A Garage-sized Layout

[Lacathedrale]

Operating to strict operation/rulebook working/etc. is absolutely my cup of tea. I'm sure we've shared this station picture before. Placing the goods sidings on the same side of the station as the runaround does mean it can be shared, which is probably no bad thing. Given the challenges of shunting with clockwork, I do wonder if that goods yard was ever used :)

 

Flipped horizontally it fits into more or less than same footprint as the tweaked Charford v4:

 

Beetford v1

 

Another example of a station which has alot of room around it - the voluminous runaround could be shortened to make the layout more compact, or as-is the goods area could easily be pulled around towards the curve for some more breathing room.

 

I have always read the 'impractically busy branch line terminus' as a kind of denigration, but I wonder if that's just a misinterpretation of the style of operation that naturally goes with a BLT, i.e. sequence working rather than to a timetable? Like how in Buckingham it's always Market Day, a monthly race-day special in real life may be part of a daily sequence, the weekly loco coal delivery happens on every goods train, and the daily through train to London occurs every hour.

 

My main umbrage was, and I think will always be, that to me as a born city lad - is that I expect a 'real' railway is always double track. Any time I see a single line it feels like a quaint anachronism.

[Titanius Anglesmith]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

My main umbrage was, and I think will always be, that to me as a born city lad - is that I expect a 'real' railway is always double track. Any time I see a single line it feels like a quaint anachronism.

 

I'm inclined to agree.  I know of course that there were many single-track BLTs (and practical and thematic reasons for modelling one), but I get the impression that some modellers think that all termini were either Ashburton or Paddington, with no variation in between.  I certainly feel that double-track termini are under-represented, though I acknowledge again that single track layouts have their advantages.

[DCB]

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

There is another single track but fairly important terminus plan I've been looking at that may be relevant.

 

 

The builder could go and see railways operating the way they had since about 1890, when block signalling and vacuum/ Air brakes sort of became the norm, so it looks right, and he got the basics right, maximum length run round which is a feature of pretty much every full size terminus, Loop point is the first one you come to. 

 

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

Given the challenges of shunting with clockwork, I do wonder if that goods yard was ever used :)

You hit the nail on the head there.

 

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

O

 

Again nice long run round.   Goods arrives at lower platform, runs round and sticks train in upper platform so it can shunt.. Sorts out the going from staying wagons.  sticks out going in loop.   Loco escapes via lower platform, sticks in coming wagons in lower platform, brake van in upper platform, out going in upper platform,  moves incoming from platform to loop. runs round via platform, sorts incoming and staying wagons into right roads and right order.(*)  Has cup of tea.  If applicable shunts out going into correct order, some wayside sidings can only be shunted in one direction so wagons go to terminus and back again.  Finally goods departs.

(*) If applicable the goods loco can act as pilot if the passenger needs to arrive and run round during shunt.

It's good!

 

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

I have always read the 'impractically busy branch line terminus' as a kind of denigration, but I wonder if that's just a misinterpretation of the style of operation that naturally goes with a BLT, i.e. sequence working rather than to a timetable? Like how in Buckingham it's always Market Day, a monthly race-day special in real life may be part of a daily sequence, the weekly loco coal delivery happens on every goods train, and the daily through train to London occurs every hour.

 

My main umbrage was, and I think will always be, that to me as a born city lad - is that I expect a 'real' railway is always double track. Any time I see a single line it feels like a quaint anachronism.

 

It's how you operate.  Ashburton was so busy on market days that the cancelled the passenger trains.

Even the busier termini tended to have big gaps in the schedule. And they only get half the number of arrivals and departures of through stations on the same line.  My favourite albeit on a through line is Aviemore. Three trains leave in five minutes then nothing for two hours., also Marylebone and Edinburgh waverley where two trains often left together in the same direction.

If a branch was busy chances are it would be Push Pull.  Boring.  but you might get four different auto trains

Cheltenham St James apparently had 5 different local sets, pre ww2.  it seems all 5 did a trip to Kingham, out of 6 daily locals, Kingham had a bypass on which one Barry to Newcastle and one Newcastle to Barry express, one LNER set and one GWR alternating ran per day,   You don't have to run the same auto trailer and 14XX week after boring week like the Fowey branch.    Move forward to preservation and you can run Tornado tender first on 4 GWR livery Mk1 coaches... 

