Joe61264

My approach to a layout this complex would be to split it into different 'routes' to write a timetable/sequence from. My initial thought is: Nether Madder to Green Soudley Snarling Junction to Witts End Puddlebrook Jn to Dean Sollers Colliery Puddlebrook Jn to Dean Sollers Colliery Then allocate section times between the blockposts/major locations. These can be fairly arbitrary and are mostly to help give some actual margins and intervals to the movements (particularly on a single line), rather than the constant stream of traffic you'd get with a terminus-fiddle yard setup. Next is to think about what times of day your service patterns are running, such as Quarry Workings being between 10am and 4pm, Mainline Passenger 24/hr (run as postal trains at night with passenger accomodation). This should give you an idea of where you can slot different types of traffic in without creating hugely manic periods and my examples are purely for clarification. After this, start off with the mainline passenger service. Working out how long a set and/or loco take to do a return trip as per your specified service patterns means you can then get an idea for where there's paths for goods and how many locos/sets are initially needed to work the service. The best bit of route to work from on this is the length of line would seem to be NM to GS as the majority of your passenger traffic runs over this line. Rinse and repeat for the branch passenger trains that use this bit of line, then the goods trains finally. Once you've got your 'core' route planned out, you can extend services onto branches, work out connections between trains and think more about wagon systems and loco rotations and spares. This is very much a personal approach and quite a brief summary (happy to elaborate of course!) but I find it a logical way that can be picked up or put down as required by the outside world.