TonyMay

There is a nucleus of a good idea here, based on restricting the location and time period. SE London, or maybe Kent, an urban landscape with terraced housing. A junction maybe with a fly-over. Peco do imitation 3rd rail chairs. There are some RTR 3rd rail EMUs available now, though dedicated modellers will tend to build kits. The class 91 and mk4 coaches would be out of place. See https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/184-southern-electrics/

If running a full loop back over the hatch is possible and practicable, as it is implied that it is, I would definitely go with that.

For an industrial loco, there are more typical choices available, even on a budget. An Austerity tank for example, or even a dreaded Smokey Joe.

A little bit of waddling is prototypical from a 2-cylinder engine.

I'd say colour photos for most of these should be available. Try https://colourrail.co.uk/

There is a thread with a plan and photos of simple double track line going over a loft hatch. https://www.newrailwaymodellers.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=54997&sid=6af0c2d1fcdd8b4ecbe42faa388d77a4 Now I wouldn't advocate filling the space with track and leaving no space for anything else as she has done, but it does illustrate how you should be able to go over the hatch with little difficulty. You could look at youtube and see some videos by Mouldy raspberry https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPb9_WPXrSj96rxxfciOTog who shows the sort of thing scenically that's possible within the space you have with a litle planning.

Thoughts: This +1. Can you squeeze a line round the back, to make it a roundy-roundy even if it is just non-scenic and just 1-2 tracks wide? You just need an inch or so for each track. They can go one above the other if it fits better. But I would limit the run to 2 tracks. Less is often more. This too. If you want your track to go over bridges, then it needs to be raised above the level of the baseboard, which requires some forethought. Accessing a 4' wide baseboard should be OK as long as (1) the board is study enough to support the weight of a person and (2) you leave a place where you can put your hand whilst you lean over and use your other one.

A branchline isn't a secondary route - it's a tertiary route. A jubilee will always look out of place, even if it did happen once in a blue moon. It doesn't look natural. There are other models that should have higher consideration; Bachmann 3F 0-6-0, 4F, 3F Jinty, Fairburn tank. A black five, being a class 5 engine, and generally much more common, would be more likely to turn up at a branch terminus than a class 6 jubilee.

From a model perspective, the most important thing is the basic mechanism the same. Which AFAICT is basically yes, so a manufacturer like Hornby could manufacture models of standard and Ivatt versions of the 2MT 2-6-2T and 2-6-0 using basically the same chassis, which means potentially 4 models for the price of 1.

You've got a facing point straight into what I assume is the goods yard. This is a big no-no, especially for pre-grouping railways. The goods yard should be off a trailing point. Also, because of the siding on the kickback from the goods yard into a shed, to shunt into that with a loco you're going to have to clear the other main siding in order to do that.

Apart from the fact that its existence has never been justified due to low passenger numbers - it seems people with cars prefer to drive to the ECML or WCML as they are significantly quicker than the ponderously slow MML.

If you can negotiate the arrangements into a full loop that would allow you to run it as a roundy-roundy.

What was the prototypical ratio of locos:coaches:goods wagons historically, and how close to this ratio does any modeller actually get with the stock they own?

Well, if we're talking pugbashes. As a standard gauge loco, that thing couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. No preserved line is going to want it. So the only possible owner some rich bloke who is vain enough to want to own a loco all to himself and rich enough to afford to buy one but not rich enough to afford a bigger one. But how about taking the boiler and designing some narrow gauge frames around the loco. It'd probably be too big for 2' gauge but anything from 2'6" to p to 3' looks conceivable. Then run it on a suitable railway.

You could also try rehanging the other door so it opens the other way, or replace it with a sliding door. It seems to me that sometimes people make all this effort to allow space for a door opening but for equal effort could just have changed the door instead.

Well generally speaking there's no such thing as "an LMS shed", or for that matter "an LNER shed" or "a southern shed". For the most part the shedding infrastructure was built by the pre-group companies. So for the LMS you get Midland style sheds, LNWR style sheds, L&R style sheds, etc. The big four companies redeveloped some sheds though these were generally the bigger ones, e.g. Leicester, Carlisle Upperby. What stands out here really is that the size of the turntable is disproportionate to the size of the shed. Often smaller sheds like this would not have a turntable, but if they did they would be smaller 48' or 50' examples, on which 0-6-0 and 4-4-0 tender engines could be turned, not humongous 70' examples. You're also missing a water tower, which is critical infrastructure. I agree on having a RH point not a LH point on the approach to the coal siding and the coal road. Having said all that, with landscaping, use of oily cinder ballast, this could look pretty good.

What about making 6202?

You can invent stories to justify pretty much anything. In real life pretty much anything occrus somewhere. It's been often suggested that models should represent the typical not the atypical, and I agree. The problem is that in model form, a not-based-on-anywhere-in-particular station, with a bizarre invented story to justify something that looks completely wrong, breaks the illusion, and make the modeller look less than completely knowledgeable about the subject. But if you're OK with that...

The way you've drawn it, with up-down and bidi lines into the throat, the bay for the branch should be on the same side as the branch. I don't think any railway engineer would do this, ever. Every time a branchline train arrives or leaves, it eats into valuable capacity on the mainline, resulting in a reduced number of paths on the mainline. You've also got a facing crossover straight from the mainline into that terminal bay platform. A traditional railway engineer would never do that for safety reasons, so it must be a modern addition. Also, I know Bangor exists, but a modern railway engineer would also look at that trackwork and try to rationalise it by removing the through roads and plainlining the main lines through the platforms, leaving a 25ish foot gap between the tracks. It doesn't look like a real modern railway.

One could perhaps wonder why you asked for advice if you're going to ignore it. Let's be clear: This plan won't work operationally with 4 tracks. This is train-set mentality rather than model mentality. It will also look bad because you're filling the baseboard with track. Reducing the tracks to two will enable it to work much more efficiently, and will look better, not least because you can greatly increase the minimum curve radius. Maximising the minimum curve radius, particularly of main lines, is absolutely key to realism. There's literally no point in really commenting on anything else in the plan because so much stems from having an appropriate number of running lines, and having the fiddle yard in the right place. By 2000 The branch would probably have closed 35 years earlier and the bay platform would be part of a car park. The bottommost platform may also have had its track lifted on one side. A station this size would also have had goods sidings, probably covering 2-3 times the footprint of the platforms themselves.

4 lines are going to be too much for a home-based project. (OK for a club layout though). 2 Roads would be much better, and would make the model and the storage yard simpler, save you the cost of track, etc, etc. Also, this doesn't look rationalised enough for the early 2000s. There is no connection between the up and down lines. Usually there'd be trailing crossovers at either end of a large station to allow terminating trains to reverse. But the priority should be cutting the running lines down to two, and work from there.

Brio really hates reverse curves, so they're best avoided.

This is what I was saying, particularly the 2nd one, but with Minories style approach, because whatever the question is, we usually end up with Minories!

No, you are wrong. Minories works very well on a curve into a station that is left-handed, as we have here. If you use curved points. Minories however doesn't work so well on a right-hand curve. I think 4' radius is possible if you try to use all of the available space; currently the main line is somewhat closer to the front of the board. Push that to the back of the board, where the TMD is now, and you've still got space for the station throat and platforms, set at a slight angle on the board (not parallel - it looks better this way).

The second is better - but not perfect. The I'd recommend maximising the curve into the station (you should be able to get about a 4' radius with flexitrack), and transitioning the end of it. I'd also recommend using a Minories-type approach to give you three platforms, and then fill in the gaps with whatever fits. But you need to get this bit right first,