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Lacathedrale said:

Operating to strict operation/rulebook working/etc. is absolutely my cup of tea. I'm sure we've shared this station picture before. Placing the goods sidings on the same side of the station as the runaround does mean it can be shared, which is probably no bad thing. Given the challenges of shunting with clockwork, I do wonder if that goods yard was ever used :)

 

Flipped horizontally it fits into more or less than same footprint as the tweaked Charford v4:

 

Beetford v1

 

Another example of a station which has alot of room around it - the voluminous runaround could be shortened to make the layout more compact, or as-is the goods area could easily be pulled around towards the curve for some more breathing room.

 

I have always read the 'impractically busy branch line terminus' as a kind of denigration, but I wonder if that's just a misinterpretation of the style of operation that naturally goes with a BLT, i.e. sequence working rather than to a timetable? Like how in Buckingham it's always Market Day, a monthly race-day special in real life may be part of a daily sequence, the weekly loco coal delivery happens on every goods train, and the daily through train to London occurs every hour.

 

My main umbrage was, and I think will always be, that to me as a born city lad - is that I expect a 'real' railway is always double track. Any time I see a single line it feels like a quaint anachronism.

 

Another interesting proposal (though I note the point about single v double track for this kind of terminus).  As this thread has developed, it’s become quite a broad conversation, with obvious echoes of the general discussions about Minories.  

 

I was intrigued by the link to your S-Scale Workbench thread above and had a quick skim read through: from what I can see, there is some very impressive modelling on display.  This left me wondering why S-Scale isn’t top of your list for a layout idea, so I followed the next link into the S-Scale Forum.

 

While I was quite a way from Layout and Track Design by this time, I think there’s an important point raised there that may be of relevant interest to anyone reading this and thinking about a layout using a Scale / Gauge combination other than r-t-r, which is the benefit of belonging to the appropriate Society: in that case the S-Scale Model Railway Society.

 

I was encouraged to join a Society when I changed direction with my modelling last year and it really has helped develop my horizons, as well as giving me access to a whole new range of products and useful items (plus the social side of the hobby).  It has definitely made a very positive difference for me.  I hope it’s OK to mention it, but I would encourage Society membership as part of the layout design equation for this kind of project.  Thanks again for an interesting thread to follow, Keith.

[Regularity]

11 hours ago, DCB said:

Gradually the track layout has been simplified and the sidings which added nothing were deleted.  The Kick back

If you had read, or remembered having red, Peter Denny’s WSP books on the Buckingham Branch, you could have saved yourself this lesson. An early variant of Buckingham Mk II had such a siding, but it was never used and he took it out…

 

44 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

This left me wondering why S-Scale isn’t top of your list for a layout idea, so I followed the next link into the S-Scale Forum.

William probably wants too much, too soon, to find S scale suitable for him: it is not for “quick wins”.

 

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Operating to strict operation/rulebook working/etc. is absolutely my cup of tea. I'm sure we've shared this station picture before. Placing the goods sidings on the same side of the station as the runaround does mean it can be shared, which is probably no bad thing. Given the challenges of shunting with clockwork, I do wonder if that goods yard was ever used :)

 

I have always read the 'impractically busy branch line terminus' as a kind of denigration, but I wonder if that's just a misinterpretation of the style of operation that naturally goes with a BLT, i.e. sequence working rather than to a timetable? Like how in Buckingham it's always Market Day, a monthly race-day special in real life may be part of a daily sequence, the weekly loco coal delivery happens on every goods train, and the daily through train to London occurs every hour.

 

My main umbrage was, and I think will always be, that to me as a born city lad - is that I expect a 'real' railway is always double track. Any time I see a single line it feels like a quaint anachronism.

It's surprising how much shunting people did do with clockwork locos- remembering that these were well often well regulated mechanisms with fine speed control not the furious speed followed rapidly by a gradual run down some of us associate with Hornby tinplate. Beet's notes on the railway's operation are interesting

There was also a very compact 00 layout The Potwell Mineral railway, essentially a model of the East Kent railway from Shepherdswell to Tilmanstone with the Golgotha tunnel as a scenic divide that fitted into an eight foot long cabinet.

It took me a long time to realise that this was also clockwork - I think with Stewart-Reidpath mechs. with the speed control set to slow and just the reversing lever in use and this layout would have been all about shunting. 

