Time to tune the Piano

[DavidB-AU]

It depends what you want to run in the space available. Can't remember the name or issue, but there was a Piano-like 7mm scale layout in RM years ago that was a fictional Colonel Stephens line and was certainly shorter than 10 feet.

 

Does anyone have the dimensions of Dave Walker's Laxford Bridge?

 

Cheers

David

[PatB]

4 hours ago, DavidB-AU said:

It depends what you want to run in the space available. Can't remember the name or issue, but there was a Piano-like 7mm scale layout in RM years ago that was a fictional Colonel Stephens line and was certainly shorter than 10 feet.

 

Does anyone have the dimensions of Dave Walker's Laxford Bridge?

 

Cheers

David

The late John Allison built a very compact light railway terminus, set in Lincolnshire. It appeared in RM ~15-20 years ago. I wonder if that was it. I don't remember it having a Pianoish centre entry fiddle Road though. 

[Nearholmer]

As a result of this thread, the advert bots are now sending me details of piano restoration companies!

 

We are being watched!

[DavidB-AU]

I remember the layout now. Ivydale, and it wasn't 7mm scale it was 16mm scale... in 12x2'!

 

Cheers

David

[Pacific231G]

13 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

You make a sarcastic personal comment about me and them prove I was absolutely right by doing as I suggested and designed a different layout 12 ft X 2 in O gauge to replace the  7ft by 1ft in OO which won't scale up to fit 12 X 2 ft in O gauge. 

You did exactly as I suggested.    Why?    I can only think you didn't read the thread properly. Especially that only the single comment before mine was less than 9 years old.

I'm sorry if you thought that "Really David?" was a sarcastic personal comment about you but that certainly wasn't my intention. In the first post on this topic in nine years, Down the SDJR replied to my post from November 2010, which was about the Piano Line concept in general, with a specific question. I was responding to your rather dismissive response to his question that "It won't work (in ten feet) , you need 12 feet" with an example of how it does work and with Peco code 124 medium points. As SDJR only has ten feet to work with that's  what he wanted to know and I hope it was helpful. Since I contributed several posts to this thread in 2010 you can reasonably assume that I actually have read it properly

 

I'm  a bit confused about which 12ft x 2 ft in O or 7ft x 1ft in OO designs of mine you're referring to. The Goonhilly plan is as accurate as I could be from my photographs of the layout and is- like the layout- 9ft 6ins by 20ins.    I did post a plan in 2010 for a six foot long layout (in H0) based on  G. Howell's 5ft 6ins long "imitation is." version of Heath's original Piano Line. That plan was specifically designed to see how short you could make a good looking version using medium radius points able to accomodate a five wagon "Inglenook" train of longer European wagons as my post on Nov 5th 2010 explained

 

I'd expected the answer to be at least two metres so was pleased to find that it could be done in six feet as I was thinking of buildng just such a layout.  Obviously, with a smaller number of shorter wheelbase wagons, the length would come down but probably not to 5ft (OO/H0) or 10ft (O) without resorting to Setrack points as Nearholmer points out , With Goonhilly, Tony Collins has independently come up with a design that does just that using medium radius points, does it with six inches to spare, and avoids the problem of the entry turnout being where you'd want to divide the layout.  

 

Edited February 3, 2020 by Pacific231G
punctuation

[Nearholmer]

DCB

 

I hope you won’t mind me chipping into a private ‘debate’  but I have to say that you lost me with your statement that the Piano is impossible in 0 using Peco  when, as should be readily apparent by now, I clearly believe it to be entirely possible.

 

Why do you think it is impossible?

What part of it do you believe doesn’t work?

 

Not to put to fin a point on it: is there some gigantic flaw in my logic that I’m blind to?

 

To me, it’s a simple matter of making the baseboard larger, theoretically by the ratio 7/4= 1.75, but more practically to allow for different point geometry by 2, and using points as below.

 

I have an untested suspicion that you could actually do it using at least some larger radius points ...... the Y looks potentially very useful for instance.

 

 

[Pacific231G]

17 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

Apologies if this has already been covered but I'm not familiar with the original Piano Line I wonder if some kind person could explain the sigificance of the name.

Hi Andy.

It was the name given by the Rev. P.H. Heath to a layout he described in Railway Modeller in July 1965. He wanted to see just how small and simple a completely self contained layout could be in OO using proprietary equipment. Experimenting with a small amount of Tri-ang series four track, he came up with a minimum size of five foot by one foot, obtained a piece of softboard that size and built the layout.  When completed, and after storing it on end for a whle,  he found that it just happened to fit on the top of the upright Piano in his vicarage, hence the name.

His wife thought it made a pleasant ornament there and it could be plugged in whenever anyone wanted to use it, He claimed that its main practical use was that "it can be played about with by small boys who are carefully prevented from handling my narrow gauge line". Heath was an early pioneer of OOn3 after TT-3 appeared and had built a simple but very effective and charming layout called Llanfair on a single 6ft by 1ft board (later extended to a second terminus and followed by a much larger layout) 

He is, or perhaps was, one of those people whose gentle styleof writing was really rather inspiring. I'll PM you a copy of the article