DCB

Looks great but if it is 00 gauge your station is far too short. You will be mixing and matching streamline and set track and carving lumps off points and the junctions are drawn for curbed diamonds which I don't them exist in RTR so I redrew them as streamine Y point short Diamond set up I think the branch is a step too far and I can't get a run round and access to the loco depot top left as the curved diamonds don't exist, The Circle in the mainline concept is great but you need more storage, maybe a pair of loops with the hidden tracks minimum or your station will become a visible fiddle yard Attached is my doodle showing I can't work out what to do with the branch

There is a very good scenic break where the LNWR line crosses at the right hand end of the plan, a cheap and nasty steel or iron bridge over the Midland in an otherwise impressive LNWR Stone viaduct hidden behind a building so you could not see the midland diving under. That is how the full size was designed not just a suggestion for the model. This is still there despite the station site being a road and car parks now. I took pics earlier in the year of three bridges in quick succession over the appropriately named bridge road...

It was not as straightforward as that. Topography determined where branches departed from the "Junction Station." In my neck of the woods, Cotswolds, half way along the back loop platform was quite common with direct access from branch to main line but not vice versa (Faringdon Branch not sure of Junction Station and Shipton on Stour branch at Moreton in Marsh) , A branch platform with a run round loop curving away sharpy away from the main line so the platform curves almost 90 degrees with access from branch to main but requiring reversal through a trailing crossover was a feature of the (Cirencester Branch at Kemble) and access only from a dead end bay accessed by trailing connection with no direct access to main line (Tetbury branch at Kemble). The Single track to Kingham diverged from the double track line to Andover at Andoversford after the pllatforms but no trains terminated here, most terminated at the two through platform plus short dead end bay Cheltenham Lansdown. The famous Dart Valley line to Ashburton had access to and from main lines the other side of the river Dart bridge from Totnes two platform station where trains terminated but which had no dedicated branch platform. The Moretonhampstead Branch similarly diverged at Newton Abbott but had a dedicated platform which could not be accessed without leaving the station. Liskeard had a right angle branch platform for the Looe branch and a curved connection (Trailing I think) from the main line, the line went north, turned 180 degrees, went under the main line, turned a further 90 degrees and reversed or continued to turn another 45 degrees to pass back under the main line in much the same direction it left the station but about 100 feet lower. Maiden Newton had a dead end bay with no run round and employed gravity shunting with a dedicated gravity shunting siding while Yelverton (?) where the Princetown branch diverged except that also had direct access to the main line but facing away from Plymouth where most traffic came from and employed gravity shunting using the branch and a short siding originally leading to a turntable. The common factor being there is no common factor and all the above were GWR, The lines had to fit the land, oop north the MR Buxton line had a junction in open country with no platforms and a large station at Millers dale involving 5 platforms two parallel viaducts to terminate trains as Viaducts are a cost effective way to provide extra tracks in hilly territory. Ideally there should be a way to get freights directly off the branch and on to the main, if not vice versa. Your station already has two crossovers to run round trains and is not unlike Dulverton terminus for the Exe Valley branch in Devon except that was on a single track from which the branch diverged at Morebath Junction, again one with no platforms. Terminating branch trains at a through station without actually modelling the branch can add to the operating experience, the one thing you lose is the potential for two trains departing at the same time in the same direction but unless you have two operators this is a bit irrelevant.

Exactly and when contact is lost the capacitor charges up to around 20 volts and as the capacitor is on the motor side of the cut out the current is not limited so its sparks everywhere as the rusty bit of track is reached

I am trying to reduce the gradient to a set of storage sidings currently in the 1 in 18 range. To do this I have to get rid of most of a 2" X 1" upper baseboard support put in 30 years ago as I try to move the start of the gradient further back along a lower baseboard put in 25 years ago when the sidings were added as an afterthought. My current thought is a piece of 3/8" or 1/4" ply something like 2ft 6" X 10" screwed and glued firmly to the 2" X 1" upper and lower supports with holes for the track, and access and slots for wiring pre cut and then the 2" X 1" cut away for clearance. I'm not sure whether to go for the whole width or just a foot or so where the track ascends and where the upper needs to be cut away. Any suggestions as I need to get it done tomorrow hopefully before the Christmas Carol playing season kicks in

I have never found a controller with a big electrolytic capacitor in it but have used a H/D Marshall 3 with an external Capacitor. It does improve running but unlike an onboard capacitor it stores electricity when contact is lost and releases it when it is regained, the arcing this produces can be quite spectacular causing burnt rails. The only advantage is it smoothes the output and decouples the output from the 50 cycles or whatever mains supply.