 

There were busy single track termini- Penzance wasn't doubled till quite late and of course there was my favourite Fort William with its periods of intense activity with maybe three long distance trains in at once and all loco releases and a lot of other work carried out by one or often two pilot locos. I do though agree with you about single track lines not feeling right for an important terminus handling large locos- even if that did happen in reality.  

[Pacific231G]

33 minutes ago, Regularity said:

If you had read, or remembered having red, Peter Denny’s WSP books on the Buckingham Branch, you could have saved yourself this lesson. An early variant of Buckingham Mk II had such a siding, but it was never used and he took it out…

 

 

From all accounts, the mill kickback off the goods shed siding made Ashburton a PITA to operate both in reality and in model form rather than a challenge.

The funny thing is though that I've found with several BLTs - including my current layout- that having one of the three sidings facing in the opposite direction increases the operational interest enormously whereas adding a third siding in the ame direction just gives a bit more of the same. The kickback is though separate from the two goods yard sidings- it's a private siding to a winery- and is on the run round loop. It means that if you're shunting a goods train, and a passenger train is coming in during the shunt, you have to plan it carefully so as not to get snookered.

I note also that Peter Denny used this principle for Leighton Buzzard mk 1.

and I reckon that though the lower plan is probably more realistic, the upper plan (LB Mk1) would be more interesting to shunt.

[t-b-g]

18 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

From all accounts, the mill kickback off the goods shed siding made Ashburton a PITA to operate both in reality and in model form rather than a challenge.

The funny thing is though that I've found with several BLTs - including my current layout- that having one of the three sidings facing in the opposite direction increases the operational interest enormously whereas adding a third siding in the ame direction just gives a bit more of the same. The kickback is though separate from the two goods yard sidings- it's a private siding to a winery- and is on the run round loop. It means that if you're shunting a goods train, and a passenger train is coming in during the shunt, you have to plan it carefully so as not to get snookered.

I note also that Peter Denny used this principle for Leighton Buzzard mk 1.

and I reckon that though the lower plan is probably more realistic, the upper plan (LB Mk1) would be more interesting to shunt.

 

Absolutely right.The present Leighton Buzzard is a joy to operate and a big part of that is the the sidings to the gasworks and the paper mill go "the other way". Particularly for the papermill, you have to ensure that the cattle dock siding is clear enough to allow a loco plus wagon (s) to get beyond the end of the point.

 

I have considered, more than once, building a small folding layout based on the original Leighton Buzzard plan, perhaps using the original materials like Merco building papers, wood and cardboard, with wooden sleepered and riveted track  (an eco friendly plastic free layout!) to allow me to exhibit the Denny locos and stock without moving the rather fragile present day Leighton Buzzard around.

 

I think I would move the goods shed to the siding rather than the end of the run round loop (or even omit the goods shed altogether) and perhaps put a cattle dock at the buffer stop of the "running line" instead, ensuring there is enough room to run round a train if a couple of cattle wagons were in there.

 

I do wish that you hadn't mentioned the Mk 1 Leighton Buzzard layout😁.

 

I have too much on the go already and had locked it away for consideration some time in the future but you have set me off wanting to do it again! 

[Regularity]

 I have found that a single siding, if it be long enough (say 10 standard wagon lengths) can be more interesting to shunt than two sidings with an equivalent total capacity, as wagons need to be sorted into the correct order to be placed at specific loading spots. Many wagons - including coal, opens and vans - might be (un)loaded wherever they were left, if the (un)loading was direct from rail to road, but some traffic would require specific locations, such as coal merchant who was renting ground for coal stacking, goods requiring a crane, or goods to be dealt with in the goods shed. And some wagons that are already present in the siding might be only partially dealt with, and require putting back where they were, once the shunting has finished. Use of a shunting chain has meant that kick-backs haven’t been a problem for me (although the siding had a capacity for 4 wagons, I usually exchanged two at a time), but you still need to plan ahead with some of the moves.

 

I took this simple layout to the Scale show, back in 1996, with one loco, one brake, 2 vans, one open, 2 coal wagons and 4 mineral wagons for the kick back. The kick-back had capacity for 4 wagons, as stated, and 10 wagons could be squeezed into the long siding. The loco run off could store the brakevan whilst the (tank) loco was running round/shunting, and the loop had a capacity for 5 wagons plus the brake van. I hardly got to operate the layout, as my two “assistants” unceremoniously booted me off my own layout! Whilst I was away, they borrowed a cattle wagon, which really snarled things up as far as the brakevan was concerned (that was the point of the design) and also a steam rail motor, the presence of which I never saw! Barry Norman very kindly gifted me his sketch of my track plan, along with the copyright to use it.

