A Garage-sized Layout

[RobinofLoxley]

3 hours ago, Stephen Freeman said:

Larger car is more convenient. You might have thought I joked. In another lifetime I drove a Golf GTi, at the same time I transported baseboards to and from meetings. The only way I could do it was to take out the back seats! I did get quite adept at it but when the time came I choose to change the car for an estate car, end of problem.

Yes but acquiring a trailer might be less inconvenient than changing cars! As it happens I have had estate cars for the last 40 years, never any regrets.

[Lacathedrale]

I appreciate that a suburban station has less of an excuse for no dedicated freight facilities, but I can consider it:

1. Off-scene in the foreground (a-la Eastbourne or Crystal Palace High Level (also LCDR): https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW041940
2. Up the line a short way, the other side of a bridge/cutting/etc.
3. Not required at all due to location of other railheads (a-la Dover Harbour - which

I'm fairly comfortable that I'm not too far beyond the pale in terms of what the layout can provide in a suburban setting:

• Bromley South had a similar arrangement of arrival/departure roads until the 1920's.
• Greenwich Park had a very evocative station in a cutting surrounded by smokey brick, the loco headshunt adjacent the throat.
• Caterham had the engine shed at the platform ends.
• All three had carriage sidings behind the platforms.
• Dover Harbour (preceding Marine) also used the single generic coach siding for P.O. traffic by photographic evidence)

I acknowledge that the city terminus would be an EASIER fit for the layout type, but to me that means 'viaduct' I'm not sure if I want to mess around with the challenges of raising the trackbed above the baseboard particularly with mechanical turnout linkages. If anyone has experience with that I'd be glad to hear it.

 

I had a bit of a tidy-up in the garage and at my hibernating N gauge layout on some trestles to get an idea - not so bad! White paint and some daylight LED battens coming soon...

 

View from the door

 

Load of clearance

 

Opposite corner - more tidying needed!

[Izzy]

41 minutes ago, Stephen Freeman said:

The Shunting element of the intended layout wiil be separate, probably on a different level but I haven't got that far yet, so this bit is passenger only really. Quite a bit of the pointwork is well under way.

Oh, sorry, I was referring to the OP’s plan of extending the loco spur into a goods line and moving the spur over to perhaps P4. I should have made that clearer, apologies.

 

Bob

[Lacathedrale]

1 hour ago, Izzy said:

It's worth noting that with the clever design of Minories - if that is being used as the basis - the loco spur was located on the outward bound line. This was I presume to allow movements without blocking any inward bound traffic. No shunting moves, or not many, on the inward bound tracks. More prototypical I have always thought with less danger of conflicting movements. If the spur becomes a goods siding and the spur is moved elsewhere this is lost. Perhaps it doesn't matter in the wider scope of things but as the twin track aproach was I believe to allow trains to come and go at the same time it might hamper this aspect.

 

On 'my' layout it's become a bit removed from the base Minories, my Arrival, either Bidirectional, and Departure Platform can have up and down movements simultaneously. 

 

In the original loco pocket location, shunter movements block any departure, whereas the new location blocks arrivals. I guess the advantage in my plan for the new location is that it feeds into the platform where the pilot is needed most (i.e. the arrivals-only platform, where every train will need to be shunted).

 

 

[Pacific231G]

5 hours ago, Izzy said:

It's worth noting that with the clever design of Minories - if that is being used as the basis - the loco spur was located on the outward bound line. This was I presume to allow movements without blocking any inward bound traffic. No shunting moves, or not many, on the inward bound tracks. More prototypical I have always thought with less danger of conflicting movements. If the spur becomes a goods siding and the spur is moved elsewhere this is lost. Perhaps it doesn't matter in the wider scope of things but as the twin track aproach was I believe to allow trains to come and go at the same time it might hamper this aspect.

It's a good point but I doubt if CJF actually thought it through to that extent. The plan, inspired by but not based on layover movements  at the Metropolitan Railway's Liverpool Street  Station was based on a pattern of a loco taking a train out whose inbound loco was trapped until it did. Locos therefore needed to shunt to any of the three platforms but it was only when doing so to P1 that it didn't block an inbound move.  The spur would not though have needed a facing pont lock, it's on the one line in the throat, beyond the first set of points, that doesn't need to be reversible for service trains  so making it a trailing siding was generally good practice.

