Ian_H

Hi. Ian

 

The letter indicates the length of the planing on the switch rails

 

The number indicates the diverging angle of the switch at the crossover (frog)

 

Switch                      Deflection            Planing                4mm/ft

Size                          Angle                   Length                 scale length

 

A             9ft              1:24                     66"                       22mm

B            12ft             1:32                     88"                       29.3mm

C            15ft             1:40                     110"                     36.7mm

D            18ft             1:48                     132"                     44mm

E            24ft             1:64                     176"                     58.7mm

F            30ft             1:80                     220"                     73.3mm

 

Hope this helps

 

Ron

Hi Ron

Thank you for the information. That is very clear, I've done a number of searches to find this info without success, so once again thank you.

Ian

The letters represent the length of the switch

 

Ron

By length of the switch do you mean the total length of the Turnout or perhaps the total length of the switch rail? and how does A compare to B or C or D etc.

Thanks

Ian

Hi, Ian

 

The layout has to have hand-built trackwork, as the complex curved multiple turnouts and slips cannot be reproduced in any other way. Most are C8 through to D12

 

 

Ron

Hi Ron,

Thanks for that, as I said earlier, I'm really looking forward to see what you produce.

May I ask, my education is certainly lacking, what do the letters stand for ie C8, D12? I understand, or think I do, what the numbers represent 1 in 8 and 1 in 12 but I've haven't been able to work out what the letter refers to ....... I'm sure I'm going to kick my self in a bit

Regards

I think you are mistaken, I can't see where Ron is supposed to have bitten you?

 

Mind you, if you haven't read all the pages, you have missed out on some epic modelling.

 

Andy G

I agree with you Andy, looking back and reading the response from Ron, I think it's clear that Ron hasn't intended any offence. The thing is that in some areas of this interweb thingy, if you type in Bold characters, I mean - if you type in Bold characters, it can be seen as shouting or being abrupt. Maybe that's the cause of rannorgana taking offence and perhaps we should all be aware of how easily people can be offended!

Keep up the good work Ron, I'm really looking forward to the start of track laying, I'm assuming that you will be building your own track work, almost sure that I read that way back when!

Ian

edited to add the bold characters for emphasis, and I had to get my dictionary out for that .... totally word blind! and its alright using a dictionary as long as you know the first few letters but I was trying to spell emphasis with a 'v' or an 'f' .. no hope

Hi Gordon

Great to have you back, I've been dropping in to the Eastwood Town thread every now and then to see what's happening. I can totally relate with the problems of motivation and some time its best to take a brake Break.

It's good news that you're to start on the terminus, is this the modified Bastille plan that you worked on last summer? wonderful design. Good luck

Ian

Edited for typo error due to faulty keyboard     .... that's my excuse anyway!

Hi Steve

Congratulations to the whole team on a fascinating/fantastic model. Very inspirational in the attention to details from the modelling of the buildings, structures (that roofs' amazing) and track plan together with operational procedures, traverser and the electronics behind it. I've also been following your thread on semaphore signals, great stuff .... I really must pull my finger out and get on with building my own layout rather than fantasising about it. Nevertheless I have a couple of question that hopefully you could enlighten me with.

With regard to the traverser is this pivoted at one end or does the whole thing move side to side?

Where about is the steam plant located for the coal train that you mentioned a couple of posts ago.

thanks

Ian

Hi Jonte,

Here's a link to Bradfield Gloucester Square:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/28198-bradfield-gloucester-square-br-1962-ish/

There are also videos that the Laird has made that covers operational movements over a 24hrs period ...... fantastic stuff, at least in my humble opinion.

Could always look at Bradfield for inspiration, a small mainline terminus or the real thing Bradford Foster Square and do remember that across the city is the Interchange that replaced the old Exchange station.

Ian

Edited for typo errors, damn keyboard

Glasgow's St Enoch;

it's a long way from the idea of a Minories track plan

However you could consider the 1910 version;

Ian

As promised for those who asked, here are some images of the underside of board E. Hopefully this makes it clearer how the legs are attached/unattached.

