Require some help

[Flying Pig]

If you look at the station as a whole, there is plenty of scope for operation and I doubt it would detract much from the enjoyment of the layout if you left the goods shed and its surrounding track as essentially scenic.  You could park a couple of wagons in the headshunt beyond the shed to give an impression of its operation and just stick to shunting the reception sidings.

[riddler]

After the thoughts of you guys I am going to stick with the original plan for the goods shed, after all it is prototypical,. What I will need to do is move the turntable and coal yard as I only have room for a 2ft wide baseboard, so maybe lose the cattle pens and construct something that side

[Harlequin]

Good decision about the goods shed, IMHO.

 

My suggestion would be to ignore the coal sidings and either handle coal in the yard on the goods shed side or pretend that coal is handled at the Malvern Road yard instead. You haven't got room to do them justice and making them kickback would change the station operations significantly.

 

What does the rest of the layout look like? To service a station like this you'll need a capacious fiddle yard. Does the FY continue on straight or does the track turn 90° to reach it?

 

Edited February 21 by Harlequin

[riddler]

The plan has not been finished yet. I have a generous space of 13ft x 6ft shed but could be larger (14x8) if I can convince the boss.

As the plan shows the mainline comes in from the left, I plan to have a fiddle yard underneath the main board turnback loop as well, pretending that is the mainline so I can still have  trains running around,but that will depend on whether I can get it automated. If not then the fiddle yard will be on the other side in view. The era I am doing is between 1960 - 1970. I have a large number of Dccconcepts Cobalt digital point motors and NCE handset.

I feel layout would require a turntable and stabling but the original was a lot further down the line, could I put it where the cattle pens are?

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, Flying Pig said:

If you look at the station as a whole, there is plenty of scope for operation and I doubt it would detract much from the enjoyment of the layout if you left the goods shed and its surrounding track as essentially scenic.  You could park a couple of wagons in the headshunt beyond the shed to give an impression of its operation and just stick to shunting the reception sidings.

 

The very antithesis of my views, which are that operation is the core element of a layout and every last drop should be wrung out of the trackplan.  We are trying to emulate real operation to the best of our ability on our layouts (well, I am, different viewpoints and philosophies are available), and the real place had a busy goods yard that was shunted quite a lot.  Passenger trains in fixed rakes are boring in comparison, and if anything had to go into 'essentially scenic' mode it would be passenger stock doing nothing, positioned in a platform road in the background!

[Flying Pig]

2 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

The very antithesis of my views, which are that operation is the core element of a layout and every last drop should be wrung out of the trackplan.  We are trying to emulate real operation to the best of our ability on our layouts (well, I am, different viewpoints and philosophies are available), and the real place had a busy goods yard that was shunted quite a lot.  Passenger trains in fixed rakes are boring in comparison, and if anything had to go into 'essentially scenic' mode it would be passenger stock doing nothing, positioned in a platform road in the background!

 

When that involves unprototypical shunting methods or complicated mechanisms in a small scale, compromise may be the better option.  There is already a lot of compromise in model goods yards, almost certainly including your own, and it is a matter of individual taste where the line is drawn. 

 

[The Johnster]

Absolutely, but to my mind every possible realistic prototypical movement on a layout should be available to an operator, and I would encourage their use.  It is good to have some degree of satisfying challenge in operating your layout IMHO, and for me this come in the form of operating to a feasible working timetable in real time at realistic speeds, conforming as far as is practicable to the 1955 British Railways Rule Book.  Like real railwaymen operating a real BLT to a real WTT, one has to shunt trains to make them ready for their booked departure times, as well as to enable wagons to be unloaded or loaded.  Passenger train shunting must allow time for a brake continuity test before departure.  In other words, my model is in a sense not a model at all, but a real railway serving the passenger, freight, and colliery requirements of a South Wales mining valley (the valley exists in reality bnever had a pit or mining village).  It is real, only small and in the 1950s.

 

Unprototypical shunting methods such as my 'magnetic pinchbar' manual shunting are compromises of course, and were a suggestion as to how it might be done if anyone wanted to try it.  Personally, I wouldn't, but it might be useful to someone looking for a solution to the problem of moving wagons around when there is no loco handy; it's what happened in real life, but of course you can't model the man pinchbarring the wagon, you have to fill in that detail in your imagination, but it's probably more achievable than a working shunting horse in 2mm scale...

 

Inevitably, there are compromises, and much goes on within the confines of my imagination (wagon misses daily pickup clearance because mileage customer has not finished unloading it, or coal wagon having to be unloaded and sent for repair, for example), but I can recreate and represent passenger run-around operations, goods yard shunting, and colliery shunting including weighing of empty wagons on the weighbridge, loading them under the washery building, and weighing the loaded wagons before they are made up into a train before the next clearance.  Weighing was perhaps the most important surface operation at a colliery, the difference in weight measured in cwt between empty and loaded wagons of specific numbers being the basis for invoicing customers.

