Deneside - BR North Eastern Region

[Brian D]

Brian

 

Could you use a ring spanner to hold the screwdriver bit? Possibly even a ratchet one? You could wedge some foam in the gap between the back of the spanner/bit and the opposite cassette wall to stop the spanner sliding off the bit and you may need a narrow spacer below the bit to keep it more or less level.

Hi Ray,

Yes, part way through I thought of that and searched my spanner and socket collection for something the driver bit might fit.  It transpires that an 8mm spanner is too big and a 6 mm too small and I don't have a 7 mm.

Anyway, job completed this afternoon.

Thanks again for your comments.

Regards,

Brian.

[Brian D]

Brian, that's a brilliant solution to a major potential hazard, very neat mate, well done that man.   :locomotive:    

Hi Andy,

I trust you are well and not forcing the pace too much.

Thanks again for the earlier prompt to fit these arrestors - it had been nagging at me despite no accidents so far.

All the very best,

Brian.

[Les1952]

Just a thought- given the number of ex-rope worked inclines used by NCB locos in the NE, is there room for a sharply curved line with a silly gradient to take your J94s (with only a couple of hoppers each time) ABOVE the fiddle yard?  It would only need a single track at the top and this could be behind the cassette yards.  Would also add an overbridge on the skew.

 

Les

[Brian D]

Just a thought- given the number of ex-rope worked inclines used by NCB locos in the NE, is there room for a sharply curved line with a silly gradient to take your J94s (with only a couple of hoppers each time) ABOVE the fiddle yard?  It would only need a single track at the top and this could be behind the cassette yards.  Would also add an overbridge on the skew.

 

Les

Interesting suggestion, Les.  Something to ponder. Thanks again for your interest in my ramblings.

Regards,

Brian

Edited April 6, 2015 by Brian D

[Brian D]

There will now be a short intermission.

The smallest bedroom (approx 9 x 9 ft) recently vacated by my eldest daughter requires redecorating to turn it into a guest bedroom and sewing room apparently.  This was the room I had hoped to turn into my railway room about 10 years ago.  How did this happen? 

Oh well, at least I've got my shed 

So reconfiguring the shed might be on the back burner for a few days but I'm still using the AnyRail software to design the new layout, the most recent variant of which designs is as follows, having reverted to a double track arrangement, perhaps justifying some bigger engines (A1, A2, A3 etc) albeit with not many carriages in tow.

Got the paint and wall paper and the new bedroom carpet is being fitted Friday week (the key end date for all redecorating activity).  So, hopefully plenty of time to sort out the new guest bedroom and a bit of in between work on the shed reconfiguration and layout design as well.

Regards,

Brian.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Brian D

[Les1952]

You have room to the left right (the other left...) of the turntable to add a road with an ashpit and possibly a small coal stage above it- shovel on-and-off type i.e. the job given to the shed employee who had upset the foreman....  Water cranes at the entrance to the locoshed?

 

More of a problem is the facing slip before the fiddle yard.  Weren't these avoided like the plague wherever possible?  Certainly the Midland had none at all and the others very few.

 

Just a few thoughts.

Les

Edited April 6, 2015 by Les1952

[Brian D]

Thanks,  Les - still some tweaks to be done around the loco depot.  What I'm also considering is lowering the small board I made recently (this board is located to the immediate left of the corner loco depot board shown in red on the plan and extends to the thick red line) to create a bridge over either a river or a townscape.   The bridge would have to be an arch to accommodate point motors for the two points at this location.  By creating this "valley" there would not be much room for a kick back from the turntable.

The single slip is a space saver - not sure if there is room to leave it out without reducing fiddle yard length (and therefore train lengths).

Quarts into pint pots as usual.

Thanks again for your keen observations.

Regards,

Brian.

[Ray H]

Brian

 

I wonder how you'll fair reaching over the branch station to get to the cassettes? The perceived backscene between the fiddle yard and the branch station looks even close to the back of the platform (if there is one) than it does on my planned layout.

 

Could you replace the slip with a plain crossing and have a parallel point on the inside of the existing one that you may be able to connect via a curved point positioned between the crossing and the first point in the station?

