Have you ever rationalized your layout BR style?

[montyburns56]

I've got an upper level terminal station on my layout which I originally had set up to accommodate HSTs or loco hauled trains. However I recently decided to simplify it for DMU use only by shortening the platform by 50% and removing the crossover for the run round loop. I also wanted to eliminate the Setrack points and replace them with Streamline ones and as my budget is a bit tight at the moment I replaced the four Setrack points with two Streamline ones, by removing a bay platform and a short stub for shunter stabling.

 

I was just wondering if anyone else has ever done the same? 

[andyman7]

I have a friend who 'dismantled' his layout many years ago in true BR style - buildings went first, then track rationalisation, finally all the track was lifted to leave the trackbed.

[russ p]

I took a layout apart many year ago . I removed the goods yard and placed some fast food restaurant kits I'd received as a present from relatives in Canada 

[montyburns56]

23 hours ago, andyman7 said:

I have a friend who 'dismantled' his layout many years ago in true BR style - buildings went first, then track rationalisation, finally all the track was lifted to leave the trackbed.

 

To be honest I wasn't really thinking of that kind of extreme rationalization! 

 

I've suddenly thought though, wasn't there once a RM Plan Of The Month in the 80s where they suggested a model where it could be built as existing during the steam period, in a BR rationalized state and then as a preserved railway?

[Jason T]

Not sure if it still exists but there is/was a layout called January 1968 which depicted a very run down station, lifted tracks and general decay. Interesting subject for sure and one that does appeal but for me, this one was slightly overdone - it looked post-apocalyptic 😀

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Pretty much.

 

More a change of interest when I was a teenager than anything. I went from 1930s GWR to 1980s BR diesel (current at the time) and most of it was removed. Goods yard, engine shed, etc.

 

If it's the article I'm thinking of I have a feeling it was in Your Model Railway or Model Railways rather than Railway modeller though. Four plans from the 1960s onwards. Steam era, single track, single track with the start of a preserved railway, preserved railway.

 

 

Jason

[DCB]

I have been rationalising my BLT removing little used sidings engine shed etc in the interests of reliability. Bit like BR in the 1950s rather than BR in the 1980s

[92912]

A corner of my 009 layout has some disconnected sidings and a freshly ballasted section of track to suggest a point has been removed from the running line

Edited May 11, 2023 by 92912

[92912]

On the first layout I built many many years ago in my parents loft, I tried to represent a recently singled stretch of track

Edited May 11, 2023 by 92912

[Northmoor]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

If it's the article I'm thinking of I have a feeling it was in Your Model Railway or Model Railways rather than Railway modeller though. Four plans from the 1960s onwards. Steam era, single track, single track with the start of a preserved railway, preserved railway.

It was definitely the Railway Modeller, I remember the article as well, with four track plans for 1955, 1965, 1975 (which was VERY basic!) and 1985.  The last date should be at clue of publication date.

[woodenhead]

There is of course Shwt, which is very much on the theme of a rationalised layout following withdrawal of the station and line beyond.

 

Edited May 11, 2023 by woodenhead

[PMP]

I was going to do the phased-close down modeling thing on Albion Yard and document it.
https://albionyard.com/albion-yard-images/

https://albionyard.com/albion-yard-gallery-for-warley/

It was quickly apparent that it would be quite a lot of work for no real gain, as well as unrealistic.

It was already depicting a down at heel area (above) and Albion Yard would have been highly unlikely to survive the Beaching era, and would have been an early cull, rather than staged withdrawal.

 

Shelfie3 which I’m working on now is very much modelled on the 70’s post Beaching, hanging by a thread scenario. Rationalisation, DMU’s and not much else. It’s surprisingly engaging, despite the simple track plan and limited variety of stock.

[F-UnitMad]

55 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

There is of course Shwt, which is very much on the theme of a rationalised layout following withdrawal of the station and line beyond.

 

Beat me to it.... 👍

[Steamport Southport]

1 hour ago, Northmoor said:

It was definitely the Railway Modeller, I remember the article as well, with four track plans for 1955, 1965, 1975 (which was VERY basic!) and 1985.  The last date should be at clue of publication date.

 

Same date as the YMR article.

 

March 1985 if it's the article I'm thinking of - Small Layout Plans. I think it was by CJ Freezer.

 

https://www.magazineexchange.co.uk/cw/model-railways-magazine-march-1985-issue.html

 

 

Jason

 

 

[rob D2]

There's a chap who's done a couple of layouts which were in the mags and go to displays .

 

DMUs ... lincolnshire ... ? I know he's ex AAC as one has a gazelle parked on a cricket pitch ... Can't rember the name 

[Claude_Dreyfus]

A few years ago our club built a large N gauge layout. Station, carriage sidings, branch line, fright yard and loco shed; basically everything in one place?