[t-b-g]

The trailing loco spur on the original Minories also gave access to all the platforms with only one reversal of the loco.

 

The way of working that I am contemplating on my layout is that the loco that is either going to shunt the train to another platform, or will take the train out, is positioned before the train arrives. I would have the sequence arranged so that the pilot doesn't return to the spur after every shunt but would wait either on the stock it has just shunted for its next move or by the starter signal on an adjacent platform.

 

Such moves, especially at exhibitions, can keep the viewer guessing as to what is going to happen next. If you can be bringing a train in to the station, while the shunter/pilot sets off from the next line ready to back on to the arriving train, it looks really impressive and replicates the "quick turnaround" of many suburban stations. 

 

Even in the 1970s, I always enjoyed watching the station pilots at place like Lincoln and Doncaster. They didn't do any more running about than was absolutely necessary, saving themselves and the signalman work. They only returned to their "usual resting place" when there was nothing for them to do for a while and they were in the way of something happening.

[Lacathedrale]

A fantastic observation of how the prototype worked that is lost when told only through photographs, thank you Tony.

 

Unfortunately, Garage renovations have been put on hold by the other half in favour of more pressing home renovation tasks. That won't stop me building the layout in theory, but does make the working environment a little less cosy! I think for now, continuing building some stock makes alot of sense.

[Pacific231G]

22 hours ago, t-b-g said:

The trailing loco spur on the original Minories also gave access to all the platforms with only one reversal of the loco.

 

The way of working that I am contemplating on my layout is that the loco that is either going to shunt the train to another platform, or will take the train out, is positioned before the train arrives. I would have the sequence arranged so that the pilot doesn't return to the spur after every shunt but would wait either on the stock it has just shunted for its next move or by the starter signal on an adjacent platform.

 

Such moves, especially at exhibitions, can keep the viewer guessing as to what is going to happen next. If you can be bringing a train in to the station, while the shunter/pilot sets off from the next line ready to back on to the arriving train, it looks really impressive and replicates the "quick turnaround" of many suburban stations. 

 

Even in the 1970s, I always enjoyed watching the station pilots at place like Lincoln and Doncaster. They didn't do any more running about than was absolutely necessary, saving themselves and the signalman work. They only returned to their "usual resting place" when there was nothing for them to do for a while and they were in the way of something happening.

I think you're right Tony  and that does seem a more common way of working than a dedicated loco spur for pilot locos to return to after each operation.

I always assumed that the purpose of the loco spur at Minories (as in the Met terminus that inspired it) was to service the turnover locos rather than as somewhere for the station pilot to lurk.

The one British terminus that I know (thanks to John MgGregor and Ian Futers) to have made plentiful use of pilots as well as fresh locos taking out trains that had arrived behind locos that were trapped until they departed, was the old Fort William. There was no loco spur there and the "usual resting place" for pilots (of which there often two) was  the Nevis yard headshunt, several hundred yards up the line,  or the loco depot.

In terms of the operations possible Fort William does, apart from simultaneous arrivals and departures, the loco spur  and a more "main line" feel, offer exactly the same potential as the basic passenger Minories with three platforms. 

Ryde Pierhead - which at times could be as busy as any commuter terminus, also managed without a loco spur.   

Much the same was true for the larger (five platforms) but notoriously cramped and much busier Paris Bastille which was very intensively worked by locos turning over. Though it did have a small loco depot "on-site", the working pattern from its most intense period (long before push-pull operation)   indicated arriving locos making their way directly - as soon as they were untrapped- via the station throat to their next train for departure, taking on water from cranes at either end of the platforms.

 

For this reason I think the Minories loco spur can more usefully be extended to be a departures only/parcels bay that would also give pilot and turnover locos somewhere to lurk.  

Edited May 31, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Harlequin]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think you're right Tony  and that does seem a more common way of working than a dedicated loco spur for pilot locos to return to after each operation.

I always assumed that the purpose of the loco spur at Minories (as in the Met terminus that inspired it) was to service the turnover locos rather than as somewhere for the station pilot to lurk.

