DCB

I My uncoupling system worked really well and was just a dropper arm on a solenoid, the end engaged with a standard coupling and simply lifted to release. It could equally twist laterally to release which is my plan to use the S scale car motor and R/C equipment, powered by button cells as used. Using R/C instead of track power will decrease the rolling resistance of the coach compared to my old system, but I believe a Hornby Hawksworth brake compo which is as near as I know to a RTR slip coach will run away on a 1 in 100. I would suggest testing a coach by taking the couplings off your Thomas the Tank engine and propelling the coach at test speed and stopping the loco dead. In my case it coasts right through the station and disappears into the hidden siding. Going the other way you can propell it out of the hidden sidings into the station with your hand after a train has passed but it then rolls back into the sidings down the gradient, hence the need for brakes.... the slight gradient.

There are several threads on here about track spacing I use the least clearance I can get away with as my double line curves range from 15" to 60" radius. The crucial dimensions are the width of your stock, GWR Centenaries at 9ft 7" or 38.5 mm is the widest I know of but the Airfix models don't look anywhere near that while some ex Triang stock is seriously over width. Given 1/2 X 38.5 X 2 is the space between the centre lines of two tracks taken up by trains plus 18" or 6 mm minimum clearance between trains then a spacing of around 44.5mm sounds about right. This means carving moderate size lumps off Peco streamline points for crossovers and massive chunks off Set Track. Given that I get down to 42mm in sidings, However if you want to stick at 52mm streamline spacing why not put some junk between tracks, Bridge girders are a handy subterfuge as under bridges, especially river bridges are greatly under represented on models, Prototype tracks don't keep to a set 6 foot way slavishly, they tend to weave around obstacles so I aim to narrow them down between platforms, but remember set track spacing is there to allow pudgy little fingers to slip between tracks to rerail coaches and if you go 42 or 44mm a derailment will drag the adjacent train along or off the rails. In most cases tracks are paired and a larger gap, the "10 foot" provided between tracks adjoining the pairs, sometimes you get 4 track lines paired 1+2 and 3+4 but equally it can be 1 - 2+3 -4, likewise a 10 foot was a good minimum between sidings and running lines. Its about what looks right. Don't stick to a set figure widen it on curves and narrow it between straight platforms. I hope a few pics are attached showing what the prototype looks like .

I gave up on rail cleaning for pick up years ago reasoning life is too short and so are my arms where an 8 foot tunnel is involved and went on board battery power. Using LGB type pickups bearing directly on the track might be worth a try.

I just flipped the Ballachulish plan and curved the approach. I wonder of Mallaig would be a better starting point or even the very compact Fort William station. Ballachulish seems to have a massive fan of sidings but doesn't seem to have had a quay which is unusual and a nuisance as much scottish tourist traffic seemed to continue by steamer. The curved route on the facing facing point, point, which I made is based on 50 years experience, my mate's Triang M7 and B12 kept derailing taking the curved route on Super 4 track in the 1960s and our Hornby T9 does not like the 5ft radius facing point at the junction and often derails, as does our venerable M7 this one equipped with Romford wheels. A facing lead to a siding where the main line takes the curved road is something I avoid.

I can't get anyrail to work on this computer and it won't do screenshots but it did find a plan of Ballachulish and it is not all, that much like your plan. The engine shed and turntable don't seem to exist at Ballachulish, the sidings are on the other side and there is a kick back sidings to sort of protect against stray wagons running away. I think the Turntable lead needs moving, I would put it on the inside of the curve on a kick back from the goods sidings and the run round loop needs to be longer, right to your engine shed lead ideally. As drawn if you adapt a Hornby T9 to a Caley bogie and it holds the rails like ours it will derail on the engine shed point just about every time.... M7 derived Caley 0-4-4Ts are not too clever at staying on the rails either, quite prototypically as the M7s had to be taken off Plymouth expresses after a couple piled up spectacularly. Edit. My plan was a signal box diagram and obviously didn't show most of the sidings but the full track plan is not much like the proposed layout. The curves look too tight on the proposed layout, I don't think you can get all that pointwork at the left hand end in and still leave decent siding length, I think it would have to be more like my alteration of your drawing.