 

image002.jpgimage003.jpgimage001.jpg

Hi John,

Thanks for the photographs, a picture paints a thousand words ...... who loves ye baby (I know it's a bread song but I always remember Telly Savalas' version first). anyway once again thanks for the photos.

Ian

Board E.jpg

 

One down - nine to go!!

Hi John

Following with great interest, as I did with Bradfield, any chance of a photograph from the underside?

And why aren't you exhibiting yet? :no:

Ian

I knew a nurse who always reckoned she could tell the age of a guy by the size of the balls he played with? Make of it what you will, anybody up for a game of basketball?

 I seem to remember that in the late 70s, early 80s the Inter-City 125 Leeds/Kings Cross service was a sub 2hrs service. The line isn’t able to maintain such a service any more but it is a little ironic that by 2033, 55 years after the introduction of the 125 service we will have a service that is at best 10mins faster!

Come on guys it’s his first post, has been a member for less than 48hrs, sure a poor choice of words but give the guy a break. So he’s ripped up his own layout but that can’t be purely on the build quality of Eastwood Town can it? And would it adversely affect you if you learned that somebody withdrew from the hobby because they couldn’t achieve the quality of your model making … be sensible!

Ian

Hi Gordon, Just a thought, is it feasible to turn the fiddle yard 90° and position it under the MPD that way you could get at it from both sides and the loops could be moved further out giving more run length. Also, for emergency access, since height may be restrictive under the MPD you could always reinstate that superb traverser that you built earlier.

Ian

Hi Gordon,

I’ve watched the Eastwood Town thread for a couple of years now and of course in that time you had some difficulties with your back so I understood you’re going away from the Eastwood Town terminus with all the different gradients but before leaving the terminus we had the roundabout on the dining room table – I liked that idea although I’d have been lynched if I’d done that! but you eventually decided on a revision of Eastwood town to a through station which I thoroughly enjoyed watching your progress, all that you do is immensely interesting/inspiring but I always thought your heart wasn’t in “a roundy round” and when I saw your posts on the Minories thread I kept checking the Eastwood Town thread to see what was happening. I didn’t want to post anything, to pre-empt what you were doing but anything you do I want to see and I’m not alone in that, what with some 1024 post and 140,000+ views of this thread I think there’s one or two more modellers of the same mind.

At the moment it seems that you’re not sure what to do, continue with the through station or revert to a terminus as before Eastwood Town but revised à la’Bastille, I guess it’s back to first principles and what did you want from your model railway? The original Eastwood Town, by that I mean the one from the beginning of this thread that I’m familiar with that gave you a roundy round with a destination, being the terminus. Lots of modellers build roundy rounds with a junction station feeding a terminus. If you’re of that mind, is it possible to convert the existing Eastwood Town station to a junction and have a terminus on the opposite wall, alternatively let the goods loop feed the terminus.

Only ideas Gordon, apologies if I’ve over stepped the mark.

Best regards

Ian

which means gradients and I've had my fingers burned there, either with the complexity of construction or steam locos failing to climb the gradient.

 

I understand the difficulties in constructing the gradient but did you also have difficulties with the steam locos hauling the train up a 1:100 .... if so I'll have to revise my plans

The issue here is that the most you could gain is 70mm clearance and with Tortoise motors taking 85mm, it needs a lot of very careful planning to ensure there are no clash points under the terminus.

 

I see that you made some experiments with remote cabling for the tortoise motors, wire in a tube a bit like the brakes on a push bike, were they successful? Another idea is to use servos which seem to be gaining a popularity, much smaller than the Tortoise motors and heck of siight cheaper, I don't know if you have considered thier use?

For myself, I'm awhile a way from starting to construct my own layout. I started a loft conversion a couple of months ago. I thought at 8.3 x 4m it would make an ideal railway room, unfortunately with Fire Regs I can't have it as open plan as I proposed, so now it will be divided and used as additional bedrooms which I don't need so the cunning plan is a Home Cinema and the railway room will end up back in the room above the garage.