The one British terminus that I know (thanks to John MgGregor and Ian Futers) to have made plentiful use of pilots as well as fresh locos taking out trains that had arrived behind locos that were trapped until they departed, was the old Fort William. There was no loco spur there and the "usual resting place" for pilots (of which there often two) was  the Nevis yard headshunt, several hundred yards up the line,  or the loco depot.

In terms of the operations possible Fort William does, apart from simultaneous arrivals and departures, the loco spur  and a more "main line" feel, offer exactly the same potential as the basic passenger Minories with three platforms. 

Ryde Pierhead - which at times could be as busy as any commuter terminus, also managed without a loco spur.   

Much the same was true for the larger (five platforms) but notoriously cramped and much busier Paris Bastille which was very intensively worked by locos turning over. Though it did have a small loco depot "on-site", the working pattern from its most intense period (long before push-pull operation)   indicated arriving locos making their way directly - as soon as they were untrapped- via the station throat to their next train for departure, taking on water from cranes at either end of the platforms.

 

For this reason I think the Minories loco spur can more usefully be extended to be a departures only/parcels bay that would also give pilot and turnover locos somewhere to lurk.  

Operationally the pilot locos might not stand in the spur all the time when they are not working but they do need somewhere to take on coal and water. CJF’s original loco spur was thus equipped.

 

[Pacific231G]

10 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

Operationally the pilot locos might not stand in the spur all the time when they are not working but they do need somewhere to take on coal and water. CJF’s original loco spur was thus equipped.

 

Steam locos need water far more often than coal. They'd probably just be coaled in the sheds (which wouldn't be very far away) at the beginning of their turn while water cranes on or near platforms were common. Looking, for example, at Birmingham Moor Street, there are simply no separate loco spurs of the type that appears in Minories. I'm not saying that they never existed, just that they're not an essential feature if we assume the loco sheds are a little way down the line but off-stage for us.

[Harlequin]

3 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Steam locos need water far more often than coal. They'd probably just be coaled in the sheds (which wouldn't be very far away) at the beginning of their turn while water cranes on or near platforms were common. Looking, for example, at Birmingham Moor Street, there are simply no separate loco spurs of the type that appears in Minories. I'm not saying that they never existed, just that they're not an essential feature if we assume the loco sheds are a little way down the line but off-stage for us.

Fine, so water only, although CJF drew a coal stage alongside the spur in "60 plans for small railways". The basic point still stands: pilot locos can’t operate indefinitely without replenishing whatever they are running out of. And if they are standing around for a while it makes sense to stand in a place where supplies are readily available - a place that Minories provided, but which is off scene if that spur takes on another role.

 

So I expect the crew would be happy to be out of the spur while they had coal and water to spare but would return to it when running low or whenever a long period of waiting was coming up.

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by Harlequin

[t-b-g]

One terminus which did have loco spurs with coaling platforms all over the place was Broad Street in steam days.

 

The 4-4-0T locos had really small coal bunkers and must have needed topping up fairly regularly. Being able to do that quickly between high frequency suburban services without them going off to the shed must have been a great time saver.

 

However, these were not really station pilots. They were train locos, which backed on and took a train out with a quick turnaround especially in rush hours.

 

Having a loco spur with a coaling facility does give you a type of move that you lose if you don't have one. Train arrives.  Pilot shunts stock to another platform. Train loco goes to spur to take on coal and water, or perhaps just water. After a short pause, the pilot moves to another platform to await an incoming train and other things come and go and the loco goes from the spur back onto the stock. So you get the operation that creates viewing interest as one loco moves, then a different one, keeping the viewer guessing.

 

So my plan includes a loco spur with a small coal stage and a water crane. I just don't intend the pilot to use it every time it does a shunting move. It will go there from time to time, especially when a train is due in the arrival only platform. There will be time, perhaps while an arrival and a departure take place, for the crew to put some water in the tank and some coal in the bunker.

