Docks and Holidays - First Layout

[Grimberian]

Hi All,

I am a complete newbie when it comes to all things railway modelling, but for a long time I have wanted to build a model that represents the dockside workings of my home town - Grimsby.

I have had a look through a number of old maps, books etc and the sheer amount of rail and freight running through the docks is incredible (or was, sad times).

 

Anyway, as I do not have the space to replicate any of the docks as they were, I am trying to put a layout that will represent the loading and unloading of the fishing trawlers, the lumber that was brought in, the enormous coal sidings etc.

 

I have put together the following layout idea on an 8' x 4'  template using SCARM (brilliant program when you get your head around it) and was wondering what people thought.

 

Operationally, this is what I am thinking:

 

The outer loop, partially obscured by a scenery board and some terraced workers houses (not shown) by the platform represents the passenger through traffic by the docks heading off to a destination such as Cleethorpes for a beach holiday.

 

This would run fairly continuously, and would occasionally be replaced in the fiddle yard by a loco bringing in either full or empty goods wagons to be filled / emptied on the dockside.

 

The goods wagons would enter the dock area by the platform points, where the appropriate wagons could be shunted around to get the right wagons to the right industry. 

 

A couple of bits I was thinking about: 1) the crossover by the timber yards would allow locos to drop wagons off at different merchants and still get back out.  Timber is the biggest industry, hence more sidings.  2) Fishing is in decline with fewer trawlers coming in, hence the rail services the short end of the docks.  3) The passenger platform would be accessible by a road, with car park / bus stop in the big empty space (I still need to think about this).  4) I know it looks like the outer loop goes straight into the water, but the docks use a swing-bridge, which I am hoping to represent - even if not in working order!

 

Anyway, I have a concept, I have a drawng, but will it work? It looks like the length of my trains will be limited to just a few wagons, but I wold welcome your opinions!

 

Kind Regards,

Paul

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[imt]

This looks nice but has a lot of problems in my opinion (but here is a saying "Rule 1 applies" - Rule one being its my railway and I do it my way!)

 

You need to think through HOW you will access all parts of your shunting puzzle, and how you will build/disassemble trains.

 

At the moment you have some very awkward accesses and nowhere to have exchange sidings (where the goods inwards/outwards can be manipulated).

 

A train arriving from left would go straight into your long curving head shunt - and then what?  Set back into the lower siding?  If you want to put vans into occupied spaces, you need to take what is there out first.  How do you do that?

 

If the train approaches from the right, it will have to set back into the head shunt.  Now the loco is at the wrong end for most of the shunting moves - except the kickback on the fish quay, but then if you go to get stuff from there where do you put it, since the head shunt is occupied with the train?  How big are your trains going to be? If you use small Class 05/08 shunters you might get 4 vans onto a double straight - but if you use bigger locos you will be limited.

 

You need to think about having a run round somewhere I think, so the loco can be released in some circumstances, or get to the right end of the train to draw it onto the main line.

 

If you want a continuous run that's fine - but if so I would suggest you ought to think of a loop so trains can pass behind your back scene or you can make up one train whilst the other is moving.

 

You have a very limited space which need not be a drag. Look at http://www.carendt.com/for some ideas.  There are some wonderful layouts in less space than you have.  To decide what to do you need to set out what you want to achieve first.

[Grimberian]

Hi imt,

Thans for your feedback, it is much appreciated.

So my original plan was to use the lower siding as storage when they first come in, so into the headshunt, then into the lower siding where they could be disassembled, and then delivered to the appropriate quay.

However, I see your point when arriving from the right, if I back into the headshunt, the loco can't really deliver anything without getting stuck at the end of a siding. Hmmm... I guess my original thinking was that all traffic would come from the left as that goes 'to the rest of the world'.

 

Perhaps I am using my space unwisely with regards to having the big loop the way I have it.

 

Time for a rethink.... with a way to keep my dockside quay shunting.  Perhaps I forget about the passenger trains completely?