Realistically you are looking at a loco depot in 00 for mainline locos and DMUs or an industrial area for small 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 locos and a few wagons in the space you have. I would get the distance between tracks right down to under 50mm to give an illusion of space and with such a small space it is better done by shuffling bits of track on a board than on a computer. I would put a divide about 6" in from the back for some hidden sidings maybe kickback style accessed by a sector plate. I would work on the scenics to hide the hidden siding access and make it believable. In Scotland class 37s were seen hauling just one bogie Grain wagons and in Cornwall on single china clay wagons so a Distillery or Clay Dries would make a potential layout but fitting in a DMU won't be easy. However you have plenty of potential for an N gauge or 009 narrow gauge system. Maybe shelve the 00, keep it in a display case and build an N gauge layout to operate?

It looks like two prototypical sections in each direction as in one each side of the station could work well. Trying to sequence trains to follow each other around a layout is horribly complicated and expensive. I would not get too hung up on 50mm track spacing, for storage loops as long as the trains clear each other the closer the better. I am working on lengthening an 8ft hidden siding module to 10ft to take 8 coach rakes and it fits 6 roads into 12" quite nicely. Point control is bydiode matrix with a 6 way rotary switch to select the road and a separate operating button. See Pics

Looks good. Probably worth taking a lot of trouble to get the main lines dead straight through the station platform. Steam age tracks were dead straight to the human eye. The dogs hind leg stuff is a modern computer engineered thing. Our station has bad track through the platforms and it looks awful in videos and not too clever when viewed from the layout ends, Laying Peco brand new straight out of the box works well, use anything not dead straight for curves.

All my locos have capacitors fitted more for radio suppression and to reduce arcing across the brush gear than to ease them over rail gaps. If your test runs were positive I would use the 330uF 35volt cap, I doubt it will make emergency stops an issue and if it works on your controller I can't see any problems. However that does not necessarily mean that it will work with other controllers so I would caution other people on adopting this measure without careful thought. It makes little difference where the cap is fitted on the loco as long as you don't melt anything like the motor brush holders in the process of soldering the wires.

SR locos tended to migrate West as electrification displaced them and many were simply withdrawn as redundant as per the LBSC Moguls withdrawn en block. In many ways the SR lines in Devon are easier to model as long as the lack of MNs and SR 4-6-0s West of Exeter is not a problem. Curiously WR 4-6-0s were found on the LSWR west of Exeter where the LSWR /SR ones were not allowed

A line around the Christmas tree is fine for inexperienced novices but can be hazardous for enthusiasts relationships. Sadly ballast and deep pile carpets are not entirely compatible and drilling holes in the floor for droppers risks putting holes in the under floor heating pipes. Partners should always ensure experienced modellers put down a "baseboard" around the tree before letting them loose with the trainset, PVA glue and a soldering iron.

I try to keep to specific types for the area and period of my layouts, BR WR pre late 1962, before yellow ends, before the Kings were withdrawn, but BR Black Dean Goods and lined black Saints mingle with and double head with 9Fs and locos with post 1956 late crests. Outside it is BR Scotrail 1987 as near as possible, Large Logo 37/4s and just the one class 156. Several LNER monstrosities are half built for the "Bed" layout and a whole series of weird free lance locos planned for a future "Isle of Skye" layout, as for out of period and wrong gauge stuff, its going on Ebay! That won't stop me buying anything no matter what scale, gauge or period as long as it is a bargain...

