. 

I had already fitted a subway connecting the inner platform to the larger outer platform using Peco kits.

Yes all the track is down, I did consider other platform locations originally but space is tight.

I can just get in to all 4 corners, fortunately I'm 5ft 11 though it can be a stretch. 

Once i have tidied up i will take some actual photos, but every single comment has been very useful indeed.