 

This holistic method is, for me, a huge part of the satisfaction to be gained from the layout, at least as much so as the modelling of stock, buildings, and scenery.  The idea of having stock on the layout as background scenery, not earning it's keep, is ananthematic to me.  As I said, other ways of running layouts are available and I would not presume to insist that mine is the only, or even the best, one out there; the most important thing is that you enjoy your own layout in the best way that suits you, and take no notice of what I or anybody else tells you is the 'correct' way to go about it.  That said, and sincerely meant, the more prototypically realistic the layout's appearance and operation is, the better it will serve the function of representing reality, which is IMHO the core purpose of a model, especially a working model. 

 

The above approach is what works for me, though.

Edited February 21 by The Johnster

[riddler]

The replies to my post are very interesting and helping me understand the complexity of having a busy layout. I have no idea how a prototype railway works and I will never get to that stage so a large part of my layout is purely for my enjoyment and the modelling the building and landscape is something I really enjoy especially at N gauge level.

What I have added is the fiddle yard and how the rest of the layout will progress, it is ambitious but I already have a large quantity of Flexitrack, points and point motors which have been sitting idle for a few years. 

[RobinofLoxley]

Its very well thought out. There's always a however, in this case it relates to the amount of separation needed between the two levels. Although you only need 5cm for a bridge for example, when you have a fiddle yard with a running line right at the back, you need to be able to get your hand in and be able to manoevre properly for example to place and remove stock. I dont think there's a hard and fast rule but I estimate 15cm of clearance would be sensible. Probably someone operating a layout in N like this will give feedback. What such a clearance will do is make things a bit odd looking I think, hopefully there's a way round it. Someone will mention a helix.... Its then about gradients, at 2% you need 7.5M of track to get 15cm.

 

I think a small tweak would be needed in the fiddle yard but I wouldnt mention it pending resolution of the 'gap' issue.

 

A very good thing the whole plan was exposed, though.

[riddler]

That is indeed another valid point and something that I do need to think about. In a ideal world I will have it automated and nothing will go wrong, however how often does that happen. I will make up the other plan I have for the fiddle yard and post it tomorrow.

What I do have now is the plan being altered to accommodate a turntable. I have two ideas and again would be nice for comments to see if one or both are options

[RobinofLoxley]

Be careful @riddler as hasty mods can introduce issues that werent present in earlier versions. I hope you have saved the earlier ones! What you have now is that arriving trains cant access the lower platform and parcels except by going down the departures line. Go back to the very first plan you posted, and position the turntable on that one without adjusting any other feature.

 

As far as understanding railway operations goes, prototypical working existed because it was economical in terms of vehicle movements (and surrounding infrastructure such as signalling) and safe. So when you are close to prototypical you will also have a good working model. I have made a small example. The top drawing is your starting point. Your issue is turntable location, but you know its going to be reached via point B, one way or another, and in the top diagram, a loco released from any line has to make its way to point A in order to drive up to the turntable access, but for the top three of those lines, this involves driving (reversing as its steam locos and they are going to be turned) towards the acess slip down the arrivals line. Now its a movement within the station and you can accept the hindrance, but it does force arriving traffic to stop before the slip, and really it would be stopped earlier, before the first turnout.

 

If you compare it with the slight alteration below it, with an extra slip, locos still move through a slip to get to A, but this movement can now take place without stopping any traffic going up to B, because its parallel movement. I advised this change indirectly a it earlier but the resulting plan had other changes, and my view is the original should be your starting point.

 

I'm no expert btw, I have learnt from this forum, as well as building a large layout, which has one or two complete howlers on it! (There is a slight defect in the lower drawing even so).

[AndrueC]

One option that helps with layouts that want to have two levels is the concept of a mezzanine. I have one on my N scale layout. I have a diamond crossing on my mezzanine which is 25mm above the baseboard. On the west side the outer loop spends 2.5m dropping down from 50mm whilst the inner loop uses the same length to rise up 2.5mm. On the East side the outer loop rises back up to 50mm while the inner loop drops back to board level. The outer loop crosses the inner loop shortly after both flatten out.

 

This results in approximately 1% gradient which combined with a 90 degree curve for half of the distance is a reasonable gradient for trains. I have no problem pulling 1 metre long rakes around either loop.

 

For what it's worth there is no shunting on my layout. I went with N because I enjoy watching trains run through a landscape. I have two yards with four sidings and can run four trains at the same time. If I'd wanted to shunt I wouldn't have modelled in N 😉

 

If you want to go the automation route then I'd suggest that when you come to laying track:

• Plan track sections for occupancy detection.
• Isolate sections
• Provide sections with individual power feeds.