I have the same problem with a 1 in 36 ish gradient, I put a video on youTube of a Bachmann Tornado slipping to a stand with 5 coaches while a 1960s Triang Britannia sailed past with 10 or more on. Sequentially I add lead weights to locos and reduce the weight and drag of tenders by sawing lumps off tender chassis or replacing the Hornby chassis with Triang trailing bogie castings which are a direct replacement. Recent Hornby Black 5 and 10XX County had their haulage just about doubled to taking a 6 coach rake up the 1 in 36 by adding weight and removing tender pickups, and the 42XX improved greatly from 15 to 30 plus wagons on the l1 in 100 "level" section. The weight needs to be centred over the driving wheels so lots of weight under the cab on 4-6-0s and maybe rest the weight of the front of the tender on the back of the loco chassis. With DCC relocating the decoder in the tender is a good move to free up space for lead in the loco slots of running in. Powerbase may well be a solution and the old magnadhesion certainly works well on steel track. Banking and double heading is a solution and 90% of locos will run together if you have a decent controller like a Morley, however some oddities like the Hornby 42XX and Bachmann B1 are too low geared to run with most other locos. I use a Triang chassis under a Grafar 81XX body and a similar Wills 61XX as bankers but you really need H/D Peco couplings or Kadees as the awful tension lock couplings ride over each other when being propelled. My bankers also have the couplings arranged to float above the bogie and below the buffer beam to prevent the coupling lifting the pony truck wheels off the rails either will push 7 coaches or 18 heavy wagons up the 1 in 36 so when banked anything from a 14XX to a 9F can take the maximum load of 21 wagons the reception sidings can take.

The amount of shunting depends on the length of the siding. With a classic Inglenook operation is more like a card game than a real railway but with a good length of main line to use as a shunting neck you can have some prototypical "fun" as the wagons nearest the buffers need to be removed and to be really awkward if you have an end load facility a wagon needing to load or unload at it is arriving with no loop you could end up pulling 20 wagons out of a siding with a 20 wagon train. (My kind of fun) though I can only manage about 20 in total, and going out and back several times to sort the wagons. Midford S&D station siding was an example of a siding off a single track main line without a loop.

A lot of 45XX did not last long enough to get Lined Green, most of the pre WW1 locos in particular were scrapped before 1958 and logically would not have been overhauled at the 75 000 mile intervals the WR used post the introduction of 1956 green livery. The 45XX were being replaced by DMUs, by surplus 41XX displaced by 61XX displaced by DMUs and by a surfeit of 57XX Panniers displaced by diesel shunters and reclassified as Yellow route availability instead of Blue 1951 allowing them onto the 45XX usual routes so retaining 1927 built small prairies locos when there were lots of newer alternatives made little sense. Post 1962 when they stopped doing planned maintenance the 45XX proved long lived and they found problems finding work for these machines so several found themselves replacing 57XX on Paddington ECS duties, working harder than any small prairie had ever done in the preceding 60 years! Post 62 basically if a 45XX needed significant repair it was scrapped, only locos such as Granges and Halls, 56XX, 41XX and the like which had yet to be replaced with diesels were overhauled after this date needing axlebox attention circa 80K miles, Locos with relatively lightly stressed parts like 45XX and indeed Castles could exceed this by a considerable margin, but the powerful inside cylinder 57XX, 94XX and 2251 needed more attention and being newer were in some cases overhauled and so ended in unlined black livery or Unlined Green (I think Halls remained Lined Green) So basically the 45XX overhauled in 56-62 many at Newton Abbott were lined green and as far as I am aware none were repainted after 62.

On the Castle fitting odd bits of clear perspex to the cab windows, I just cut them dead size and press them in and there they have stayed for 20 odd years, and fitting a new tender drawbar to close couple the tender makes a huge difference to the appearance and the motor virtually disappears. The Duchess / City also benefits from a new tender drawbar especially the Montrose/ Atholl where the tender has a downward facing pin as this lifts the rear of the tender under load, the City has the pin facing up which lifts the tender instead increasing traction. Sadly those Hornby City wheels are badly undersize, late Wrenn was better but mine has 26mm Romfords, couldn't quite get 27mm's in.

