TonyMay

If it's intended as portable, this is far too much track. The portable sections ideally should be just plain double track - potentially a little boring(?) but genuinely reflective of the vast majority of the real lines which are plain double track. The two main lines should flow together with a consistently sized six foot gap between them, and the curves should flow, being transitioned.

Where's the intended viewing position(s)? Where's the intended operating position? How many fiddle yards do you propose, (just one on the left?), howso designed? What's the function of the buildings? How do you intend to cover the exit off-scene?

Not a GWR follower but I've always preferred the "Great Western" lettering on the side-tank to GWR or (worse) the shirt button logo. What you need next is some kind of characteristically GWR half-verander TOAD brake van.

Rule 1 applies, but. The loco is basically suitable for about the period 1942-1956. That livery period creates some issues with the other stock you choose to run with it, particularly wagons. PO wagons were pooled from the beginning of the war. So if you had gone pre-war, then could have had private owner wagons from (say) Forest of Dean collieries running from the FoD to other parts. After the war started, you'd find wagons roaming further afield, such as PO wagons from the south wales collieries in the FoD. After the creation of the National Coal Board (NCB) in 1947, and BR in 1948, PO wagons were slowly painted into NCB/BR liveries and logically more BR things wagons would appear the further you go into the BR era. After 1948, pannier tanks would also have been pained into BR liveries, but it took time to do this, so some survived for up to 10 years or so in GWR livery, and that represents the upper limit on your time period.

Given the space available, I would definitely recommend you at least think about reconfiguring it as a round-the-wall roundy-roundy with the viewing/operating in the middle and a lifty-outy section. That would allow you to expand out your curve, and trains look better from the inside of a curve, rather than from the outside. I'm also not sure about "Scottish Borders" setting. That for me suggests great big hills as scenery, sparse services, etc, whereas what you've drawn seems much more urban and intense.

Your prototype knowledge will only increase with time, meaning that you may somewhat regret earlier modelling decisions that looked right to you at the time, but you then subsequently learn better. The key factor, budget, has not been discussed. I'd definitely stick the Triang jinty on ebay and start with a pannier tank of some description. The Hornby railroad is cheap, but the model is a little old and it shows: The Bachmann panniers tend to be rather better models. Personally, I'd rather save up money and have 1 Bachmann one than 3-4 of the Hornby ones. The detail is better and the model is less likely to run poorly or fail to run at all. Quality over quantity. Bahcmann produce some different variations on the basic pannier theme. Here are a couple of examples:

Peco are terrible with IT. They are always trying to resist IT-related change. They still expect people to pop down to their local model shops. It's not a good business decision.

The main visiaul difference between the two is that Flying Pig's contain natural looking curves, whereas as drawn the straight track looks and then settrack curve-straight transitions look strange.

"Crewlisle" is mostly touted by its creator as being the solution to everyone else's problems, whatever they might be. Obviously there's not a one-size-fits-all solution, and this isn't it. It's a fairly good plan in some ways, although as always with flaws. Pretending that it is like even vaguely like Crewe or Carlisle or indeed anywhere else on the WCML takes a very very large stretch of the imagination (there's no way it can take a Duchess with 18 coaches on the Royal Scot), but you could model a believable secondary line or branchline using the basic geometry.

The fiddle yard is the probably the most important aspect of any design because it defines what is permissible in the remaining space.

I'm sure having 18-odd coaches in the formation had something to do with it as well. With a train that long, you're going to need two buffets because passengers aren't going to want to walk through 9-odd coaches to get a cup of coffee and a croque monsieur. Meanwhile, two first class sections at either end I suggest is probably much less important than the need to have standard half-sets, so any two half-sets can be coupled together to form one standard train with a standard number of seats. The alternative - having one half set with mostly first class and a bit of standard, and another with all standard would present certain operational challenges.

It might be a bit expensive, but the Hornby looks like a good model either just needs a bigger cab for O16.5 or the mechanism would make a good chassis donor for a pug.

Has anyone converted these to a O16.5 loco? How does it look?

Why haven't Hornby done a 374 yet?

There is something to be said I think for keeping things simple. The vast majority of the real world network is plain line. A large double track loop in N gauge, with fiddle yard and a small station. There isn't as much "operating potential" to a simple design, but if you don't have the human resources available then you can't utilise that potential anyway. Arguably however there's much more "modelling potential". You can have realistic distances between signalling, for example. And there's more opportunities to model scenery. And ultimately there's less wiring, less wiring to go wrong, and less to clean, all of which may cause you to lose interest.

At the moment for running you have both return loops running clockwise. That's OK for the right hand loop but the left hand return loop needs to run the other way round, i.e. anti-clockwise so that you don't end up with long trains running into themselves. You then need to adjust the fan of points leading to the anti-clockwise storage lines to fit.

