00 Great Western ish Roundy Round

[sjrixon]

The kids didn’t ever really enjoy the old layout, they really wanted to run trains around and round, of course.

 

So with a house move and a new office location, it's been time to start a new railway. I've a track plan now, this is the station side, with a fiddle yard to the other side.. I can still see a couple of tweaks, but the main bits are all good.

 

 

Edited April 21, 2023 by sjrixon

[RJS1977]

Good plan, but just wondering if the point leading into the bay platform would be better as a right hander, forming part of the curve, rather than as a left hander immediately after it. 

[The Johnster]

Good plan for your purpose, using it with the kids.  One of you can operate the clockwise circuit, and be responsible for the dairy and the cattle dock. another can operate the anti clockwise circuit, and somebody can shunt the goods yard, or any other division of labour that suits whoever happens to be using the layout at the time, and as your anklebiters will no doubt be of different vintages, there is a suitable division of labour between the relatively simple anti-clockwise roundyround, the more complex clockwise, and the proper grown up intricacy of the goods yard, and exchanging traffic between them.  Not only fun but educational as well, not just how railways worked but the geography and other history behind them. 

 

I personally don't like double slips, as they are expensive and not always reliable; your anklebiters will demand instant go when sessions start.  I'd rather see two back-to-back turnouts here, with the one leading to the headshunt as a left hander moved towards the running line, a good place to demonstrate the principles of trap point setting, signalling, and interlocking as they grow older over the next few years.  I also think you can save two turnouts, as the run around facility in the goods yard is not needed; in fact it possibly gets in the way of the goods shed.

 

I agree with RJS1977's suggestion to move the bay turnout on to the curve as a righthander, which allows more room in the bay.  The elimination of the reverse curve will be a benefit to auto trains, which are a natural for the bay but have to propel at the same time as having extended buffers, A Good Idea.  If you curve the dairy road around to follow the main lines it will look more natural and the capacity of this siding will not be significantly reduced, and there will be room to shunt a couple of Miltas and vans even with an auto or railcar in the bay.  Similarly, the trailing crossover between the two main lines at that end of the station can be laid as a trailing righthander from the anticlockwise line to a trailing lefthander on the clockwise, it that makes sense.  This will eliminate another reverse curve, which is again A Good Idea, as it makes life much easier if you are propelling trains of stock through the crossover from the clockwise line to access the goods yard.

 

Not sure how you'd do this at the other end of the station, but a curved turnout trailing crossover might be a possibility.  Not if you want to run short wheelbase 0-4-0s, though, perhaps.  Maybe better to live with the existing plan at this end.

[sjrixon]

Thanks both! Actually, hadn't spotted the reverse curve into the bay! I moved the other end cattle dock about 3 times to stop the same. I'll pull that back, makes building the platform easier too!

 

As for the slip, we will see. I've already got the slip, so I'll see how well it works. I added the DCC bus wire last night, so next stage really is to add in the droppers on the outside line and get something up and running.. 

 

[sjrixon]

Before we started on the layout, my daughter wanted to help me build a viaduct. This turned into her pretty much building the whole thing, with me just cutting the parts out for her. Very proud Dad moment :)

 

[OnTheBranchline]

12 hours ago, sjrixon said:

Before we started on the layout, my daughter wanted to help me build a viaduct. This turned into her pretty much building the whole thing, with me just cutting the parts out for her. Very proud Dad moment :)

 

 

I thought we had laws on child labour...

 

😆

 

Great to see them in the hobby.

[MrWolf]

Beat me to it! 

 

Great to see children learning anything practical and enjoyable.

[sjrixon]

Thanks all.. It was really nice she wanted to get involved, long may it continue.. 

[sjrixon]

I forgot how long it takes to lay track.. I managed to get a loop up and running quite quickly, as the kids wanted to run some trains round and round..  But then we had to get onto the real work. My son helped me run a bus wire underneath and we setup connections to the bus ready for the track, this took a while, but sets me up nicely for connecting droppers. 

 

I've then relayed the outer 'up' fiddle yard and all the droppers are in, and future holes drilled for point motors when finances allow. 

 

The middle road here is just being finished with a cross over to the inner 'down' loop. The idea being that this can be used to reverse a train from up onto down, aka the return journey. 

 

The inner loops are slightly more constricted, I want to make sure the next one can comfortably hold the down express before getting the inner loop in place.

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by sjrixon

[sjrixon]

One for the collective minds.. 

 

I used a track gauge to set this gap, but feel like the current curve is then too close.. Do people add a small piece of track between the points on the crossover. 

 

[MrWolf]

I've never needed to, besides, the good folks who designed set track went to a lot of trouble with clearances.