With modern free running stock in 00 the problem is more likely to be stopping the coach rather than keeping it running. I have a small S gauge radio control car which I have plans to use for a slip coach. With both steering and drive motors arranging one to lift the coupling hook and the other to apply a sort of brake "shoe" to one of the wheels or axles. My previous attempt had metal Hornby Dublo bogies with Lima wheels insulated one side and Romford pin point bearings which picked up power from the track. When it passed over a dead section the coupling hook raised and uncoupled it. It was powered by a capacitor which discharged through the lift solenoid when power was removed. It worked and stopped in a reasonable distance in a sort of LMS Coronation arriving at Crewe at 114 MPH sort of manner, but I never had a station to operate it at. 1 didn't have platforms on the through road, the other was on a down gradient and the damned coach picked up speed instead of slowing. The dead section had a switch which was thrown just after the loco passed, (hopefully) I can't see a flywheel helping the momentum, the losses in the gearing would be horrendous, but if a powered slip coach is required maybe a Micro scalextric drivetrain on one axle might produce a nice fairly free running coach which could be powered and braked to glide smoothly into the platform. Accelerating it out of a bay platform to catch and couple up to an express could be a nice set piece for the last half hour of an exhibition.

I think they are similar but larger, twice the tonnage 20 ft longer 4 feet wider, too big for the Stroudwater's 68ft X 16ft locks

I think Walbridge was on the Stroudwater canal. The Stroudwater was built for 18th Century Severn Trows with typically 68 ft X 16 ft locks and ran from the Seven at Framilode to Brimscombe in the Stroud Valley, where it had an end on junction with the Thames and Severn which had 12 foot by 90ft + locks intended for Thames Barges which were 90 foot long. Traffic on both canals was predominantly house coal from the Forest of Dean for Stroud Cirencester Cricklade, Lechlade.

Its getting worse. Bit like fitting go faster stripes, a tow bar and roof rack to a Ferrari...... 13.37 was better. But the top right siding will be awkward to shunt as the headshunt is rather short. Think I would change the trailing crossover on the left of the plan for a facing one further to the left to make shunting the top right siding less tedious. I would pull the empties out with the fulls and set the empties back towards the platform, but with a short headshunt you will tie yourself in knots running out of places to put wagons.

The problem seems to be more about fixings and the ability to cope with end thrust. At least 60% of model railway motors have an end thrust component, some have provision for this built in as in Hornby Dublo motors, some have a bit of a bodge as in Triang X04 some can't cope at all with reversed thrust. In this case the alternative is a spur gear drive to a layshaft and that is noisy, Hondas used a novel twin pinion arrangement on the CD175 with the pinions half a tooth out side by side which worked very well and might be worth trying on a model . Many of these coreless motors are high revving highly efficient types whereas we need something robust and powerful down in the 3 volt range for smooth starts. Its all a bit irrelevant worrying about performance if it has a life expectancy measured in seconds. I would suggest looking at motors from computer disc drives, some are quite chunky, anything with a worm drive should be ok and working on the basis that the fixing hole pattern and front bearing spigot is the key criteria. 90% of applications don't have room for a motor clamp so the end plate mounting holes are the critical point. I get good results from "12volt" computer motors but I use 3 and 12 volts, not the 21 volt resistance controllers or DCC decoders.. I suspect they would roll over and die at the first sign of 15volts +

It looks OK. It was a weird station. Should work well .It would need need lots of farm implements on flat wagons.. The Midland seemed to like to have weird stations in this part of Gloucestershire, Nailsworth is pretty odd as was Stroud Midland, its as if they didn't have Anyrail to work their track plans out before they built them. I think Neyland is the weirdest station I know of, but that's a different story. Not sure why there would be an MPD, The locosheds at most branches are for the loco for the first passenger of the day which goes TO the junction. The Goods will work from the Junction end,probably start at Glos Barnwood loco and the adjacent sidings and probably run once daily, quite a heavy train from the photos I have seen in pre class 14 diesel days. As with most branches there would be more passenger workings than goods, I guess 4 passenger 1 goods? Something overlooked in most models is South East excepted, Main lines generally have many more Goods workings than branches, 4 goods to 1 passenger is not atypical for steam era while branches it might well be 8 passenger trains and one goods (each way) per day. A lot of branch goods trains were quite lengthy, a 14XX pushing a wagon and a van may have sufficed at the end of steam but just look at all the wagons being loaded and unloaded in 1950s pics.

Have you tried to fit the replacement wheels to the existing axle? I am assuming plastic wheels on steel axles and steel wheels on plastic bushes on steel axle as per my old Mainline wagons.

