Urban freight layout idea

[sn]

Messing around with ideas for a new layout. Came up with this. It's an urban layout and supposedly the east end of a fairly large yard. A line runs down to serve some private sidings and possibly an MPD. Hope the rest of it is self-explanatory. I'd appreciate comments

 

 

 

<a href="http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d68/signalnorth/?action=view&current=railplan.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d68/signalnorth/railplan.jpg" border="0" alt="Songhill Yard East plan"></a>

[edcayton]

the grade down will be very steep indeed, unless the proposed underbridge is going to be of limited clearance (like at Par harbour and look at Judy and Alfred, both of which are at Bodmin at present). I think you will regret having the point hidden in the tunnel. However, I think the plan looks attractive and I have never managed a two level layout and whenever I see one I think how interesting it looks.

 

Ed

[Fat Controller]

Have a look at :-

http://www.emgauge70s.co.uk/modelpageindex.html (the one for Morfa Bank Sidings), which does have two levels in a quite constricted space.

[sn]

The grade will be steep, however the amount of line available on reaching the top of the grade means a restriction to loco plus 3 vehicles anyway.

 

Access to the point will be from the side rather than the top because as you say it's important to be able to get to it easily. Fair point made that.

 

General idea was to have a layout where there are quite a lot of freight wagons standing around.

[Flying Pig]

I like the idea a lot: in fact it's very similar to the pipe dream scheme Lambton58 and I have been mulling over for years in various forms (there are only so many permutations of Morfa Bank, North Shields and Walker Marine infused with old photos of Pallion and Ryhope Grange... ). Our approach is slightly different though as it models the "dead" end of the yard (as indeed Morfa Bank does):

 

 

The fiddle yard, such as it is, is just an expansion of your sector plate, enough for light engines and a few trips to run to (there's an MPD and more industrial sidings offstage left, back along the main line) and for arriving trains to creep into view, just the loco and the first few wagons, suggesting that they're much longer than you can actually accommodate. That's the idea anyway - not sure if it would work...

 

I've suggested locations A-D for private sidings, pretty much as you've sketched them. Like Ed I reckon that the sidings at B could be tricky for access, but even a dummy road would look good disappearing into a tight tunnel under the yard and could be abandoned altogether if gradients proved impossible (in a North Eastern context, I'd morph the tunnel into the remains of a disused waggonway in that case!).

[edcayton]

thinking about it a bit more, and I like the idea of limited clearance in the tunnel/bridge. Don't know what period you are thinking of, but there were several in steam days (Par and Radstock spring to mind), and some 08's were modified to work a line in South Wales in the 70's(?). I remember see;ng an amusing photo of what happened to a normal Gronk when someone forgot and it hit the bridge!

[Ramblin Rich]

Interesting looking plan - although I also have reservations about the grqadient, unless you make the upper line climb as well - but that would make shunting difficult!

 

The South Wales line was the Burry Port & Gwyndraeth line - the clearance was a matter of inches lower than normal. Class 03 shunters were used with cut-down cabs (often 3 at a time!). The later class 08 conversions seemed to have a normal height bonnet with the cabs cut away at the sides & lowered roof to give a very different looking profile. Traffic was coal in hopper wagons so they weren't full height & doidn't need converting.

EDIT _ See halfway down this page http://www.nwrail.org.uk/nw0608g.htm

The Par line was very much more restricted, Judy & Alfred are very short in comparison to normal & they could only take open wagons through the restricted arch! See this page for height comparison http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_and_Judy_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1242573.jpg

 

 

[sn]

 

Here is a modified version of it with an added MPD.

 

I think the grade is workable without a restricted clearance. If you look at the plan, from point A to B is about 3.5 feet , if this drops about 2.0 inches in this length and the same again from B to C then there is a total drop in height between A and C of 4 inches and a grade of ...er 1 in 20?

 

As already suggested, maybe the main section could rise slightly from the fiddle yard to the yard proper in order to ease things all round.

 

Interesting suggestions from everyone so far. Yes I might lose the yard at X altogether

[ajdown]

For your little freight spur, the first thing I thought of was Marsh Barton in Exeter. Fire up Google Maps satellite view, follow the mainline south from Exeter St Davids and you'll see it branching off to the left.

[Huginn]

Depending on access and planned operating, why not keep Yard X as a scenic, non-operating section as some have suggested?

 

Re the limited clearance, well, if the line had been originally built as a narrow gauge - whether powered or a horse wagonway - there wouldn't have been the need for a std loading gauge...

 

Or keep the tunnel, but as a pedestrian access or an open sluice. Maybe put a canal in at a steeper angle and have any track in at X (a canal basin?) as a separate system?

[edcayton]

FWIW I think that having the yard at "X" is what makes the plan so interesting. I guess the thing to do is make a "model of the model" and see how it looks. I still like the limited clearance idea as that gives you an excuse for a unique/unusual loco or two. Remember, it's a fictitious location so you could "create" a cut-down loco of your choice if you are that way inclined. Nobody can tell you that you are wrong!

 

Ed

[Etched Pixels]

My own feeling on this would be to lose the grade. You don't need the lines to "join" on the visible part of the model so you can simply use a cassette or a vertically mobile siding in the fiddle yard - not very hard to do although do remember to put sides on the fiddle track !

[Dave777]

My thoughts on this are 'Where do you stand to operate it?'. To play about with Yard X and its attendant fiddleyard you really need to be over on the right hand side of the layout. For the rest of the layout, you really want to be standing on the left. If this is a one-man-bander, won't it be tricky to operate?

 

You could get rid of yard x and its fiddleyard, and instead curve the line that did lead to it under the fiddleyard so that it exits next to the MPD for a short distance (where the 8 foot marker is across the bottom of the plan) and then dives under it to emerge at Orrell Lane Sidings... which thus becomes Yard X. Now admitedly that's a fair sized run under the layout but there are no points so derailments would be minimal (I'd be wary of saying 'non-existent'!).

 

Oh here, I did a rough attempt:

 

 

If you still wanted to keep a second fiddleyard, you could always include a point in the short open bit and have a fiddleyard behind the Orrell Lane Sidings/new Yard x bit, although you'd need to shove this yard and the MPD in a bit towards the centre of the room to incorporate it.

 

This is probably also getting further away from the prototype (which I'm not familiar with), so may be just too much of a compromise. But from an operating standpoint the whole layout would then curve all around you...

 

 

[sn]

My thoughts on this are 'Where do you stand to operate it?'. To play about with Yard X and its attendant fiddleyard you really need to be over on the right hand side of the layout. For the rest of the layout, you really want to be standing on the left. If this is a one-man-bander, won't it be tricky to operate?

 

You could get rid of yard x and its fiddleyard, and instead curve the line that did lead to it under the fiddleyard so that it exits next to the MPD for a short distance (where the 8 foot marker is across the bottom of the plan) and then dives under it to emerge at Orrell Lane Sidings... which thus becomes Yard X. Now admitedly that's a fair sized run under the layout but there are no points so derailments would be minimal (I'd be wary of saying 'non-existent'!).

 

Oh here, I did a rough attempt:

 

 

If you still wanted to keep a second fiddleyard, you could always include a point in the short open bit and have a fiddleyard behind the Orrell Lane Sidings/new Yard x bit, although you'd need to shove this yard and the MPD in a bit towards the centre of the room to incorporate it.

 

This is probably also getting further away from the prototype (which I'm not familiar with), so may be just too much of a compromise. But from an operating standpoint the whole layout would then curve all around you...

 

That's an intersting take on it. Thanks.

 

Hmmmnnnnn