[Clive Mortimore]

I think you have two options.

 

1, Flip the single slip 180 degrees. This will turn it into a trailing crossover. You will then need to enter the small yard by reversing off the line into the station. This would be more prototypical. I will say with the configuration it is going to be a pig to shunt.

 

2, Scrap the small yard as not to worry about the entrance/exit from it and it will not get in the way of the fiddle yard. From my own operating experience such add-ons are rarely used and cause more problems than they are worth.

[Les1952]

Another spanner thought..

 

Would the shed work if the running lines were routed behind it?

 

Les

[mightbe]

I would check the usable platform lengths--right now the tracks themselves are shortish, and that means the platforms will have to be very short.

[Brian D]

Ray, Clive, Les & "mightbe",

Thanks so much for your comments.  After a hard days decorating (ceiling painted one coat of matt white emulsion (finished) and woodwork painted two coats of gloss white (hopefully finished)) I have spent the last hour or so tinkering on AnyRail to try to address some of the issues you have kindly raised.

The single slip has been eradicated and the principal structures and baseboard configurations added - thank you again for taking the time to read my ramblings and make keen and sensible comments.

The traffic into the "branch off the branch" terminus will be (passenger) a tank engine hauled two or three coach train or a dmu and (goods) pickup goods.  The passenger service will be a shuttle from the main terminus and the pick up goods will also arrive from that direction and take wagons back to the main terminus for shunting prior to a goods departure to the fiddle yard.

The platform at the small terminus will indeed back onto the backscene separation to the fiddle yard.  I will obviously have to lean over this small terminus but I may devise some sort of protection for use when "fiddling the yard".

Here therefore is the latest version.

Regards,

Brian.

[Les1952]

Hello again.  If the road to the right of the turntable was straight and headed into the corner of the board it would be a few millimetres longer- not a lot but maybe the difference between a K1 and a B1.

 

Hope this helps.

Les

[Brian D]

Hello again.  If the road to the right of the turntable was straight and headed into the corner of the board it would be a few millimetres longer- not a lot but maybe the difference between a K1 and a B1.

 

Hope this helps.

Les

Thanks again Les.  Yes, I think there is still a little wriggle room in that corner.  What I'll probably do before committing to actual track laying is to print the AnyRail plan full size (lots of A4 sheets to glue together), lay it out and put locos, stock, structures, etc on the plan to see how it looks.

Regards,

Brian.

[Zomboid]

Hi Brian,

Interesting thread to read. A slightly left-field idea, why not reverse the branch and staging yard, so that the off-scene is in front of the terminus. Would work better if you could get a bit of a height difference, so observing the branch would mean looking over the stored stock. And assuming of course that you're not intending a lot of big-hand-in-the-sky shunting at the terminus...

Rich

Edited April 9, 2015 by Zomboid

[Brian D]

Hi Brian,

Interesting thread to read. A slightly left-field idea, why not reverse the branch and staging yard, so that the off-scene is in front of the terminus. Would work better if you could get a bit of a height difference, so observing the branch would mean looking over the stored stock. And assuming of course that you're not intending a lot of big-hand-in-the-sky shunting at the terminus...

Rich

Hi Rich and thanks for taking the time to check out my ramblings.  I also apologise for the late response - see my following post.

Your's is an interesting suggestion and has given me pause for thought but I'm not sure I have the space to generate the gradients required to develop the changes in relative levels required, given the need to potentially stack cassettes one on top of another which I have been experimenting with - see below.

Regards,

Brian.

[Brian D]

Decorating almost complete.  Wallpapered this afternoon - just a few bits of paintwork to be touched up.

Hopefully, later in the week, I can start to reconfigure the shed 

Regards,

Brian.

[Brian D]

Well, the bedroom has now been fully decorated by yours truly with some assistance from SWMBO and the sun is shining here in Thameside Essex.  So, the shed has been partly emptied so I can reconfigure the current arrangements.  This morning, the existing layout and (new) fiddle yard have been broken down and re-erected on the other side of the shed.  This afternoon, I'll check that all is well on the existing layout and erect the (loft) boards on the opposite side of the shed.  Hopefully, a photo or two to follow later.

