A 00 industrial shunting micro for beginners

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

I’m thinking about planning a small layout for mainly industrial Locos to run on, like the Hattons Barclay I’ve preordered. It would preferably need to be 1.5 x 3 feet but I can stretch to 4 if less is infeasible. My rolling stock consists of five 16t mineral wagons and 4 vans, which would dictate the setting. Track plan wise I’d prefer to keep it simple, but I’m not adverse to using a loco lift as a sector plate substitute to save space.
 

are there any existing track plans and or layouts that would fit this criteria? 

[Gordon A]

What scale?

What choice of setting would you prefer?

You will need to take into account the length of your and wagons over buffers.

[009 micro modeller]

36 minutes ago, Rich Uncle Skeleton said:

I’m thinking about planning a small layout for mainly industrial Locos to run on, like the Hattons Barclay I’ve preordered. It would preferably need to be 1.5 x 3 feet but I can stretch to 4 if less is infeasible. My rolling stock consists of five 16t mineral wagons and 4 vans, which would dictate the setting. Track plan wise I’d prefer to keep it simple, but I’m not adverse to using a loco lift as a sector plate substitute to save space.
 

are there any existing track plans and or layouts that would fit this criteria? 

Would an Inglenook work?

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

7 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Would an Inglenook work?

An Inglenook would be very suitable, and I could add more sidings in the other direction.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

7 hours ago, Gordon A said:

What scale?

What choice of setting would you prefer?

You will need to take into account the length of your and wagons over buffers.

00 scale, and something with a warehouse for vans and a reason for mineral wagons. A quayside or basin perhaps?

[Gordon A]

A set of Peco point templates would be a step in the right direction.

[DCB]

There is a big difference between what is possible with ready to lay Peco Streamline compared to bespoke modified trackwork, I have live frogged and chopped Hornby set track and used 1st fist radius Hornby Dublo points,   Most 0-4-0s will get round 13.5"  Triang standard curves or even 12" radius flexi  as long as you avoid reverse curves.  There are You Tube videos of the Brewery network at Burton on Trent with fearsome curves and 0-4-0s traversing them at surprising speed far faster than most modellers would consider to be realistic.
Any extra length on a 3 or 4 ft layout is invaluable,  A 1ft detachable shunting spur or laying tracks diagonally across the board or even simply laying tracks right to the end of the baseboard can make a huge difference.   Using 9ft w/b stock instead of 10ft is also a worthwhile saving especially where the RTR has been stretched from a 9ft to fit a generic 10ft chassis.

[Pacific231G]

Inglenook is always a good start though a bit limiting but there is a version, which will fit in four feet by a foot, where the five road siding is hidden and acts as a fiddle yard.

Raymond Butler used this arrangement for a very attactive and self contained layout in 4ft by 13 ins. in H0 and followed the usual Inglenook sidings rules that the headshunt could take a loco and three wagons clear of the first point, the long, mainly hidden siding  could take five wagons and the two goods yard sidings could take three wagons each. This is in H0 with French four wheel wagons about 4 inches long over couplings so should work in 00 with traditional British 10ft wb wagons. Raymond's layout folds over to form a two foot long box. (The medieval tower lifts off to reveal the front hinge) 

 

 

 

I do though rather prefer the two crossover plan, which also fits into four feet by one (or a bit less than 12") and I've seen it used in that length even in P4. (Paul Gittins' Enigma Engineering BRM 11/2006)  For Enigma engineering the rules were that the run round could hold three wagons clear of the points and the four other tracks could take two wagons each. There was a fiddle yard to the right but the gate was closed during shunting operations (which were based on a card system similar to those used for Inglenooks. 

I also rather like this plan 

This was basically the plan that Chris Krupa used for his  009 Minbury Abbas layout which was 26 ins.  long by 10 ins wide. Having seem it in action several times I admired this scheme so tried laying it out in four feet in H0 and it does all fit (again using longer European wagons) . The basic rules are that the front left headshunt (that ends with a loco shed on Chris' layout)  will take a loco and two wagons while the right hand "main line"  will take a loco and three wagons clear of the point and that length of train can also be hidden off stage, As you can see in the photo, Chris laid it out rather more attractively than my basic plan with the line laid at an angle across the board and slightly curved.