 

Paul

[Chimer]

Well, you have got a run-round in the timber area, so it's not totally impossible to shunt the whole docks area, though everything's very tight.  It might be better to put the run-round on the two lower tracks there, leaving the road nearest the timber stacks clear of pointwork.  You need the run-round to be as long as possible - e.g. if you left it where it is, you could usefully move the crossover one straight to the left.

 

Inches will matter, and you could add inches to the sidings here and there by cutting Hornby settrack, or using Code 100 flexitrack for the straights.

 

A second track in the fiddle yard would be good if it could be squeezed in, and/or a cassette to enable you to switch a entire passenger train for a freight without fiddling about with individual items of stock, disentangling couplings etc.

 

Best of luck

 

Chris

[DCB]

I thin the basic concept of a dock inside an 8X4 oval is flawed, the dock will always be tiny and the track passing over the dock will always jar.

Your layout would be an absolute nightmare to shunt especially the dockside bit, and three wagons or so at a time is more some tiny Cornish quay where they export tin and import Brandy

 

Probably a U shaped end to end on 8X4 would work but I would forget set track points and wide track spacing and squeeze the sidings closer with Streamline .  Fish Vans were often arranged 3 deep at the quaysides with planks between their doors so the outer ones could be loaded through the inners,  Should be looking at 40 mm track centres  to get the right look.   The GC had bogie Fish Vans before WW2

[imt]

It might be better to move the dock side to the edge of the board - you could perhaps recess the edge by a couple of inches and use (say) Scalescenes dock edge to make it look like the viewer is in a boat in the dock.

 

Other ideas include the fact that you need 18" on at least 2 sides to operate a solid 8 by 4 baseboard - better if you have access all the way round - think about reach.  Also is this to be fixed or movable?  Will you be able to lift 8 by 4 with track on it?  If you are to have it made up of smaller sections then you need to know where the joins are cos you don't want to design points across them now do you?

 

Some have suggested in other threads that since you must have the access then you set it up as a hollow 9'6" by 6'6" (or bigger if you can mange the space) where you operate from the middle and the boards are say 18"/2' wide. Don't get tempted to be wider unless there is no track to reach.

[imt]

 

 

The point I was trying to make may show up in this sketch - by the way the size is 9'6" by 5'6".

 

As you may see - if you use the minimum access space of 18" on 2 sides to create a hollow layout, you could have a layout space of 36 sq. ft with an internal operating area of 6' by 2'6" and easy reach as opposed to 32 sq ft with access problems.

 

Obviously available space will rule, but think out of the box (literally!).

[Grimberian]

Hi All,

 

Thanks for the feedback, though I fear it may be a back to the drawing board on this one

 

IMT - with regards to reach, the set up will be in the middle of a spare room that is also my comic / games room, so access all round is not a problem, my room, my layout! (Don't tell the missus).

 

I must admit, the idea of the dock being at the side of the board was considered, as a drop off, or a section cut into the corner of the board, I just initially liked the idea of having access to two sides accessible as different industries, this was close to the original maps I had.

 

I guess I was trying to do too much too soon with the space I have.  David - Thanks for the blunt opinion

 

Paul

[Zomboid]

If you've got a whole room to play with, which you also want to use for other purposes, then the best solution IMO is a relatively narrow shelf around the whole room. You'll get a longer run, and railways tend to be linear.

8x4 is fine for a lot of purposes, but it's a big lump to live with but doesn't allow a vast amount of realism.

[Grimberian]

Hi All,

Again, thanks to everyone for their previous comments, it has all made me focus on what i really want to do - DavidCBroad, you were right, the track over the dock di start to jar when I tried to explain it someone else

I have completely revamped the layout, to concentrate on the industry that is going on around the docks,  some shunting movement and space for trains of wagons (hopefully with the run arounds for the locos to be able to move).

