Paul Lunn's Setrack Layouts

[edcayton]

Has anyone here either successfully built, or seen successfully built any of these layouts? I've seen the basic circular layouts, but I'm particularly drawn to his "cityscape" plans which offer 3 or 4 separate scenes and clever ploys to hide the sharp curves and short train lengths.

Thanks

 

Ed

[Bad Rabbit]

If you mean from the Setrack book there is/was a version of the roundy-roundy/split level layout featuring town station, goods yard and MPD (Plan 14 of the second edition) at Lord & Butler in Cardiff. Looked pretty good although I suspect it suffers unusual wear and tear in a shop.

 

Haven't seen anything from the newer micro-layout book although I liked a lot of the ideas.

 

Martin

[edcayton]

Thank you for that Martin. A lot of his schemes appeal to me, but I do wonder how well they work in practice.

 

Ed

[Kris]

Remember that any set track plan that has 1st radius curves may cause you problems with some locos.

[Dave777]

I think I know the one you mean (without having the books to hand, I think it's called something like 'Urban and Southeast' or similar). The original version appeared in the Santona layout design book, and when I first saw it I thought it was pretty damn amazing, and I have a smaller version planned for a future project. Actually, now I think about it, I think in that volume he refers to the plan originally being shown in Railway Modeller in response to someone who wrote in about how difficult it was to do mainline modern image in a small space. Either way, the version that appears in the Peco Setrack Planbook isn't the first, and I actually thought by expanding it the plan lost some of the 'focussed' nature of the original Santona version.

 

I've spent a few mins in the past imagining what it would be like to operate and there doesn't appear to be any real snags, other than the line that goes diagonally across the running tracks to reach a short siding (it just felt like cramming an extra siding in for the sake of it). The only aspect I did notice was that the two main loops are actually hidden for a good length of the run. I can see why he's done this (hide the sharp radii) and it's just a knock on effect. See more running or increase the realism? Depends what you want.

 

In terms of accuracy, I get the impression Paul takes a lot more care about making sure something fits as shown than, say, CJ Freezer ever did! (and I'm one of his biggest fans).

 

Overall, it's a great plan, I'd go as far as to say it's one of the most impressive uses of the typical 'train set' sized space I've ever seen.