Blank Layout

[Newmodeller96]

Hi All, 

 

I’m always curious about what else could be created in the space I have. 
 

I’m modelling 1970s to modern day, South East London/Kent what would have been Network Southeast to Southeastern Railways. 
 

Mainly EMUs with some freight. 
 

This is what I have planned my “layout on” but have been flexible. 

I have put a blank plan of my loft boards and would love to know what other people might get into the space with the above ideas. 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

Spend some time with Google maps to find somewhere which inspires you.

Do you want a prototype? Doing it well would requires some scratchbuilding. This can be very hard work but rewarding if it interests you. Railways take up more space than most of us have room for, so you may want to get creative. Evan a small branch line terminus with an old fashioned goods yard will take up more room than you have if you are using OO.

I am not very familiar with the SR but I can think of locations on the GE (Maryland), WCML (South Hampstead) & GW (Immediately W of Ealing Broadway) which are in cutting sandwiched by bridges/tunnels. Kentish Town on the MML is a little bigger. I do not think any of these have any pointwork though. That would be a put-off for some. Another put-off is that they are all urban settings so need a lot of buildings. Appealing for some, but not for others. A lot of the SR is in cuttings so you should be able to find something.

 

From what I have seen & what you have mentioned, Elmstead Woods appeals to me. It needs some compression & creativity with the SE end (which is open & passes over a road) but the NW end with the tunnels & forest around & even on the island platform looks an interesting subject.

[The Johnster]

There is room for a roundy layout, fiddle yard one side scenic area t'other.  An up and down main line can be accommodated but there is not really room for long or fast trains, and if you keep to shorter trains that suggests secondary routes where speeds are lower and curves might be a bit tighter.  Much depends on what you want the layout to do; do you like trains running through the countryside, or complex operation with shunting to make trains up or break them down?  If the former, then my advice is to keep things simple, a section of double track main line between the scenic breaks with maybe a simple station to stop at or run through, perhaps a bay platform for terminating services.

 

For more complex operation, I'd suggest a single track main line with a passing loop at the station, which leaves more room for shunting with a rail-served factory or distribution depot, or a Network Rail yard, tank farm, or perhaps a wagon repair shop.  Avoid straight track and 90deg. bends, gentle curvature will look more natural, give a greater variety of viewing angles, and make the layout look bigger.

[Newmodeller96]

@Pete the Elaner @The Johnster thank you both. I know what I am looking for in the layout I am just curious as to what others might put into the space and see their ideas. 

[DCB]

9ft X 12 ft   I could run 8 coach EMUs or 8 coach Mk1 sets plus a loco in that in OO  my  loft layout was about 14ft X 9ft.    Not very obviously mine was DC so I could have hidden sidings, just set the points and out comes a train, not necessarily the right one and quite steep gradients, possible when you throw away the chips and replace with lead to get two levels. 
But curved points to get the storage round the corners  and  open storage lops one side DCC or a figure 8 in DC you could get quite a nice 2 or 4 track through station  with a small yard, lets face it a modern big yard is often only one siding and a container mover,     If watching Emus  er I mean EMUs is your thing there is loads of scope. Watch out for the door.  I currently have a properly engineered lifting flap which lets me in or out, lift, pass through, drop in under 15 seconds, Previously the lift out took 2 minutes so I crawled under on hands and knees fine in your 30s but...

 I also had a high level layout 60" to the bottom of the baseboard  62" track level more nod under than duck, and the loft had a near central hatch ( Which at my age is too difficult to get into now,) 

[DavidB-AU]

An option could be something based on the Medway Valley line. That doesn't need 8-car EMUs and could justify a small cement/aggregates terminal or paper mill tucked into one of the corners.

[Nearholmer]

I’d possibly ram an 0 gauge coarse-scale layout in, but the width is right on the limit and I’ve had enough of that game (see my thread) for now, so maybe something else for a change.

 

What I definitely wouldn’t do is “the standard thing these days” in 00, which would be to put a big FY down one side, and a through station on the other, because that effectively surrenders half the precious space to The Gods of Storing Stuff, and creates a Scalectrix for trains. I’d try to get in a simple railway, a branch or minor line, that represented a short route from somewhere to somewhere else, going via wherever.
 

0n16.5 would work, 009* or 00n3 would allow for a really excellent line, but even 00, if you chose the right sort of line, would give real possibilities. A Light Railway or a modest pre-grouping branch would possibly be most interesting operationally, but for someone wedded to post-steam scene maybe something inspired by the Liskeard and Looe Branch in the 1970s would work. Perhaps a reinvention of that set in Kent, replacing China clay with coal, cement or paper, and DMMUs with 2-HAP or 2H could be done. Imagine that the EKLR remained open for passenger trains (unlikely) and was electrified (even more incredible), or was worked by DEMU (ah, that sounds very slightly more plausible). Or, imagine that the KESR Maidstone Extension actually got built, so use the paperworks at Tovil as the industry (that did genuinely have a branch to it), and have 2H thudding uphill, past the home of The Loose Women’s Institute, and maybe an 09 or 03/04 working a couple of mineral wagons of house coal to some weed-infested siding at an intermediate station.
 

*During the late 1960s and through the 1970s, a friend built a truly wonderful 009 layout in a very similar loft space.

 

 

Edited January 6 by Nearholmer

[Bittern]

For an interesting modern south London layout I'd probably forget about a station entirely and focus on a tangle of junctions  like the St. Johns–Lewisham, Bermondsey, or Stewart's Lane areas, perhaps also with an aggregates, post, or containers terminal, built in N scale - unit trains running in and out of  stations are just too efficient to provide operating interest through station operations, so I wouldn't use space for that, and when your region and era of interest are all about watching trains shuttling around ISTM best to focus on that. 

 

Now, what I'd do with that space is a load of docks and warehouses, shops, offices, yards, and so on:  without space to reasonably include some of my favourite later main-line classes running at speed I'd be tempted to move to to an earlier period so I can also include trams - Hull had some wonderful modelling inspiration because part of the docks ran right into the town centre.

Edited January 9 by Bittern