[DCB]

The operation of these small suburban stations could be quite frantic.  Moorgate had two platforms, one LNER one LMS plus LT lines and operation was train in, new loco off spur onto back, train out, loco to spur. I believe both single dead end platforms were approached by double track, the turn rounds could be very swift and the single platforms could  handle more trains per hour, twice four times, as many as many four platform stations away from the major cities where trains terminated after lengthy journeys.   

The small station with frequent arrivals of short trains needing swift turn rounds is not something I am aware of existing in the UK, maybe Douglas Isle of Man or Ryde Pier Head Isle of Wight came close.

That said Minories throat is a great track plan, platforms extended to 8 or 10 feet it still works.  It does need a pilot loco to shunt incoming trains but  it doesn't need to spend all day and night there.

The pilot works on the outbound main line up to the limit of shunt.  Not on the incoming,  Shunts on the incoming means stopping trains at the previous signal box, outgoing more or less means seeing the back of the train is clear or getting train out of section, much quicker so the pilot siding needs to be on the outbound side.

It depends on what is down the line, a loco depot, carriage sidings, a goods depot? a mile away?.  If Minories goods station junction was only a few hundred yards from Minories tunnel entrance the yard pilot could follow incoming trains in and haul the stock off, either move it to a different platform or away to carriage sidings, it would probably only take five minutes for the pilot to arrive.  Even at peak times you could only really expect a half hour frequency, maybe with two destinations 4 trains per hour, but with two destinations they may have arrived five minutes apart, and / or departed five minutes apart. This regular interval malarky is a modern fad, alternatively there may have been a relief on Fridays running five minutes ahead or behind the main train.

Some stations had one 8 or more coach train per day and several long distance three coach corridor trains (Plymouth SR Terminus)  as well as locals .   Southampton Terminus terminated a lot of GWR trains while most SR ones bypassed it in favour of Central.
If you go this route I would base it on somewhere like a small provincial city's terminus with a variety of trains not an inner suburban station as per C.J.Freezers original concept.     You could unload and load parcels on P1 in the evenings where passengers loaded during the peaks, even milk tanks were emptied by pipes at passenger platforms off peak. 
 

 

[Lacathedrale]

IIRC Moorgate also had the SE&CR single-road platform with an integrated loco headshunt.

 

WARNING: Holborn Viaduct Urban Terminus and Idiosyncrasy Chat

 

 

The picture above shows Ludgate Hill during the LCDR period and shows a locomotive running tender/bunker first with 1st class coaches. It's hard to reconcile what train this might have been but unless it's a shunting movement, shows that turning of the locomotives was not always required even on trains which can justify a 1st class component.

 

Track layout / Pilot Siding

 

I hate to keep harping on about it, but Holborn Viaduct had both a pilot engine shed, water tower, coaling stage and ash pit adjacent the throat, accessed via a headshunt. The nearest shed would have been Blackfriars, which was only about 300 yards - but access to which would have involved navigating past Ludgate Hill and St. Pauls. The earliest station track plan shown above illustrates some rather extreme geometry with the headshunt accessible from both P1 and P4.

 

Note that as drawn (The Engineer, 1874 - article by the chief engineer of the LCDR so unlikely to be completely wrong) P5 and its runaround (which would eventually become P6) have no direct access to the pilot siding or departure line, nor does P1 have access to the arrival line.

 

The follwing I understand is one of the earliest photos of Holborn Viaduct (1879-1881) and and shows:

• an LSWR well tank in P1 adjacent the engine shed
• an LCDR T-class No. 145 in P2 taking on water
• Slotted lower-quadrant signals
• Water cranes at the end of P2/3 and presumably P1 too
• The siding at the end of P4/5 is signalled so presumably both for a locomotive and as in the case below, coaching stock
• P6 has not been built over the Metropolitan extension

 

Intensity of Service

At 1881 Holborn Viaduct had a quarter of the passengers (4,700) of the next largest LCDR station (Ludgate Hill - 16,700) - and so probably doesn't represent the same kind of service intensity of Broad Street (43,000) or Liverpool Street (57,000) - it had around 70 scheduled passenger movements and a dozen goods movements ranging from workmens trains to Victoria and Beckenham, ECS movements to/from Herne Hill, various splitting and joining of trains and shunting of stock to Ludgate Hill for collection or drop-off by GNR and LNWR services.