 

I have decided to remove the dock from the actual track baseboard.  This will be a separate board that hooks onto the long side of the baseboard opposite the fiddle yard will contain the warehouses and a drop off docks to represent the lower water level (thanks imt).  This gives me more track space to work with - it is shown on the main baseboard as a reference point.

 

So now we have the fishing and timber industries getting a decent amount of sidings each with a  good length (in my opinion), while still allowing the locos to get in and out.

 

Fiddle yard has been improved to allow building of trains off the main run.

 

Again, opinions appreciated, I think I am slowly start to consolidate my ideas, but I am still a bit green when it comes to designing the run arounds etc.

 

All the best,

 

Paul

 

[ForestPines]

Knowing the area you're trying to represent fairly well, I have a couple of comments.

 

Firstly, if you look at original plans of the sections of Grimsby docks where the timber yards were - around where Sainsburys is now, or the area between Corporation Rd and Alexandra Dock - you'll see the sidings were very far apart, with lots of space for timber storage inbetween. I'd at least remove the middle one of your three timber sidings. Moreover I think you're going to have problems shunting those sidings because of how they are accessed through the kickback.

 

The coal sidings also look rather awkward to work with those short run-rounds. The dedicated coal sidings in Grimsby docks were for ship bunker coal, and tended to receive full trains directly.

[Grimberian]

Good Evening

You are right, the coal sidings are awkward, and the curves using R1 track are not really appropriate for some of the trains that would have been passing through (my K1 has a min 438 radius which would look awkward with a minimum 438mm radius).

Thanks for the comments, it is appreciated.  I have finally come to the conclusion with everyones help here that what I am trying to accomplish just isn't going to happen in the space I have available.

So, I cant do what I was originally planning, I need to take this back to the drawing board and come up with something much simpler.

 

I have a fantastic book Railways of Grimsby, Immingham and Lincolnshire which I have been looking through and the whole area deals with enormous sidings and huge amounts of wagons which is going to be difficult to represent accurately.  I still want to do something based on my hometown docks, can it be done?

 

All the best,

Paul

[ForestPines]

I have seen a tiny shunting puzzle layout in P4 (4mm/ft scale, 18.83mm track) which represented Grimsby fish docks. It was very simple and straightforward - quayside at the front of the layout, warehouses at the back - but definitely captured the atmosphere of the area.

 

Of course - on the other hand - you wouldn't see a K1 on the quaysides.

 

Have you thought about avoiding the quaysides themselves and doing somthing like, say, a slice from New Clee in steam days - passenger trains in the foreground, endless trip movements of fish wagons behind, the big brick road bridge as a scenic break? Even the main line near there had some nastily sharp curves due to the way Fish Dock 2 was extended southwards.

[Grimberian]

That is a very interesting idea, so almost a layered approach to the scene, I really like that, could be good.

 

Thanks for your input, I will see what I can come up with

 

(The K1 was used as a mixed freight / passenger that would pass through Grimsby Town station, I bought it because I like the look of it, and then tried to strong arm it into my designs, I am looking at some J94s which hauled freight in the mid to late 50s for my shunting bit I think).

 

Cheers,

Paul

[Grimberian]

So on my millionth layout, and I think this is what I am going to run with, thank you all for your help and avice, some of it I have used, some of it I will use next time

 

I figured I cannot accurately portray a section of real rail like I want to, so I am improvising.  I remember seeing a TV program about the old landscape painters of big cities like Paris and Venice, who, if they could not find the 'shot' they wanted, just moved landmarks a bit closer to each other.

 

That's what I have done.  I have a docks station which would see traffic coming and going as excursions to the seaside and good traffic to the docks passing through in the bottoms left so I can have my excursion trains going round and back and forth, and I have the taken an old goods storage yard that would have been further back on the line and moved it a bit closer.  The backdrop will be the gas works that sat behind the goods yard originally.