 

Over the years we settled down to operating the layout and found it was too much. Following a conversation to Japanese, the layout was rationalised much like the real thing, to simplify operations and to get rid of unused sidings.

 

The loco shed became a couple of stabling sidings, the freight sidings were modified to handle palletised goods and finally the carriage sidings were removed. One siding was retained but shortened to stable track machines, the others disappeared under an office building! 

[Oldddudders]

Back in the '60s, RM had a regular advertiser in the back pages who asked "Beechinged that branch yet?" before going on to extol the joys of adopting the rather different overseas prototype he was retailing. 

 

And in the earlier '60s, I think a chap called Alan Smith had a renowned 3mm scale Lydney Town layout, with a closed and lifted branch. 

[montyburns56]

20 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Same date as the YMR article.

 

March 1985 if it's the article I'm thinking of - Small Layout Plans. I think it was by CJ Freezer.

 

https://www.magazineexchange.co.uk/cw/model-railways-magazine-march-1985-issue.html

 

 

Jason

 

 

 

Funnily enough I had that copy of YMR as it featured their project layout as pictured on the front cover, but I still think that the multi period layout was in RM. Also I'd totally forgotten about YMR until you mentioned it! Does anyone remember how long it lasted?

[RJS1977]

42 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Funnily enough I had that copy of YMR as it featured their project layout as pictured on the front cover, but I still think that the multi period layout was in RM. Also I'd totally forgotten about YMR until you mentioned it! Does anyone remember how long it lasted?

 

42 minutes ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Funnily enough I had that copy of YMR as it featured their project layout as pictured on the front cover, but I still think that the multi period layout was in RM. Also I'd totally forgotten about YMR until you mentioned it! Does anyone remember how long it lasted?

 

Yes, the multi-era plans layout was in Railway Modeller.

Ambridge & Akenfield by John Glover, March 1985.

 

(Thanks for the excuse to browse through - online - issues of RM I read all the spots off in my childhood! I still think the variety of content in RM was much better then than now).

[RJS1977]

In terms of rationalising a layout, no, I've never done that - I've always regarded having areas of empty trackbed as rather a waste of baseboard space!

 

However I've often wondered what a modern-day version of a layout like Buckingham would be like with a pared-back station, most of the sidings built on, etc, and the Leighton Buzzard branch turned into a heritage line.

[beast66606]

5 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

However I've often wondered what a modern-day version of a layout like Buckingham would be like with a pared-back station, most of the sidings built on, etc, and the Leighton Buzzard branch turned into a heritage line.

 

 

Quite a long time ago in the early days of RMWeb I started to write some articles on aging a layout, starting from the (generally) pre grouping track plan and then winding the clock forward with "what ifs?" for example, Warrington with the line to Chester shut. It was reasonably well received but one ex member couldn't see the fiction side of the thought process and would argue the t0ss about "but in reality XYZ station didn't lose it's branch line service" or similar so I gave up.

 

Widnes Vine Yard was initally a model heavily based on the Widnes No.1 area. For various reasons we went through a "What if?" discussion which involved it seeing increased traffic as we closed other lines and re-routed services and so it (the model) ended up remaining as double track and the Tanhouse branch was upgraded to passenger standards and a few other changes.

[RobinofLoxley]

Apart from the question of lifting track what about motive power? Anyone operating in the dawn of diesel era would have to throw half their stock away every year or so as and when a particular class was taken out of service

[Mark Forrest]

My Fryers Lane layout was originally built for through running, with a fiddle yard at either end.  I've now replaced one of the fiddle yards with a (shorter) scenic board.  As a nod to its former configuration, I've added some sleepers beyond the buffer stop, suggesting the line has been cut back to this point.

As a further hint to this backstory the buffer stop on the former through line (now a headshunt) is of a later LMS/BR pattern, in contrast with the earlier LNWR one on the siding next to it.

[Type 2]

54 minutes ago, Mark Forrest said:

My Fryers Lane layout was originally built for through running, with a fiddle yard at either end.  I've now replaced one of the fiddle yards with a (shorter) scenic board.  As a nod to its former configuration, I've added some sleepers beyond the buffer stop, suggesting the line has been cut back to this point.

As a further hint to this backstory the buffer stop on the former through line (now a headshunt) is of a later LMS/BR pattern, in contrast with the earlier LNWR one on the siding next to it.

It's little touches like the differing buffer stops that add depth to the back story of the line being cut back

[Steamport Southport]

19 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

 

Funnily enough I had that copy of YMR as it featured their project layout as pictured on the front cover, but I still think that the multi period layout was in RM. Also I'd totally forgotten about YMR until you mentioned it! Does anyone remember how long it lasted?

 

It went back to being called Model Railways.

 

The one I'm thinking of was definitely in YMR as I'm almost certain it was by Freezer who was writing for YMR by that date. Excellent magazine but started to feature too much foreign and garden stuff for my taste. Finally going in the mid 1990s.

 

 

Jason