The way I laid it out as a standard gauge line was on the basis that the line at the back is the main line so is straight while the sidings are a small, possibly private yard off it with its own headshunt. 

This layout can actually be worked with two locos and watching Chris operating it, it  allowed for rather more shunting than an Inglenook with a passenger station to boot.

To my surprise I did actually come across this plan in reality on a disused line in France where it had been the private sidings for a grain silo. Wagons were delivered and picked up by the SNCF pick up goods train but the actual shunting of the yard itself was done with capstans. However such installations frequently had their own small four wheel shunter.

 

My plan allows for extensions at both ends to make it a main line halt with other trains running through between two fiddle yards for exhibitions.

All three plans have been used succesfully in 00 or H0 in four feet of length so

I hope they give you some ideas or at least food for thought.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

These have all given me much food for thought, thank you all kindly. I’m leaning toward the Inglenook with the top siding as a hidden fiddle yard. I’m struggling with a setting that would cater for van and mineral traffic, but I have seen pictures of vans on the Swanscombe cement railways.

[009 micro modeller]

2 hours ago, Rich Uncle Skeleton said:

These have all given me much food for thought, thank you all kindly. I’m leaning toward the Inglenook with the top siding as a hidden fiddle yard. I’m struggling with a setting that would cater for van and mineral traffic, but I have seen pictures of vans on the Swanscombe cement railways.

Presumably for bagged cement? Alternatively would some sort of wharf/dock work, with mineral wagons bringing coal and aggregate but also vans serving the warehouses? Or perhaps some other kind of factory that receives coal (or some sort of mineral) in mineral wagons and also despatches finished product in vans.

[Treinenliefde]

A sugar beet factory is something I'm researching right now and is something that allows for both mineral wagons and vans. Mineral wagons were used to carry the sugar beet, limestone and coal to the factory, and vans could be used to export the pulp (to be used as animal feed) and refined sugar. 

[5050]

I was going to suggest Enigma (I am rather biased after all!) and can confirm that the concept will probably work with Setrack small radius points.

[Pacific231G]

2 hours ago, 5050 said:

I was going to suggest Enigma (I am rather biased after all!) and can confirm that the concept will probably work with Setrack small radius points.

Paul, you'd obviously know better than anyone but, compared with Inglenook, I reckoned that Enigma probably offered more interesting shunting in the same four foot length simply because one of the sidings faces in the opposite direction so you have to make judicious use of the run round loop. For a factory with multiple loading points it also looked particularly convincing- as did your American H0 equivalent (in five feet?) .

Having built it in P4 do you think it would work with Peco short Streamline points or equivalent? A friend of mine did build an H0  shunting layout  using Setrack but had a lot of derailments. 

It's interesting (maybe) that Peter Denny used the same basic plan in EM - though with a longer total length- for his original Leighton Buzzard (Linslade) station and said that, for its size, it was interesting to shunt.

Edited September 8, 2023 by Pacific231G

[ColinK]

3 hours ago, 5050 said:

I was going to suggest Enigma (I am rather biased after all!) and can confirm that the concept will probably work with Setrack small radius points.

what is Enigma?

[Ruston]

I did! RMweb members day, 2006. (or 2007?) at the Chasewater Railway.

[Pacific231G]

56 minutes ago, ColinK said:

what is Enigma?

It is a four foot long (plus a fiddle siding from which and to where trains go but not allowed for shunting) layout built in P4. It was the second of the plans I suggested on Sunday at 01.29  and is simply two crossovers facing one another. All three sidings and the head-shunt  will take two wagons but, since 5050 built it, he can give you chaper and verse on it and the card based shunting puzzle used for it.   

Edited September 8, 2023 by Pacific231G

[92912]

On 02/09/2023 at 15:39, Rich Uncle Skeleton said:

I’m thinking about planning a small layout for mainly industrial Locos to run on, like the Hattons Barclay I’ve preordered. It would preferably need to be 1.5 x 3 feet but I can stretch to 4 if less is infeasible. My rolling stock consists of five 16t mineral wagons and 4 vans, which would dictate the setting. Track plan wise I’d prefer to keep it simple, but I’m not adverse to using a loco lift as a sector plate substitute to save space.
 

are there any existing track plans and or layouts that would fit this criteria? 