I find a period of running in to be essential. I run chassis in before fitting motors by towing them around the layout, I run in gears by running motors before fitting wheels, If a loco I assemble. Unfortunately my only test track is the loft layout which is a pain (literally) to access so my thoughts are turning to a bespoke running in circuit. The few new locos I have purchased I have run in for an hour approx usually changing direction every ten minutes or so to ensure it runs round left hand and right hand curves as well as forward and backwards, starting light engine for twenty minutes or so and then pulling a medium load increasing to max load. I suspect a rolling road is a rich mans equivalent of putting a loco against a buffer stop and letting it spin its wheels, which is an excellent way of getting oval wheels. After being run for some time some locos traction improves greatly, especially Bachmann 2-8-0s in my experience, I think the tread profile is not optimised for code 100 rails too gentle a curve from flange to tread, Romford Markits wheels seem to be the correct profile from new. Some some degrade rapidly, those with traction tyres mainly Somewhere on here a chap built detachable return loops which were a bit like a Banjo shape with the baseboard cut away except under the track and just a single "spoke" through the middle as a handle. If one applied the same to a circle one could lay a circle of 3rd or 4th radius track on a very light base which although 4ft Diameter would be light and could conceivably be hung on a wall. Edit It was Steve Copley and was on the "Corkscrew Lines" Thread. His was a return loop but could very easily be adapted for a circle. I hope he does not mind my using his picture as an illustration of his brilliant technical and aesthetic creation. I want one now!

I would use isolators all round except one rail of the stub spur, treat it as a separate section and switch it from adjacent points through an accessory switch and relay or pair of accessory switches. I drive 1 amp rated micro switches directly off point tie bars to change polarity in DC where the point is hand operated, obviously not an option for DCC as a 4 amp one is far too ugly. The stub spur looks like it needs an isolator switch if you want to stable engines there. Half the battle is understanding which way is "normal" and which point should control from which way the point is fed. The arrangement looks a bit odd in that it is a facing crossover, a mirror image trailing crossover would be more usual

Using domestic wires is always dodgy, There is always a potential to mistake 12 volt for 120/240 volt and that can be embarrassing/ painful/ life threatening. I find flex easer to solder to rails, but I have a pretty cavalier attitude to track and prefer to solder the "Droppers" in place before laying the track drilling holes inn the baseboard to suit. DCC wiring can be simpler or more complicated than DC depending on your needs. If you run 5 loco lash ups on your Rocky Mountain pike you probably need droppers every yard or so. If you run Thomas the Tank , Percy and whatever that shed on wheels is called on a 6X4 you probably don't. If you run Tornado and 12 lighted pullman cars you need something in between The problem is fishplates. Code 100, 83. 75 fishplates won't take loads much over 1 amp, neither will point blades and tags. I have had fishplates glow red hot on 2 amps with a heavy double headed freight grinding round the patio.... What you must do on anything but the smallest layout is to section the layout so you can identify which part of the layout has a fault when the cut out cuts. If you have isolator switches on the sections you can quickly switch off and switch back on section by section to identify where the problem is. Without isolator switches you can end up taking every piece of stock off the layout and still not know what's wrong. Over the past 55 years or so I have had everything from a loose point blade in a tunnel to a displaced layshaft on a Q1 stop things. No need to have isolated sections for running round etc but you do need to chunk it up into 20 feet mainline and 3'X3' or 9'X1' siding chunks to give a sporting chance of fixing faults in 10 minutes or so.

The Cheltenham Honeybourne section of line did suffer from being a late comer, built to prevent other railway building such as the Midland / MSWJR Aschurch - Winchcombe -Andoversford line as much as for any strategic purpose. It suffered from the Midlands parallel Birmingham Cheltenham route being one of the fastest bits of the LMS with many speeds in the high 90s recorded along the long straight through Ashchurch and Swindon Village something the GWRs twisting corkscrew through the Cotswold Foothills could not possibly equal. In practice it seemed to replace the GWRs awkward Over Junction-Ledbury Tunnel - Malvern route from Gloucester to Birmingham for freight with trains turning left at Honeybourne to access the north west of Birmingham via Worcester. This avoided the Snow Hill tunnel bottle neck with traffic principally for the Midland at Saltley being routed through Stratford on Avon and Bordesley Junction. With iron ore traffic going via the SMjR most Honeybourne line traffic avoided Stratford on Avon entirely, leaving Stratford as effectively a terminus for Birmingham area suburban services with little through traffic. The line was used for excursion and extra traffic in the early 1960s, My parents lied to me that it was disused/ dieselised when I wanted to see it as a 9 year old in 1965. The 1969 picture is interesting, prior to 1957 the LMS platforms were much shorter and were not anything like as close to the GW line, The GW sort of jammed Malvern Road station into a cutting and despite being considerably closer to the town centre was still too far to walk, only St James Teminus of Cheltenham's 6 stations was anything like convenient for the town and that was a long way from the fashionable Promemade and town centre, the Midland and GW High street stations were technically on the high street but in reality about half a mile from the town. The Stratford line did provide a good GWR route for traffic from the Midlands to South Wales and seen in that light it makes sense, but passenger traffic was light and the Cornishman was really only a bit of showmanship operated over a longer slower route than the midland it only made sense by serving GW stations by connections at Wolverhampton and Snow Hill which could be served by one train rather than two portions from Snow Hill and Wolverhampton combining at say Stourbridge Junction or Worcester and running on the Midland line south of Worcester. The proximity of High Street halt to St James Station and the need for Auto trains to reverse in Malvern Road station made St James to Honeybourne locals farcical, lord knows how they coped when they had a 94XX instead of an Auto engine, but they should have been popular with Winchcombe residents if the line had actually gone to Winchcombe as promised (and as proposed by the MSWJR) but Winchcombe Station was at Gretton a mile of so away. Genius, they built a tunnel especially and still didn't get to Winchcombe. The upside is the GWR have preserved it, the downside they have over extended it the wrong way and instead of connecting to BR near the racecourse for lucrative race specials have extended to Broadway so coach tours can do a one way trip over the line instead of a round trip. Little changes.