So many basic layouts (one of my first included) are a pair of loops with a  mirrored pair of crossovers and one or two sidings, all of those have the points connected directly to keep the tracks a reasonably scale distance apart but without collisions or stock locking up.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by MrWolf
Illiteracy

[RJS1977]

Which side of the gauge did you use? One side is for Streamline track, the other is for Setrack.

 

It looks to me as if you've got track at Streamline spacing leading into Setrack-radius curves.

The important thing to check is whether two of your longest coaches (i.e. in this case, the Bachmann ones) come into contact with each other when passing on the curve.

[DCB]

You will get problems with set track curves at streamline spacing, I have a 3rd radius curve on the inside of a curve at nominally streamline spacing and the front buffer beam of a Hornby King on the inside come very  close to the middle of a Mk3 HST coach on the outside.   I use the King and Mk3  as my test stock as they are worst case end throw and centre throw among my stock

For non scenic areas  I would suggest using the same radius for inner and outer tracks and spacing the outer a bit wider with a bit of extra straight on the ends.  See Any rail pics.

I lay streamline points heel to toe by cutting away the sleepers on the adjacent track to clear the points tie bar end.  see other pic.

Streamline spacing is 50mm or 2"  Set track over 60mm, , Scale is nearer 40mm, but RTR 00 can be 40mm (10ft) wide and run 2mm out of line so 44mm is my idea of a sort of optimum but only on the straight!

[sjrixon]

So, yes, they are set track curves, R2 and R3 I believe. 

 

On the fiddle yard side, I have opened it up a little, as I needed to for the point work anyway. It's going to need a tweak, looking again this morning, while that Bachmann coach doesn't clash, it's too close, something slightly longer will do.

 

Need to figure that out today.. 

 

 

[sjrixon]

Class 37 doing a lap of the new railway.. 

 

https://vimeo.com/807018460

 

Tweaked so you don't need to log in. 

Edited March 11, 2023 by sjrixon

[RJS1977]

That then raises the question - what are the longest coaches you anticipate running? I think the Bachmann coaches are the longest RTR GWR coaches, certainly longer than the Hornby Colletts (I can get four Hornby coaches and a Manor into my fiddle yard, but an equivalent rake of Bachmann coaches needs to be hauled by a Dukedog or 0-6-0 tender loco!). So if you only intend to run RTR GWR coaches (and not build yourself a rake of Dreadnoughts or Super Saloons) you can probably get away with it.

 

However BR stock is longer and gets longer with each consecutive Mark. A rake of four Mark 1s will only fit in my fiddle yard if it has a Small Prairie or BR Standard Tank at its head, and I suspect a rake of Mark 3s would fill it entirely....

[sjrixon]

Seeing as I just posted the class37.. I can see an HST at some point!! I just grabbed the 37 and GWR centenary coach. They crash. 

 

I think the best option is to flexi-track the inside, as the outside starts on a point, there is actually more room than it looks from first glance.

[sjrixon]

Should be as good as Little Muddle in about an hr 😂

 

 

Actually started to really bring out his artist side, mixing the grass, darker ones etc. 

 

I did some static grass, but honestly it didn't stand up that well.... 

[OnTheBranchline]

Make sure to include a golf course on the layout somewhere as I assume you have interest in that area (from your username).

[sjrixon]

Someone who knows his golf brands.. It's also my name, so I can have personal golf equipment... 

[sjrixon]

[Graham T]

Your daughter made the viaduct and your son did the scenics, is that right?

 

[MrWolf]

1 hour ago, Graham T said:

Your daughter made the viaduct and your son did the scenics, is that right?

 

 

So you should stop feeling guilty about recruiting your daughters as cheap labour!

 

I got my other half ballasting, but I think that it ended up costing me about £40 an hour...

[sjrixon]

10 hours ago, Graham T said:

Your daughter made the viaduct and your son did the scenics, is that right?

 

 

It's been a bit of a team effort. The viaduct was all Abigail, but then the base scenery of paper mache was a team effort.. 

 

 

He's then done the base grass etc. But, now she wants to take over and finish! Part of it, the grass is to dark, looks dead and we need to work out what the water area in the middle is going to look like. She has plans to expand an area to be a farm, which is off the the right and should form a good scenic break the fiddle yard.

 

It's nice that they are all finding the parts they enjoy and we can work together.

 

[sjrixon]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

So you should stop feeling guilty about recruiting your daughters as cheap labour!

 

I got my other half ballasting, but I think that it ended up costing me about £40 an hour...

£40! Yike, should have just bought her a bottle or two, might have been cheaper.