Turnout arrangement

[melmerby]

44 minutes ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Also WCML as far as Wolverton?

Rugby?

The track is 4,  paired DF UF DS US (west to east) from Primrose Hill, all the way to Rugby, with the slows going via Northampton.

 

From then on various combinations are used.

[Jabee]

1 hour ago, RobinofLoxley said:

Except that the objections to three tracks are mainly that its not very prototypical. But then, how is the rest of the layout going to be?

Whilst I'm not hung up on being prototypical, I would like a reasonable element of 'realism'. At some point, once the track layout is confirmed, I will need to think about how to signal the layout. So, please excuse my inexperience, but my question about the pointwork approaching the station still stands. I do realise that I am asking for a lot of help/guidance here and I'm sure will ask for more in the future, but do so in the hope that as my knowledge and experience expands I can pass this on in the future to those in a similar position to myself!

As of now, no track has been laid. Open frames are in place and the boards for the fiddle yard have been constructed.  Bracing to these boards will be installed once the track is laid (to avoid fouling point motors etc) before they are installed.

Edited November 22, 2023 by Jabee

[RobinofLoxley]

You have done pretty well laying out a template for the whole layout. The tweaks needed to have a fiddle yard growing from either three or four tracks are straightforward, really.

 

However transferring stock across running lines depending if there are three or four is a bit different. You have drawn one for three lines which works but is just a bit long.

 

Below I have sketched out some things for discussion. If you want an all to all transfer on four lines, the two drawings done by @Chimer are the simplest (which usually means the best). They are just a bit lengthy, although there's plenty of room for them. They dont cut down to three easily, for that a different scheme might be needed.

 

For transfer between fast and slow lines there are two patterns, depending if the tracks are SFFS or FFSS. It would be unusual to have transfer between two fast lines but it must happen.

 

So on the left is a system for 3-track interchange; I only show 3x3 roads in the fiddle yard but a fourth can be generated at point A.

 

The two options for iinter-line transfer are to the right. Pretty obvious.

 

On the right is a four track system developed from the three. In both cases, the difference between the simplest proposal and these, is that its possible to split them at B, in which case half can be below the station and half above, attached to the fiddle yard approach in a way that has been mentioned already by other contributors. A small gap at B is a good thing anyway.

 

Other than this I'm a bit stumped to understand what is different that we can do, compared to the OP.

 

Lastly, I have drawn the fiddle yard lines more open than in the drawings by @Jabee. While you can close them right up, both in the drawings and on the layout, it gets very hard to manipulate stock by hand if things are too close together, and also some working length is lost as the track pathways merge earlier (having to allow clearance for the widest stock items, e.g. Hornby Castle.

 

[Jabee]

Brilliant.....thank you. Off back to Anyrail.  Realistically to will be the weekend after this before I get any real time upstairs.  Will keep you posted.

Thank you again!

[Harlequin]

If the quad tracks are arranged Up Slow, Up Fast, Down Fast, Down Slow, then the station layout and the fiddle yard layout are a bit easier.

 

You can avoid one set of crossovers on entry/exit to the fiddle yard if the storage loops are themselves crossovers. The downside of that is that you can't then use them to allow circulating trains to run through so you need separate running lines passing through the FY and that means reducing the number of loops. But it still may be worth doing if the entrance/exit pointwork gets too big - that's the sort of compromise I mentioned earlier.

 

I've done this before with double track layout but never with quad track. I'll try to do a schematic.

 

Edit: Here it is:

Red and Blue are the main running lines.

The storage loops are Green. You can see that a train can leave from any storage loop and get onto the correct running line in either direction.

The red and blue crossovers are needed to allow the Slow outer lines to connect to the storage loops. They could be part of the scene and so are outside the grey dashed fiddle yard box.

The black crossovers allow trains to enter the storage loops and because they are facing and connecting Down Fast to Up Fast they are less likely to be prototypical and so are inside the fiddle yard box.

 

Note that slow trains have to cross the fast lines to enter or exit the storage loops - but that is unavoidable.

 

Normally I would have trailed the storage loops directly into the running lines (the fast running lines in this case) but this in this version the loops connect into a single line that then trails into the running line, for less interference with main line running.

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by Harlequin

[Chimer]

Very nice @Harlequin - and of course the right-hand side could be a mirror of the left, with the exit at the top of the plan, if the builder wanted to gain extra space down the right hand side of the room at the cost of having variable length storage roads.

[Harlequin]

5 minutes ago, Chimer said:

Very nice @Harlequin - and of course the right-hand side could be a mirror of the left, with the exit at the top of the plan, if the builder wanted to gain extra space down the right hand side of the room at the cost of having variable length storage roads.

You could indeed. The knock on effect of that would be that the storage loops would be unequal lengths which may or may not be acceptable.

[GWR-fan]

Stumbled upon these videos.  Just for interest rather than actual information for the OP.

 

 

 

 

[RobinofLoxley]

And that is just laid out on a table top. Looks like steel track too. Hey @GWR-fan do you have any idea how that lot was built, or was it just something you found...

 

There's quite a bit of body and tender rocking, not surprising really.

[GWR-fan]

3 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

And that is just laid out on a table top. Looks like steel track too. Hey @GWR-fan do you have any idea how that lot was built, or was it just something you found...

 

There's quite a bit of body and tender rocking, not surprising really.

 

This is the guy's You-Tube channel.

 

https://www.youtube.com/@ratp78/videos

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by GWR-fan
Additional information (link)

[Happy Hippo]

On 20/11/2023 at 10:00, Harlequin said:

This kind of pointwork is a very good reason for not having 4 running tracks - or not having an everything-joins-to-everything fiddleyard.

Some compromise will probably be needed.

 

Sometimes taking the effort to build a traverser is worth the effort.  It saves so much space and you spend fat less on turnouts.

[kevinlms]

On 21/11/2023 at 06:56, RobinofLoxley said:

 

I believe the suburban lines out of Melbourne are 3 line with a tidal flow central line

Only on the Ringwood line, Burnley to Box Hill (the latter has space for 4, but only platforms 2-4 exist - currently 'Platform 1' is in use as a storage area for McDonalds!), plus Blackburn & Ringwood. Some new construction makes provisioning for extra tracks difficult and expensive.

 

https://wongm.com/2019/06/extending-the-third-track-from-box-hill-to-ringwood/