I am wondering how big the layout is and so how serious the slow running is?

It looks to me like a heavily modified Hornby Dublo crane, the Jib and the front end of main turntable and rigid section of the frames look like H/D with fabricated rear end and bogie

Lots of people have different ideas on wiring most of which work if the script is followed. Some people have an agenda to push their own products, some come to model railway electrics from other parallel fields. some people know what they are talking about from bitter experience others extrapolate. The extrapolators will send you quietly mad, mixing up DCC with DC until you wake up at 5am shaking from a nightmare involving soldering droppers. Best answer post your questions here and decide between the 15 different solutions offered. Railway Modeller pamphlets on how to wire your layout etc are pretty good for advice.

This is a non DCC section and the LED solution won't work with DC as DC voltage fluctuates drops to zero as trains stop. The two switch solution will work for DC as long as long as there is room for the additional microswitches in addition to frog polarity switches and routeing switches. The short is an issue for both DC and DCC, DC as it destroys plunger pickups on the Airfix 14XX etc and damages the thin springy pickups on most current RTR, and DCC because it shuts the layout down, trains stop abruptly and like as not the trains derail. Making sure the crossover is reset is an issue, I use direct finger prodding and diode matrix and switching half a crossover back and not the other half is a regular occurrence!

The coupled wheelbase would have to be longer at 8ft + 8ft 6" to keep the lads at Derby happy. The excess boiler length plagued all the 4-6-0s (and 4-6-2s) with drive solely on the leading axle except the B12s and hampered a lot of UK 4-6-2s. The CR Cardeans had the front tube plate recessed into the boiler barrel to make the smokebox appear shorter and Great Bear was supposed to have had the same feature but ended up with ridiculously long tubes at 23 feet or so. The GWR did some studies and concluded that shortening barrels and raising pressure was the way to improve efficiency so the County Boiler was born but originally intended for a Castle chassis. I believe Gresley was the only engineer who cracked the drive problem on big engines by driving the middle cylinder on the middle axle. Just look at the elegance of the A3s. I think if development had continued streamlining would have been essential as boiler barrels became progressively shorter and smokebox fronts migrated rearwards. It is noticable how the short barrel version of several boilers were regarded as excellent steamers while the long barrel versions were not, see GCR Directors and GCR Lord Faringdons, though the Faringdons were on the hardest turns...

The smaller the chunks the better for fault location. To keep the show on the road wiring breakers by route should keep something moving but consider ways of isolating sections of track for fault testing, either switches or on portable layouts arrange the multipin plugs so you can isolate each baseboard in turn. Faults are elusive and one which is only mildly annoying on a DC layout will render a DCC one unusable, Loose point blades and wheel backs brushing point blades are favorite breaker trippers, and my most elusive to date a Hornby Q1 where the wheel flange hit a displaced layshaft.on one specific track kink. Watch for high power consumption in loco depots and carriage sidings with carriage lights on and sound equipped locos on shed. A battery powered diesel for track testing and recovering stock from dead power regions is always a good idea. as its difficult to tweak track after you have drilled holes and added droppers.

Ftting a 101 smokebox to Smoky Joe really Westernises Smoky Joe. Fitting Grafar N gauge Black 5 motion might make the Hornby 101 look like vaguely like 101. I have 2 X 101 s and that double Fairlie sounds better by the minute. As for the chassis, I have turned the middle from some non see thru wheels and they are not too bad but the motor is useless for railways but handy for scalextric and the rest of the plastic chassis probably belongs in the scrap box.

The early 3Fs with non see through wheels and screwed together chassis can be made to run really nicely if fitted with Markits Romford wheels. Bushing the chassis and soldering the gear wheel to an axle bush and to a 1/8th axle makes a good solid job but the motor pokes into the cab. I plan to shorten an X04 by fitting super neo magnets at some stage for mine and with the screw together chassis the front weight can be shortened to leave a void between the frames which cutting away the under boiler skirtings would reveal.