 

Carriages and locomotive(s) were stabled overnight, and the train makeup was skewed towards the exceptional - 1 in 10 movements were ECS, 1 in 4 were 'special' trains such as mail, boat or expresses. The pilot would be called away to shunt other stations as far away as Loughboro Jct in the middle of the day. Fish and Cattle were either unloaded or transhipped at HV, and it saw both trains and locomotives from the GNR, LNWR and LSWR.

 

[Pacific231G]

15 hours ago, Harlequin said:

Fine, so water only, although CJF drew a coal stage alongside the spur in "60 plans for small railways". The basic point still stands: pilot locos can’t operate indefinitely without replenishing whatever they are running out of. And if they are standing around for a while it makes sense to stand in a place where supplies are readily available - a place that Minories provided, but which is off scene if that spur takes on another role.

 

So I expect the crew would be happy to be out of the spur while they had coal and water to spare but would return to it when running low or whenever a long period of waiting was coming up.

 

Good morning Harlequin

I thought I'd replied last night but it clearly didn't post properly so I'll try again.

That's logical of course and certainly provided an interesting sequence of operations on Tom Cunnington's EM Minories (GN)  but I'm just not seeing such loco servicing spurs at many busy termini. Some of them such as Plymouth Millbay did have sheds or subsheds within the station limits while others, including Paddington (Ranelagh Bridge) and Snow Hill had stabling points at or very near with the main sheds some distance away. So far as I can tell or remember though, these were mainly used by main line locos brought up light engine from the shed (such as OOC or Tyslely) and topped up and oiled before backing onto trains brought in by pilots from the carriage sidings.  I don't think the many pilots at Paddington ever went near Ranelagh bridge except perhaps to deliver wagonloads of coal. For turnover operations  a simple spur would presmably only work if the train locos were tanks, so one is looking at busy inner suburban termini such as Broad St. 

I can vaguely remember there being a station pilot at Oxford (it was the terminus for quite a lot of loco hauled services from Paddington and also had a fair amout of parcels traffic) but I think it just used to hang around at the end of one of the bay platforms when it had nothing better to do. 

 

Getting away from Minories, I did find an interesting MLT-fiddlle yard layout  in an old edition from late 1994 of the Gauge O Guild Gazette called Clatterford (R.G. Thomas) That occupied a 17'3" x 11'00"  garage had three platforms, goods yard and engine shed with turntable and could operate a Hall with a five coach train. I assume the plan is copyright but I can legitimately PM it.    

Edited June 1, 2022 by Pacific231G

[t-b-g]

9 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

Good morning Harlequin

I thought I'd replied last night but it clearly didn't post properly so I'll try again.

That's logical of course and certainly provided an interesting sequence of operations on Tom Cunnington's EM Minories (GN)  but I'm just not seeing such loco servicing spurs at many busy termini. Some of them such as Plymouth Millbay did have sheds or subsheds within the station limits while others, including Paddington (Ranelagh Bridge) and Snow Hill had stabling points at or very near with the main sheds some distance away. So far as I can tell or remember though, these were mainly used by main line locos brought up light engine from the shed (such as OOC or Tyslely) and topped up and oiled before backing onto trains brought in by pilots from the carriage sidings.  I don't think the many pilots at Paddington ever went near Ranelagh bridge except perhaps to deliver wagonloads of coal. For turnover operations  a simple spur would presmably only work if the train locos were tanks, so one is looking at busy inner suburban termini such as Broad St. 

I can vaguely remember there being a station pilot at Oxford (it was the terminus for quite a lot of loco hauled services from Paddington and also had a fair amout of parcels traffic) but I think it just used to hang around at the end of one of the bay platforms when it had nothing better to do. 

 

Getting away from Minories, I did find an interesting MLT-fiddlle yard layout  in an old edition from late 1994 of the Gauge O Guild Gazette called Clatterford (R.G. Thomas) That occupied a 17'3" x 11'00"  garage had three platforms, goods yard and engine shed with turntable and could operate a Hall with a five coach train. I assume the plan is copyright but I can legitimately PM it.    