Regards,

Brian.

[Andrew P]

Sounds good Brian, I'm looking forward to seeing the picks later.

 

All the best mate.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Just come upon this thread. Have you got an odd size of shed? 10'6 seems a strange internal dimension.

 

Generally I like the design but not ideal that incoming trains run so far wrong line from the facing crossover. I can see that it is tricky due to space issues but perhaps better to use a double-slip in the station throat and shunt goods trains with a pilot?

 

And the entry onto the branch seems to have become a bit over complicated. Is the branch station going to be modelled as a terminus or a fake through station?

[Brian D]

Sounds good Brian, I'm looking forward to seeing the picks later.

 

All the best mate.

Thanks, Andy.  I'm just about to post some pics.

Regards,

Brian.

[Brian D]

Just come upon this thread. Have you got an odd size of shed? 10'6 seems a strange internal dimension.

 

Generally I like the design but not ideal that incoming trains run so far wrong line from the facing crossover. I can see that it is tricky due to space issues but perhaps better to use a double-slip in the station throat and shunt goods trains with a pilot?

 

And the entry onto the branch seems to have become a bit over complicated. Is the branch station going to be modelled as a terminus or a fake through station?

Hi Joseph_Pestell,

Thanks for dropping in and your comments which I will address in the order raised.

• The shed is a nominal 11 ft x 7 ft measured externally as all sheds appear to be.  It was the biggest I could dare get away with in my very small back garden.  After insulating it and lining out, the internal usable space ended up 10 ft 6 inches x 6 ft 6 inches.  I would advise anyone buying a shed to knock 6 inches off the quoted lengths and breadths when considering the internal usable space.
• Not all arrivals will "run so far wrong line".  Those arriving at the two upper platform faces will run "right line".  Those arriving "wrong line" are destined for the third platform face and the goods arrival road - can't be helped but the length of apparent "wrong line" running is not too long and within the station confines in my view and therefore acceptable.
• The branch junction was the subject of a redesign following contributions from fellow RMWebbers in earlier posts - see above.  The secondary station is meant to be a terminus.  I may yet look again at the junction configuration once I have printed the plan full size and laid it in position in the shed.  I have also yet to consider acceptable means of masking the fiddle yard at its entry point.  My initial idea was a skew over line bridge at the fiddle yard entry, the road it carries giving access to the secondary station but I'm not sure there is room.

Regards,

Brian.

[Brian D]

So, considerable progress today.  You may recall the shed used to look like this.

As mentioned earlier, the existing layout has now been moved to the opposite wall and the "loft" boards erected in its place thus...

...and thus.

At this point I could not resist printing part of the AnyRail plan full size (lots of A4 sheets glued together) and laying it out thus...

...and thus.

Getting there - slowly.

Regards,

Brian

[AireValley1962]

Nice work.  Forgive me for being a bit thick, but you would apparently NOT be using the terminus that you already have as the new terminus, correct?

[Brian D]

Nice work.  Forgive me for being a bit thick, but you would apparently NOT be using the terminus that you already have as the new terminus, correct?

Hi AireValley1962,

You are correct in your assumption... I think  .  The English language can be a b*gger at times!

 

The shed currently contains a fold up, demountable layout I previously had in a bedroom (which I refer to in this thread as my "Existing Layout"),  This layout, as soon as the shed was delivered, erected and insulated etc., was relocated from the bedroom to the shed and erected in its unfolded usable position in early December or thereabouts.  It has since been subjected to a make over as described above in previous posts.

 

Alas, the "Existing Layout" was inadvertently erected on the wrong side of the shed with regards to the current proposed plan for the "New Layout" and the decision to use existing baseboards retrieved from the loft.

 

At some point in time in the future the "Existing Layout" will have to be removed from the shed to enable the completion of the "New Layout".  The existing terminus therefore will form no part of the new proposal (unless I change my mind  ).  The existing terminus has merely been shifted out of the way to enable the new one to be built.

 

I hope that clarifies matters.  If not, please come back.

 

Regards,

Brian.