Piano type layouts with the FY at the back are great if you are stood at the back and your audience is at the front - which is why they often appear at exhibitions. For home use however they often aren't that practical because it's gonna be up against a wall. I would have only 1 FY, as this gives (1) more operational interest and (2) - also I would put this on the left hand end so that the right hand end is what guests see, and you can stand at the LH end and operate the FY. If you have a 4' table but only limit yourself to 2' to 3' of space this gives you room for a traverser-type FY which will save you space as it doesn't have any points. As for the rest of it it's up to you. I'd be tempted to model part of a mail depot behind a bigger station That way you can have a train pull in but leave some of it sticking into the FY so that it appears longer than it really is. Make sure this is the right length though so it doesn't foul your traverser.

4' depth is only needed if you're going to have it running as a roundy-roundy. If not, then narrowing it to 2'-3' depth should make it more manageable. There is also always N gauge which effectively gives you four times the space. That would mean selling your existing locos/stock, but could be more interesting in the long term.

OK right, haha. How about sketching out how much space you have in the room, including where any doors and windows are. This will enable you to work out where the best operating and viewing positions might be. It's generally a good idea to display the layout so that someone entering the room is drawn to and impressed by the display - so don't put the FY next to the door!

What scale do you want to use? And if so, beware that Dutch stock will be different scale to British stock. e.g. British OO 1:76 scale, Dutch will be H0 scale 1:87. In N, British N gauge is 1:148 but Dutch will be 1:160. Also, geographically, how could they meet?

If you want to apply rule 1 in spades, why not model a preserved railway?

As it stands: It's incredibly toylike. It's a model railway - but not a model of a railway. The inner (red) loop which goes up and down is just...odd. The hills/tunnels are unnatural. Operationally, a clockwise train from the fiddle yard can run round and round on 3 different loops. An anti-clockwise train can only loop one possible way around. I wouldn't have more than 1 train running at once - the risk of collisions would be too high. You're running diesel locomotives (albeit from a wide historical era) on a track plan the complexity of which closer resembles steam-era operations. My advice: Actually, if you're going to use the extra space as you've indicated, you have got a lot more space to get a sweep of the track in. Forget trying to get a complete roundy loop on the one board. It just looks odd. This in turn will give you wider radius curves, which your stock will look better on. Then work out what you want from the rest of it. You can get a double track main line in plus a set of sidings for one industry, or a car park (steam-era goods yards are now often car parks), or whatever. And you can use less track...

The tendency for most people is to try to buy as many locomotives as possible. That's understandable - they're interesting. But if you buy lots, half of them will spend most of their time in their boxes because there's not enough room for them on the trainset. So if you have the budget, it would be better to have fewer but better quality locos, so upgrading what you have to DCC, (plus maybe sound, lights, etc) seems like a good idea, before you rush out and buy new ones because they look pretty (they do look pretty).

Maybe. I guess you could try to restrict yourself only to having locos and coaches that are preserved. That means in practice, lots of Mk 1 coaching stock for example which are a characteristic of most preserved lines. Diesels that are privately owned and spend most of their time sitting in a siding. Similarly, a preserved line doesn't need goods facilities, though it might run a demonstration freight train. It's likely that the cattle dock would have fallen into disrepair and be buried below undergrowth. The goods shed might now be a wagon repair shop or something. The siding meanwhile might be used for storing out of use stock. CCTs are often used as stores vans. Even on the bigger railways (e.g. SVR, WSR), the number of operational engines will rarely exceed about 10, rising slightly with locos coming in for galas. There's not much point in having a operational engine standing idle; if a railway happens to find itself with the luxury of having excess motive power it will hire out locos to other lines who are short. And this is where the critical part comes in. There's enough engines to go round, but the bottleneck in their availability is the time and effort it takes to restore and/or overhaul them. So each preserved line needs operations to overhaul engines. And there will be engines that have been taken out of service and awaiting overhaul. And engines undergoing overhaul, often with their boilers lifted. You often get random boilers stored outside. The ratio of in-ticket engines to out-of-ticket engines is often quite low. My point is that if you want a preserved line, that's great. And if you want to run anything, that's great. But there are ways in which this could be made a lot more like the prototype, if the OP chose to do so.

"Alas probably a little too complicated electrically for a starter layout." - Yes. Reverse loops are not a great idea electrically, particularly with DC as you need isolating sections and switches to avoid short circuits. Beginners should avoid them for that reason and because they don't add much to the layout, are not very realistic, and bring reverse curves into play. Also, if you've got two circles of track then most of the fun is having two trains circling; you can't then have one of these cross over to the other circle if that other circle is occupied, so you defeat the object of having two circles. Finally, you've also got 2 sets of facing crossovers on your circuit (whereas if we're going to be a bit silly one of these ought to be trailing to allow a train running wrong line to cross back over). I can understand the point of being a bit silly and toylike and trying to have maximal fun, but I think it's best to be a little cautious the first time you do something, and to keep things simple.