 

As a member of the GOG, I have looked Clatterford up in the online archives. That looks like another very good example of "the breed" of compact but fun to operate double track terminus layouts. The search facility also revealed an earlier version of the layout but I think the later, garage based one, is much more to my liking. If you think that it could be shrunk down to 8ft by 6ft in 4mm scale, it really was (or maybe still is) a lot of railway in a small space.

 

The pointwork in the station throat is a bit tasty!

 

Thanks for mentioning it, it was well worth a look.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

As a member of the GOG, I have looked Clatterford up in the online archives. That looks like another very good example of "the breed" of compact but fun to operate double track terminus layouts. The search facility also revealed an earlier version of the layout but I think the later, garage based one, is much more to my liking. If you think that it could be shrunk down to 8ft by 6ft in 4mm scale, it really was (or maybe still is) a lot of railway in a small space.

 

The pointwork in the station throat is a bit tasty!

 

Thanks for mentioning it, it was well worth a look.

 

 

My pleasure. I have the earlier Clatterford article as well but it was of no great interest to me. Clatterford Mk 2 was. I often find 0 gauge layouts useful for ideas for compact schemes in H0.

I guess pointwork like that is simpler to build in 0 gauge and R.G. Thomas had clearly been modelling in the scale since childhood. Nevertheless I'm always impressed by what modellers of that period took on, like the pointwork on Maybank that Bill Banwell and Frank Applegate produced as teenagers in the early 1930s.

[DCB]

Sounds like we are getting a very long way away from a garage sized layout and into mid Victorian era termini.  Nothing wrong with that. I like a Crampton as much as the next  bloke, but Bachmann probably won't have any rtr before about 2030 and....

The full size trackwork on the "Ludgate Hill" plan is also a lot more compact than the Streamline based Minories geometry.
 

[Lacathedrale]

I've bought a rolling a subscription for RM on my iPad and I'm reading the 1951 issues, and it feels like the wood and metal shortage they're describing is not a million miles away from the cost and availability of materials today!

 

@DCB you can't argue with that, it was a very cramped site (NB it is 'Holborn Viaduct, connection to Ludgate Hill' abriged in the photograph) - and the platforms were too small very shortly after it was built - extended by the 1900's, then again with electrification in the late 1930's (outer platforms only) until the trains were of such a size that unless they kissed the buffers they would be blocking the throat entirely.

 

It's not clear to me that connection from P1 to the loco pit was ever laid, but I guess it must have been as those plans were published by the chief engineer a few months after the station opened?

 

@Pacific231G I have tried to sketch out Maybank a few times in standard form, but the skewed double scissors always proves troublesome to include. Another skewed double-scissors appears, if I remember correctly, in the throat of Buckingham which formed another not-Minories compact double track terminus I sketched up earlier too.

 

No matter what happens with the prototype or the track plan the terminus of the layout can't be more than 9' long in order to satisfy the need for either a) a reasonable radius curve around to the rest of the garage, or b) a traverser with a 4' capacity, and so I think 21" is a good width.

 

I think that @Harlequin is right about adding a short run into the layout from the FY tho, so while not immediately of concern and not part of the 'exhibition' portion of the layout, I don't see how a relatively simple double-track approach on a 90 degree bend can be problematic, so I'm going to include that in the build for sure.

 

But I think I should probably finish off the wagon/s and loco kit I've got before I get too far ahead of myself - no point laying a bunch of EM-SF track if I can't build a loco to run through it!  I'm still waiting on my return post of wagon and loco wheels from Alan Gibson on that note :(

Edited June 3, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

 

@Pacific231G I have tried to sketch out Maybank a few times in standard form, but the skewed double scissors always proves troublesome to include. Another skewed double-scissors appears, if I remember correctly, in the throat of Buckingham which formed another not-Minories compact double track terminus I sketched up earlier too.

 

No matter what happens with the prototype or the track plan the terminus of the layout can't be more than 9' long in order to satisfy the need for either a) a reasonable radius curve around to the rest of the garage, or b) a traverser with a 4' capacity, and so I think 21" is a good width. But I think I should probably finish off the wagon/s and loco kit I've got before I get too far ahead of myself - no point laying a bunch of EM-SF track if I can't build a loco to run through it!  I'm still waiting on my return post of wagon and loco wheels from Alan Gibson on that note :(

 

Cyril Freezer did include  a version of Maybank in the 3rd edition of 60 plans for small railways but it had a total length of 15' 3" and the platform length was only four feet.