 

I have worked through in my head how all the shunting to / from the yard on each direction track would work, and it does with a bit of to-ing fro-ing, which is how the goods yard must have worked back in the day as there are pretty much no run-arounds in it.

 

I have laid some of the track on my board, and it is a lot more generous than this image looks, so should be interesting.  I am sure things may be tweaked along the way, but at least I can make a start with something I like.  Shame the docks had to go, but I will still get the feel of the place with the excursions and the goods in the background.  Oh,a nd I will probably make the  ain station a  bit longer too now.

 

Now to see if it can actually be wired in... I have three controllers, One to use for the outer loop, one for the inner loop, and one to use in the yard while trains are going round and round, but that's a story for another day (and another forum!)

 

Thanks again,

Paul

 

 

[Chimer]

I'm not sure you want to hear anything more - but having read the notes to the right of your diagram .....

 

The outer circuit should run clockwise and the inner circuit anti-clockwise.  That's just the way it is.  It shouldn't affect your basic operational plans.

 

It would be quite prototypical if the yard was only served by anti-clockwise freights, steaming past and reversing in from the right-hand side.  You then wouldn't actually need a run-round loop at all, or the access from the left-hand side, but in any case one run-round loop is plenty.

 

You are going to foul the inner circuit while shunting the yard unless you only shunt one or two trucks at a time.  If you take the siding fan off a left-hand point replacing the short curved track at the right-hand end of the run-round loop (accepting the sidings will be shorter), and put another left-hand point where the right-hand point that currently feeds the fan is sitting, you could have a reasonably long headshunt curving round inside the inner circuit.

 

There are better (if slightly more complicated) ways of sorting out your controllers than restricting each controller to a different bit of the layout and passing trains from one controller to another when they cross section breaks.  Can explore that further if you want (here or over in the electrics forum).

 

All the best

 

Chris

[Grimberian]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your post. I will change the inner and outer loop directions, no issues there.

I will lose the left hand access to in that case then, will make things a little easier to put track down.

Could you put up an image of what you mean with regards to the sidings, it's been a long day

 

Appreciate your comments as always!

 

Paul

[Chimer]

Quick and dirty, not necessarily exactly to scale for your boards, and uses Peco (Settrack and flexi) 'cos that's what my Xtrackcad is set up for.  I have also reversed one of the crossovers in your station (meaning you could stop a train there, reverse it, running round if necessary, and leave on the correct track) and you might want to do the same in your fiddle yard for the same reason.  And I have angled the sidings because I think it looks better, and gives you a few more inches (but may not work with your scenic intentions).

 

 

Cheers

 

Chris

 

 

[Grimberian]

ah yes, gotcha.

I have added the headshunt, but left the yard angles as it was originally, mostly for my scenery plans.

 

I would be interested to hear your comments on the electrics (although i don't want to feel like I am monopolising you in this thread!) wth the controllers, ideally I am looking to have the outer loops separate to the shunting yard so I can run trains o all 3 independently and under control - i.e. being able to move some wagons around while the holiday trains are running the outer loop with the odd freight train taking their place.

 

All the best,

Paul

[Chimer]

No problems .... have a look at my post 165 here which sets out the basics of DC "Cab Control", the first bit is layout-specific but the rest is general:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/105163-rmw-works-finally-a-loco-has-been-seen-running/page-7

 

In your case I think you need 5 sections, the top and bottom halves of the two loops and the yard.  The break on the right-hand side of the inner circuit needs to be below the point giving access to the yard.  Because you want 3 controllers, the DPDT switches need to be replaced by double-pole rotary switches with preferably at least 4 positions - 1 for each controller and an "off" position.  So to begin with you would have the two halves of the outer circuit on controller 1, the two halves of the inner on C2, and the yard on C3, and be running two trains round and shunting the yard.

 

Operationally things are very fiddly, because you are very short of places where you can hold trains, but apply a wet towel and read on ....