I later modified it, and wished I hadn’t, as it lost something despite gaining an extra siding:

4 turnouts, the layout was 10’ long in S scale, so would be about 8’4” long in 4mm scale, but could be fitted into 8’ - as it has been for another S scale layout developed either independently or with subconscious influence!

(Linked image, but my photo!)

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

@Keith Addenbrooke my workbench link is somewhat scatterbrained, going from 2mmFS to S to No. 1 to No. 3 to P4 and now to EM-SF. I say without any reservation that building in S-scale was INCREDIBLY rewarding. Really, given how it's looking with my Victorian LCDR plans, I may as well have built in S anyway! The kits I've tried so far have paled in comparison to scratchbuilding.  I do most definitely to build some locomotives though, I can't survive on wagons forever - and that will be the telling point.

 

@Regularity @t-b-g @Pacific231G - the use of specific spots must help. The recent screenshot of Charford v4 tweaked earlier showed different coloured wagons, and using those as a kind of sorting system helped also to give purpose, otherwise not only was the shunting frustrating, it was also pointless.  Maybe the difference between declaring the latest arrival "passenger train" or "10:03 Rear Portion of the Flushing Mail".

 

 

[Pacific231G]

1 hour ago, t-b-g said:

 

Absolutely right.The present Leighton Buzzard is a joy to operate and a big part of that is the the sidings to the gasworks and the paper mill go "the other way". Particularly for the papermill, you have to ensure that the cattle dock siding is clear enough to allow a loco plus wagon (s) to get beyond the end of the point.

 

I have considered, more than once, building a small folding layout based on the original Leighton Buzzard plan, perhaps using the original materials like Merco building papers, wood and cardboard, with wooden sleepered and riveted track  (an eco friendly plastic free layout!) to allow me to exhibit the Denny locos and stock without moving the rather fragile present day Leighton Buzzard around.

 

I think I would move the goods shed to the siding rather than the end of the run round loop (or even omit the goods shed altogether) and perhaps put a cattle dock at the buffer stop of the "running line" instead, ensuring there is enough room to run round a train if a couple of cattle wagons were in there.

 

I do wish that you hadn't mentioned the Mk 1 Leighton Buzzard layout😁.

 

I have too much on the go already and had locked it away for consideration some time in the future but you have set me off wanting to do it again! 

Hi Tony

I'm so sorry to have put such temptation in your path (Not!)  😇

If you do it will you follow Peter Denny's three part article "Building Leighton Buzzard" from RM with dyed lint for the grasss, and actually build the second folding board with the the fiddle yard that he only sketched? I agree about the goods shed though. It never looked right to me, even when I read it as a teenager, and ISTR it was positioned there rather than on the siding where it probably belonged in order to avoid fouling anything else when folded.  

That was about the most inspiring how to build a layout article I can ever remember reading (it still is) and it actually inspired my first proper layout, an H0e tramway, though the terminus was on one side of the hinges with a section of roadside tramway running through vineyards on the other. I sold it at a 009 Society event less the French buildings when I went to H0m and always wondered what happened to it.

[Pacific231G]

18 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Would the next station along from Pitt Street be Hob's End?

The actual name of the tube station was Hobbs End supposedly renamed after the cricketer to avoid the demonic aspects of the area's older name of Hob's End

OT I found the original Nigel Kneale BBC TV version of Quatermass and the Pit (that I wasn't allowed to watch as a kid) on YouTube and was very disappointed to see that, unlike the film version Hobbs Lane (formerly Hob's Lane) wasn't a tube station but just a building site. I think in a bombed out location, in Knightsbridge. I thought the film version was one of Hammer's better efforts.

 

[t-b-g]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Tony

I'm so sorry to have put such temptation in your path (Not!)  😇

If you do it will you follow Peter Denny's three part article "Building Leighton Buzzard" from RM with dyed lint for the grasss, and actually build the second folding board with the the fiddle yard that he only sketched? I agree about the goods shed though. It never looked right to me, even when I read it as a teenager, and ISTR it was positioned there rather than on the siding where it probably belonged in order to avoid fouling anything else when folded.  