I suspect that the answer to the goods train problem may be to do what Geoff Ashdown did with his "Widened Lines" Tower Pier and just have a small sorting yard for an off stage goods yard (in that case St. Catherine's Dock) alongside the passenger terminus.

Tower Pier  is just three metres long (one metre of which is the cassette based FY) and makes very effective use of scenic breaks to disguise just how short it  really is.  It's EM (Romford wheels) I don't know  what crossing angles he used but, with prototypical sleeper/timber spacing you may be able to work it out from the second photo. The passenger throat consists essentially of  two crossovers with one turnout replaced by a single slip and it fits comfortably onto the metre long centre board. 

I did reproduce the plan for Peco H0 (OO) track and, with nominal three foot radius points, it fitted easily into the space which is actually slightly shorter than even the original Minories. With handbuilt track I think it could be done with B5s Note though the apparent diamond crossing bottom right is really two interlaced turnouts.

The passenger station is operationally equivalent to Minories (except that the centre platform is departures only, and includes a turnover stabling point for two tank locos. Geoff separated the goods line from the passenger operation, supposedly at the next signal box "Minories Junction" but I think the separation could be in the main throat.

Max. train length seems limited to a three coach 57' Mk 1 suburban set or a 'Quad-art' (four coach articulated) set but, watching the layout in operation, (which is fascinating with proper bell codes etc.) you simply don't notice that.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Pacific231G]

A couple more  images of Tower Pier it wouldn't let me include in the previous post which shows the throat pointwork and the overall roof more clearly- the quad-art is in the first image  and the road in the foreground hinges up to reveal  the hidden tracks representing St. Catherine's dock. Note that operation of the goods side doesn't involve a run round loop.

 

 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Pacific231G

[Lacathedrale]

I would seem that one great benefit of urban layouts, particularly in cuttings, is that you can easily leverage view breaks to interrupt a taking in an under-scale train in one glance. I don't know enough about Buckingham's development to know if that was deliberate, but the signal gantry and signal box and the road bridge before the terminus appear to yield the same benefit there.

 

Certainly the sorting sidings at Tower Pier appear to be about a compact a representation of a goods yard one can hope for in a terminus. Overall that layout is just a masterpiece of design, isn't it?

 

Maybe I'm drunk on too much early Railway Modeller: I've not quite gone as made to look into making a GWR single-track BLT, but the pendulum is swinging towards something more provincial i.e. the Caterham, Bromley North, fictional Lindfield, etc. - mainly so I can have a gasworks, goods siding and coal merchant!

 

That said, while I'll happily doodle between bouts of finishing off my SER wagons (still waiting on the bloody wheels for the loco), I'm not sure it's feasible in the space I have available even taking that additional 90 degree curve into consideration, particularly since I want to include an entire signal block for whatever I build (i.e. no cheating by having the goods yard enter on a parallel track from the FY).

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

I would seem that one great benefit of urban layouts, particularly in cuttings, is that you can easily leverage view breaks to interrupt a taking in an under-scale train in one glance. I don't know enough about Buckingham's development to know if that was deliberate, but the signal gantry and signal box and the road bridge before the terminus appear to yield the same benefit there.

 

Certainly the sorting sidings at Tower Pier appear to be about a compact a representation of a goods yard one can hope for in a terminus. Overall that layout is just a masterpiece of design, isn't it?

 

Maybe I'm drunk on too much early Railway Modeller: I've not quite gone as made to look into making a GWR single-track BLT, but the pendulum is swinging towards something more provincial i.e. the Caterham, Bromley North, fictional Lindfield, etc. - mainly so I can have a gasworks, goods siding and coal merchant!

 

That said, while I'll happily doodle between bouts of finishing off my SER wagons (still waiting on the bloody wheels for the loco), I'm not sure it's feasible in the space I have available even taking that additional 90 degree curve into consideration, particularly since I want to include an entire signal block for whatever I build (i.e. no cheating by having the goods yard enter on a parallel track from the FY).