This is my shunting layout, it's a bit bigger than your space (48" X 22") and is total fantasy but it's basically a goods yard with a goods depot on the right and an unidentified industrial siding at the back with another factory at the front left. There are also cassettes that fit on the left 

[Nearholmer]

A lot of shunting layouts are unconvincing, because they involve too much shunting, but one way to justify a lot of wagon shuffling without stretching plausibility as far as is customary would be to include a wagon tippler, especially an end tippler, because unlike a rotary you can’t shunt a rake of wagons through those. It would also be fun to build, and interesting to watch.

 

Your industry might have a boiler house or kilns or furnaces that require plenty of coal, hence the tippler, and a loading dock to dispense whatever it dispenses by the van load, or the raw material might arrive via the tippler.

[Pacific231G]

On 08/09/2023 at 23:09, Nearholmer said:

A lot of shunting layouts are unconvincing, because they involve too much shunting, but one way to justify a lot of wagon shuffling without stretching plausibility as far as is customary would be to include a wagon tippler, especially an end tippler, because unlike a rotary you can’t shunt a rake of wagons through those. It would also be fun to build, and interesting to watch.

 

Your industry might have a boiler house or kilns or furnaces that require plenty of coal, hence the tippler, and a loading dock to dispense whatever it dispenses by the van load, or the raw material might arrive via the tippler.

I agree. It was always what I didn't like about John Allen's Timesaver and, though I have seen  good layouts based on it, the shunting always seemed rather conrtrived. 

On the other hand Enigma looks convincing as a layout serving various loading or unloading points for a factory or as the track on a  quayside while Inglenook is a fairly typical local goods yard that you might often find in France, Britain, N. America and likely elsewhere where one siding served a goods shed and loading bank while the other- mileage siding (UK) team track (US) voie de transbordement (Fr)-  serviced wagonload goods that traders loaded and unloaded themselves.

 

A wagon tippler would certainly make a feature but a simpler way of maximising shunting would be a weighbridge that every outgoing wagonload would have to pass over. In some ways a goods yard without a weighbridge is a bit like a shop without a cash register (though in Britain they often weighed carts and road vehicles rather than wagons.

[Enterprisingwestern]

On 09/09/2023 at 00:09, Nearholmer said:

A lot of shunting layouts are unconvincing, because they involve too much shunting,

 

I thought that was the whole point of a shunting layout, it's therapeutical not prototypical?

 

Mike.

[Nearholmer]

I was rather searching for a way to obtain the therapy and create a semi-plausible situation at the same time. Of course, nobody has to do that if they don’t want.

[Enterprisingwestern]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I was rather searching for a way to obtain the therapy and create a semi-plausible situation at the same time. Of course, nobody has to do that if they don’t want.

 

Fully agree, but you won't without acres of space, just look at Beasts topic on Eccles Road, even there are "only" less than 20 wagons the linear extent of the track layout is massive.

It's good old compromise as usual!

 

Mike.

[Nearholmer]

I’m going to keep at this tippler thing, and remind people that Corall’s at Southampton kept a shunting engine busy, with small cuts of wagons in a cramped location.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

On 11/09/2023 at 17:18, Nearholmer said:

I’m going to keep at this tippler thing, and remind people that Corall’s at Southampton kept a shunting engine busy, with small cuts of wagons in a cramped location.

 

 

 

A very useful prototype.

When I worked in South Western House in the 1980s I used occasionally to see Corrall's shunting loco, by then a diesel rather than the 0-4-0T Corrall Queen (aka Normandy), moving cuts of wagons across Belvedere or Brittania Road (I don't remember which) but had no idea they had a wagon tippler in there.

https://www.bulleidsociety.org/96/96_Gallery.html

Edited September 19, 2023 by Pacific231G

[Nearholmer]

There are a couple of threads on here about the yard, but all the images and links are defunct, which is a great pity. I once went there to have a nose in the 1980s, I think on the same day I went for a ride on the Hythe Pier railway, but cannot for the life of me recall the track layout.

 

Another line that had a loco shuffling small cuts of wagons, so a lot of shunting per square yard, was the cement works near Southerham Junction, Lewes. I think cuts were short there because of gradient and curvature.  It had gas-fired kilns when I remember it, but in earlier years it must have taken in coal as well as despatched cement.

 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Nearholmer