That was about the most inspiring how to build a layout article I can ever remember reading (it still is) and it actually inspired my first proper layout, an H0e tramway, though the terminus was on one side of the hinges with a section of roadside tramway running through vineyards on the other. I sold it at a 009 Society event less the French buildings when I went to H0m and always wondered what happened to it.

 

In the June 1965 Railway Modeller there is a photo which shows a third scenic board to Leighton Buzzard. The loco shed has been moved onto the third board and the single track goes off scene under a road bridge at the far end. Although this board was part of the set up when the branch went through the wall to the next box room, so it wasn't hinged with the fiddle yard, it does show what that board would have looked like had it been built onto the fiddle yard for an exhibition layout. It would make the layout about 12ft long in total whereas the simple two boards plus fiddle yard would by around 9ft in total. I actually prefer the balance of the shorter version. If I had 12ft to play with, I would have a longer fiddle yard (4ft) and a longer station (8ft) rather than include a 3ft run of plain track. Several of my exhibition layouts have been just that, (4ft FY plus 8ft Station) and I like those proportions very much.

 

Many years ago, a chap I knew built a layout with a 3 way fold, with each board being 3ft long. It was a superb design, which worked really well as a simple portable layout. Both station boards ended up inside the fiddle yard for transport and it meant that the hinges between the two station boards were underneath, so no central raised hinge pivots were needed.

 

I agree, that Leighton Buzzard article, over several parts, was one of the most inspirational I have ever read in a magazine. It was very much "You too can do this" which is how most of his articles came across. It was never "Look how clever I am!" maybe apart from the article on the Automatic Crispin which I read several times until it made my brain hurt.  

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I thought the film version was one of Hammer's better efforts.

Yes, between that and the Cybermen it was almost enough to put you off travelling by Tube!

[KingEdwardII]

16 hours ago, DCB said:

Move forward to preservation and you can run Tornado tender first on 4 GWR livery Mk1 coaches... 

That's ma boy!! KE II running tender first...

 

Actually, the 4 coaches would likely not be realistic - 7 or 8 is more the norm, with some form of Restaurant car.

 

The other thing about preservation is that the schedule is likely quite packed, and limited by the facilities available on what are typically single lines (GCR at Loughborough a notable exception).

 

Of course, goods trains on preserved lines are showpieces and no old-style shunting is going to take place, except in one regard. Usually, preserved lines are stuffed with stock (in various states of repair!) and so sidings are typically occupied. Shunting moves to get at specific items of rolling stock can be complex and long-lasting. Some of the GWSR shunting moves are epic.

 

Yours, Mike.

[Harlequin]

30 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

That's ma boy!! KE II running tender first...

 

Actually, the 4 coaches would likely not be realistic - 7 or 8 is more the norm, with some form of Restaurant car.

 

The other thing about preservation is that the schedule is likely quite packed, and limited by the facilities available on what are typically single lines (GCR at Loughborough a notable exception).

 

Of course, goods trains on preserved lines are showpieces and no old-style shunting is going to take place, except in one regard. Usually, preserved lines are stuffed with stock (in various states of repair!) and so sidings are typically occupied. Shunting moves to get at specific items of rolling stock can be complex and long-lasting. Some of the GWSR shunting moves are epic.

 

Yours, Mike.

 

That's a representation of a representation of a real railway. No effort needed to get anything "right" and wholly unsatisfying in my book.

 

[KingEdwardII]

54 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

No effort needed to get anything "right"

I think that is a big disservice to the many volunteers who put in many hours getting things "right" on preserved railways.

 

The GWSR from Cheltenham Racecourse to Broadway is one of my favourites and their efforts to re-create the 1904 station at Broadway are exemplary - and let us not forget that the original station had been obliterated - not a stone remained.

 

The preserved railways are just as much part of the contemporary railway scene as the current mainlines and are perfectly worthy of modelling. They may not satisfy you, but that does not make them invalid in any way.

 

Yours, Mike.

[DCB]

17 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

From all accounts, the mill kickback off the goods shed siding made Ashburton a PITA to operate both in reality and in model form rather than a challenge.