 

 

I'm sure it's possible to do something like you describe in the space in EM but you'd probably have to abandon some preconceived ideas to do it.

 

Just blocking out the areas and setting up the crucial minimum radius curves suggests this possible concept plan:

 

The gasworks you crave would be great for breaking up the view of the track and there are lots of other possibilities, even in the countryside. 😉

 

[Lacathedrale]

@Harlequin, a wonderful plan as always.  I really don't think I can get away with three sides of the garage; I'm certain for one wall, pretty sure for an L-shape, but the U-shape at least initially won't be psosible until I can get further along with the plans and at least demonstrate some of my ideas in reality.

 

Speaking of plans, while I'm waiting for the varnish on my ballast wagon to dry, I feel like I should re-state my initial aims:

1. I want to model a [part of a] railway system, not a moving diorama. It should consist of at least one block section so that I can have working signals and 'rules' to operate the 'game board' of the layout. The more I conceptualise the layout like this, the more I like it.
2. I want the layout to be a double track terminus:
   1. Supporting interesting passenger operation
   2. ideally some NPCS/goods working of the steam era.
   3. With the appearance of normal  train length
3. I want the layout to be at least nominally finescale in track appearance, in an L-shaped space no longer than 13'6" x 8'.
   1. The baseboards should each be no larger than 4'6" x 21"
   2. Train length can be no longer than 4'
   3. If there is a corner piece, it should be at least notionally be able to be removed and the layout operated with the FY connected to the linear scenic sections

Note that as per my original statement, scale and specific time period (barring steam-era operation) are still pointedly absent.

 

Edited June 4, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[RobinofLoxley]

Dull day, the SO is watching BGT which is a nono for me, so I decided to have a look at drafting something in Anyrail according to the requirements. Entertaining, extremely difficult, I dont work in Imperial for one thing. Passes the time.

I studied plans of quite a few terminus layouts going back to about 1900, when some of them were at their traffic peaks. I dont know if it helped me but knowledge of railway history isnt something I have a lot of compared to many here.

Strictly according to the list above - I'm not sure if Ive complied with the block section requirment but I've tried - see following.

Track is code 83 with one or two quirks in Anyrail which may or may not be 'real' - the angles of the double slip arent the same as the turnouts, which has a lot of consequences for maintaining gauge as can be seen.

The operations aspect draws on both Minories and Bastille approaches and allows a fair bit of simultaneous in and out the key being the three tracks on the approach. Theres only one loco refuge on P4 but once freed up a loco can quickly get onto any other line to pull a train out. These approaches are logical solutions to problems of vehicle movement in the abstract and are certain to feature.

Due to the restricted board depth at 54cm track really has to be mostly parallel to the long axis although Ive tried to tilt a bit.

The combination of baseboard and train length restrictions seems to dictate a format of three baseboards on the long axis and two on the short. Even so the station approach boundary has eight tracks crossing it, all at slight angles on the current iteration. Not very easy to build, or to avoid.

Goods yard top right.

The long axis however is relatively easy. Its the short axis, which I hope I've understood correctly, is a fiddle yard (and Im sure the reason @Harlequin wanted a 3 sided layout) and keeping to the same spec for trains there was a nightmare. Assuming you dont want to push pull all the time, but with no turntable specified, either locos have to be lifted off after arriving at the yard and manually turned, or they can get out on the run-around and pick up stock for an arriving train from the sidings to the left. or can run round, pick up the carriages and run wrong line before shunting them back into the sidings. This is push pull but no lifting of locos.

You should be able to see that a big problem is that on the short axis its hard to create fiddle yard sidings long enough to hold specified trains. Especially as the platforms need to hold the specified trains comfortably. There might be an option to put the station on the short side but I havnt studied it. I hope the orientation is OK, as we know Minories doesnt exactly 'flip'.

I could write double this and more. You can see easily a lot of imperfections on this, without even considering if I have allowed any forbidden  movements. I tend to focus on permitting the layout to operate flexibly.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by RobinofLoxley
Track plan didnt display properly first time