Regards

Ian

This has been a very interesting subject, even if it has strayed far from the original query. Having viewed it up to now as a guest, I just joined RMWeb so I could make a small contribution.

 

My strong impression is that track plans were rarely elegant on the real thing - especially at places where the station had been substantially expanded to cope with additional traffic. Some, like Euston, were a complete mess. It was rare to have the opportunity to completely remodel a station's trackwork in the steam era. Many were modified in a fairly higgledy-piggledy way.

 

St Enoch was effectively 2 stations side by side, so could be reduced by a third or so for modelling purposes without losing the atmosphere of the original. It would still be very large though. The northern-most 2 platforms (platforms 1 and 2) would make an interesting model in themselves. They appear to have been designed for 2 trains to use each platform without impeding each other - a feature rarely modelled. Here is an extract of the signal and track plan from around 1900.

 

 

Whilst large termini are exciting to contemplate, they require a huge amount of effort to operate - far more in the realm of a group than an individual - especially in the steam era, when there would be lots of light engine movements on top of the service itself. Even platforms one and two on their own would require a lot of concentrated effort to work realistically.

Hi Orinoco

And welcome to the forum. The plan of St Enoch’s is very interesting and has caused me to look further. A LMS signalling plan for 1932 may be of interest from the following web address http://www.wbsframe.mste.co.uk/public/Glasgow_PWI.html

Regards

Ian

Thanks David, I'm Gordon by the way not Mike, but no offence taken....

 

Your original picture started out as a challenge for me, as so often original plans mean so much compromise be it in overall length or turnout radii. I've been battling away for years between a through station with shorter platforms or a terminus that will take 7/8/9 coach trains but at the cost of losing continuous running without bringing gradients into play. Add to that 3' minimum radii turnouts and a modest 18' to play with in overall length and most plans have been doomed to failure from the outset.

 

Perhaps it was the elegance of the original layout or the sheer enginuity of the design that motivated me to open up Templot again. For some reason, it all slotted into place in an hour or two whereas previous designs have had to go in the bin after three or four weeks concentrated effort to accommodate the fundamental design. That's the plus side....

 

The down side is that all the turmoil of previous layout builds have returned with the compromises that have been made.

 

The demons are saying 'go on build it'.....you know you want to....

Hi Gordon

I hope Mike doesn’t mind me hijacking his thread but I’ve got to say that I like what you’ve done with the Bastille plan and of course I’ve read with great interest your progress with Eastwood Town and whereas I liked what you were doing with the terminus I understand your move to the current project with a through station, you have acquired some beautiful station buildings that deserve to be shown off to their best potential and that’s probably with a through station but for myself, like Mike, I’m interested in a terminus station but particularly the station throat. I have a similar space to yours (18 x 17½) and propose to build the bulk of the train shed/platforms area on a 90° curve. A 4ft (or maybe 3½ft) rad = approx. 6ft circumference and if I have say a couple of ft of straight platform before the curve with a road bridge above the platforms à la John Elliott’s/The Laird’s Bradfield Gloucester Square then I should be able to get a seven or eight coach train in that space.

Of course the platform/train shed on the other side of the road bridge is off scene and doesn’t need to be built phew! This could allow more space for the approach roads to be modelled, although what I really like the idea of, and have thought about it for some time, as Orinoco has shown with St Enoch’s, is a terminus Junction.

Regards

Ian

Hi Mike,

This is a very interesting thread, for which I thank you. Of course it seems to have gone a long way from the Minories track plan that you required but a lot of interest and useful information being supplied.

I know that you originally asked for the Minories track plan but would something similar be of interest such as John Elliott’s/The Laird’s Bradfield Gloucester Square? It is only a couple of ft longer than what you have and such a design may be able to fit into your space if suitably trimmed. It also has a lot of operational interest with shunting of stock etc. If by chance you were interested in copying his design it could be an idea as well as polite to drop him a line and ask for permission although I doubt there would be a problem - Imitation being the highest form of flattery. FYI John has produced some interesting videos that you may like to see.

http://www.rmweb.co....re-br-1962-ish/

Regards

Ian