The funny thing is though that I've found with several BLTs - including my current layout- that having one of the three sidings facing in the opposite direction increases the operational interest enormously whereas adding a third siding in the ame direction just gives a bit more of the same. The kickback is though separate from the two goods yard sidings- it's a private siding to a winery- and is on the run round loop. It means that if you're shunting a goods train, and a passenger train is coming in during the shunt, you have to plan it carefully so as not to get snookered.

I note also that Peter Denny used this principle for Leighton Buzzard mk 1.

and I reckon that though the lower plan is probably more realistic, the upper plan (LB Mk1) would be more interesting to shunt.

I spent about an hour staring at the top layout trying to figure out how to shunt it, I got it in the end but I would need the full length of a 4ft fiddle yard as a head shunt to do it.

Bottom one is circa 1890 Bog standard GWR Branch station, terminus or through

Edited June 14, 2022 by DCB

[RJS1977]

7 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Yes, between that and the Cybermen it was almost enough to put you off travelling by Tube!

Not to mention the voice saying "Minador"....

[Lacathedrale]

Well, I've just passed April 1957 and that's the famous introduction of CJF's "Minories" - the modest 1.5 pages doesn't really hint at its massive impact. Interestingly, he suggests that there is almost no focus on pilot working on the original design - rather that the spur is exclusively used for turnaround locos as per the Liverpool Street / GER Jazz service. The pilot locos were suggested 'only' for a variant of the plan which has an enclosed goods shed alongside the platforms.

 

Re: Preserved railways - to me, modelling them is like painting another painting, rather than painting from nature. A huge part of what is satisfying for me in railway modelling is looking directly at the prototype and trying to do that thing - rather than operating within the confines of what a manufacturer or kit designer offers.

[Harlequin]

1 hour ago, RJS1977 said:

Not to mention the voice saying "Minador"....

 

Archaeologist Min: "This skull is 5000 years old!"

Archaeologist Henry (sings): "Happy Birthday to you..."

 

Sorry, is this wandering slightly off-topic? :-)  Answer: No. Minories and the Goon Show are both classics of 1950s culture!

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Harlequin

[Lacathedrale]

A little tickle of the O gauge BLT from MRN yields the following:

Beetford v2 - 13' x 2'

 

Switch the cattle dock and loading dock, and had the goods shed running off a separate line to give some separation to the yard. I imagine a road bridge over the station approach, with a ramp down to the goods yard. There is definitely scope for grouping-era trains on this one with huge platform and siding capacities. If anything I think the station area could do with being a little wider to balance the goods yard....

 

However, coming back to CJF's final Minories, in light of recently finding it in RM - I'm really starting to like the version I whipped up. It was last seen with SR era stock, but here it is with my proposed LCDR items:

 

Final Minories v1.1 - 13' x 2'

 

It is of course much more densely tracked (only 2 extra turnouts) but has a remarkable similarity to Beetford. The use of three platform faces instead of two neccesitates moving the carriage siding to the other side of the station, and the exigencies of the double track throat mean the engine shed is mirrored into to a trailing instead of facing connection.

 

@t-b-g made a point that a turntable isn't required as long as the FY sidings are long enough to contain a train and two locomotives, so each set of carriages can pull double duty. This wasn't feasible with 64' coaches and 70' tender locomotives, but the diminutive LCDR engines and (at max) 48' bogie coaches give ample room for that hack. So far the only "problem" is that as drawn the radius into the FY traverser is a 36"-31" transition curve. I'm quite sure I can solve that with a templot rendition.

 

I wonder if the biggest blocker here though, is the stock required for a layout of this scope! Four rakes of coaches, half a dozen locomotives, a pilot, etc. - I can imagine getting the track laid but precious little actual usage until several hundred hours of scratchbuilding has taken place! I guess it would motivate one to be consistent in their scale/gauge/prototype!

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Lacathedrale

[Pacific231G]

On 14/06/2022 at 09:01, KingEdwardII said:

I think that is a big disservice to the many volunteers who put in many hours getting things "right" on preserved railways.

 

The GWSR from Cheltenham Racecourse to Broadway is one of my favourites and their efforts to re-create the 1904 station at Broadway are exemplary - and let us not forget that the original station had been obliterated - not a stone remained.

 

The preserved railways are just as much part of the contemporary railway scene as the current mainlines and are perfectly worthy of modelling. They may not satisfy you, but that does not make them invalid in any way.

 

Yours, Mike.