You can do this without automation and it has diagnostic advantages. I powered every section via droppers but didn't bother to isolate them so now I'm looking at cutting track or using spot detectors.

Edited February 22 by AndrueC

[riddler]

The first plan I listed was based on Cheltenham but I have altered the arrival lane and the relief sidings, on the second plan I altered it to be the same as the prototype. So your examples you gave me above would be based on my first plan?

What you guys are adding to this thread is very helpful. I have previously done a few layouts which always ended up being not finished because of not planning correctly. I mean I am still having trouble deciding exactly what I want. I like to watch trains go by but not all the time, I want to do some shunting but not all the time. Perhaps I might be better off using a scenic board either side, have 2 control panels and on one side have a goods yard and on the other side have a mainline station.

[riddler]

Another useful reply, thank you

[riddler]

What I do have is another complete plan of Moor Street. Obviously it has been reduced and less sidings then there would be but it also shows the fiddle yard which is not hidden from my view and I also have a separate scenic area which you can view from outside. What do you think of this one?

The good shed is based on the actual one at Moor Street with 2 lanes and one side having a platform area

[Harlequin]

If you want a roundy round then a through station is easier to accommodate than a terminus. It means there's much less need for a return loop, which is space-consuming and usually has to be non-scenic.

 

A through station can still have terminal bays and a goods yard that has to be shunted in exactly the same way.

 

[RobinofLoxley]

13 minutes ago, Harlequin said:

If you want a roundy round then a through station is easier to accommodate than a terminus. It means there's much less need for a return loop, which is space-consuming and usually has to be non-scenic.

 

A through station can still have terminal bays and a goods yard that has to be shunted in exactly the same way.

 

But that Moor St, it looks a pretty good layout. You have even liked it!

 

I dont know if its possible, but the objection to the return loop might be overcome if the  circular running lines were inside the fiddle yard/return loop, so that the return loop itself could be 'hidden' in one corner, possibly with a removable scenery element on top of it. I haven't checked at all to see if its feasible.

[riddler]

The Fiddle Yard and reversing loop would be to the back of me, thus making it easy to deal with any problems. The scenic area to the bottom containing the up and down lines would have a scenic barrier hiding the fiddle yard.

 

Harlequin, just been looking at your Lyneworth and Millhampton trackplan. That is very good and easily achievable with the space I have for N gauge 

[RobinofLoxley]

2 hours ago, riddler said:

The Fiddle Yard and reversing loop would be to the back of me, thus making it easy to deal with any problems. The scenic area to the bottom containing the up and down lines would have a scenic barrier hiding the fiddle yard.

 

Harlequin, just been looking at your Lyneworth and Millhampton trackplan. That is very good and easily achievable with the space I have for N gauge 

I don't understand where you can view that scenic area from. When you are inside, that scenic area is beyond the fiddle yard, and any backscene that you erect will conceal the running lines behind it. If you are 'out front' the same backscene will spoil any view over towards the station.

[riddler]

My wife said she would like to be nosey and sit and watch. So the scenic view was to just have 6" in view just to watch the trains go by. So a backscene would be between that and the fiddle yard. I would be standing in the middle facing the main baseboard where all the action is. The fiddle yard would literally be behind me in view so I can see what is what. Think that makes sense

[riddler]

How about this plan?

[Harlequin]

9 hours ago, RobinofLoxley said:

But that Moor St, it looks a pretty good layout. You have even liked it!

 

I dont know if its possible, but the objection to the return loop might be overcome if the  circular running lines were inside the fiddle yard/return loop, so that the return loop itself could be 'hidden' in one corner, possibly with a removable scenery element on top of it. I haven't checked at all to see if its feasible.

Yes, I like both Moor Street and Cheltenham St James. Just pointing out that if the goal is some roundy-round running with some shunting a through station is in many ways a better fit.

 

N gauge makes a return loop much easier to do space-wise than OO but it's just a bit awkward to fit into the scenic parts of a plan. However, if it's in the off-scene area then it's much easier.

 

[Harlequin]

4 hours ago, riddler said:

How about this plan?

 

That looks very rational. If you're happy with 2/3rd scenic 1/3rd fiddle yard around the room then it makes a lot of sense because you can see everywhere, reach everywhere and easily change things by hand in the FY. It also means that you don't need automation right from the word go - you can run the layout manually at first and get automation working in stages.

 

[RobinofLoxley]

4 hours ago, riddler said:

How about this plan?

I think someone has spent the winter drawing track plans. How many more are there?

[riddler]

LOL  I moved home in October to a winter lodge. Will be moving into my new property on 1st March. So for 6 months I have been twiddling my fingers and all changes next week. So I have countless plans and I wont bore you with anymore. The 3 I have listed seem to be the better ones.

 

When it comes to the planning I have just been trying to cover all the bases because I can't get fixed on just one type of setup

Edited February 23 by riddler
waffling