 

When you want to bring a train out of the yard, park the train on the inner circuit in the station (bottom half), switch the top half of the inner circuit to C3, and drive the train from the yard into the FY using C3.  You could then (for instance) park the train on the outer circuit in the station, switch the top half of this circuit to C3 too, and shuffle the ex-yard train onto the outer circuit.  Switch the top half of the inner circuit and the yard to C2, and you can get the train parked on the inner circuit into the yard.  Now either use C3 on the two top half sections to move the ex-yard train back onto the inner circuit, or C1 on the two bottom half sections to shift the train parked on the outer circuit  across to the inner, running round if necessary, and you are back to the original situation of a train on each line and one in the goods yard.  Each train has belonged to its original controller the whole time.

 

If you restricted the 3 controllers to the individual circuits and the yard, you would still have to set up isolated sections where you could hold a train on one circuit while moving another across to join it, and would then have the issue of bouncing a train from one controller to another, matching the speed settings etc.  It could still be done, but in my opinion it would be much messier.

 

Typing all this, however, I'm beginning to think that this is one layout that would be much simpler to operate using DCC ("drive the locos not the tracks")..... but that's outside my personal experience and you haven't suggested that you want to go down that route.  But there are lots of people on here to help if you do ......

 

More questions than answers!!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Grimberian]

Hi,

Sorry for such a late repy, my head exploded.

Well that all sounds massively complicated hahah

Will have to go over that a few times, I have never dealt with that type of switch.  Isolating sections I had already thought about, so that's floating around in my head currently, I will need to start putting down a  wiring diagram.

I think I will concentrate on getting the rest of the track bought and temporarily in position before attempting any of that.

And you are right, wasnt planning on DCC, it might be suitable for this layout, but actually I really like the idea of the analog setup, like I used to have when I was a kid.

Cheers,

Paul

[Grimberian]

Right, just wanted to post a fairly small update, for my sake more than anything else, to keep me going.

 

I have started to get together all the bits of track that I need and laying it temporarily to see what operation is like.  I also have a couple of trains running, and the sidings seem to do their job.

 

I have decided to remove the run around on the bottom of the sidings as may have been suggested previosuly, which gives me a bit more space for scenery at the back of what will be the station; it wasnt really needed, and if I move a train from the outer to the inner goods line I can use the runaround at the station to get the loco in the right place.

 

So a couple of fairly underwhelming photos compared to some updates, but this is where I am for now until I get the rest of the wood for the baseboard, the remaining track and my electrics started.

 

(quick note: I am still waiting on a few bits of track to complete the sidings to full length, and add the last crossovers at the top in what will be the fiddle yard)

 

Cheers, and thanks for all the help so far.

Paul

 

 

 

Edit - Looks like the Apple upside down photos are showing up again...

[Chimer]

Hi Paul, I'm glad you're making progress and finding it seems to work for you operationally.  A couple of comments: that S-bend into the top (bottom??) siding looks a bit strange, but maybe won't when there's a building or something to avoid.  And if that point facing the opposite direction at the end of the yard sidings fan is going to lead to a kick-back siding, you won't be able to shunt waggons into it without the yard run-round loop.  But if you're just going to use it to stable a loco, that'll be fine.

 

I still think the sidings would look better on the diagonal, though!!

 

Cheers

 

Chris

[Grimberian]

Hi,

That extra point on the top of the fan siding shouldnt be there, I was trying to work out where the last siding would go, and that was the closest thing to a curve I had handy.

And the S-Bend - there should be another point there, with another siding where the packets of stuff are that leads to a loco shed now (I am getting rid of the station, its all goods in this area now after doing a it more reading and decision making)

This image is the old Grimsby Gas Works which I am using for my inspiration - I know a really long end to end layout would work well here, but that's a compromise I am happy to make here for some roundy roundy goods action.

 

 

 

[Chimer]

Coo! I can actually see your track layout in the middle there, even the little short siding between the other roads !

 

Maybe your curves are just a tiny bit tighter .........