They do indeed do their best to get things right and authentic to the period they're effectively modelling in 1:1 scale and are well worthy of support. Nevertheless, a heritage railway is a more or less nostalgic recreation of an otherwise lost railway scene so modelling it would be a recreation of a recreation and somethnig of a pastiche.I don't really see much point in that over trying to recreate the original scene.

 

When I visit a heritage railway (and I'm a member of one) I enjoy experiencing again aspects of the railways I knew in my youth. I can ignore the fact that the cars in the car park are modern as are the passengers and that the service is very different from those of the railway when it was part of the national rail network. If I modelled it I'd have to include all those anachronisms.

 

If someone does want to model a preserved line that's perfectly fine but it wouldn't attract me. Needless to say, it should still be operated as faithfully to the rules as any other railway so "anything goes" might apply to the choice of locos and carriages but not to the railway's proper running.  There used to be a lot of that in NG modelling circles forgetting that a light railway order (or its equivalent in other countries) involved a simplification of rules not their suspension.  

 

It gets more interesting when a railway is not a recreation. For example, the RHDR and the LBNGR (as a steam hauled passenger railway) have only ever existed as themselves and there used to be a very fine model based on the RHDR on the exhibition circuit. 

Edited June 15, 2022 by Pacific231G

[RJS1977]

To my mind, a heritage railway is still a prototype railway. Yes, it may have an eclectic mix of locos and rolling stock that might not have ordinarily been seen together, and there are more modern cars in the car park, but it is still a real railway.

 

On my model of 'Wallingford' (C&WR) I've tried to get things as close to the current C&WR terminus as I can - at the moment it has a large American tender loco on it with a Mark 1 brake coach and several Mark 3s in Polar Express livery - which is all (close to) prototypical as we has all those on the Railway over Christmas. Other stock available to run on the layout represents our current fleet of three Mark 1 coaches and many of the other locos either resident on the line or which have visited in recent years.

 

Now, were I to claim it to be a model of the original Wallingford station, then clearly that would be incorrect - not only was the original station half a mile further north, but very little of what I run on the layout ever got there, and the road vehicles (apart from the Sentinel steam lorry) would be anachronisms, but they are not, because it is a model of the current 21st Century station .

 

The only concession to 'pastiche' that I have is that various of our events (such as Polar Express/Santa Specials, 1940s weekend, BunkFest, Sentinel weekend, and BBMF flypasts) are all shown taking place at the same time in order to illustrate the variety of events that the Railway runs.

 

 

[t-b-g]

7 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

A little tickle of the O gauge BLT from MRN yields the following:

Beetford v2 - 13' x 2'

 

Switch the cattle dock and loading dock, and had the goods shed running off a separate line to give some separation to the yard. I imagine a road bridge over the station approach, with a ramp down to the goods yard. There is definitely scope for grouping-era trains on this one with huge platform and siding capacities. If anything I think the station area could do with being a little wider to balance the goods yard....

 

However, coming back to CJF's final Minories, in light of recently finding it in RM - I'm really starting to like the version I whipped up. It was last seen with SR era stock, but here it is with my proposed LCDR items:

 

Final Minories v1.1 - 13' x 2'

 

It is of course much more densely tracked (only 2 extra turnouts) but has a remarkable similarity to Beetford. The use of three platform faces instead of two neccesitates moving the carriage siding to the other side of the station, and the exigencies of the double track throat mean the engine shed is mirrored into to a trailing instead of facing connection.

 

@t-b-g made a point that a turntable isn't required as long as the FY sidings are long enough to contain a train and two locomotives, so each set of carriages can pull double duty. This wasn't feasible with 64' coaches and 70' tender locomotives, but the diminutive LCDR engines and (at max) 48' bogie coaches give ample room for that hack. So far the only "problem" is that as drawn the radius into the FY traverser is a 36"-31" transition curve. I'm quite sure I can solve that with a templot rendition.

 

I wonder if the biggest blocker here though, is the stock required for a layout of this scope! Four rakes of coaches, half a dozen locomotives, a pilot, etc. - I can imagine getting the track laid but precious little actual usage until several hundred hours of scratchbuilding has taken place! I guess it would motivate one to be consistent in their scale/gauge/prototype!

 

 

I see this as an ideal application for the "generic" carriages from Hornby and/or Hattons. They give a "quick fix" for reasonable 4 and 6 wheelers and allow a gradual replacement as and when the kit and scratchbuilt versions come off the assembly line.