How would you know which colour a Waverley route V2 was unless you took a rag and some white spirit and cleaned off the dirt? Poundland Matt black is a good match for dirty BR Lined black and dirty BR Green I read a book by Charlie Meacher which refers to N2s and Gresley inside cylinder locos in general being loathed and detested by fitters due to appalling detail design.....

I would wait until Bachmann bring out a working shunting horse because without one I can't see how you would shunt the goods shed.

Its all to do with these new fangled controllers. You want a pair of Marshall 3s or similar, proper 1950s technology. Or a pair of anything, not a double unit as all too often one circuit interferes with the other.

The problem I have with scale rods is they snap. Romford crankpins snap, the retainer comes un soldered one rod comes off the other twists hideously and snaps. my locos have to work hard so I don't use scale rods if I can help it. Crank pins are big items in full size and wear is a big problem with the small Romford type crankpins. I have been re drilling Triang Chassis to different wheelbases with Romford Markits wheels and using various rods, Mainline/ Bachmann are pretty good and can easily be opened out to take Triang 10 BA crank pins. It is absolutely vital that the rod length and wheelbase are absolutely identical down to a couple of thou, otherwise the loco will run like a three legged armadillo. The Later Romford wheels take the Triang - Triang/ Hornby etc crank pins, some very early wheels were not drilled at all. I believe they are 10 BA certainly smaller than 8 BA while the return crank screw on Flying Scotsman etc is I believe 12BA The centre axle drive 0-6-0 can be re wheeled really easily with Markits oversize axles which are a direct fit in the chassis, why oh why didn't Romford do these 40 years ago! The crank pins need a spacer, a 10 BA washer under the shoulder of the pin on the pick up side to stop the rod shorting on the insulated tyre and either the holes on the wheels need opening out to take the fixed pins or the rods need the fixed pins pushed out and opened up to take screwed in pins as per the centre axle. Front axle drive chassis are probably similar.

I prefer to integrate the railway into the garden without a baseboard except under stations. Apart from one terminus station it barely affects the garden at all, just the step in the wall shown, it crosses two paths on the level and runs along walls and around the boundary of the lawn before diving through an 8 ft or so tunnel to a station built on a ledge in a grass bank. Its the complete opposite to the Original Post but achieves the same object of not having raised wooden baseboards impinging on the garden when the railway is not running. The downside is the very high maintenance is involved in ground level railways,

Many years ago we used to get white metal kits to fit old Triang Chassis which we fitted with Romford wheels. 40 years on they are still working though probably relegated to the bottom of the scrap box. So why not get an old Triang chassis and Markits Romford wheels and stick the T9 body on it. It will probably run for years and even pull a worthwhile train and stay on the track, 2 things our T9 can't get the hang of. Thus far it shows no sign of motor problems, but as it won't pull the skin off a rice pudding it isn't exactly overstressed.

I just wish we could buy something like that today, I find getting gears to mesh a complete nightmare

Bodmin Parkway where Bodmin and Wenford meets BR is a near ideal real 2017 location for modellers, HSTs the GW Sleeper, Voyagers, 66s, etc on the main line and 64XX/ Beattie/ T9/ 42XX etc and 3 or 4 coaches leaving from the back platform, with carriage sheds, steep gradients, lots of trees and bridges and steep sided valleys for scenic breaks. and all on a sharpish curve. Near perfection.

You don't have much overhead clearance where the frames cross. We use 2X1 framing on its side for cross pieces to maximise clearance and a 2X1 frame put on the operating well side of the upper level with the lower edge level with the bottom of the cross pieces and the top projecting above the baseboard surface to provide a lip to stop stock escaping while maximising the headroom